A lot of business about a magical urn that belongs to undead blonde fire witch Laura Collins. This is Laura’s second tour on Dark Shadows; she didn’t have an urn the first time around, but the plot is much busier these days and she needs a MacGuffin for her enemies to chase after if she’s going to stay afloat.
There are also a couple of moments when characters deride spinster Judith Collins as “plain Judith,” envious of the “pretty wives your brothers brought home.” This is ridiculous. Judith isn’t even Hollywood ugly; she’s played by Joan Bennett, one of the great beauties of the screen in her youth and still, in her late 50s, a remarkably attractive woman.
But all in all, the episode is quite good. The highlight is a confrontation between governess Rachel Drummond and a villain who makes her first appearance today, Minerva Trask. Minerva is the wife of the loathsome Rev’d Gregory Trask, and with him she runs a boarding school called Worthington Hall. Rachel grew up at Worthington Hall, and like all other children there she was subjected to continual abuse at the hands of the Trasks. We haven’t seen Gregory for several days; as played by Jerry Lacy, he is so overwhelmingly evil a presence that the makers of the show wisely decided to use him sparingly. It looks like Rachel will soon be forced to go back to Worthington Hall as a teacher.
Minerva is played by Clarice Blackburn, whom many consider to be the single best actor in the whole series. For example, Nancy Barrett gave her that title in her interviews with the authors of the book Barnabas and Company. Blackburn is absolutely believable as the sanctimonious Minerva, so much so that I found her scenes as difficult to watch as are those featuring Mr Lacy as Gregory. Kathryn Leigh Scott plays the terror and misery Minerva inspires in Rachel quite effectively, but to be honest I felt those emotions very intensely myself just watching the episode on TV. I suspect that when you have a scene partner like Blackburn, all you need is to learn your lines and remember your training and you’ll connect with the audience.
Rachel tells her troubles to broad ethnic stereotype Magda Rákóczi, who volunteers to help her escape the Trasks. Magda’s plan requires Rachel to do three extraordinary things. She must give her garnet-encrusted broach, the only keepsake her late mother gave her, to Magda to sell to raise money for a coach ride to Boston. She must spend the night in a secret room hidden in an old mausoleum. And once in Boston, she will have to find employment without having recourse to any credentials or references that would make it possible for her to find a situation agreeable to a neurotic intellectual such as herself. We could never believe Rachel would do any of these things if she were facing a less gruesome threat than return to Worthington Hall.
Longtime viewers may wonder just how far Rachel’s fears will drive her. In #9, broadcast and set in the year 1966, flighty heiress Carolyn Collins Stoddard told well-meaning governess Victoria Winters that over the years, two governesses had leapt to their deaths from the precipice atop Widow’s Hill, and that legend had it that a third governess would someday follow their lead. In other episodes, before and after, that story was rephrased as “two women” rather than “two governesses.”
So far, we have only seen one woman take the plunge, and she wasn’t a governess. She was the gracious Josette, also played by Miss Scott. Josette jumped in 1796 because she saw that she was about to be made into a vampire. Now, the dramatic date is 1897. The prospect of turning into a member of the teaching faculty of Worthington Hall is scarcely less horrifying than is the prospect of becoming a vampire, so perhaps it will turn out that Rachel was one of those whom Carolyn had in mind after all.
This episode features two undead blonde fire witches. Laura Collins was Dark Shadows‘ first supernatural menace when she was on the show from December 1966 to March 1967. In those days, the show was set in contemporary times, and it was slow-paced and heavy on atmosphere. Laura began as a vague, enigmatic presence and gradually came into focus as a dynamic villain.
Now the show is fast-paced, action-packed, and set in the year 1897. Laura is once again the estranged wife of the eldest brother of the matriarch of the great estate of Collinwood. This time, she has come back to Collinwood after running off with her husband’s brother, Quentin. Unlike her 1960s iteration, this Laura is not at all happy about the periodic immolations that renew her existence as a humanoid Phoenix. She bears a grudge against Quentin for betraying her to the priests of a secret cult in Alexandria, Egypt, who incinerated her some months before. For his part, Quentin is shocked that Laura is alive now. When he tries to remedy the situation by strangling Laura, a feeling of intense heat overwhelms him and he collapses.
The other undead blonde fire witch is Angelique, who was first on the show from November 1967 to March 1968, when it was set in the 1790s. She appeared in 1897 when Quentin and one of his fellow Satanists conjured her up out of the fireplace in the caretaker’s cottage on the grounds of Collinwood in #711. They wanted a demon to come from the depths of Hell and help them do battle with Quentin’s distant cousin, the mysterious Barnabas Collins. Unknown to Quentin, Barnabas is a vampire and Angelique is the witch who originally made him one. Barnabas has traveled back in time to prevent Quentin becoming a ghost who will ruin things for everyone at Collinwood in 1969. Angelique is delighted to find herself back at Collinwood. She is determined to make Barnabas love her, no matter how many of his friends and relatives she has to kill along the way.
As it turns out, it was Angelique who caused Quentin to collapse before he could kill Laura. She summons Barnabas and tells him she will let Quentin die unless he lives with her as man and wife. When Angelique points out that if Quentin dies now, the results will be disastrous for the Collinses of 1969, Barnabas capitulates.
Barnabas takes Angelique to the great house. There, he introduces her to governess Rachel Drummond as his fianceé. Rachel has been falling in love with Barnabas, and their relationship has been the only bright spot in the otherwise extremely stressful time she has had at Collinwood. At one point today Rachel is on the telephone to someone she and Barnabas both hate; Barnabas takes it upon himself to press on the hook, hanging the phone up in the middle of the conversation. Many men do this to women in Dark Shadows, and it is usually very clear that the women don’t like it at all. Rachel objects only mildly, and quickly accepts it. That she isn’t bothered by such an aggressive act suggests that she already feels a very strong bond with Barnabas.
When Rachel hears that Barnabas is committed to someone else, she rushes out as quickly as possible. Later, Barnabas will meet her on the terrace and intimate that his relationship with Angelique is not what it seems. Rachel does not quite know what to make of this, but at moments we catch her rolling her eyes like someone who knows malarkey when she hears it.
Rachel listening to Barnabas explain that they shouldn’t let his fianceé come between them. Screenshot by Dark Shadows Before I Die.
