In #370, wicked witch Angelique cast a spell on her onetime lover, young gentleman Barnabas Collins. To her surprise, the spell seemed likely to kill him. It took her the bulk of #371 to figure out a way to undo it.
That was the first we learned that Angelique was a witch, and her ill-success left us wondering if it was her first time casting a spell. By now we have seen her cast several more, some quite powerful. It no longer seems likely that she is a novice conjuror.
Early in today’s episode, we learn that Angelique is aware of the limitations of her ability. Thinking about what she has planned for Barnabas, she tells herself that once she has cast her next spell, she won’t be able to stop its consequences even if she wants to. As the idea that she might be new to sorcery led us to wonder if she would at some point turn from her ways and try to make up for her misdeeds, so this line leads us to expect that she will eventually find herself regretting something she has done.
For most of its first 73 weeks, Dark Shadows kept falling into long stretches where only one storyline was going at a time. They are in danger of that now; we are in the middle of the third week of the trip back in time to 1795, and only Angelique has made anything happen. Today, they take a step to correct the situation.
Caddish naval officer Nathan Forbes brings some papers to kindly Jeremiah Collins, and asks if governess Victoria Winters is available for his attentions. Jeremiah says that she isn’t, and asks if he would “accept Millicent Collins as a substitute.” Millicent is Jeremiah’s second cousin, and she is a feather-headed germophobe. Nathan recoils at the suggestion, until Jeremiah mentions that Millicent is very, very rich. He then goes directly to her and starts wooing her with gusto.
Joel Crothers and Nancy Barrett play Nathan and Millicent. In 1966, the same two actors played hardworking young fisherman Joe and flighty heiress Carolyn. In those days, Joe and Carolyn were dating but would rather not be. They were stuck playing one pointless scene after another about how bored they were with each other. When shameless Nathan plies his mercenary charms upon muddled Millicent, we see how much fun Crothers and Miss Barrett could have when the script gave them something to work with. They are a joy to watch.
Meanwhile, Angelique is working to prevent Barnabas from marrying his fiancée Josette. To that end, she has cast a spell causing Josette and Jeremiah to conceive a mad passion for each other. Last night, Barnabas’ mother Naomi had a dream in which Jeremiah was kissing a woman who had a trident marked on her hand. Today, she tells Jeremiah about the dream. He affects unconcern.
Josette, Millicent, and Naomi are about to have a little tea party. Naomi says that her husband disapproves of tea on political grounds. “Joshua remembers the Revolution, and regards tea as a symbol of British authority.” This reminds us of #368/369, when Joshua told Josette’s aunt, the Countess DuPrés, that he was surprised she still chose to “affect a title,” since, as he proudly reminds her, “France has followed our example and become a republic.” After the countess has put him rather firmly in his place, Joshua seethes to Naomi about her snobbery, and loudly declares his belief that all men are equal. These statements mark Joshua as a supporter of Thomas Jefferson, and as an extraordinary hypocrite- we have seen that Joshua is a tyrant in his household and that he regards his servants as a rather noisy form of domesticated animal.
As Josette offers her a cup of tea, Naomi sees the trident mark on her hand. She exclaims “It’s you!” and dashes out.
Josette had never seen the mark before. She goes to her room and tries to wash it off her hand. Angelique enters; she is the countess’ maid, but she also seems to be the only servant the DuPrés family has brought to Collinwood, and she is the one who has been attending Josette. Josette has no idea she has anything to fear from Angelique; had Barnabas admitted to Josette that he had a brief affair with Angelique before he knew Josette was interested in him and that Angelique is angry he does not want to resume it, Josette might not place herself so completely in her hands. Angelique rubs away the mark, but no doubt also applies some further mumbo-jumbo to her in the process.
Josette is alone in her room when a knock comes at the door. It is Jeremiah. He has been struggling to keep himself from coming to her, but he cannot resist. She is more deeply under the spell than he is, and welcomes him. He tries to shake her out of her amorous state. Some think he overdoes it:
He tries to go, then turns and nearly kisses her.* Finally he manages to leave the room. He has resolved to stay away until Josette and Barnabas are safely married.
*There is some kissing earlier in the scene. I discussed Anthony George’s stupefyingly bad kissing in detail when he played Burke Devlin, fiancé of well-meaning governess Vicki. In his post about this episode on Dark Shadows Every Day, Danny Horn goes into depth about how George “sticks his face to” Kathryn Leigh Scott and makes “weird kissing motions” with “his big monkey lips.” He provides five screenshots to accompany his analysis of this “watershed moment in awkward affection.” I don’t see any need to add further comment on this matter.
The Countess DuPrés meets her brother, André DuPrés, Josette’s father, in the gazebo on the grounds of the great estate of Collinwood. She starts talking to André about evil powers at work in the house, and he tells her to stop wasting his time with her mumbo-jumbo. She tells him that she is not talking about something she learned by studying her tarot cards. She was hiding in the bushes next to the gazebo the night before, where she saw and heard a tryst between Josette and Jeremiah Collins, uncle of Josette’s fiancé Barnabas.
Since Josette is apparently in love with Barnabas, barely knows Jeremiah, and has always been a good girl, André finds this difficult to believe. The countess assures him it is so, and says that there is no sensible explanation but that Josette and Jeremiah are under a spell. André says that that isn’t a sensible explanation, either.
André goes back to the manor house. He confronts Jeremiah. The two of them do something virtually unprecedented on Dark Shadows– they address a problem directly in candid, rational conversation. In this narrative universe, that qualifies as a plan “so crazy that it just might work!” And, apparently, it does- Jeremiah apologizes for his behavior, admits that he himself is unable to explain what came over him, and promises that he and Josette will never again be alone together. That satisfies André.
The first and last intelligent conversation ever to take place on Dark Shadows. Screenshot by Dark Shadows Before I Die.
Later, the countess is in the front parlor with the lady of the house, the alcoholic Naomi Collins. The countess tries to interest Naomi in the tarot. She deals a twelve card layout, and is horrified by what she sees. She tells Naomi that the card signifying the Lovers is inverted, that Death is near them, etc. She talks about a force of evil at work in the house, and asks about well-meaning governess Vicki. We can see why a sensible adult like André was reluctant to listen to his sister in the opening scene, but we also know that Dark Shadows is the sort of show where things like this are reliable guides to upcoming story beats.
After dealing with the countess, Naomi needs some sleep. She doesn’t get much, though. She dreams of a giant tarot card floating up from the foot of her bed. It is unclear whether she is awake or still dreaming when she rises from bed and follows the card. She sees Jeremiah walking past in the corridor outside her room. She follows him to the front parlor, and sees him locked in an embrace with a woman. She can see the woman’s arms caressing Jeremiah’s back and can hear her voice, but cannot see her face. She sees a simple trident shape on the woman’s hand. Jeremiah orders Naomi out of the room. Rather than comply, she grabs the woman’s arm. It comes off in Naomi’s hand, prompting her to scream.
The arm is so obviously made of plastic that we laughed out loud when it came off. I’m sure it looked less bad on the average TV set in 1967, at least in areas where ABC was on a station that didn’t come in particularly well, which was most of them.
The woman’s voice Naomi hears sounds like that of Kathryn Leigh Scott, who plays Josette; it also sounds like it is playing on a record. The woman Jeremiah is kissing is Dorrie Kavanaugh. Kavanaugh stood in for Miss Scott in #224, #225/226, #238, and #240, and had a speaking part as Phyllis Wick in #365. Sad to say, this is Kavanaugh’s last appearance on Dark Shadows; her brief turn as Phyllis was sensational, I was disappointed not to see her again. Even sadder, she would die of cancer in 1983, at the age of 38.
