The Evans Cottage
Maggie Evans, The Nicest Girl in Town, was under the influence of vampire Barnabas Collins in May and June of 1967. At the beginning of that period, she spent her days sick in bed at home, and at night regained strength and insisted on going out. When her father Sam and her boyfriend Joe tried to keep Maggie in, her adorable personality vanished and she raged at them.
Maggie eventually escaped from Barnabas, and mad scientist Julia Hoffman erased her memory of the ordeal. Since then, Barnabas’ vampirism has gone into remission. Julia has taken up residence at the great house of Collinwood and has become Barnabas’ fast friend.
Julia drops in at Maggie’s house today. Maggie says she is worried about Joe. He has been standing her up for dates, hasn’t reported for work for three days, and won’t answer his phone.
After Julia leaves, Joe comes in through the back door. He is pale, sweaty, and wild-eyed, obviously ill. He faints for a second. Maggie goes to call a doctor. Joe protests against this idea, almost shrieking, and Maggie relents. He asks her to keep him in the house overnight no matter what he says or does; this is very much the sort of thing Maggie used to say when she was falling under Barnabas’ power. Also like Maggie in those days, minutes later Joe announces that he will be leaving the house and that Maggie has no right to keep him from going. Maggie tries to block the door; Joe grabs her, flings her aside violently, and rushes out.
Kathryn Leigh Scott and Joel Crothers do an excellent job with this last bit of business. Yesterday and the day before, there was a fight scene that was so poorly done I couldn’t get a screenshot that didn’t look like a joke. But the choreography is perfect here. The actors really make it look like Joe is throwing Maggie to the floor, and in her closeup at the end of the sequence Miss Scott convinces us Maggie is hurt.
The similarity between Maggie’s behavior in May 1967 and Joe’s now is no coincidence. He is the victim of Angelique, formerly a wicked witch, now a vampire under the control of suave warlock Nicholas Blair.
After he had asked Maggie to keep him in the house no matter what he said and before he told her he was going to leave no matter what she did, Joe talked to her about going away from Collinsport, far away, going anywhere at all, anywhere from which they would never come back. It’s a poignant moment. Once there were other places for Joe and Maggie, and once there were ways to go there. When art dealer Portia Fitzsimmons called on Sam in this room in #193, Dark Shadows had run out of story. For all we knew, Sam might have gone to New York and taken Maggie and Joe with him, and the show might have reinvented itself to follow them there. But Sam is dead now, Mrs Fitzsimmons is long forgotten, and outside Collinsport there is nothing but a mental hospital. Even Hell seems to be located in a corner of Barnabas’ basement, and Purgatory in the woods outside.
The House by the Sea
Nicholas lives in a house by the sea. Collinsport is a fishing village, so a lot of its people probably live in houses by the sea, but there are two that we have heard referred to as “The House by the Sea,” and this is the second of them.
Barnabas and Julia know that there is a vampire on the loose and are pretty sure that Nicholas is to blame for that fact. Maggie mentioned to Julia that Nicholas will be coming to her house at 5 PM to buy a painting, and so Julia suggests to Barnabas that they go to Nicholas’ at that time and search.
They find the door unlocked. The green screen behind them has an image that makes it look as if the house is floating in the sky. Maggie’s house has always been the place the show has taken us when it wanted to give us a feeling of realistic kitchen sink drama; the effect of this background outside Nicholas’ front door is to tell us that we are leaving that world behind and entering an exotic, paranormal space.
As they enter, Julia has second thoughts about trespassing. Now it is Barnabas’ turn to insist they probe forward.
They split up. Barnabas runs into Joe. The two men ask each other what they are doing there, and each tells a lie about having business with Nicholas. They then take turns ordering each other out of the house. We end with a view of Angelique’s coffin, its lid opening.
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