Angelique wakes Quentin. They talk about Laura. By magical means, Angelique discovers that Laura’s life depends on an Egyptian urn that she keeps with her at all times. This is another retcon; we saw every worldly possession Laura had in 1966, and there was no urn in sight. Quentin resolves to find this urn and destroy it, ridding himself of Laura forever.
One of the first “Big Bads” on Dark Shadows was crazed handyman Matthew Morgan, played by Thayer David. Matthew was the most devoted employee of reclusive matriarch Elizabeth Collins Stoddard (Joan Bennett.) Matthew took his devotion to Liz to such an extreme that he was a menace to everyone else. In November and December of 1966, we learned that Matthew had decided that Liz’ second most dedicated employee, plant manager Bill Malloy, was a threat to her. Matthew had tried to put a stop to Bill’s doings. Not knowing his own strength, Matthew accidentally killed Bill. When well-meaning governess Victoria Winters discovered what had happened, Matthew abducted Victoria, held her prisoner in the long-deserted Old House on the grounds of the estate of Collinwood, and was about to murder her when a bunch of ghosts emanated from the show’s supernatural back-world and scared him to death.
In those days, Dark Shadows was a slow-paced “Gothic” drama set in contemporary times. From November 1967 to March 1968, it was a costume drama set in the 1790s, and its plot often moved at a breakneck speed. Among the characters then was much-put-upon indentured servant Ben Stokes, who like Matthew was played by Thayer David. At first Ben made a stark contrast with Matthew. He was as relaxed, friendly, and reasonable as Matthew was tense, forbidding, and paranoid. But when his one ally among the Collins family, scion Barnabas, was cursed to become a vampire, Ben’s devotion made him resemble Matthew ever more closely. In his development, we saw a retrospective reimagining of Matthew. The curses that were placed on Barnabas and the rest of the Collinses from the 1790s on had burdened the village of Collinsport, and people who grew up there labored under the consequences of those curses and of the Collinses’ attempts to conceal them. Ben was what Matthew might have been had he not been warped by the evil that began when black magic was first practiced in the area so many generations before.
In January 1969, the show briefly returned to 1796, to a time coinciding with the last days of the earlier flashback. We saw that by that point, the curses had already transformed life on and around the great estate. In that period, Ben’s efforts to protect Barnabas led him inadvertently to kill a man, not knowing his own strength, and then to cover that crime up by killing a woman, not at all inadvertently. He had become Matthew. The curse placed on Barnabas had become the curse of all those who work for the Collinses and all of those who live in the shadow of their wealth and power.
Before Matthew, Dark Shadows‘ chief villain was high-born ne’er-do-well Roger Collins (Louis Edmonds); after, it was Roger’s estranged wife, undead blonde fire witch Laura Murdoch Collins (Diana Millay.) In this episode, the makers of the show take a page from its 1790s flashbacks. They have Edmonds and Millay reconceive the Roger and Laura of that atmospheric, sometimes almost action-free soap as characters appropriate to the fast-paced supernatural thriller it now is.
Since #701, Dark Shadows has been set in the year 1897. Louis Edmonds plays Roger’s grandfather Edward; Diana Millay plays Edward’s estranged wife, undead blonde fire witch Laura Murdoch Collins. In his days as a villain, Roger’s defining characteristic was his unnatural lack of family feeling. He had squandered his entire inheritance, a fact which did not bother him in the least. When his sister Liz confronted him in #41 about the difficulties he had created by putting his half of the family business up for sale, he airily replied that he had enjoyed his inheritance. When in #273 Liz and Roger discussed a blackmail plot of which she had been the victim, Roger admitted that had he known her terrible secret, he probably would have used it to force her to give him her half of the estate so that he could squander that, as well.
It wasn’t only the family’s material possessions and Liz’ right to them to which Roger was indifferent. He openly hated his son, strange and troubled boy David Collins (David Henesy.) He continually insulted David, badgered Liz to send David away, and in #83 coldly manipulated David’s fears to lead him to try to murder Victoria.
In the 1897 segment, Edward is as stuffily serious about the family business as Roger was in 1966 nihilistically apathetic about it. Edward loves his children, twelve year old Jamison (David Henesy) and nine year old Nora, but his rage at Laura has come between himself and them. Laura left Edward the year before to run after Edward’s brother, breezy libertine Quentin (David Selby.) Edward tried to conceal the fact that his brother cuckolded him. He has repeatedly declared that Laura “No longer exists!” and has forbidden her name to be mentioned in the house.
Edward trapped between the enigmatic Laura and the exuberant Quentin. Screenshot by Dark Shadows Before I Die.
For his part, Quentin bears a striking similarity to the early, wicked Roger. He wants money only to spend it, a fact which he cheerfully admits. He tried to forge a will in his grandmother Edith’s name to cheat his sister Judith (Joan Bennett) out of her inheritance, having previously threatened to kill Edith. He does have great affection for Jamison, but since he often uses the boy as a pawn in Satanic ceremonies, his fondness for his nephew is not much of an improvement over Roger’s hatred for his son. Indeed, Quentin’s resemblance to Roger connects the 1897 segment not only to the early months of the show, but also to the weeks immediately preceding it. Early in 1969, Quentin’s ghost had taken possession of David Collins and was causing him to die. When we see that Quentin is now what Roger was originally, David’s ordeal takes on a new dimension. He is dying for the sins of his father.
In this episode, Laura has returned. Edward has offered her a great deal of money to go away and never come back; she refuses. She threatens to tell the world about her relationship with Quentin if Edward does not let her stay at Collinwood. Edward buckles to this blackmail. Laura tells him that “Family pride is your greatest weakness,” making him Roger’s exact opposite.
When Laura was at Collinwood from December 1966 to March 1967, her old boyfriend Burke Devlin kept pestering her with his suspicion that he, not Roger, was David Collins’ father. Burke was not the first character to bring this idea up. Roger had mentioned it to Liz in #32, when they were talking about an attempt David had made to kill Roger. At that time, Liz was horrified that Roger seemed to want to believe that David was Burke’s natural son.
