We are in the fourteenth week of a story about the Leviathan People, a race of Elder Gods who are planning to retake the Earth from humankind. At first, old world gentleman Barnabas Collins was a zealous acolyte of the Leviathans and the faithful leader of a cult devoted to their service. The first chapter of the story came to an end when a shape-shifting monster from beyond space and time, the harbinger of the Leviathans’ return, ordered Barnabas to kill his best friend, mad scientist Julia Hoffman. Barnabas refused that order and became disaffected from the cult, held in line only by the Leviathans’ threats.
The shape-shifting monster has grown, and now spends most of his time as a young man whom everyone calls Jeb, despite his initial request to be called Jabe. Barnabas learned the other day that some of the threats the Leviathans had been making were empty, and so tried to smash a small wooden box that is important to them. Jabe stopped him, and punished the attempt by turning Barnabas back into what he was from the 1790s until 1968, a vampire.
Jabe’s home is a room above an antique shop owned by cultists Megan and Philip Todd. There is a lot of talk about this room as the only place where Jabe can change form. This is confusing to regular viewers. We saw him change from boy to girl while visiting the great house of Collinwood in #909, and in #946 and #947 he changed from his true, non-human, form into Jabe while at a house on an island many miles from the village of Collinsport. Today, Barnabas burns the antique shop down in order to destroy the room; Jabe says that he left the room through the window when the fire started, and changed from his true form into his human shape while outside. I keep trying to give them the benefit of the doubt about this, but at this point the whole theme of the “Chosen Room” falls apart completely.
Nonetheless, the antique shop sets and the troubled relationship between Philip and Megan have been signatures of the Leviathan story so far. Now the shop is gone, and Megan is gleeful that Philip is in jail, having confessed to three murders Jabe committed and unlikely ever to live with her again. So we can say that chapter two of the Leviathan story is over.
Barnabas’ re-vamping marks a transition in more than this storyline. He is the central character of the show and its main attraction; whether or not he is a vampire determines a great deal about what kind of show it is. You could periodize the show into segments depending on whether he is a vampire or not. I’ll risk a spoiler and tell you we have now begun a long segment of Barnabas-as-vampire.
Barnabas goes to the jail and has a conference with Philip. Jabe overtaxed Philip’s allegiance to the Leviathans, as he overtaxed Barnabas’. Philip has confessed to Jabe’s murders only because he loves Megan, believes she still loves him, and fears that if he does not do what Jabe commands he will kill Megan. Barnabas tells him that in fact Megan no longer cares about him at all, but is entirely devoted to Jabe.
In the real world, the state of Maine did away with capital punishment in 1887, a fact which applied to the universe of Dark Shadows in 1966. In #101, high-born ne’er-do-well Roger Collins disappointed his son, strange and troubled boy David, by mentioning it. But the prospect of a gallows is more melodramatic than is that of any prison sentence, however long, and so Philip announces that he is going to be hanged for Jabe’s murders.
Matriarch Elizabeth Collins Stoddard, owner of the great estate of Collinwood and of the businesses that employ most of the people in and around the village of Collinsport, is a devoted member of the Leviathan cult. Liz gives Jabe the carriage house on the estate to live in, telling him its back room will be suited to take the place of the now-destroyed Chosen Room. He tells her that Barnabas has betrayed the cult, but that she need not act against him yet. The carriage house was mentioned a few times in 1969, when Dark Shadows was a costume drama set in 1897 and the Collinses were still traveling by carriage. I believe this is our first confirmation that the carriage house still exists in the twentieth century.
Megan comes to visit Jabe at the carriage house. She is exultant that Philip is in jail. Jabe tells her he has no intention of resuming his true form; she is appalled. The plan has been that he will take Liz’ daughter Carolyn as his bride, and that she will then turn into the same kind of being he is. If he is going to be humanoid all the time, then he will just be taking Carolyn out on dates. Megan says that this was not the point. Jabe dismisses her objections, and tells her that their own relationship is different now than it was when he was first taking shape and she and Philip were his foster parents. He pulls her close to him and gives her a passionate kiss.
Jabe spent several weeks in the form of a succession of children. The children showed violent hostility towards Philip and remarkably little sense of boundaries in their relationship with Megan; the reference to the Freudian Oedipus complex was not subtle then, and the kiss he gives to Megan while he is setting Philip up for a judicial murder makes the connection explicit.
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