Last night Josette DuPrés, fiancée of young gentleman Barnabas Collins, slipped into the bedroom of Barnabas’ uncle and best friend Jeremiah and propositioned him. This morning, Jeremiah thinks he must tell Barnabas that his intended is not the virtuous maiden he thought her to be.
Jeremiah finds Barnabas teaching kindly indentured servant Ben Stokes the alphabet. Ben marvels that children are able to learn something he finds so difficult. After struggling a while with the letter Q, Ben says he thinks it unlikely that he would ever say a word with a Q in it anyway. When Jeremiah says he has something important to discuss with Barnabas, Ben is excused from his lesson.
When Jeremiah sees how devoted Barnabas is to Josette, he can’t bring himself to break the bad news. He simply declares that no one must come between them. and Barnabas happily says that he is sure no one would want to do that.
Jeremiah sees Josette entering the house. She tries to hurry away, ashamed to face him, but he insists they go outside and talk. She swears that she has never before approached a man as she did him, that she is utterly mystified as to what came over her, and that rather than hurt Barnabas she would kill herself.
Josette’s aunt, the Countess Natalie DuPrés, is a house-guest at Collinwood. She meets Josette in the front parlor. She wonders why Josette has been out of the house and alone from dawn until after lunch. Josette will not explain, and when Barnabas enters she runs away and shuts herself in her room. The Countess tells Barnabas that Josette is suffering from the sort of jitters girls often have before they become brides, and insists he take her rather than Josette on a furniture-shopping expedition.
Josette, Barnabas, Jeremiah, and the Countess are all unaware of the true situation. The Countess’ maidservant, Angelique, is a witch who has cast a spell on Josette so that she will conceive a mad passion for Jeremiah. She has cast another spell on Ben to make him her henchman. Angelique’s plan was that after Josette threw herself at Jeremiah, Jeremiah would tell Barnabas of the advance and the wedding would be off. Angelique would then be in a position to renew the affair that she and Barnabas had before he became engaged to Josette, and she would end up as the new Mrs Collins.
When Ben reports to Angelique that Jeremiah could not bring himself to tell Barnabas what Josette had done, she is shocked. She comes up with another plan- she will make Jeremiah reciprocate Josette’s feelings. She orders Ben to pour a love potion into the hot toddy he serves Jeremiah at night.
The other day, Angelique had Ben put a sleeping potion into Jeremiah’s hot toddy while he was in his room getting ready for bed. This time, Jeremiah is in the front parlor with Barnabas and the Countess. That makes for a more complicated scene, as Ben has to slip the potion in when none of the three are looking. Moreover, at one point the Countess asks for a drink other than sherry, and at another she urges Barnabas to have a drink. Since Jeremiah has asked for a smaller drink than usual, it seems possible at both of these moments that he might give the hot toddy away, foiling Angelique’s plan. It is all very well handled, and of course it ends with Jeremiah taking the drink and falling into the trap.
The Countess is still playing cards in the front parlor when everyone else is in bed. She sees Josette coming downstairs. Her niece tells her she can’t sleep and is going for a walk. The Countess offers to go with her, an offer Josette firmly declines.
We cut to a new set, a gazebo on the grounds of the estate. Jeremiah is there. He tells Josette that he was compelled to go there, he knew not why, but that some time ago he realized he was waiting for her. Josette says she was compelled to come also. They profess their love for each other and kiss. We turn to the bushes, and see the horrified face of the Countess watching their ominous embrace.
No two performers did more to pioneer what would become the Dark Shadows house style of acting than Thayer David and Lara Parker. When David first appeared as gruff groundskeeper Matthew Morgan in #38, he stood out in a cast of theater actors who tended to play their parts somewhat larger than life by his exceptional intensity. In the 1795 period piece, he brings the same quality to his portrayal of kindly indentured servant Ben Stokes. As wicked witch Angelique, Parker is the first member of the cast to find a kind of ferocity that outdoes even David. Today, the two of them are the main characters in the episode, yet each shows great restraint and understatement. Their performances are admirably precise.
Angelique is maidservant to Countess Natalie DuPrés, a French lady who took her to the island of Martinique when she fled the Revolution. The countess hasn’t been much in evidence, so that Angelique spends most of her time working for her niece Josette, fiancée of young gentleman Barnabas Collins. Before Barnabas and Josette became a couple, he had a brief affair with Angelique, to which Angelique attached great importance. When she finds that Barnabas does not love her and cares only for Josette, she sets about casting spells to ruin their happiness.
Today, Josette opens a gift box to find a skull wearing a wig. She is altogether undone by this. Barnabas confronts Angelique about it. While he does not seem to have any idea that Angelique is a witch, he is sure she is responsible for the nasty surprise. She denies everything, and he has no evidence against her.
Ben had tried to tell Barnabas and Josette about Angelique, but being under her power, he cannot. But Barnabas could tell Josette the truth about his past with Angelique. Because he does not, she goes on trusting Angelique, giving her full access to her things and to her person, enabling her to cast whatever spell she wishes. Had Barnabas trusted Josette with the truth, they might have been able to fight Angelique. Because he insists on hiding it from her, they are utterly helpless and will lose absolutely everything.
When Dark Shadows started, the 1960s version of the Collins family was isolated from the community, unable to make anything happen, and vulnerable to a wide variety of enemies, all because matriarch Liz and her brother Roger clung desperately to shameful secrets. When those secrets came to light, they lost nothing and found themselves with a new freedom. Now, in 1795, the Collinses are the lords of the town, running a dynamic business, and apparently unassailable in their wealth and prestige. But in Barnabas’ failure to come clean with Josette, we see the beginning of the process that will lead them to the precarious state in which they are trapped in 1966.
Today, Angelique completes a spell that causes Josette to conceive a mad passion for Barnabas’ uncle and best friend Jeremiah. After Josette sneaks into Jeremiah’s room and makes a fool of herself by propositioning him, she runs back to her own room and sobs on the bed. Angelique is there, feigning puzzlement and sympathy, quietly accepting the young mistress’ refusal to tell her what is wrong.
This is the first episode of the 1795 segment not to include time-traveling governess Vicki. While actors Kathryn Leigh Scott, Thayer David, and Anthony George all appeared in the main time frame (debuting in episodes #1, #38, and #262, respectively,) only Jonathan Frid, as Barnabas, is playing a character we had met there. There’s a heavy-handed moment of self-reference today when Josette tells Barnabas that sometimes he is “too modern,” and he thinks about it during a close-up. That close-up goes on so very long that there is no doubt they are giving us reading instructions, telling us that Barnabas, rather than Vicki, is now our point of view character.
Rich young gentleman Barnabas Collins is having trouble breathing, and the doctor thinks he may die at any moment. The source of Barnabas’ ailment is a spell cast on him by wicked witch Angelique. Angelique panics when she hears that Barnabas may die, and spends almost the whole episode figuring out how to undo the spell.
Angelique scrambles desperately to correct her error before it is too late. Screenshot by Dark Shadows Before I Die.
We only learned on Friday that Angelique was a witch. Her trouble today makes us wonder how long she’s been at it. For all we know this might be the first spell she has ever cast, and that’s why she bungled it so badly. That in turn leads us to wonder how big a part of her character witchcraft will turn out to be. If she hasn’t been involved with it for very long, maybe she’ll swear off black magic soon and become a different sort of person. We do expect that she will have something to do with whatever it is that is about to turn Barnabas into a vampire, but maybe that will be an accident of some kind, or maybe she will be on the side of good, trying to stop it, by the time that ultimate disaster happens.