It seems unlikely that Quentin is Jamison’s father. They have been firm about 1870 as Quentin’s date of birth, and in 1897 Jamison is quite plainly twelve. Laura may have gone on to marry her own grandson, but it would be a bit of a stretch for her to have started sleeping with her brother-in-law when he was fifteen, even if he did look like David Selby.
But Roger’s anger and jealousy about Burke and Laura do mirror Edward’s about Quentin and Laura. It was abundantly clear that Roger and Burke’s deepest pain regarding Laura was that their intense attachment to each other was disrupted when she left Burke for Roger; Diana Millay used her gift for dry comedy to make this explicit in a scene the three of them played in the groundskeeper’s cottage in #139. Likewise, Edward’s frustration with and disappointment in his brother is at least as deep a source of anguish to him as is his loss of Laura’s love.
Laura, too, is quite different this time around. The first Laura story took shape gradually over a period of weeks, as Laura herself emerged from the mist. Now Laura is a forceful presence from her first appearance. Originally we heard that Laura had married into several of the leading families of the Collinsport region; now they have given up on the idea of developing other leading families, and Laura just keeps coming back to the Collinses. In the first story, they laid great emphasis on the interval of precisely one hundred years between her appearances; now, the number of years doesn’t seem to have any particular significance. As we go, we will see an even more important difference. When we first met Laura, she was utterly determined to make her way into a pyre so that she could rise as a humanoid Phoenix; now she is unhappy about the whole thing, and angry with people who have helped her on her fiery way.
Edward lets Laura live in the cottage where Roger and Liz would put her in 1966. In the final scene, she goes there and finds Quentin, drunk and trying to conjure up an evil spirit. Quentin keeps telling Laura that she is dead. Frustrated with her persistent refusal to concur with this statement, Quentin puts his hands around her neck and announces that whether or not she is dead now, she will be by the time he gets through with her.
Roger was uncharacteristically sober at the beginning of his three-scene in the cottage with Burke and Laura in #139, but he did enter brandishing a fire-arm. So Quentin’s homicidal intentions on this set further cement his affiliation with his great-nephew in the eyes of longtime viewers.
Millay and Edmonds are not the only actors whose screen iconography the show turns to advantage today. We first saw Kathryn Leigh Scott and Don Briscoe together in #638, when she was playing ex-waitress Maggie Evans and he was playing mysterious drifter Chris Jennings. They met in the foyer at Collinwood. Maggie was angry with Chris, and Chris was guilt-ridden. Today, Miss Scott plays governess Rachel Drummond and Briscoe plays teacher Tim Shaw. They meet in the foyer at Collinwood. Rachel is angry with Tim, and Tim is guilt-ridden.
Though the same actors are playing the same basic emotions on the same set, the situations are different, and the characters are very different. Maggie is Dark Shadows‘ principal representative of the working class of the village of Collinsport. She speaks directly and bluntly, using the plainest language she can to dare Chris to try to excuse his inexcusable behavior. Chris occupies a lowly and unsettled place in the world, and he dodges her gaze and evades her questions, saying as little as he can, almost mumbling.
But Rachel is a neurotic intellectual, and she expresses her anger in complex sentences featuring vocabulary that only a very well-read person would have used in 1897 (for example, the word “sadist.”) Tim retreats from her anger into a defense of his job that quickly devolves into the tiredest platitudes imaginable. At one point he actually intones “It is better to light one candle than to curse the darkness.” Miss Scott makes Rachel’s highly literate onslaught on Tim as forceful as was Maggie’s unvarnished challenge to Chris, and Briscoe makes Tim’s pompous posturing as pitiable as was Chris’ broken burbling. Writer Gordon Russell must have been delighted that the actors did such good work with his ambitious pages.
When Laura Murdoch Collins first appeared on Dark Shadows in December 1966, it was far from clear what sort of being she was. From the beginning, there were definite hints that she had emerged from the supernatural back-world of ghosts and presences lurking behind the action, but as those ghosts and presences were undefined and vague, so Laura herself was undefined and vague when we met her. We couldn’t even tell how many of her there were- there was a charred corpse in Phoenix, Arizona, a phantom flickering on the front lawn of the great estate of Collinwood, two graves of Laura Murdochs from previous centuries, a woman who turns up in various places that serve food but never eats or drinks, and a series of dream visitations and inexplicable compulsions. Some of those were Laura, maybe all of them were, but how they were connected to each other, if they were connected at all, was anyone’s guess. Diana Millay’s performance reflected that uncertainty. Her Laura was initially blank and distant.
As her storyline went on, Laura came into ever sharper focus. By the time we realized that she was a humanoid Phoenix, an undead fire witch who had returned to Collinwood to take her son, strange and troubled boy David Collins, into the flames with her so that she could renew her life, she had become a dynamic character. As Laura gained force, Millay had the chance to reveal a talent for sarcastic dialogue rivaling that of Louis Edmonds, who played Laura’s estranged husband Roger Collins. Before Laura went up in flames in March 1967, we wished we could have seen a whole series featuring Millay and Edmonds as an unhappily married couple sniping at each other.
In those days, Dark Shadows was set in contemporary times. Now, its dramatic date is 1897, and Edmonds plays Roger’s grandfather, the stuffy Edward Collins. As in the first 24 weeks of Dark Shadows we saw that the name of Roger’s estranged wife was taboo in the great house of Collinwood, so in the first six weeks of the 1897 segment Edward has been furiously insistent that his estranged wife should never be mentioned. When Laura turns up, bearing the same name and played by the same actress as Edward’s granddaughter-in-law, we know what we are in for.
The show moves a lot more quickly now than it did when it debuted. David had shown signs of a psychic connection with Laura from #15 in July 1966, over 21 weeks before she arrived. Edward and Laura’s nine year old daughter Nora had dreams, visions, and an episode of automatic writing directed by Laura yesterday and the day before, and Laura herself shows up today. At first she meets Nora on the peak of Widow’s Hill, as a dream had told her she would. Laura comes to the house and sees Edward the following afternoon. Edward is horrified to see her; she is understated and cool at the beginning of their scene, but by the end of it she is in tears, pleading with Edward to be allowed to see their children, Nora and twelve year old Jamison. She thus recapitulates within minutes a progression that in 1966 and 1967 took months.
