In the 1790s, wicked witch Angelique turned scion Barnabas Collins into a vampire. When Barnabas realized what she had done to him, he killed Angelique.
In 1967, Barnabas was freed from a long captivity once more to prey upon the living. In 1968, Angelique also returned. Wearing a black wig and calling herself Cassandra, Angelique met sarcastic dandy Roger, ensorcelled him into marrying her, and thereby established herself as a resident of the great house of Collinwood. Wiggéd witch Angelique/ Cassandra found that Barnabas’ vampirism had gone into remission as a result of treatments he had received from mad scientist Eric Lang. She killed Lang before he could complete the process meant to make the cure permanent, but the senior mad scientist in the area, Barnabas’ friend Julia Hoffman, finished his work.
Angelique/ Cassandra and Julia know these facts about each other, but it is unclear how much Angelique/ Cassandra knows about Lang’s process. In particular, when today’s episode begins we do not know whether she has figured out that the main part of it was building a Frankenstein’s monster named Adam and trying to transfer Barnabas’ “life force” into him. Still less do we know whether Angelique/ Cassandra is aware that when Julia took over the experiment she brought Adam to life without killing Barnabas, and that as long as Adam is alive Barnabas will be free of the effects of the vampire curse.
Julia lives at Collinwood as a permanent guest. Today’s episode opens with her and Angelique/ Cassandra coming home, both smiling and chirpy, talking about an exciting conversation they had while they were out together. They had visited Angelique/ Cassandra’s former professor, Timothy Eliot Stokes. Stokes is an expert on paranormal phenomena. In #488 Barnabas told Stokes that Angelique/ Cassandra was a witch and he resolved to join Julia and Barnabas in the battle against her. Julia tells Roger that the exciting conversation she and Angelique/ Cassandra had at Stokes’ home was about the occult.
Considering what these three people know about each other, this conversation would have been fascinating to watch. Julia and Stokes want to probe for Angelique/ Cassandra’s weaknesses; she wants to make sure neither of them has any powers she doesn’t know about, to find out their plans, and if possible to bring them under her influence. Properly written and played by actors as accomplished as Grayson Hall, Lara Parker, and Thayer David, that scene might have been one of the highlights of the whole series. But it doesn’t happen. They just tell us about it in the first 30 seconds of the episode, then move on. It’s one of the major what-ifs of Dark Shadows.
Yesterday Adam escaped from the cell in the basement of Barnabas’ house where he has been confined and met several members of the family who live in the great house. They spend the day recapping that incident. Roger tells Cassandra that Adam seemed to know Barnabas, and she is all ears. It quickly becomes clear that Adam’s existence is news to her, that she is putting everything together, and that Adam is now in grave danger from her.
Acilius on Dark Shadows 