On Wednesday, we met a new arrival from Paris by way of the island of Martinique. She is Angelique, maidservant to the Countess DuPrés and onetime bedfellow of rich young gentleman Barnabas Collins. Barnabas is engaged to marry the countess’ niece Josette, and is anxious to keep Angelique in the background. Angelique does not share either of Barnabas’ goals.
At rise, Angelique meets Barnabas’ uncle Jeremiah in the front parlor of the manor house of Collinwood. She has found a toy soldier and asks Jeremiah about it. When he identifies it as one of the toys Barnabas was most fond of in his boyhood, he volunteers to take it to the playroom himself. She asks to keep it for a while, so that she can study its workmanship. He doesn’t object, and exits. Once she is alone in the parlor, Angelique starts talking to herself. She says that she will use it to cause Barnabas unimaginable pain. This is the first direct suggestion we have seen that Angelique is involved in witchcraft.
Time-traveling governess Vicki enters. She tells Angelique that they should be friends, because they are both servants in the house, and it is a foreign setting to both of them. Angelique asks what Vicki means by describing herself as foreign, since she is an American. Vicki realizes that she can’t tell someone she has just met that she is a time traveler thrust here from 1967 by the ghost of the little girl she is supposed to be educating, and so she mutters something about how Angelique wouldn’t understand. After they part, we hear Angelique musing that Vicki has no idea what she understands. At no point does Angelique show any interest whatever in becoming friends with Vicki.
Later, we see Angelique alone in her room with the toy soldier and Barnabas’ handkerchief. She is talking to herself about her evil plans again when she is interrupted by a knock at the door. She hides the things and answers it. Barnabas enters.
Barnabas renews the effort he made at the end of Wednesday’s episode to friendzone Angelique. Again, she isn’t having it. After he leaves, she takes the soldier and the handkerchief back out and tells them that she has decided to wait for Josette’s arrival to enact her revenge on Barnabas.
She won’t have to wait long. Josette’s father, André, is entering the parlor, grumbling about the lack of servants at Collinwood. He beckons his daughter, and she follows him into the house. She is played by Kathryn Leigh Scott.
A major cast member of the parts of Dark Shadows set in the 1960s as Maggie Evans, The Nicest Girl in Town, Miss Scott has played Josette’s ghost more than once. She created the part in #70, when she was the shimmery figure who emerged from Josette’s portrait in the very house we are in today and danced among its pillars. She reprised the part in #126, again in this house, when Josette led the other ghosts in rescuing Vicki from crazed handyman Matthew Morgan. For some months Barnabas, who is in 1967 a vampire, held Maggie prisoner here and tried to replace her personality with that of Josette. Barnabas often seemed convinced that Maggie really was Josette, and when strange and troubled boy David saw Maggie wearing Josette’s dress in #240 he said that her face was “exactly the same” as it was on the many occasions when he had seen Josette’s ghost.
Barnabas’ plan to Josettify Maggie is drawn from the 1932 film The Mummy, in which the undead Imhotep (Boris Karloff) is released from his tomb, holds Helen Grosvenor (Zita Johanns) prisoner, and tries to replace Helen’s personality with that of his lost love Princess Ankh-Esen-Amun. In that movie, there is a flashback to ancient Egypt, where we see that Zita Johanns also plays Ankh-Esen-Amun and we realize that Imhotep’s crazy plan was rooted in some supernatural connection between the two women. The connection between Josette and Maggie has been equivocal until now- Miss Scott was always veiled when she played Josette’s ghost, and stand-in Dorrie Kavanuagh was the one wearing the dress in #240. Moreover, after Maggie got away in #260, Barnabas soon turned his attentions to Vicki, and decided he would try the same gimmick with her. But now we see that Barnabas really was onto something with regard to Maggie, and we wonder where it will lead. I remember the first time we watched the show, my wife, Mrs Acilius, reacted with great excitement to Josette’s entrance in this episode and exclaimed “Of course! Maggie is Josette!”
Vicki spent the first three days of this week telling the actors what parts they played in the first 73 weeks of Dark Shadows, an annoying habit. But there is a reason for it. She knew Barnabas and Sarah as supernatural beings in 1967, so she will recognize them as the same people here. And Josette’s looks reveal her connection to Vicki’s friend Maggie, so she will recognize that. Since only Angelique, of the characters we have met so far in 1795, is played by someone who did not appear previously, the writers are in a difficult position with regard to all of the other members of the company.
I wish they had solved that problem by having Vicki show up in 1795 unable to speak. The suggestion I made in my post about #366 is that she could have materialized in the midst of the accident that upset the carriage bringing the original governess, Phyllis Wick.* Vicki could have sustained a slight injury that left her mute for a week or so, could have had voiceover monologues registering her recognitions of Barnabas, Sarah, and Josette/ Maggie, and would not have had audible monologues when she saw the others. By the time she could talk again, Vicki would know that she was supposed to pretend to be Phyllis Wick.
Clearly Vicki is supposed to get into some kind of trouble in 1795; she is still the heroine, and the first rule of all soap operas is that the heroine must always be in danger. But she is supposed to be seeing the events that started the phase of the Collins family curse that involves Barnabas’ vampirism, and those events did not involve a governess who went around calling people by the wrong names and blurting out information she learned from reading the Collins family history. The logic of the plot requires that whatever trouble Vicki gets into is more or less the same trouble Phyllis Wick would have got into, and the appeal of the character requires that the audience watch to see what kind of con artist Vicki might turn out to be. Both of those imperatives demand that she try to masquerade as Phyllis.
Vicki does manage to keep herself from telling André and Josette that they are being played by the actors who took the parts of Sam and Maggie Evans in other parts of Dark Shadows. She can’t help staring at Josette, however. Josette is quite cheerful when she asks Vicki why she is staring; André, a more conventional aristocrat than his relaxed daughter, is visibly annoyed with Vicki’s impertinence.
There was an opportunity here for Vicki to show some quick thinking. She could have told Josette that Barnabas has gone on at length about her appearance, and that she is amazed at the accuracy of his descriptions. That would have endeared her to Josette as the bearer of the message that her fiancé is very much in love with her, and would have reassured her that, while Vicki is an attractive young woman who lives under Barnabas’ roof, she is not a rival for his affections. As it is, Vicki just mumbles something about not having known she was staring.
Angelique enters. She and Josette rush into each other’s arms and speak French. Miss Scott tells a funny story about that moment. She and Lara Parker had talked about the script and agreed that two Frenchwomen excited to see each other after a long separation ought to greet each other in French, and they persuaded the producer of their point. Only when they got the revised script with the dialogue in French did it dawn on them that neither of them could speak the language. Fortunately, several other members of the cast were fluent in it, and coached them through.
We can see that Josette really regards Angelique as a friend. Viewers who have been with the show from the beginning will remember Josette’s ghost as a powerful and stalwart force for good, and will also know that Maggie is The Nicest Girl in Town. So whatever grievance Angelique may have against Barnabas, and however unjust may be the social system that has exalted Josette and subordinated Angelique, when we see Angelique faking friendship for Josette while planning to make her watch her lover suffer, we know that she is really evil.
Barnabas enters. Josette tells him that her long, difficult journey was worthwhile now that she is with him. This is a very sharp retcon. In #345, mad scientist Julia Hoffman asked Barnabas if Josette ever came to him of her own free will, and he responded with a silent grimace that left no doubt as to the answer. Now, we see that she has gladly sailed from Martinique to central Maine in late autumn to be with him.
