After Ed McKay, a member of the County Board of Supervisors, is assassinated, Chase is encouraged to run for the office. When Chase begins campaigning against Angela's virtual monopoly of the water rights in the valley, she does everything in her power to see Chase defeated. Despite this, Chase wins the election. After Emma is caught shoplifting in a jewelry store, Angela threatens the owner that she will destroy him if he decides to prosecute.

In his new role on the Tuscany Valley County Board of Supervisors, Chase meets resistance in his efforts to break Angela's grip on county water supplies. When Melissa tells Carlo about her ambitions to control Falcon Crest, Carlo informs his daughter that she faces a powerful rival in Richard Channing, who is rumored to have ties to the C.I.A. and the British Parliament. Richard shows his ruthlessness by firing The Globe's longtime editor-in-chief, Herb Talmadge, who was only a year from retirement and a pension. After Angela tells Richard that he looks nothing like his father Douglas, Richard explodes after she leaves, vowing to ruin her.

When pressured by Richard to sell his winery holdings, Carlo spits in Richard's face, then confronts Angela about Lance's abusiveness toward Melissa and vows that Angela will never get Carlo's land through his daughter's marriage to Lance. Chase wants to distribute Falcon Crest's wine in Canada through a distributor other than Kleeger, which gets a big discount on their wine. Angela secretly owns Kleeger, and she charges Lance with keeping Chase from finding out. To counter Chase's efforts on the County Board of Supervisors to break her monopoly on the valley's water and distribute it to other growers, Angela claims her water is tainted. In turn, Chase orders another test of Falcon Crest's water supply that shows it not to be tainted. Cole gets into a fight with Carlo, who later telephones to apologize to Cole and invite him over to see Melissa. Not knowing that Carlo has leveled a pistol to his own head, Cole arrives to discover Carlo's body and becomes the prime suspect in Carlo's mu

Angela threatens Nick Hogan not to vote with Chase against her at the county supervisor meeting. If Nick votes to redistribute Falcon Crest's water to other vineyards, Angela warns that she won't be buying the $17,000 worth of pipes she was going to buy from him. Nick casts his decisive vote with Chase, and Angela warns Chase that he will come to regret his moment of glory. Emma disappears, secretly giving Chase the voting proxy to her twenty percent share of The Globe before she leaves -- the same proxy Angela hoped would give her control of the newspaper's board of directors. Richard prints a sensational article suggesting Cole murdered Carlo Agretti. When Richard asks Melissa to sell her the Agretti house, she suspects that Richard could have had a hand in her father's death. Cole is arrested for Carlo's murder after Cole's fingerprints are found on the statuette used to kill Carlo.

Richard schemes to buy a piece of county property earmarked for a park, on which he plans to build a memorial to Douglas Channing on one small part and plant a vineyard on the rest. While Chase vehemently opposes the plan, Richard plants a bomb in Nick's truck and successfully intimidates Nick to vote his way at the board of supervisors meeting. Leaving her prescribed bed rest in order to win Cole back from Katherine Demery, Melissa collapses and is taken to the hospital, where she delivers an unhealthy, premature baby, whom she names Joseph Angelo Cumson, after Lance's great-great-grandfather. After Cole moves out of Katherine Demery's house, he moves back into his parents' house.

Chase fights a vicious public battle against Richard Channing, who is trying to build a racetrack that could destroy the wine industry, however, the final decision rests with the valley residents who are about to vote after the men's muckraking campaigns. Angela vows that she will not allow Chase to run Falcon Crest without her and thwarts his efforts to obtain the accounting records. Vince Caproni becomes seriously ill after Lance threatens him over Joseph's paternity suit. Angela makes a fiery attack on her nephew to strip him of his Falcon Crest powers. Meanwhile, Terry moves in with Michael, despite the Giobertis' warning that she is treacherous.

Richard has won the election to build his racetrack while Chase is madly driven to stop him, which results in an explosive disaster. In the mental institution, Julia becomes hysterical when Richard malevolently tells her Melissa's baby is his, thus pushing her into a catatonic state. Angela promises Lance that they will be kicked out of Falcon Crest if they lose Joseph's custody suit to Cole. However, when Melissa is grilled on Lance's affair with Terry while giving her deposition to Cole's attorney, she explodes and admits that their marriage is a farce. Angela attempts to stop Chase's plans to market a line of champagne by buying up the grape harvest he needs.

Pamela is surprised to discover that Richard's attacker is Padgett who pulls back the covers to find only pillows where Richard's body should have been. Padgett tries to flee the town, and Gustav is furious that Richard Channing has not been eliminated properly. At The Globe, Lance becomes publisher to the dismay of many of his new employees. The Board of Supervisors removes Chase as head of the airport authority. Joel McCarthy, out of money and desperate to support his drug habit, mugs Maggie at Tuscany Downs. She never sees her attacker, and later, Cole unwittingly hires Joel as the new transportation foreman for the vineyards. Emma hears Julia call out to her in the vineyards, but when Angela arrives, Julia disappears again.

Julia has been taken to Reibmann's estate, where she is confined in what resembles a hospital room. When she comes to, the nurse informs her that Lucas has been arrested for harboring a criminal, and then turns on the TV to a newscast, which covers the arrest of Julia Cumson! How did they find out she was alive? Julia wants to know. Angela found out about her phone calls to Emma, the doctor explains, as Julia becomes hysterical. ""How could you do this to me?"" Julia cries. Things are working perfectly, Reibmann comments, watching from behind a two-way mirror. He's staged the whole scenario! Meanwhile, Angela has enough troubles of her own-both Francesca and the agreement have disappeared. As if that weren't enough, Chase turns over his notes to the U.S. Attorney's office to bring a case against her for libel, perjury, and whatever else she may have done to frame him with the FAA. Chase, too, is preoccupied with Francesca and her agreement with Angela. Melissa takes advantage to score a

Without Angela's knowledge, Lance trades his interest in The New Globe for Richard Channing's radio station to have a showcase for Apollonia's singing career. Angela tries unsuccessfully to buy Terry's land and in retaliation goads Terry into investing in Tuscany Downs. Angela then persuades the Board of Supervisors to approve a new irrigation system, which would place the land on which Chase is working under water. As Maggie is recovering, she tells Angela off. In the meantime, Peter pushes Angela to set a date for their wedding. Father Christopher makes peace between Melissa, Cole and Robin, but Melissa gives him reason to worry when she tells him she doesn't love Cole anymore. At a honky-tonk, where Lance has arranged for Apollonia to demonstrate her singing, Emma meets a dashing truck driver named Dwayne.

When Angela discovers that Lance has shifted from publisher to rock radio impresario, she expels him from the mansion. After an all-night tryst in Dwayne's truck, Emma returns home to Angela. Peter's attentions finally make an impression on Angela, and she begins to take his marriage proposal seriously. Although Richard Channing and Cassandra Wilder mistrust one another, they plan a new beginning. Melissa tries to tell Father Christopher about her feelings for him. In a plan to save their land, Chase and Maggie enlist the help of Sheriff Gilmore, Terry and Wicker.

At the party announcing her engagement to Peter Stavros, Angela shocks the gathered guests by revealing that Cole is the father of Robin's baby. Still smarting from having been outmaneuvered by Chase on the valley's water conservation project, Angela prepares an unusual method of revenge. Moreover, she sues Lance and Richard over their newspaper and radio station swap. In order to showcase Apollonia's songs, Lance changes his station from all-talk to all-rock. After Melissa receives her annulment from Lance, Father Christopher urges her and Cole to sanctify their marriage in the eyes of the church. Richard questions Jordan about her past and is puzzled by her reaction.