When Laura saw Nora on Widow’s Hill, she swore her to secrecy, forbidding her to tell anyone but Jamison that she is back. Nora did try to tell Jamison, only to find that he wouldn’t believe her. She showed him a broach Laura gave her which bears an Egyptian symbol that popped into her head yesterday; Jamison is entirely unimpressed.
We learned the other day that when Edward’s brother Quentin was banished from Collinwood a year before, Laura followed him. The two wound up in Alexandria, Egypt, together. Jamison and Nora come to Quentin’s room today; Quentin sees the broach and flies into a panic. He searches through a book, then demands to know where Nora got the broach. She says only that she found it in the woods, and he keeps asking if someone gave it to her. She keeps denying that anyone did, and he rushes downstairs, looking for Edward.
In the drawing room, Quentin sees Laura. He is utterly shocked. “You’re dead!” he exclaims. “I saw you die!” Last week, Quentin himself died and came back to life. When he told Edward about his death and resurrection, he laughed delightedly. When Edward asked for an explanation, Quentin dismissed the whole subject, having exhausted his interest in it with his laughter. Yet now he is stunned out of his wits to see that Laura too has returned from the dead. Seems to be quite a double standard at work.
Every character we see in this episode bears the surname “Collins.” I believe this is the first episode we have seen with an all-Collins cast.
Libertine Quentin Collins has learned that his estranged wife, madwoman Jenny, is being kept locked up somewhere in the great house of Collinwood. He learned this when Jenny escaped and stabbed him. He also learned that his brother, stuffy Edward, and maidservant Beth Chavez are involved in the plot to keep Jenny in confinement. He spends time today trying to find out where Jenny is, openly telling both Beth and Edward that when he finds her, he will kill her.
Edward is estranged from his own wife, and just yesterday we learned that her name is Laura. Evidently she is the same sort of creature as we came to know from December 1966 to March 1967. In those days Dark Shadows was set in contemporary times, and Edward’s grandson Roger Collins was dismayed at the return of his estranged wife, who was also named Laura. That Laura was an undead blonde fire witch, a humanoid Phoenix who sought to be incinerated with her son, strange and troubled boy David Collins, so that her own life could be renewed.
Today, the year is 1897 and Edward and Laura’s nine year old daughter Nora is convinced that her mother will return after a year when she has been away and it has been forbidden to mention her name. Nora has a vision of Laura’s face in the fireplace, a vision of flames in the corridor, and a dream in which she meets Laura in the woods outside the house. At the end of the episode she wakes up, sneaks out to the woods, and finds the cloak Laura was wearing in her dream lying on the ground.
All of this is recapped from previous episodes, but actors David Selby, Louis Edmonds, and Denise Nickerson make it worth watching. As Beth, Terrayne Crawford is stiff and literal, and her awkward performance does detract from her scenes. But everyone else is so good that you don’t notice her weaknesses too much.
This episode marks the second time we hear the name “Mrs Fillmore.” In #707, we learned that Beth took substantial sums of money into the village of Collinsport to a lady of that name as part of the plot to cover up Jenny’s presence in the house. Today Beth has to remind Edward of that fact, and Quentin looks through the envelope with hundreds of dollars in banknotes meant for Mrs Fillmore.
When Nora screams that there is a fire in the upstairs hallway, Edward and Beth run towards it. Quentin just sulks in the drawing room; evidently the idea that the house is on fire bores him. By the time Beth and Edward get upstairs, the flames Nora saw have vanished, and nothing is burned. She swears that there was a fire, they cannot believe her. This echoes #400, when wicked witch Angelique cast a spell that caused time-traveling governess Vicki to see flames in her room in the Old House on the estate, and subsequently Vicki’s friends were puzzled that there was no indication there of anything burned. That confusion led to trouble for Vicki, and longtime viewers can imagine it is a sign of trouble for Nora as well.
Yesterday, Nora drew a series of Egyptian hieroglyphics saying that her mother was coming home. At the beginning of her dream, a maniacal Edward holds an oversized copy of that drawing and rips it up, declaring Laura will never be back. The oversized drawing harks back all the way to episode #722, when Nora’s governess, neurotic intellectual Rachel Drummond, had a dream in which the daffy Carl Collins held a gigantic pocket watch. That was a striking enough image that not even the Vaseline almost entirely covering the lens could ruin it. But today even less of the picture is legible, and the gambit isn’t fresh anymore. Louis Edmonds does do a fine job of laughing maniacally, though, I will grant that.
The picture really does look like that, and it is supposed to look like that. Director Henry Kaplan was not much of a visual artist. Screenshot by Dark Shadows Before I Die.
Repressed patrician Edward Collins enters his study in the great house on the estate of Collinwood and finds his brother, libertine Quentin, riffling through his desk. Quentin does not feel an obligation to apologize for going through Edward’s things since Edward is among the conspirators holding Quentin’s estranged wife, madwoman Jenny, prisoner somewhere in the house. Quentin learned that Jenny was around only when she escaped from her cell and stabbed him. He is looking for information about where she is now so that she will not get another chance at him. Edward says that Quentin does not need to know where Jenny is, since he is confident she will not escape again.
Quentin is not at all reassured by Edward’s promise. He brings up another topic, Edward’s own estranged wife. For the first several weeks of the portion of Dark Shadows set in the year 1897, the audience was led to believe that Jenny was Edward’s wife, and the mother of his children, twelve year old Jamison and nine year old Nora. When we found out that Jenny was Quentin’s wife, we wondered not only who Edward was married to, but also whether Jenny had borne children by Quentin. After all, she is obsessed with her “babies,” and in #707 we learned that the enterprise of concealing Jenny’s presence in the house involved taking substantial sums of money into the village of Collinsport and giving them to a Mrs Fillmore. Perhaps Mrs Fillmore is taking care of Jenny and Quentin’s children.