Barnabas and Josette are alone, and he wants to kiss her. She is bashful and says that their parents might be upset if they don’t wait for the wedding. He says they might pretend to be, but that in reality it is expected. That is a sweet little conversation, and it ends in a sweet little kiss.
Angelique is back in her room. She twists Barnabas’ handkerchief around the neck of his toy soldier.
The episode ends with Barnabas on the floor, apparently asphyxiating, while Josette looks on in horror.
Wednesday, Barnabas made it clear that he had his affair with Angelique because he didn’t think Josette could love him. That gives Angelique a perfectly understandable motive for seeking revenge on him. A rich man exploited his position to trifle with her, a servant, giving no thought to her feelings or interests.
The selfishness and entitlement Barnabas exhibited thereby is jarring in the mild-mannered, apparently egalitarian fellow we have seen so far this week, but it fits perfectly with his behavior as a vampire in 1967. Seen from another angle, his behavior is consistent with everything the Collinses have done to get themselves in trouble since we first met them. He was tempted to take advantage of Angelique because he had underestimated his own lovability and despaired of making a real connection with Josette.
Barnabas is still underestimating himself and Josette now. Never once does it occur to him to come clean to her about what he did with Angelique. While Josette would no doubt be saddened to learn that her beloved fiancé had dallied with her pet servant, as a rich French girl from Martinique she has after all lived her whole life among wealthy men surrounded by enslaved women, and so could hardly have been shocked by what Barnabas had done. Surely she would have decided to go ahead with the wedding, and she would have known to be wary of Angelique.
By failing to trust Josette with the truth about his misdeeds, Barnabas puts her and himself at Angelique’s mercy. We think of 1966, when matriarch Elizabeth Collins Stoddard and her brother, high-born ne’er-do-well Roger Collins, were both prisoners of shameful secrets they dared not share even with each other. In 1967, when those secrets were finally laid bare to the whole world, Liz and Roger found they were free to go on about their business as if nothing had happened. In Barnabas’ petrified silence, we see all of the shadows that have kept his relatives in darkness for so long.
*Whom Dorrie Kavanaugh played in her brief appearance at the end of #365.
In 1966 and 1967, supernatural menaces Laura Murdoch Collins and Barnabas Collins would often be seen staring out the windows of their houses on the great estate of Collinwood, sending psychic energy towards the targets of their sinister plans. In 1795, Barnabas is neither supernatural nor menacing, but we already see him peering out one of those windows. He is not projecting bad vibes into the world, but is worried about his beloved fiancée, Josette DuPrés. She is supposed to arrive soon, in fact was supposed to arrive some time ago. Now there is a storm, and he hopes she is not at sea.
The audience’s main point-of-view character in 1966 and for most of 1967 was well-meaning governess Vicki. Now Vicki has come unstuck in time, and found herself in this extended flashback to the eighteenth century. Since she will know Barnabas and regard him as a close friend in the 1960s, she is at her ease talking to him now. Although she is a member of the staff in his family’s house in a period when it was customary for masters to summon their servants with bells and communicate with them only in direct commands, Barnabas is a remarkably genial and democratic sort who welcomes her casual manner.
Vicki has already annoyed the audience several times by blurting out information that makes it obvious to the other characters that she does not belong in their world. She does that again in this scene. Barnabas is worried something may have happened to Josette, and Vicki tells him that she will arrive safely. He is surprised by the assurance with which she delivers this prediction, and asks if she is clairvoyant. She realizes that she has been indiscreet, and denies that she is. He is unconvinced.
Barnabas’ father, haughty overlord Joshua Collins, enters. He is appalled to find his son socializing with a servant. He dispatches Vicki to the nursery to look after her charge, his young daughter Sarah. He demands to know why Barnabas is not tending to his own duties at the family’s shipyard. They begin to quarrel, when a knock comes at the door.
Barnabas opens the door to find a woman named Angelique, whom he identifies as maid to Josette’s aunt, the Countess DuPrés. Angelique says that the countess was on her way to Collinwood, but that her carriage is stuck in the mud. Joshua orders Barnabas to send a footman to rescue her. Angelique is the first character we have met in 1795 who is not played by a performer we have seen in the first 73 weeks of the show.
Joshua goes to his wife, Naomi. Naomi is an alcoholic, a fact of which we are made aware because almost her every scene begins with a shot of her drinking alone. That’s what she is doing before Joshua finds her. He scolds her for her drinking; she complains that he doesn’t allow her to do anything else. She can’t even pass the time with a book- we saw Monday that Naomi is completely illiterate.
Naomi’s alcoholism is both a nod to the concern of first-wave feminism with the atrophy of the elite housewife, and a suggestive side-light on Barnabas as we knew him in the 1967 segment. Then, Barnabas abducted Maggie Evans, The Nicest Girl in Town, and tried by more or less magical means to replace her personality with that of Josette. For the first 40 weeks of Dark Shadows, Maggie’s father’s alcoholism had been a substantial story element, and she would always retain a number of classic Adult Child of an Alcoholic (ACoA, in the lingo of the recovery movement) characteristics, such as beginning utterances with a little laugh to prove that she is happy. Now that we know that Barnabas is also an ACoA, we can wonder if that shared experience was part of the reason he was drawn to Maggie.
The countess arrives. Since she is played by Grayson Hall, who also plays mad scientist Julia Hoffman in the parts of the show set in the 1960s, Vicki blurts out “Julia!” when she sees her. Hall had also been nominated for an Academy Award for her performance as Judith Fellowes in the 1964 film Night of the Iguana; if Vicki is going to keep the audience up to date on the cast’s resumes, it would have been more interesting if she’d exclaimed “Judith!” Vicki explains that the countess looks like someone she once knew who was named Julia, a remark which irritates the countess, who would like to think her appearance is distinctive. Vicki has certainly not made a favorable impression on this grand lady.
Joshua tells the countess he is surprised that “You still affect a title” when “France has followed our example and become a republic.” His pride in this development, after the Terror and in the bloodiest year of the wars in the Vendée, marks Joshua as a member of the Jeffersonian party in US politics. The Federalists and others had long since turned against the French Revolution by that year.
The countess tells Joshua that it is precisely because France has become a republic that she chooses to live on the island of Martinique. That answers a question that some fans ask about Angelique- why is she white? If the DuPrés family lives on Martinique and are major sugar planters there, they must hold a great many African people in slavery. When we hear that they are bringing a servant with them, we expect that servant to be Black. When we learn that the the countess is an emigré, we realize that she brought Angelique with her from France.
The countess may solve one puzzle for us in her exchange with Joshua, but she presents us with another. Josette’s father André is the countess’ brother, yet he is never referred to as a count. Indeed, when he appears, we will see him answer to “Mr DuPrés.” Perhaps he renounced his title, as many French aristocrats did during the Revolution.
Whatever the explanation, “DuPrés” would seem to represent a missed opportunity. When Josette was first mentioned, in the early months of Dark Shadows, her maiden name was given as “LaFrenière.” It would have been a nice touch to have kept that name for Josette and her father, and to have reserved “DuPrés” as the name of the countess’ late husband.
“LaFrenière” had been a perfect choice because of its class ambiguity for a show about an aristocratic family in the state of Maine- it was originally the family name of the barons of Fresnes, and could therefore be a sign of a senior order of nobility, but is also a very widespread name in Quebec. So “Josette LaFrenière” might either have been a French noblewoman who deigned to marry into the mercantile Collins family at the apex of their prestige, or a working class girl from the north who eloped with the boss’ son.
