Yesterday, the “Phoenix” story had its climax. Today is taken up with the denouement of that story. Throughout the thirteen weeks of this arc, there has been so much recapping and re-recapping that a denouement may not seem necessary, but this is a satisfying episode.
We open in the woods, where well-meaning governess Vicki and strange and troubled boy David are running from the flames engulfing an old fishing shack in which David’s mother, blonde fire witch Laura, has tried to lure him to a fiery death. Laura did not burn, but disappeared amid the flames.
Vicki holds David by the hand. He is no longer under the trance in which his mother held him while they were in the shack, but neither is he clear in his mind. When Vicki tells him she is taking him home, he looks at the fire and exclaims “That is my home!”
Dashing action hero Burke comes tumbling out of the woods. Vicki tells him what happened. He wants to rescue Laura from the fire, and leaves Vicki no choice but to explain that she saw Laura simply vanish. David is standing by them when they have this conversation, but evidently does not hear it. He is quiet for a while, then looks at Burke and asks if what he sees burning is the fishing shack.
Back home in the great house of Collinwood, Vicki tucks David into bed. He asks her if the fishing shack burned. She says yes. He is dismayed- he had a lot of fishing equipment there. He then asks if his mother left. Vicki says yes. He talks about the situation with her for a while, finally saying that he might visit her sometime. Vicki tells him that he should know that his mother loves him.
Downstairs in the drawing room, Vicki tells Burke that David doesn’t seem to remember anything of his terrible experience. She hopes he never will.
David’s father, high-born ne’er-do-well Roger, comes home. He reacts to the sight of Burke with distaste, indicating that the hiatus in their feud while they were working together to protect David is now over. Roger is complaining that he was having a pleasant evening in town until he had to come home because of some foolish talk about a fire at Collinwood. Vicki asks Burke to leave the room so that she can talk to Roger privately.
Roger is thunderstruck by the news that Laura is no more. He is even more shocked to learn that Vicki had to struggle to keep David from joining Laura in the flames. “She wanted to kill him? She wanted him to burn?” “You saved him?” “What can I say?” For the whole of the series until the last few days, Roger has openly hated his son and wanted to be rid of him. Now that David has come so close to death, Roger has begun to understand what he has thrown away by refusing to love his son.
Roger goes up to David’s room. David wakes up. Roger says he didn’t mean to wake him. David is bright, cheerful, polite. He makes a comment about Roger’s grammar, then apologizes for correcting his elders. He asks Roger if he heard about the shack, and says he will miss his fishing gear. He mentions a particular pole that groundskeeper Matthew Morgan made for him a long time ago; David’s acquaintance with Matthew ended under circumstances scarcely less traumatic than what he went through in the fishing shack in yesterday’s episode, but his reference to Matthew is as chirpy and upbeat as is everything else he says. David keeps asking Roger why he came and what he wanted. Roger, who is supremely fluent when the conversation consists of sarcastic, belittling remarks, can barely complete a sentence. He can’t even maintain eye contact with David. He finally stumbles through something about how there are things that are hard to understand. It is a beautiful, terrible, wonderful little scene.
In a hospital room in Boston, reclusive matriarch Liz has emerged from the catatonic trance in which Laura trapped her five weeks ago. Liz’ daughter, flighty heiress Carolyn, is overjoyed at her mother’s apparently complete recovery.
Carolyn telephones Collinwood with the good news. Vicki tells her what happened in the fishing shack. It dawns on them that Liz emerged from her trance as the flames were surrounding Laura. They don’t know what we saw yesterday, that David began to break from the trance in which Laura held him when he heard the sound of Liz shouting in her hospital room almost 300 miles away. They do realize that Laura’s power was at the root of Liz’ troubles, even if they never find out that Liz was able to exercise some power of her own. Carolyn wonders if all the strange goings-on have really finished going on, if the residents of Collinwood are now free to live quiet, uneventful lives.
Disturbingly for fans of the show, they really are free, at least for the time being. Liz is antsy today when she asks if a stranger has gone through the basement of the house. Carolyn is at one with the audience in finding this question completely uninteresting, but Liz was obsessed with keeping people out of the basement in the early weeks of the show, and the unexplained reason for that obsession is the closest thing they have to an unresolved storyline. Roger and Burke’s mutual dislike also ties into some unanswered questions that no one who isn’t desperate for a cure to insomnia really wants to ask again. So it is not at all clear where the show is heading. They could just stop here, say “They all lived happily ever after,” and that would be fine. But they’ve sold ABC another 65 episodes, so some misfortunes have to turn up in the next couple of days.
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