Today, Quentin mentions that Edward’s wife, whom Edward said in #705 and says again today “no longer exists” as far as he is concerned, is named Laura. This rings a very loud bell for longtime viewers. The first supernatural menace to dominate the plot of Dark Shadows was Laura Murdoch Collins, estranged wife of high-born ne’er-do-well Roger Collins. That Laura was on the show from December 1966 to March 1967. In the first week of the show, newly hired governess Vicki was surprised to learn that Roger’s wife was still alive, and was told in no uncertain terms that she was not to be discussed. In #705, during the first week of the 1897 portion, newly hired governess Rachel Drummond was surprised to learn that Edward’s wife was still alive, and was told in no uncertain terms that she was not to be discussed. Like Roger, Edward is played by Louis Edmonds. When we learn that Edward’s wife, too, is named Laura, we can only assume that she, too will prove to be an undead fire witch out to incinerate her children for the sake of her own immortality.
Quentin reminds Edward that Laura followed him the year before when he was banished from Collinwood. Indeed, Laura followed Quentin all the way to Alexandria, Egypt. The other day, Quentin admitted to Jamison that he had been a police spy in that city. Edward does not want to hear about any of it.
Nora enters. She asks Edward if she can use his desk to draw with crayons. Edward says that he was just leaving, and she can do what she wants. Quentin stays behind with her for a moment. Nora asks her uncle if he thinks her mother will come back. He looks uncomfortable, says he doesn’t know, and exits.
Barnabas Collins, a distant cousin recently arrived from someplace far away, enters. He looks at what Nora has drawn and recognizes Egyptian hieroglyphics. He asks if she copied them out of a book; she says that they just popped into her head. He says he wonders what they mean; she looks directly into the camera and tells the audience she knows exactly what they mean. They say that her mother is coming home soon. And indeed, they do include actual hieroglyphic symbols for “Mother,” “Come,” and “Home.”
Nora starts talking about her mother. Barnabas encourages her to continue with the topic, and Edward enters. Edward is quite stern with Barnabas; he had made it clear that his wife was not to be discussed with anyone in the house, least of all with his children. Barnabas explains that Nora brought her mother up. He goes on to show Edward the drawing and tell him that he finds it profoundly disturbing. Edward accepts that as a sufficient excuse for going along with Nora while she talks about her mother, but he attributes the drawing to Quentin’s influence.
Whenever we saw Laura alone indoors during the “Phoenix” storyline, she was staring blankly into a fire burning in a hearth. She kept urging her son, strange and troubled boy David, to join her in this pastime, and every time he did we were led to believe that she had taken a sizable step towards her terrible goal. Now we see Nora in the drawing room, staring into the fire that always burns in its hearth.
Nora hears gurgling noises, like indistinct voices rising from below or behind the fire. Frightened, she runs into the foyer, into her father’s arms. She tries to explain to Edward what she heard, and he insists there is nothing to be afraid of. He carries her into the drawing room, where he declares they will look into the fire together and will both realize that nothing out of the ordinary is going on. His plan fails when Nora sees a face wearing a blonde wig starting to take shape in the flames. Nora cries out that it is her mother’s face. We pan to Edward. He is also looking into the fire, and he looks shocked. We wonder whether he is shocked because he can also see the face, or if he is merely alarmed by Nora’s reaction.
Roger and his sister Liz, the adults in the generation of Collinses who live at Collinwood in the 1960s, are Jamison’s children. So Edward and Laura are their grandparents. If this Laura is indeed the same immortal humanoid Phoenix who was David’s mother, Roger therefore married his own grandmother. In #313, Roger had a line about his “ancestors,” which Louis Edmonds bobbled. When he said “incestors,” he giggled, repeated the misspoken word, then corrected himself, calling the maximum possible attention to his error. Many fans bring that rather bizarre blooper up when we come to this story. The writing staff picked up ideas wherever they could, and I suppose the cast’s line difficulties might have been as good a source as any.
Well-meaning time-traveler/ bloodsucking abomination from the depths of Hell Barnabas Collins has found himself in the year 1897, where he must take action to prevent his distant cousin Quentin from becoming a malevolent ghost who will ruin everything for everyone on the estate of Collinwood in 1969. He has no idea what that action will be, so has decided to intrude as aggressively as he can in as much of the family’s business as he can until something turns up.
At the moment, Barnabas is strenuously trying to keep Judith Collins, the mistress of Collinwood, from sending her twelve year old nephew Jamison to a boarding school called Worthington Hall. Worthington Hall is run by the Rev’d Gregory Trask, a descendant of one of Barnabas’ old nemeses. Yesterday, Trask had an unsettling encounter with Jamison during which the camera dwelt heavily on Jamison’s nervous habit of fiddling with his belt, prompting us to wonder why Trask gives Jamison the feeling that he ought to make very sure he remains fully clothed.
Today, Trask’s daughter Charity shows up. Nancy Barrett, who previously played the sometimes-capricious, always likable heiress Carolyn and the fragile, highly comic heiress Millicent, makes Charity just as imposing a heavy as her father.
Jamison’s governess, neurotic intellectual Rachel Drummond, tells Barnabas that she was a student at Worthington Hall for many years, and that the place was gruesome. The Trasks kept the children separated from one another, locked them in cupboards for weeks on end when they incurred their displeasure, and generally exploited and abused them. She herself was forced to stay at the school as a teacher when Trask lied to her and claimed that she owed him money, and she escaped with the aid of a fellow sufferer.
Trask confronts Rachel in the drawing room. She tries to stand up for herself, but he breaks her resistance down expertly. Trask’s one moment of weakness comes when he starts talking about Rachel’s lovely hair, and he suddenly turns away. The mask has slipped, and the audience has seen that Trask’s interest in Rachel is sexual. But Rachel is too intimidated to recognize what has happened, and when he resumes his righteous tone she crumbles. When she next sees Barnabas, she rushes away in tears.
Rachel had another traumatic experience over the last few days. Quentin died, turned into a zombie, and abducted her. No one has given her the news yet, but Quentin came back to life yesterday. She is horrified when he comes into the drawing room and sees Quentin. At first he takes on a lumbering gait, and she screams. Then he laughs and starts walking normally. He explains what happened, as best he can, and they have a strangely pleasant conversation. Again, this is a testament to the high quality of the acting. It is hard to imagine that anyone less charming than David Selby could make us believe a woman would be so comfortable with Quentin after what Rachel has been through.
Barnabas takes on the form of a bat and bites Charity in her bedroom. Presumably he does this so that he can use her as an agent against her father. This raises the question of why he didn’t just bite Trask and put an end to the whole thing. Of course, the real-world explanation is that the writers wanted to keep the story going, but usually they take care to maneuver Barnabas into a situation where he is compelled to bite one person rather than another. So it’s rather sloppy to end the episode this way.
