A storm is keeping everyone awake at the great house of Collinwood. Well-meaning governess Vicki is having a particularly hard time falling asleep, since she has the feeling someone is staring at her. When heiress Carolyn comes into Vicki’s room, Vicki points out the window and asks Carolyn if she sees a figure standing behind a tree. Carolyn doesn’t know what Vicki is talking about. We cut to the yard, but we see a figure crouching in the bushes, not standing by a tree.
The crouching figure is vampire Barnabas Collins, and he looks ridiculous. Barnabas has been meaning to bite Vicki for weeks now, and keeps getting sidetracked. Earlier this week she even invited herself to spend the night in his house, and come morning she still had all her blood.
After Carolyn leaves the room, Vicki goes to bed. Barnabas finally materializes and approaches her bedside, but again can’t bring himself to go through with the bite. Instead, he opens the music box he gave her and disappears. The music awakens her.
Carolyn comes back in and tells Vicki the power is out. Vicki says she doesn’t understand how the music box could have been opened while she slept, and says she had a feeling that something dangerous had been in her room. Barnabas’ pusillanimity makes him dangerous indeed to Vicki- if she doesn’t get a place in the vampire story soon, Vicki will be at risk of becoming irrelevant to the show.
Vicki and Carolyn go downstairs and find Julia Hoffman awake and reading some old books. Julia is a mad scientist who has learned that Barnabas is a vampire and has come to study him, but she has told the family that she is an historian working on a book about the old families of New England.
Julia questions Vicki about Barnabas. She had learned about Barnabas in her capacity as a doctor treating his previous victim, Maggie Evans, and Vicki’s answers explain what Maggie meant when she remembered that she heard “a tinkling melody” and smelled a “sweet fragrance” during her captivity. As Julia continues to probe, Vicki becomes upset and hastens back to her room. Vicki has been Julia’s main advocate in Collinwood, as she was the main advocate for Dark Shadows‘ first character derived from Professor Van Helsing, Dr Peter Guthrie, who helped in the fight against undead fire witch Laura Murdoch Collins last spring. Julia’s unbothered reaction to her angry departure suggests that she isn’t planning to take Vicki into her confidence and doesn’t think she needs her help.
Julia and Carolyn chat for a moment, then go back to bed when the power comes back on. John Scoleri has a fine summary of this part of the episode: “So in Collinwood they drink coffee when they can’t sleep, get up when the power is off, and go back to bed once it comes back on. Maybe they’re all vampires…”
At home in the Old House on the estate, Barnabas is staring out the window feeling sorry for himself. Julia sneaks up near the window. She listens to him talk to his sorely bedraggled blood thrall Willie.
Barnabas tells Willie to go to Portland, Maine to buy some necessities and to come back as soon as possible so that he can keep Julia away from the house. He says he is worried about who Julia really is and what she wants. He tells Willie that the sun is about to rise, so he might as well leave right away while Barnabas goes to the basement.
Once the front parlor is clear, Julia opens the window, a process we see from the inside. Just three weeks ago, we saw seagoing con man Jason McGuire enter through the same window. Jason would fight Willie, go to the basement, find Barnabas in his coffin, and be killed.
Julia has made sure Willie is gone, but she does go to the basement. Like Jason, she finds Barnabas’ coffin, opens it, and sees him inside. We see her reaction. For the first time, there is a trace of fear on her face.
Julia is now the first person to learn that Barnabas is a vampire otherwise than by becoming his victim. As the episode began with Barnabas spying on Vicki through her window, then entering her room while she was unconscious and looking at her, so it ends with Julia spying on Barnabas through his window, then entering his inner sanctum while he is unconscious and looking at him. This chiasmus suggests that Julia is capable of turning the tables on Barnabas. It remains to be seen whether the parallel will be complete, and she will choose to leave him be as Barnabas left Vicki be, or she will try to do something against him.
Acilius on Dark Shadows 