In #210, dangerously unstable ruffian Willie Loomis found an old coffin and broke into it, hoping to reap a harvest of hidden jewels. Instead a hand darted out, and Willie became the sorely bedraggled blood thrall of vampire Barnabas Collins.
The next person to open Barnabas’ coffin was Maggie Evans, The Nicest Girl in Town. Barnabas was keeping Maggie prisoner in his house on the great estate of Collinwood as part of his plan to persuade Maggie to forget her personality and turn into his lost love, the gracious Josette. In #250, Maggie decided to drive a stake through Barnabas’ heart, but had the bad luck to set to work a moment before sunset. He awoke, and spent the remaining two weeks of her captivity treating her even more cruelly than he had previously.
In #275, Willie’s onetime friend, seagoing con man Jason McGuire, made his way to Barnabas’ basement and found the coffin. As Willie had done 13 weeks before, Jason jumped to the conclusion the coffin was full of jewels. Willie tried to tell him this was not the case, but could not stop Jason looking inside. As when Maggie made her attempt to stake Barnabas, it is sunset. Again Barnabas’ hand darts forth; this time, he strangles Jason to death.
The first time someone opened Barnabas’ coffin during the day was in #289. Mad scientist Julia Hoffman had collected substantial evidence indicating that Barnabas was a vampire. As final confirmation, she slipped into his house one morning, made her way to the basement, opened the coffin, and reeled away, simultaneously shuddering and giving a look of triumph.
From November 1967 to March 1968, Dark Shadows was a costume drama set in the 1790s. In #410, wicked witch Angelique had just turned Barnabas into a vampire. She went to his coffin with a stake and mallet, regretting her curse and trying to cut its effects short. As Jason and Maggie would do in 1967, Angelique waited until sunset to open the coffin. Barnabas awoke, demanded to know what was going on, and killed her.
Since then, Barnabas’ vampirism has gone into remission and he and Julia have become fast friends. As we begin today, Barnabas is engaged in a desperate battle for Julia’s sake. The new vampire on the block, Tom Jennings, has been feeding on Julia. She is near death, and will herself rise as a vampire unless Tom is destroyed and she is freed from his influence. Barnabas has found Tom in a crypt next to a coffin, and the two of them have an embarrassingly awkward fight scene. The sun rises, and Tom has to leave Barnabas and get into his coffin.
Barnabas stands over Tom’s open coffin with a mallet and stake. He wonders if anyone ever looked down on him in his coffin when he was a vampire. He tells himself no one could have, for they would have destroyed him if they had. This is a strange thing for him to think. Julia eventually told him that she had sneaked a peek at him in his coffin, and he must remember Willie, Maggie, Jason, and Angelique.
Julia is back at Barnabas’ house. Elizabeth Collins Stoddard, mistress of Collinwood and escaped mental patient, is watching over her. She is telling Julia that Barnabas left her to die and that she will be dead any moment. This cheery behavior is the consequence of Liz’ fixation on death and her obsessive fear that Julia and others are part of a conspiracy to bury her alive.
As Barnabas drives the stake through Tom’s heart in the crypt, Julia cries out from her bed, then suddenly gains strength. She asks Liz to bring her a mirror; Julia is delighted to see that Tom’s bite marks are gone.
Barnabas comes back, sends Liz away, and tells Julia that she will be safe from Tom now. Barnabas and Julia are starting to get uncharacteristically mushy over each other when we cut to the downstairs, where Liz looks out the window and sees her brother Roger approaching.
Roger wants to send Liz back to the psychiatric hospital from which she escaped. Liz believes Roger is part of the conspiracy to bury her alive, and that sending her to the hospital will further that goal. So she hides behind an armchair.
In #10, Liz and Roger had a conversation in the drawing room of the great house of Collinwood while Roger’s son David hid behind an armchair. In that conversation, Roger declared his belief that David should be sent to an institution, a plan which Liz forbade him to pursue. After Liz left the room, Roger caught David behind the armchair.
David found the prospect of institutionalization so terrifying that his next stop was the garage, where he tampered with the brakes of his father’s car in what very nearly turned out to be a successful attempt at patricide. Liz is too upset to develop such an intricate plan, and doesn’t seem to have David’s skills as an auto mechanic. But she shares her nephew’s horror of institutionalization. So after Roger and Barnabas have talked for a moment, she jumps up from behind the chair and starts making accusations.
Liz tells Roger and Barnabas that she saw Julia in a crypt in the family burial ground nearby, and that there was a coffin there. Barnabas is alarmed, since this is the coffin in which Tom’s staked remains now repose. Roger agrees to go to the crypt and to see if there is a coffin. Barnabas offers to go with him.
The suave Nicholas Blair shows up at the front door with a bouquet of flowers. We know that Nicholas is a warlock and that he is behind the renewed outbreak of vampirism, that he was watching while Barnabas staked Tom, and that he is also responsible for some other plots involving Barnabas and Julia. For their part, Barnabas and Julia have every reason to suspect that this is so, and have talked about their suspicions more than once. Nicholas tells Barnabas, Roger, and Liz that he has heard that Julia is ill and has come to visit her. At Liz’ insistence, Barnabas lets Nicholas see Julia while he and Roger go to the crypt.
Nicholas expresses his relief that Julia’s recovery will enable her to return to work soon. The only work Julia has done in the year she has been a houseguest at Collinwood has been in association with the supernatural goings-on she and Barnabas have been entangled in; currently, an agent of Nicholas’ is forcing them to build a Frankenstein’s monster. Nicholas may as well say explicitly that he is behind that scheme and the vampire troubles too. He tells Julia that he thinks he might fall ill and need her help as a doctor; she says that he seems indestructible, a word he receives with pleasure.
Barnabas comes back and tells Julia that the coffin has disappeared. He mentions that it is strange that Nicholas turned up when he did. Julia suggests that Nicholas may be the one who moved the coffin. All of a sudden Barnabas seems to forget everything he knows about Nicholas and dismisses that idea. It’s one of those frustrating moments when the characters seem to have the memory of a goldfish, and it ends the episode on a sour note.
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