Still, this is a very good installment. Too good for some viewers; my wife, Mrs Acilius, refuses to watch the Gregory Trask episodes, because Jerry Lacy plays him so effectively that it ruins her day to spend half an hour in the presence of such an overpowering evil. Kathryn Leigh Scott brings Rachel’s self-doubts and final defeat vividly to life as well. By the time I got to the end of their scene, I was shouting at the screen “Bring back the zombies and werewolves and witches!” So I cheered when Barnabas bit Charity.
When Dark Shadows began in June 1966, strange and troubled boy David Collins (David Henesy) was frantically afraid that he would be sent away from the great house of Collinwood. In #10, David overheard his father Roger (Louis Edmonds) telling his aunt Elizabeth Collins Stoddard (Joan Bennett) that they ought to do just that. As the owner of the house and holder of all the family’s wealth, it is up to Liz to make the decision. Hearing his father press to send him away, David responded by sabotaging the brakes on Roger’s car, nearly killing him.
Roger told Liz that David belonged in an “institution,” but David was just as terrified when it was suggested that he might go to an ordinary school. It was not entirely clear why he had this attitude. David and Roger had only lived in the vast gloomy house for a few weeks when the show started. Roger openly hated David, as did Liz’ daughter Carolyn. Liz loved him, but as a recluse and an aging grande dame had little in common with a young boy. Moreover, David hated his governess, the well-meaning Vicki, as much as he could hate any school. His mother, who did not live in the house and whose name was in those days was never to be mentioned there, was the only person for whom David expressed fondness; when in #15 David watched Roger drive off in the car whose brakes he had sabotaged, we saw him standing by himself, saying “He’s going to die, mother. He’s going to die!” So it is difficult to see why David was so intensely committed to staying at Collinwood.
Today, we see a suggestion that David may have been influenced by an ancestral memory of bad times at a boarding school. It is 1897, and David’s grandfather Jamison Collins (David Henesy) is twelve. Jamison’s father Edward (Louis Edmonds) has asked the Rev’d Mr Gregory Trask to come to Collinwood to urge his sister, Judith Collins (Joan Bennett,) to send Jamison and his nine-year old sister Nora to be students at Worthington Hall, a boarding school Trask runs. As the house’s owner and holder of all the family’s wealth, it is up to Judith to make the decision.
Trask wins Judith’s confidence by performing a ceremony after which Jamison and her brother, Jamison’s uncle Quentin, are restored to themselves after a spell that had made Quentin a zombie and put his spirit in possession of Jamison. Recently arrived, thoroughly mysterious distant cousin Barnabas Collins sputters with rage at the very sight of Trask, and exasperates Judith with his insistence that Trask is evil. Judith does not trust Barnabas, and Barnabas’ inability to either explain or contain his hostility only confirms her favorable judgment of Trask.
Once Quentin and Jamison are themselves again, Trask sends Barnabas and Quentin out of the drawing room. Quentin raises his eyebrows in response to Trask’s order and asks his sister “Are you sure you’re still in charge of this house, Judith?” She does not respond.
Judith makes a remark about Quentin’s influence on Jamison, saying that “He’s been like this ever since [Quentin] came home.” Since Jamison was just freed from possession a few minutes before, it is unclear what she could mean, and Jamison objects “That’s not true!” Trask unctuously replies “Now, your aunt does not tell lies, Jamison.” Returning viewers know that Judith lies constantly. Nor is Trask unaware that Judith is less than perfectly truthful. When he first arrived in Friday’s episode, Judith and Barnabas tried to conceal the situation with Quentin and Jamison from him, and she told a series of lies in pursuit of that objective.
When Jamison continues his attempts to tell the truth, Trask silences him with “Now, there is only one who is constantly right, Jamison, and He is not on this earth, but above. Now, I want you to go out into the hall and consider all the wonderful things your aunt has done for you recently. I am sure you will have much to think about.” Jerry Lacy brings such an inflexible authority to Trask’s personality that we cannot imagine a rebuttal to this sanctimonious little speech. We share Jamison’s helplessness and frustration.
Alone with Trask, Judith agrees to let him take Jamison and Nora to Worthington Hall. Jamison barges back in and declares that he will not go. Trask assures him that he will not take him unless he is willing to go. He then obtains Judith’s permission to talk with Jamison alone in his room.
While Jamison is taking Trask upstairs, we cut to the study. Quentin and Barnabas are alone there. Quentin asks Barnabas if Trask really was his “savior.” Barnabas replies “Apparently.” Quentin asks Barnabas what he thinks really happened; he sidesteps the question. Quentin keeps probing for Barnabas’ interpretation of his recent experience; Barnabas alludes to Quentin’s adventures in Satanism, saying “You dabble in odd things, perhaps one of your interests resulted in this.” Quentin observes that this is “Delicately put,” and goes on to remark on “what an interesting life” he has had.
Barnabas then takes his turn as the questioner. He asks Quentin about his wife, a tall, beautiful, homicidally crazed woman named Jenny who is being held prisoner somewhere in the house. Quentin grows tense, and does not give direct answers. He explodes at Barnabas, saying that he has no interest in making a friend of him. Barnabas observes that he has in fact made an effort to turn him into an enemy; Quentin interjects “Your fault!” Barnabas says they could be useful to each other; Quentin exclaims “Wrong!” When he thinks of Barnabas, Quentin says, only one question comes to mind- “What does he want from me?”
Jonathan Frid said that his favorite scene in Dark Shadows was one he had with Anthony George in #301. Barnabas tells local man Burke Devlin that their relationship to each other is like that of “two superb swordsmen with highly sharpened blades. You thrust, and I parry. I thrust, you parry.” That scene has never impressed me. The Barnabas/ Burke conflict did not have enough grounding in the story to come to life, and having the characters tell the audience that they were like “superb swordsmen” does not make it so. But this showdown really does pay off. Barnabas and Quentin are the show’s two great breakout stars, and we are in the middle of a long run of episodes where everything works. This scene brings out all the values they might have hoped that Burke and Barnabas’ confrontation would put on screen when they planned it.