The choice of Martinique as Josette’s place of origin might add a new twist to this class ambiguity. The Empress Josephine grew up there as a member of the untitled but ancient Tascher family, who, like the fictional DuPrés family, owned an enormous sugar plantation on the island. The Taschers of Martinique went back and forth between Martinique and metropolitan France, and Josephine herself was living there in 1779 when she married her first husband, the Vicomte de Beauharnais. Josephine herself was in prison when the vicomte was guillotined in 1794, one of the last to die in the Reign of Terror, and she was freed just a few days later. The next year, she recovered her husband’s property, and a year after that married the young general Napoleon Bonaparte. It seems likely that the similarity between the names “Josephine” and “Josette” was writer Sam Hall’s inspiration for placing Josette’s origins on Martinique. Association with a figure who was at once a grand lady and an example of very steep upward social mobility could synthesize the two possible Josettes LaFrenière into a single figure.
Had they developed the story of the family’s relationship with the town of Collinsport more richly in Dark Shadows 1.0 and 2.0, they could have used this ambiguity to build up suspense that would be resolved today, in the third episode of Dark Shadows 3.0. Since they did so little with that theme in those days, when the story was moving very slowly and it would have been relatively easy to fit just about anything in, I suppose we shouldn’t be surprised that they drop it so completely at this period of the show, when the story is flowing at a breakneck speed.
The countess’ lofty aristocratic manner stings Joshua. Alone with Naomi, he loudly proclaims his belief that all men are equal. We already know enough about Joshua’s tyranny over his household that this absurd little speech must be an intentional spoof of the rich landowners who supported the Jeffersonian party in the early decades of the Republic. Again, this would be funnier and more poignant if the show had done more with social class in its first 73 weeks.
Barnabas sees the countess dealing out tarot cards. He tells her she is too sophisticated for them, and is reluctant to sit with her while she uses them to read his fortune. The moment she says that the cards suggest a connection between him and the concept of infinity, his skepticism evaporates instantly and he excitedly asks if that means he will live forever. The countess cautions that his jubilation at this idea may be misplaced. She notices the “Wicked Woman” card, and takes a significant look at Vicki. Evidently the audience is not alone in objecting to Vicki’s brainless nattering about what the show used to be like.*
Angelique comes to Barnabas’ room. It turns out the two of them had a brief affair when he was first on Martinique, and she expects to resume it. He is not at all pleased at her attentions.
Not how every man would react to a passionate embrace from Lara Parker… Screenshot by Dark Shadows Before I Die.
Barnabas explains that he was already falling in love with Josette when he and Angelique had their fling, but that he didn’t really know her. He couldn’t believe that she would reciprocate his feelings, and consoled himself by dallying with Angelique. This explanation goes over with her about as well as you’d expect, and she storms out of the room, vowing that she will get her way in the end.
We know that the tarot cards are giving accurate information, because the show leans heavily on the uncanny and they wouldn’t have spent so much time on a gimmick that wasn’t meant to advance the plot. We also know that Vicki is not the Wicked Woman the countess is looking for. That leaves Angelique, and we can assume that her wickedness will express itself in some supernatural action taken to avenge herself on Barnabas. Since we know that Barnabas will become a vampire, we wonder if it is Angelique who makes him one.
Closing Miscellany
I usually refer to surviving cast members with courtesy titles and to deceased ones by surname alone. So Alexandra Moltke Isles is “Mrs Isles,” which has been her professional name for 56 years, David Henesy is “Mr Henesy,” Nancy Barrett is “Miss Barrett,” etc, while Jonathan Frid, Joan Bennett, Louis Edmonds, and Grayson Hall are just “Frid,” “Bennett,” “Edmonds,” and “Hall.” Until last month, I’d been looking forward to saying lots of things about “Miss Parker” and her portrayal of Angelique, but Lara Parker died on 12 October 2023. So she’s just going to be “Parker,” and I’m going to be sad about it.
Artist Teri S. Wood has created a number of short animations about Angelique and Barnabas. This one is based on their two-scene at the end of today’s episode:
Patrick McCray has a post about this episode that mystifies me. He writes that “After seven months of hearing about Angelique, today, she enters. So, no pressure Lara. You only have to live up to a half year of build-up.” Uh, what? There has been absolutely no reference to Angelique on the show before today. I can think of an interpretation of the story that might retroject Angelique into episodes #211-365, and I will talk about it next week. But I don’t think it is an interpretation Patrick would favor.
He also talks about David Ball’s method of reading plays from the ending back to the beginning and then from the beginning forward, so that the ending comes to seem implicit in everything else. He allows that Dark Shadows has more than one ending, but I would say he doesn’t go far enough. I’d say the series has ten endings. The first came in #191, when Laura went up in smoke while her son David found refuge in Vicki’s arms. That ending defined Dark Shadows 1.0 as the story of David’s escape from his evil, undead mother Laura, and his adoption of Vicki as his new, life-affirming mother. The second came in #364, when Barnabas met the ghost of his little sister Sarah, she commanded him to be nice to the living, and he went right on with his murderous plans. That ending defined Dark Shadows 2.0 as the story of Barnabas’ irredeemable evil.
Two of the other endings will feature Angelique dying in Barnabas’ arms, and Patrick suggests that those make the whole show the story of their relationship. I don’t buy it at all. Each of the ten parts is about what it is about, and even those two episodes with Angelique dying derive more dramatic charge from other moments.
*Making connections with the first 73 weeks is my job!
Episode #359 included a recreation of a shot from #69, harking back to a long-forgotten storyline in which housekeeper Mrs Johnson was a secret agent spying on the ancient and esteemed Collins family for their arch-nemesis, Burke Devlin. In #69, Mrs Johnson followed Burke’s orders and eavesdropped on a conversation between him and blonde heiress Carolyn Collins Stoddard. In #359, Carolyn herself is a secret agent, spying on the household for vampire Barnabas Collins. She follows Barnabas’ orders to eavesdrop on a conversation between him and mad scientist Julia Hoffman. The reference showed just how drastically both Carolyn and the show itself had changed from week fourteen to week seventy-two.
The puzzle is why writer Sam Hall watched #69. He wasn’t connected to Dark Shadows in those days, and it would be very far down the list of episodes you would watch in an attempt to get up to speed on what was happening when he came aboard. That puzzle is solved today.
As Mrs Johnson, Clarice Blackburn had a big turn in #69. Angrily denouncing the Collinses, she twisted up her face in a lunatic expression and loudly declared “I believe in signs and omens!” She appeared as the sworn enemy of the people we have been following all along, and as someone who is superstitious even by the standards of the haunted house where most of the action takes place.
Today, we and well-meaning governess Victoria Winters have been transported back in time to 1795. Blackburn reappears in the role she will be playing in the segment of the show set in that year- Abigail Collins, unmarried sister of haughty overlord Joshua. Abigail is a Puritan busybody out of Nathaniel Hawthorne by way of The Crucible. She renews the promise of all the mischief we had hoped Mrs Johnson would make when we first met her, long ago.
Vicki wakes up in the manor house and sees Abigail. She thinks Abigail is Mrs Johnson and is relieved that she has awakened from a nightmare. Abigail quickly makes it clear that the year is still 1795, that she is not “the friendly housekeeper,” and that she finds everything about Vicki to be appalling. She loses no time in declaring that Vicki is possessed by the Devil. Vicki denies this, but does not convince Abigail.
When Abigail leaves Vicki’s room, she locks the door from the outside. The rooms in the servants’ quarters are surprisingly large and well-appointed for the 1790s, but when we see that they can double as jail cells it offsets the apparent luxury. Vicki escapes through the window.
