Well-meaning governess Vicki has stumbled onto the hiding place of the fugitive Matthew. Matthew traps Vicki in a secret room and talks about killing her.
Back in the great house of Collinwood, evidence begins to mount that Vicki has not caught the bus she was supposed to take to Bangor, Maine. Reclusive matriarch Liz and housekeeper Mrs Johnson try to figure out where she might be.
Vicki tells Matthew that there are no police between him and his car. He says that he will go to his car and leave forever if she will stay put for a couple of hours. She tries to slip out a few minutes after he has gone. He grabs her, shouts “I knew I couldn’t trust you!” and comes at her. She moves behind the camera. He moves toward it, blocking the lens. The episode ends with a black screen, as if our point of view character is being murdered.
The actors and director do their work well enough to make us feel claustrophobic. I realize that kidnapping stories are a standard part of the genre- if you’re a soap opera heroine, it’s when they stop kidnapping you that you have to worry. But I hate seeing people in cages, and will be very glad when we move on from this.
There are a couple of efforts in this one to make our time locked up with Vicki tolerable. She keeps telling Matthew that she will do “anything you say,” and each time she does he casts his eyes down, looking as sad to hear her say it as we are. Back in the great house, Liz tells Mrs Johnson that she feels sorry for Matthew, that he was all right for the 18 years he was caretaker at the estate and that she is sure he didn’t intend to kill beloved local man Bill Malloy. Those moments take some of the edge off, but it still makes me miserable.
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