We return to Jamison’s room, the same bedroom David Collins occupied in the 1960s. Trask is still being friendly. When Jamison says that he would miss his pony if he had to go away to Worthington Hall, Trask says “You must bring him with you!” When Jamison refuses to tell Trask his pony’s name, the friendliness vanishes. Trask darkens, tells him “You’re going to have to learn to answer questions, boy,” and insists they pray together. When Jamison resists, Trask tells him that he must change his ways lest he go on being a disappointment to his father. Jamison protests that his father loves him, and Trask asks incredulously “Does he?” He asks Jamison if he wants his soul to be saved. Jamison can’t very well say anything but yes to that, and so Trask says “Then I think I can help you.” Jamison is trapped.
After a scene in the drawing room where Quentin demands Judith tell him where Jenny is locked up, we return to Jamison’s room. The scene begins with a closeup of the rope belt of Jamison’s robe. Jamison is retying it. He keeps fiddling with it, perhaps a nervous habit, but it is the first thing we see and they hold the shot for a long time. We cannot but wonder whether the belt was untied at some point while Jamison and Trask were alone off camera.
Jamison fiddles with his belt.
Trask orders Jamison to tell Judith that he wants to go to Worthington Hall; Jamison says he will not. The dialogue does not explain how Jamison’s robe came undone, and neither he nor Trask seems concerned with the matter. Their blasé attitude turns an uncomfortable image into a lingering mystery.
In the drawing room, Trask announces to Judith that Jamison has something to say. Jamison says that Trask threatened him and tried to make him lie. Trask says that Judith will have to find another school for him, and she declares that she will not. Jamison will go to Worthington Hall.
Trask exits. Jamison finds Quentin and asks him to help him escape the grim fate in store for him. Quentin promises to do so, and by the end of the episode Jamison will be safely hidden somewhere in the house. Meanwhile, Barnabas throws a fit before Judith, saying that he cannot understand why “You would believe that maniac before you believe Jamison.” Judith scolds him and tells him to treat Trask with respect.
Trask returns. Barnabas asks him if his family is from Salem, Massachusetts. Trask affirms that it is so. Barnabas claims to have seen ink drawings of a Rev’d Trask who was at Collinwood in the 1790s; Trask says that he was his ancestor. He says that the earlier Rev’d Trask disappeared shortly after leaving Collinwood, and that his disappearance was never explained.
Longtime viewers know that Barnabas is a vampire who lived in the 1790s, and that the original Trask is one of those he blames for the many misfortunes that befell the family in those days, including his own transformation into a bloodsucking abomination. We remember the first Trask as a case study of a type much on people’s minds in the 1960s, Eric Hoffer’s “True Believer.” That Trask was so deeply and unshakably convinced of his own understanding of the situation around him that when he set out on a witch hunt, the real witch was easily able to manipulate him into doing her work for her. Barnabas murdered the original Trask in #442 by bricking him up in an alcove, one of the most famous moments in all of Dark Shadows. He seems pleased to hear that people are still wondering what became of the late witchfinder.
Gregory Trask seems to be a different sort. He can change his tune in a way that his forebear never could, putting on a friendly mask when it serves his interests to do so. While the original Trask was single-mindedly trying to live up to his own twisted idea of virtue, the second sometimes responds to bad news with a delighted grin, suggesting that he sees an opportunity to profit from it. The first Trask’s fanaticism sometimes led him to hypocrisy, when he thought that his ends were so good that they justified dishonest means, but this Trask seems to be a hypocrite who has kidded himself into acting like a fanatic. Mr Lacy’s performance makes him a formidable presence; the writers have made him a powerful adversary.
In April 1967, Barnabas Collins showed up at the great house of Collinwood, home of Elizabeth Collins Stoddard and her family. Liz (Joan Bennett) was isolated, embattled, and under the control of a blackmailer. When a courtly gentleman claiming to be a distant cousin from England showed up, apparently wanting nothing from her but her friendship, she quickly accepted him, even giving him the Old House on the estate to live in. As Barnabas’ eccentricities became ever more difficult to ignore and bizarre and terrible events piled up around him, Liz steadfastly refused to entertain the idea that Barnabas might be anything less than perfectly trustworthy. Since Barnabas was in fact a vampire escaped from his grave to prey upon the living, this refusal tended to push Liz further and further to the fringes of the story.
Now Barnabas has traveled back in time to the year 1897. Joan Bennett again plays the mistress of Collinwood. Like Liz, spinster Judith Collins has agreed to let Barnabas stay in the Old House and do some work on it, presumably at his own expense. Unlike her, Judith is not desperate for friendship, and she is not at all sure Barnabas is someone she should trust.
Today, Joan Bennett is in closeup while a recorded monologue in her voice tells us what Judith thinks of Barnabas:
What is happening to all of us? Until Barnabas arrived, everything seemed the same. But what has Barnabas to do with it? Something, something, I’m sure. He knows too much, he’s involved himself so quickly, as if he were the center of it.
Had Liz ever thought in those terms for one second, Barnabas would have been exposed and destroyed and Dark Shadows would have gone back to telling stories about the Collins family cannery. But 1897 is a more dynamic setting, in which no one has much time to wonder where Barnabas goes during the daylight hours or why he keeps his cellar door locked.
Today’s great crisis concerns Judith’s brother Quentin and her twelve year old nephew Jamison. Quentin died the other day, which you might expect to mark an ending of sorts. But as it happens, his body is roaming about as a zombie and his spirit has taken possession of Jamison. Yesterday Judith permitted Barnabas to do some mumbo-jumbo that lured Quentin back to his coffin, and, with the help of Judith’s surviving brother Carl, Barnabas buried Quentin and filled the grave with cement. But before the episode was over, Quentin had made his way out of the ground and abducted governess Rachel Drummond. For his part, Jamison is still possessed.
Today, Barnabas announces to Judith that she must let him take Jamison to Quentin’s grave, where he will perform another ceremony. Judith is appalled, as one might expect her to be, but yields to him. By the time Barnabas and Jamison come back to the great house, Judith is entertaining a visitor. He is the Rev’d Mr Gregory Trask.