The great house of Collinwood, where Vicki lives in 1967, is under construction, and she goes there. Danny Horn, on his Dark Shadows Every Day, often said that the real subject of the series was the house. This scene corroborates his interpretation. When the ghost of little Sarah Collins said she would tell “the story from the beginning,” she sent Vicki back to the time when the great house was being built.
Vicki finds a man in the foyer played by Anthony George. George had been the second actor to play the part of Burke. You might think her experience with Abigail would break Vicki of her habit of telling her cast-mates what characters they played in the 1960s part of the show, but no such luck. She reacts to George’s new character as if he were Burke. After a moment, she tells him that she can see he isn’t the same man. This is a riddle- if the characters played by the same actor look so much alike that it makes sense for Vicki to keep mistaking them for each other, what does she see in this Anthony George character that sets him apart from the other?
As it happens, George is playing Jeremiah Collins, builder of the great house and brother of Joshua. In #280, Barnabas had given a costume party and George’s Burke had attended it dressed as Jeremiah. Barnabas, a native of the late eighteenth century, had been thunderstruck by the sight of Burke in that costume, unable to do anything but say “Jeremiah!” and glare at him. So there is a strong resemblance, perhaps suggestive of some spiritual linkage between the two men. Vicki’s constant confusion of the actors with their roles indicates that such linkages are to be found throughout the cast. Having her babble about the resemblances out loud so frequently is the most annoying possible way to make this point. If Barnabas had kept mistaking the 1960s characters for their 1790s counterparts, it’s hard to imagine that they would have accepted him and certain that the audience would not have.
Vicki tells Jeremiah that Abigail thinks she is a witch. Jeremiah makes it clear that he finds Abigail’s hostility to be a strong recommendation, and the fact that Sarah is a fan of Vicki’s clinches the deal. He takes her back to the main house.
Once Vicki is back in her room, Jeremiah brings her 1967 clothes. He asks her why she wants them so much, telling her that they will bring nothing but trouble if they are found. She tells him that she will need them when she gets home. Combined with her habit of blurting out remarks that could only strike people in the 1790s as bizarre, Vicki’s attachment to her belongings from her own time suggests that she will very soon find herself in huge trouble. That’s unwelcome- this voyage to the past is shaping up to be interesting, and it would be nice to stay here long enough to get to know all of the characters. If Vicki keeps acting like this, she’ll get herself kicked out of 1795 and drag us back to the 1960s before Dark Shadows has had a chance to show us what they can do with a period piece.
Vicki tells Jeremiah that she has amnesia about her life until her arrival at Collinwood the day before. He tells her that she will have to make up a better story than that. She is shocked that he is telling her to lie, and he says that she will never find a place in the world if she doesn’t.
When Barnabas left 1795 and showed up in 1967, we didn’t see anyone patiently explaining to him that he would have to conceal his true identity and maintain a convincing cover story. He had figured that out by the time we met him. Most of the time he was on screen in those first months, he was trying to play the role of a modern man, a distant cousin from England whom the Collinses had forgotten about. It was fascinating to watch him essay that part. Occasionally he would stumble and blurt out information only someone from an earlier century would know; Vicki caught him doing that more than once, most notably in #233, when it seems for a moment that he might be thinking of killing her to cover his indiscretion. Other times he would face questions he couldn’t answer, and we would wonder what he would set in motion with his attempts to evade them. Quite frequently actor Jonathan Frid would have trouble with Barnabas’ lines, and it would seem that Barnabas, not he, was the one groping for words. When we first realized yesterday that Vicki was taking Barnabas’ journey in reverse, we might have hoped that it would be as interesting to watch her trying to pass as a native of the eighteenth century as it was watching Barnabas trying to pass as a native of the twentieth. That hope took a beating before the day was done, and her conversation with Jeremiah reduces it to a still lower order of probability.
Downstairs, Abigail is telling Joshua and his wife Naomi that they ought to turn Vicki over to “the authorities.” Jeremiah opposes this plan. Naomi makes a great show of screwing up her courage and “for the first time” speaks out against Abigail’s ideas.
This is quite a reversal from what we saw in the part of the show set in the 1960s. Joan Bennett plays Naomi here and matriarch Elizabeth Collins Stoddard there; Louis Edmonds plays Joshua here and Liz’ brother Roger there. But where Joshua is an iron-willed, self-assured tyrant and Naomi his cowed and isolated dependent, Liz is the mistress of Collinwood and Roger a shameless, sybaritic wastrel who lives as a guest in her house and collects a salary from her business. We saw yesterday that Naomi is entirely illiterate; we see today that this inability, though it is an anachronism in a wealthy New England lady of the 1790s, is of a piece with her cramped position in the world. Not only is she supposed to obey her husband; she is supposed to defer to his sister, and is sidelined even in the management of her own household.
The show has been hinting heavily from the first episode that Vicki, played by Joan Bennett lookalike Alexandra Moltke Isles, is Liz’ unacknowledged daughter. It’s certainly no surprise when Liz goes out of her way to stick up for Vicki. Regular viewers, connecting Bennett’s two characters, may not be surprised that Naomi also takes Vicki’s side, but she doesn’t really have much reason within the story to do so. It might have been better if they had given the two of them more time together before this scene, and shown us why Naomi would be especially well-disposed towards Vicki.
Naomi carries her point, and Joshua offers Vicki a position as Sarah’s governess. Vicki is surprised when he asks if she can read; he says that “Many people can’t, these days,” a reference to yesterday’s demonstration of Naomi’s illiteracy. She is startled by his offer of four dollars a week; he angrily asserts he could get someone else for less, and she remembers herself sufficiently to agree that the pay is ample. Joshua is very much the haughty overlord, but he does have some closeups in which we see him looking vulnerable as he tries to figure out who Vicki is and why his wife and brother have taken her side against Abigail. It is a strong scene, and it raises our hopes that Joshua will make exciting things happen.
In 2021, I left a comment on Danny Horn’s blog post about episode 256. I found great significance in the introduction of the ghost of ten year old Sarah Collins:
I’d say Sarah’s introduction is the single most important moment in the whole show, more important than Barnabas coming out of the box, more important even than Barnabas’ first decision not to kill Julia.
From the beginning they’d been playing with the idea that there was another cast of characters hidden behind the characters we’ve been watching, supernatural characters who can make their influence felt at certain moments. The most prominent of these was the ghost of Josette. This ghost is a serene, distant, imperturbable. When her ghost and the ghosts of the widows rescue Vicki from Matthew in 126, there is an amused smile in Josette’s voice, the sound of someone for whom nothing very important is at stake in the affairs of this world.
When David sees Maggie in Josette’s clothes and mistakes her for the ghost of Josette in 240 and 241, it is clear that if the ghost of Josette returns, it will not be in that mode. After that sight, Josette’s ghost can return only as a terrifying spirit of vengeance. And David’s confrontation with Willie in 253 makes it clear that the protecting ghost will not return at all.
So the show has discarded the old supernatural realm of Josette and the widows, a realm that was, as you say, never more than slightly accessible. With Sarah’s appearance, we are introduced to an entirely new part of the show. Once again we have a set of characters hidden in the supernatural background, but they can interact with the characters from the main continuity more directly and at greater length than Josette and the widows ever could.
The puzzle of Sarah’s connection to Barnabas, and her talk about looking for the members of her family, indicates that this new order of supernatural beings have complex and unsettled relationships with each other, and that characters from the main continuity can have an influence on those relationships. We will have to figure those relationships out in the weeks and months to come, but as soon as Sarah demands Maggie not tell her big brother that she saw her, we know that they might come to enmesh the living beings. Every scene with Sarah, then, is a step leading directly to the time-travel and parallel universe storylines that will come to define the show.
