Flighty heiress Carolyn tells her mother, reclusive matriarch Liz, that she has had a problem with one of Liz’ houseguests. Last night, dangerously unstable ruffian Willie Loomis was about to rape Carolyn, who fended him off only by pointing a loaded pistol and telling him she would blow his brains out.
Liz confronts the person who insisted she take Willie into the house, seagoing con man Jason McGuire. She demands that Jason send Willie away at once. This leads to the eighth iteration of the only conversation Liz and Jason have. He makes a demand, she resists, he threatens to expose her terrible secret, she capitulates.
The script varies the ritual slightly this time. It is prefaced with Liz’ demand that Jason evict Willie, and Liz’ final capitulation is delayed by having her stand her ground until Jason says he will get Willie out soon. Later in the episode, Liz walks in on Willie grabbing at Carolyn, and even then settles for Jason’s promise that he will get his henchman out within the week.
The show has given us some scenes of friction between Carolyn and Liz, but has spent a lot more time on Carolyn talking about how strong her mother is. Now that Carolyn realizes that her mother will let an explosively violent hoodlum stay in their house indefinitely after he has twice assaulted her, we are primed to expect that sharper conflicts between Carolyn and Liz will feature in upcoming storylines.
We get another preview at the end of the episode. Strange and troubled boy David Collins shows Willie a couple of portraits of Collins ancestors and talks about the history of the family. One of these portraits is new to us, having made its debut during the closing credits of yesterday’s episode. David identifies it as someone called Barnabas Collins. David has been pivotal to each of the major plot developments on Dark Shadows so far, so when he is the first character to speak a name on screen, we might expect to hear that name again.
The portrait of Barnabas has such a strong effect on Willie that he adds an element to the show’s format. For the first time on Dark Shadows, a character’s internal monologue plays as a voiceover. While we watch Willie study the portrait, we hear his recorded voice going on about the wealth it suggests. Willie walks off. The portrait fills the screen, its eyes start to glow, and we hear a heartbeat.
The portrait of Josette Collins that hangs at the long-abandoned Old House glows when Josette’s ghost is active, and the eyes of a portrait of Laura Murdoch Collins glowed on several occasions when Laura was on the show. So regular viewers are used to seeing the visual effects that accompany Barnabas’ portrait. But the heartbeat is new. Josette’s portrait and Laura’s are silent pictures, Barnabas’ is the first talkie.
This is the last episode in which we will see James Hall as Willie. These episodes were shot out of sequence, so this one was made on 23 March 1967 and yesterday’s was made on 24 March. Most episodes were shot in a single take, as is obvious from the bloopers and production faults that run through them. Yesterday’s- the one produced on Friday, 24 March- was the first since #1 that went to three takes. That evening they called actor John Karlen and asked him to come in on Monday the 27th and take over the part of Willie. So, while Hall may never have been told why he was let go and to this day doesn’t seem to know what happened, it’s hard not to suspect that the producers blamed him for that third take.
Karlen would bring so much to the show that I can’t really regret losing Hall, excellent as he was. Years ago, I was chatting with an old friend of mine about ways that the original Star Trek might have been improved. We agreed that we couldn’t give up the actual show, and that what we were really wishing for was access to an alternate universe where they had made those changes. So that’s how I feel about Dark Shadows. I still want all of John Karlen’s performances, but would like an antenna that I could tune to receive broadcasts from a parallel timeband where he and James Hall swapped careers.
Acilius on Dark Shadows 