When longtime viewers see Jerry Lacy wearing a cassock, they will expect to hear Trask’s name and title. Mr Lacy played another Rev’d Trask from December 1967 to March 1968, when Dark Shadows was set in the 1790s, the period when Barnabas first became a vampire. That Trask was a fanatical witchfinder whose zeal was matched only by his ineptitude. Wicked witch Angelique was able to manipulate Trask for her own purposes, and he earned Barnabas’ most cordial hatred.
When Barnabas sees Gregory Trask, he blurts out his surname. Puzzled, Trask asks if they have met. Barnabas does not answer, but immediately begins to display his hostility towards the newcomer. Barnabas is a poor tactician who has a habit of volunteering to his enemies exactly what he thinks of them. His interactions with the first Trask were a case in point, and we see him falling into the same pattern with this second.
Trask has come to Collinwood at the invitation of Judith’s brother Edward, father of Jamison and of nine year old Nora. Just four weeks ago Edward brought Rachel to the great house to be Nora and Jamison’s governess; last we saw, in #715, Edward was optimistic Rachel would work out well in her position. But now he has called Trask to come and take the children away to a school he operates, eliminating the need for a governess.
With Quentin lumbering around the house and Jamison spouting off about his possession, Judith and Barnabas cannot keep Trask from figuring out what is going on. He sits Quentin in a chair, intimidates Jamison into kneeling, sends Barnabas and Judith out of the drawing room, and starts praying for help. When Barnabas tries to enter, Trask tells him he can do nothing but help the devil, and slams the doors in his face. Judith and Barnabas are left standing in the foyer, wondering what will happen.
Ethnic stereotype Magda Rákóczi is at home in the Old House on the great estate of Collinwood when Rachel Drummond, governess to the children in the great house on the same estate, comes to the door. Rachel says that the late Quentin Collins has risen from the dead and attacked her. Quentin was about to bury Rachel in his own disused grave when Magda’s husband Sandor showed up. Sandor fought Quentin, enabling Rachel to escape. Rachel cannot satisfactorily answer Magda’s questions about whether Sandor survived the fight, and Magda will not honestly answer Rachel’s questions about how Sandor knew to come to her aid.
Sandor makes his way back. Magda is overjoyed to see him and throws herself at him with undisguised affection. He responds with his usual grumpiness. At the end, she remembers that they are not alone, and she reverts to their usual form of pretend-quarreling. Their dialogue is great fun, and Grayson Hall and Thayer David make the most of every laugh line:
Sandor: Oh, shut up. I cannot hit you. My arm is too sore.
Magda: Oh, what a brave man you are.
Sandor: Yes.
Magda: What a brave man to fight a zombie, a brave, foolish man.
Rachel: He is a brave man. Thank you, Sandor.
Sandor: I don’t like to see a beautiful lady getting buried before her time.
Magda: But you could have been killed.
Sandor: Yes, that at least would have made you cry. Get me some hot water. My wrist is beginning to swell.
Magda: Oh, so now, I have to nurse you. It is better he should have finished you!
Sandor and Magda are the first happily married couple we have seen on Dark Shadows, and this scene shows them at their very happiest. It is not only a good bit of comedy, it is quite lovely.
Rachel is bookish and intellectually ambitious, very much the sort of young lady you might expect to find in charge of the education of the children in a wealthy family in the late Victorian age. She tells Sandor that she cannot accept that Quentin has risen from the dead and is roaming about as a zombie, even though she has encountered as much evidence of the fact as anyone could want. When Sandor urges Rachel to believe what she has seen, she asks what she will have to believe in next- “Ghosts? Witches? Werewolves?” Sandor affirms that he believes in all of those things, and Rachel replies that she cannot.
Well might Sandor believe in such beings. He is under the power of the new master of the Old House, Barnabas Collins, a vampire. Barnabas rises from his coffin in the basement at dusk, when Rachel is upstairs sleeping. Barnabas knows that Angelique, the same witch who made him into a vampire in the 1790s, is controlling Quentin and persecuting Rachel. When Quentin turns up in the basement, Barnabas remembers a ceremony he saw on Angelique’s home island of Martinique that reunited a zombie’s soul with his body and made him once more a living man. He sends Sandor to the attic to retrieve a packet of letters he wrote to his uncle Jeremiah in those days, describing the ceremony.
Jeremiah’s name will jolt longtime viewers. Angelique raised Jeremiah from his grave as a zombie in #393. Over the next five episodes he initially did Angelique’s bidding, then turned on her. They never did tell us that Jeremiah had returned to his grave, in spite of Angelique’s phenomenally vehement exhortations to him to do so. It’s too bad Barnabas didn’t remember these letters then, he might have been able to un-kill Jeremiah.
Or perhaps not. The ceremony is a total failure today, so maybe Barnabas just doesn’t have what it takes to reunite a soul with a body.
When Sandor and Quentin are fighting in the graveyard, we see a tombstone labeled “Laura Murdoch Radcliffe, born 1840.” The Oxford English Dictionary doesn’t have any examples of the phrase “Easter Egg” meaning hidden content of special interest to devotees until 1986, and for that matter this episode aired a few days before Easter began in 1969. So it is doubly premature to call this an Easter Egg. We learned in #181 that a woman named Laura Murdoch Radcliffe died (by fire!) in 1867, with her young son David in her arms; other Laura Murdochs have died that way in other years, and in #187 the residents of the great house decide that Laura Murdoch Collins is likely to take her own young son David to the same fate. The show has been dropping reminders of the Laura story lately, and any longtime viewers who can read this tombstone will appreciate the reference.
I suspect that the original audience for this particular Easter Egg was pretty nearly limited to the set decorators. The inscription is on screen for less than a second, and it is as clear as it is in the capture above for only a small fraction of that time. It’s hard to see even on a modern television; on a 1960s-vintage TV set tuned to an ABC affiliate, many of which had the worst reception in their markets, it must have been totally illegible to something like 99% of the audience. Moreover, it comes at the end of the fight scene, when most eyes were focused on Sandor’s falling figure. Not very many of the few thousand people who might have had a good enough picture to read the inscription would have been looking at it. And most of the audience who were tuning in at this point had joined the show after Barnabas was introduced, the month after Laura went up in smoke, her name unmentioned since. But in the age of streaming and DVDs, we can all appreciate the reference.
Dark Shadows Commentary 