By the end of last week, Dark Shadows had, for the second time in its 73 weeks on the air, run out of stories to tell. When Dark Shadows 1.0 ended with the disappearance of blonde fire witch Laura Murdoch Collins in #191 and #192, the way forward was clear- introduce another supernatural menace to succeed Laura. That came in the form of vampire Barnabas Collins. As people tuned in to see how a daily soap opera could fit a vampire into its pattern, Dark Shadows 2.0 became a bona fide hit and a major pop culture phenomenon.
The first version of the show came to an end because none of the non-Laura stories ever really took off and the only danger Laura presented was that she would incinerate her son David when she herself vanished in flames. Once that was prevented, her threat profile was closed and the show needed to start over.
The second version crackled along quite well for months. It’s true that a number of the storylines had reached their natural conclusions, but they made little to no effort to replace them. On the contrary, they went out of their way to close off possible narrative directions. While even the slowest parts of Dark Shadows 1.0 left us guessing what might come next, the final weeks of Dark Shadows 2.0 present us with nothing but a series of blank walls. The first time I saw the show, I watched #365 without a single idea as to what they could do in #366.
What they actually do is to launch Dark Shadows 3.0 by flipping the back-world of the dead past into the foreground, while the characters and events of 1967 are thrust behind the action into a realm only we and Vicki know anything about. Indeed, it is Sarah who executes the switch.
We had a glimpse of what that might look like in #280, when Barnabas hosted a party in the Old House on the estate of Collinwood, restored in an eighteenth century style, to which the living members of the Collins family came dressed as their ancestors of that period. In Friday’s episode, we saw a séance in the great house on the estate on a dark and stormy night. Sarah spoke through well-meaning governess Vicki and said she would “tell the story from the beginning.” At that, Vicki vanished from the table, her eighteenth century counterpart Phyllis Wick appeared in her place, and Vicki found herself outside the Old House on a sunny day in the year 1795. Today, she meets the living versions of Barnabas and Sarah, as well as some of those who were impersonated at Barnabas’ costume party.
The first person Vicki meets in 1795 is Barnabas. She has spent a great deal of time with him in 1967, so she assumes he is just in costume. He is startled by her clothing- she is still dressed as she was at the séance. He assures her they have never met, and when she keeps insisting they have he begins to suspect that she is insane.
Sarah meets them and declares that Vicki is her new governess. Evidently she had some kind of premonition as to what her new governess would look like, and Vicki meets the description. Barnabas brightens and asks Vicki if she is a governess. She acknowledges that she is. Before she can explain that she is governess to a boy who won’t be born for 160 years, he ushers her into the house.
The writers faced a thorny problem with this segment of the series. Vicki has spent a great deal of time with Barnabas and has seen Sarah, so she must recognize them. On the other hand, most of the rest of the people she meets in 1795 will be played by the actors who have played characters she knew in 1966 and 1967. When Victoria is alone in the front parlor of the house, we find out how they have decided to handle this situation. Joel Crothers, who in the contemporary segment of Dark Shadows played hardworking young fisherman Joe Haskell, enters in the character of bon vivant naval officer Nathan Forbes. Vicki throws herself in his arms and gushes about how happy she is to see him. Nathan is quite happy to see her, since she is a remarkably beautiful young woman and extremely friendly, but he is puzzled that she insists on calling him Joe.
The scene between Nathan and Vicki is pretty funny, and it’s understandable that Vicki would react as she does. But it’s also ominous. When we see actors at work, we may remember other parts they have played, but we don’t expect their scene-mates to bring them up. They are just supposed to accept them as whoever they are supposed to be at that moment. When Joan Bennett enters, not as twentieth-century matriarch Elizabeth Collins Stoddard, but as Liz’ ancestor Naomi Collins, we wonder how Vicki will react to her. Indeed, she does slow things down with a lot of wailing about how she can’t believe she isn’t Mrs Stoddard, a person of whom Naomi has never heard. It then dawns on us that every time Vicki meets anyone, she’s going to drag us through this same business where she mistakes them for another character the actor has played. That’s going to annoy us and make the other characters think she is deranged.
One of the reasons Vicki’s yelling about the cast’s resumes annoys us so much is that we all know how to look at the various characters an actor has played and see how they illuminate each other. We don’t need her to tell us to do that. Academics put that into a category of practices called “iconography,” which is shorthand for the idea that we remember what we’ve seen more than once in various kinds of movies and shows and notice when we see it again.
As Liz, Joan Bennett was the sort of imposing matriarch she often played as a major star of feature films and the Broadway stage. Virtually every event we saw in the first 25 weeks of Dark Shadows had its origins in Liz’ reactions to the events around her, and she was still the single most powerful figure in the whole gallery of characters for 30 weeks after that, right up to the death of seagoing con man Jason McGuire in #275. Everyone else was dependent on her, in one way or another.
Naomi is the lady of the manor in 1795, as Liz is in the 1960s. But we quickly learn that she is at the opposite extreme from her descendant. When invitations come for Barnabas’ upcoming wedding, she asks Nathan to read them to her. While Liz dominates the family and the town from her desk, Naomi is entirely illiterate.
This is something of an anachronism. Colonial New England was founded by Puritans who thought everyone ought to read the Bible, and so provided elementary schooling for all children, boys and girls. Scholars estimate that by the end of the eighteenth century, over 90 percent of men and about half of women in that region would have been able to read the Bible easily. A woman as wealthy as Naomi would certainly have had this ability, and the basic literacy which Naomi lacks would have been a rarity at any level of society. Perhaps the writers and producers of Dark Shadows were unaware of this history. Perhaps they are suggesting that she, like her son’s fiancée Josette DuPrés, came from some part of the world that valued literacy less highly than did New England. In any case, they do show us how severely disadvantaged she is in any disagreement with the men in her life, and how narrowly the bounds of her activities are circumscribed.
Barnabas comes back with the news that the carriage bringing Sarah’s governess overturned. The governess herself is missing from the scene of the accident; the other three people aboard were killed. When Phyllis Wick appeared in Vicki’s place at the séance, she did indeed say that she had just been in a carriage wreck, so this news will not come as a complete surprise to returning viewers.
This brings up a question and points to a missed opportunity. The question is whether Phyllis’ carriage had overturned in the original course of events. If so, perhaps she was killed along with the other three, and Sarah never did get a new governess. If not, then Sarah’s ghost killed three people when she sent Vicki back in time. Sarah has always been nice to people we liked, and has declared her allegiance to goodness. But she is also pretty clumsy, so she might have killed them inadvertently.
The missed opportunity is that Vicki could have entered 1795 at the scene of the accident. Had she been found in the wreckage, in Phyllis’ dress, with a wound that kept her from speaking for the first week of the segment, it would make sense that she was taken for the new governess. Of course, we wouldn’t have to see a carriage- some sound effects and a shot of Vicki on the ground, with some smudges on her face and the rim of a wagon wheel partly visible near her, would have been plenty. Surely the budget would have allowed that much.
Had Vicki been mute for the first week of the story, we could have seen her face and heard her thoughts in pre-recorded voiceovers as she saw Barnabas and Sarah and recognized them; we could have seen her face but not heard her thoughts as she saw other familiar actors in new roles, leaving it open whether she saw them as the same people she knew in the 1960s. By the time she had regained the ability to speak, she would have caught on that she had to pretend to be Phyllis Wick, to be a native of the eighteenth century, and to be new to Collinsport.
