In episode 98, strange and troubled boy David Collins appeared to be a true sociopath, never losing his cool while he manipulated the adults around him according to his sinister plans. It was easy to see how a character like that could drive the story for a long time.
Traces of this conception resonated in David Henesy’s portrayal of David Collins as recently as this week. In #113, David Collins found homicidal fugitive Matthew hiding in the Old House on the estate of Collinwood. Matthew shows David the same fury he had earlier shown both well-meaning governess Vicki and reclusive matriarch Liz. Those grown women needed impressive amounts of courage to keep their composure while dealing with Matthew in that state, but nine-year-old David is as relaxed and chipper as a kitten. He simply disregards Matthew’s obviously menacing affect, and cheerfully enlists him in his scheme to send his father to prison. We can see a detached, calculating mind undisturbed by mere human feelings.
Today seems to put an end to the idea of Sociopath David. David brings Matthew a meal at the Old House. Matthew startles David, then spends a moment making vaguely creepy remarks about having frightened people in the past. These remarks suffice to petrify David. It takes Matthew two and a half scenes of happy talk to calm David’s fears. Once David has warmed up, he starts boasting about how well he knows the Old House. Matthew claims to know a secret about the place that David does not know. This upsets David. He pleads with Matthew to fill him in, and won’t let it go until they hear Vicki nearby calling for him.
Matthew hides while David and Vicki stand in the entryway talking. David’s defensive mood carries over to that conversation. He insists that ghosts really do haunt the Old House, something Vicki hasn’t denied. He tries to frighten her by talking about the multitude of rats that infest the house. Longtime resident that she was of the Hammond Foundling Home, an institution that sounds like a cross between the bleakest creations of Charles Dickens and H. P. Lovecraft, Vicki doesn’t bat an eye at the notion that she is surrounded by countless rats. Still, she does have a bus to catch, so she hustles David back to the great house on the estate.
There, David has an earnest conversation with his aunt Liz about loyalty and unfortunate people who need help. David feels unloved and expresses a longing for a friendship with someone he can trust absolutely. The unemotional iceman of #98 is nowhere in sight.
The best storyline they’ve had so far has been the budding friendship between David and Vicki. I suppose turning David into a master manipulator with no conscience and no capacity for empathy would bring that storyline to an abrupt conclusion, but the move they make here folds him into it completely. His relationships with the other characters have so far been defined for us by what Vicki learned about events that took place before she arrived at the beginning of the series. The only person David knew before Vicki came and towards whom he has changed his attitude since is Matthew, and there is a very short list of possible surprises that David and Matthew can generate together.
That raises the question of how David will meet any new characters who might come on the show. He’s nine, so presumably he will need to be introduced. He hates his father, high-born ne’er-do-well Roger, and his cousin Carolyn has no patience for him. Liz loves him very much, but she hasn’t left home in 18 years. He often sneaks off and visits his father’s sworn enemy, dashing action hero Burke Devlin, but Burke keeps these meetings secret. So if David does interact with any new characters, those interactions are likely to be presented in the context of his friendship with Vicki. Since Vicki has more possibilities than David does to move the plot, that means that they will be presented primarily in terms of their effects on Vicki. The needy, untrusting David of this episode might get himself into trouble from which Vicki will have to rescue him, and he might get Vicki into trouble from which others will have to rescue her. But unless he gets a more dynamic character motivation matrix, it’s hard to see how he will ever contribute anything to the narrative beyond support for Vicki.
Vicki is the main character of the first 39 weeks of Dark Shadows, and this week is particularly Vicki-heavy. The week began with Liz preventing Matthew from breaking Vicki’s neck, and ends today with Matthew capturing Vicki when she comes back to the Old House to get something she had dropped there. The next couple of weeks will focus on her imprisonment. So if you’re going to be relegated to supporting one character, I suppose Vicki is the one you would choose. But still, it’s a shame. Not only is David Collins too promising a character, and David Henesy too talented an actor, to be reduced to sidekick status, but the notion of a show that’s on five days a week having one main character is just nuts. You need multiple sources of plot development and thematic coherence. David would be a terrific one.
Acilius on Dark Shadows 