Episode 65: I think I’m having tea

Last Friday, the sheriff called the home of drunken artist Sam Evans. He warned Sam that dashing action hero Burke Devlin might be coming to his house, and urged him to call back if he did. Burke did go to Sam’s house, but Sam didn’t call the sheriff. After a brief confrontation with Burke, Sam ran away and left Burke alone with his daughter Maggie and their house-guest, well-meaning governess Vicki.

Yesterday, the sheriff called reclusive matriarch Liz at her home, the great house of Collinwood. He warned Liz that Burke might be coming to her house, and urged her to call back if he did so. Burke showed up at the house at the end of the episode.

Liz doesn’t call the sheriff either. After Burke refuses her commands to get out of her house, she decides to confuse him with a display of hospitality. It turns out to be quite an effective tactic. When Vicki walks in and asks Burke what he’s doing at Collinwood, he replies in bewilderment “I think I’m having tea.”

Burke had gone to Collinwood looking for Liz’ brother, ne’er-do-well Roger. Roger is with Sam at the tavern in town. Yesterday we heard some new music at the tavern, a funky tune that sounds like it was cut from a Booker T and the MGs album. It played then as grizzled caretaker Matthew sat by himself waiting for Burke to come in so he could threaten him. It was so obviously not something Matthew would listen to that it served to emphasize his isolation. It plays again today as Roger and Sam reach the end of a strange conversation, with Roger first refusing Sam’s offer to leave town for money, then Sam refusing Roger’s offer to give him money to leave town. As Roger and Sam, Louis Edmonds and David Ford have so much fun with this exchange that it feels like an Abbott and Costello routine. The music is different enough from what we’ve heard on the show so far that it highlights Roger and Sam’s silliness.

I should also mention that in the opening voiceover, Vicki says the phrase “Dark Shadows.” This is the second time we’ve heard a character say the title of the series. The first was in episode 46, when Roger had said that a drawing by his son, problem child David, had captured “Collinwood, with all its dark shadows.”