Broad ethnic stereotypes Sandor and Magda Rákóczi are in the parlor of their home, the Old House on the great estate of Collinwood, quarreling about a locket. Shortly before, Magda found maidservant Beth Chavez and libertine Quentin Collins in the parlor, and she noticed Beth snatch a locket from a table and try to hide it. Beth claimed that the locket was hers, but Magda declared that it was not, and that she knew who it really belonged to. Now Beth and Quentin have left, Magda has the locket, and Sandor is pleading with Magda to stop trying to figure out what it means that the locket is in the house. “She is far away!” he protests.
Returning viewers know that the locket belongs to madwoman Jenny, Quentin’s estranged wife. Unlike Magda, we also know that Quentin’s brother and sister, with the assistance of Beth and another servant, have been keeping Jenny prisoner in a series of cells deep in the great house ever since Quentin left her the previous year. Yesterday Jenny had a strong reaction to Magda’s name, in the course of which she started muttering about Sandor as well, hinting that the Rákóczis are of some importance to Jenny.
Sandor and Magda hear a voice from an upstairs bedroom. They go there, and are astonished to find Jenny. They ask her where she went when Quentin left her; she denies that Quentin ever did leave her, and talks about being locked up in a room. It dawns on Magda and Sandor that the Collinses locked Jenny up in the house and have been keeping her there. Jenny angrily says that yesterday she was horrified when Sandor and Magda’s caravan pulled up at the home she and her husband share, and that she told them never to speak to her again; they tell her that happened years ago. She is shocked and disbelieving.
Jenny sneeringly calls Magda and Sandor “Gypsies.” Magda replies “You are a Gypsy, too.” Jenny replies that “What I was is not what I am.” After a few more moments, Magda and Jenny embrace and Magda calls her sister.
The revelation that Jenny is Magda’s sister is one of the most effective twists in the whole series. When Mrs Acilius and I first watched the show through, we were thunderstruck by it. The most amazing thing is that it makes so much sense we couldn’t believe we hadn’t figured it out. The Collinses have disdain for Jenny, not only because their black sheep brother brought her into the family, but also because she is of obscure birth. So when she became mentally ill, why didn’t they just ship her off to an institution and have done with it? The answer is racism. They are not simply embarrassed that Quentin chose an unsuitable wife; they are frozen with horror that a Romani person now bears their family name. They cannot take the chance that anyone, even the staff of a discreet, high-end sanitarium, will learn of this shame, and so they hide her away in their own house.
In #701, the first episode of the part of Dark Shadows set in the year 1897, it was established that Beth came to Collinwood as Jenny’s maid and that it is surprising she stayed after Jenny ceased to be a visible member of the family. In the same episode, Magda mentioned some Romani folklore to Beth, said, “But you wouldn’t know anything about that!,” and laughed tauntingly while Beth looked alarmed. The implication that Beth has been trying to conceal her own Romani heritage, combined with her association with Jenny, was something else we were surprised we didn’t pick up on the first time through the show. Perhaps that is because of the visuals. As Sandor and Magda, Thayer David and Grayson Hall wear heavy brownface makeup and dark curly wigs. As Beth, the tall, wasp-waisted Terrayne Crawford has her own light blonde hair, pale skin, and blue eyes. So it was easy to take Magda’s line as a reflection of something that was in the flimsies months before they cast the part of Beth Chavez with an obviously Anglo actress, and to assume that we would never hear of it again.
There are some flaws on screen today. Early on, Quentin walks in front of a green-screen with a picture of the Old House, and it is ludicrously fake even by the standards of special effects on Dark Shadows.
Later, there are three goofs in thirty seconds. Sandor leaves Magda alone in the room with Jenny. Jenny is supposed to slam a book down on Magda’s head to stun her, but we can clearly see that the book sweeps through a space several inches to Magda’s left. When Magda falls and Jenny runs out, Sandor isn’t supposed to see Jenny, but the two of them are on screen together and their shoulders actually brush against each other. Once downstairs, Jenny is supposed to try the front door, find it locked, and look for a hiding place. But when she touches the door, it opens, and she has to pull it shut before she can play her scene about being unable to get out.
Dark Shadows Commentary 