That way, she would start off with a reasonable chance of making a go of life in that era. Moreover, as we were drawn to Barnabas when we watched him trying to pass as a native of the twentieth century, we could be excited to see Vicki try to present herself as a native of the eighteenth. As it is, she is constantly drawing attention to herself as an alien, so much so that it is hardly likely the Collinses would want her in their house in any capacity, certainly not as tutor to their beloved daughter. Moreover, starting Dark Shadows 3.0 with Vicki doing what Barnabas did in Dark Shadows 2.0, while Barnabas would take the role Vicki played in their relationship then, as a benevolent if uncomprehending friend, would shed new light on both characters and on their stories. What she does instead is to annoy us and make it difficult to care about her at all.
We do get a brief inversion of Vicki’s relationship with her charge from the 1960s, strange and troubled boy David Collins. When Vicki first met David in #4, he greeted her with “I hate you!” and she assured him that they were going to be good friends. Vicki certainly does not hate Sarah, but she would appear to any observer who did not know what we know about her to be mentally ill, just as David appeared to be when first we saw him. It is little Sarah who cheerfully assures Vicki that they will be good friends. As her mental health is the least of Vicki’s problems now, so it turned out in 1966 that David’s difficulties stemmed, not from delusions, but from an all-too-accurate understanding of his metaphysical relationship to the world he lived in. Vicki rose to the challenge and became the companion and supporter David needed. In Sarah’s prediction that she and Vicki will be good friends, we therefore hear a promise that the show will develop a relationship between the two of them in which Sarah will emerge as Vicki’s confidant and protector.
The series was made with very little advance planning. Just a few weeks ago, we heard about a painting or drawing depicting Barnabas and Sarah as children of about the same age, yet today we see the forty two year old Jonathan Frid playing Barnabas as a fatherly figure to Sarah as played by ten year old Sharon Smyth. Still, they’ve put so much into the costumes and so much thought into the new characters that they must have meant for this segment to last more than a couple of weeks. Having Vicki insistently call everyone by the wrong names and then run around idiotically announcing information that she knows only because she is from 1967 puts her on the express train towards an insane asylum. If they don’t stop her doing those things right quick, they will have written themselves into a corner before they’ve got their money’s worth out of the work they have already done.
The episode looks very different from anything we’ve seen on Dark Shadows before. The series has been in color for months now, but there have only been one or two days when they managed to use color as anything more than an occasional special effect. Today, they are working from a palette of pinks and greens that give a sense of lightness and good cheer that is altogether new to the show. It doesn’t really play out in the visual strategy of the episode- the story they are telling in pictures is aimed chiefly at the majority of viewers who are watching on black and white sets. But for those who do have color television, it is unmistakable that this is not the same show that ended on Friday.
Vampire Barnabas Collins has been part of Dark Shadows at least since we first saw his portrait on the wall of the great house of Collinwood in #204, more properly since they went to great lengths to make it look like there was a portrait on that spot in #195. He is now the main force driving the action of the show, and pretty much the only reason people are tuning in to watch it. The ghost of Barnabas’ ten year old sister, Sarah, first appeared in #255; ever since, we’ve been waiting for the two of them to meet. At the end of yesterday’s installment, they finally did.
Barnabas was in his living room, trying to choke the life out of his only friend and would-be lover, mad scientist Julia Hoffman. Sarah materialized, and he let Julia go.
This echoes a scene in #341. Barnabas and Julia were in the act of murdering her medical school classmate and onetime friend, Dave Woodard, when Woodard claimed to see Sarah. At that, Barnabas almost let Woodard escape. Only when Julia called out “Stop him!” did Barnabas take hold of Woodard and kill him. Not only is he murdering a good-guy character, he has coerced Julia into taking part in the crime and will gloat over her new status as a murderer. But in the middle of all that loathsome cruelty, we see a flash of his longing for his baby sister. It is a tribute to actor Jonathan Frid that we can feel Barnabas’ loneliness and want to like him even in the middle of one of the character’s very darkest moments.
This time, Sarah really is there, and she really does stop a murder. There is a puzzle as to why. In #360 and #361, Julia knew that Barnabas wanted to destroy her, and appealed to Sarah for help. Sarah refused, saying that she liked Dr Woodard and knew what Julia did to him. We heard Sarah’s “London Bridge” theme on the soundtrack during the murder of Woodard, so it is clear that she witnessed that crime. But if she can stop Barnabas killing Julia, why couldn’t she stop him killing Woodard?
Today is only the second time Sarah has appeared to more than one person at a time. When Barnabas’ ex-victim Maggie Evans, The Nicest Girl in Town, wanted to escape from the hospital where Julia was keeping her locked up in #294, both she and her nurse could see and hear Sarah. Maybe it is difficult for Sarah to manifest herself to two people, and impossible for her to show herself to three. In that case, Julia’s presence would have stopped Sarah from saving Woodard.
It’s also possible that Sarah can’t do anything that will lead to Barnabas’ capture. She has appeared to many people and given all of them clues about the strange goings-on, but she has referred directly to Barnabas only when speaking to his partners in crime Willie and Julia. Time and again she has stopped short of giving information that would expose her big brother. When Barnabas and Julia moved against Woodard, he was calling the sheriff. Woodard might have placed himself beyond Sarah’s protection when he picked up the telephone.
Indeed, if Barnabas does kill Julia now, he will probably be caught. Julia has given a notebook full of incriminating evidence about Barnabas to a local attorney to be handed over to the authorities in case anything happens to her. Besides, everyone knows she spends a great deal of time at Barnabas’ house, so if she suddenly goes missing he will be investigated. By preventing Barnabas from killing Julia, Sarah is protecting him from exposure.
Sarah tells Barnabas that he taught her the first lessons she ever received in morality, and that he has now forgotten them himself. He begs her to stay, showing at length the vulnerability and need that have been so effective at recruiting our sympathy when we have glimpsed them before. She says she will never appear to him again, not until he learns to be good. We’ve known him long enough to know that this will be an extremely long wait.
Sarah vanishes. Julia sees her friend shattered. She approaches him. She addresses him, for the first time, as “Barnabas, Barnabas.” He recoils from her. He does not renew his attempt to strangle her, but he does tell her in the coldest imaginable voice that he could kill her as easily as he could crush a moth. It hasn’t been two minutes since his little sister reduced him to tears, and he has snapped back into his place as death itself.
Some say that Barnabas’ frequent references to his longing for Sarah during these weeks are meant to make him easier for the audience to sympathize with. I think this scene shows that the opposite is more nearly the case. They’ve undercut every other ground for liking Barnabas, leaving us only his love for Sarah. When we see that not even a visit from Sarah can thaw him out for any length of time, not only do we have to give up any hope that there is a nice guy hidden inside him, but we also hear the door slamming shut on any possibility that his character will develop in a way that will surprise us. Since he is the show, the closing of that door means that Dark Shadows 2.0 is all but over.
In the great house, matriarch Liz breaks the news to well-meaning governess Vicki learns that the authorities in Brazil have identified one of the corpses found in the wreckage of an airplane that crashed outside Belem as that of Vicki’s depressing fiancé, Burke Devlin. It has been clear for some time that Burke probably died in that crash, so Liz is worried that Vicki’s refusal to accept their verdict is a sign that she is in an unhealthy denial about the facts of the situation.
In the first 25 weeks of Dark Shadows, Burke was a major figure, the arch-nemesis of the Collins family. His storyline never really took off, though, and when undead fire witch Laura Murdoch Collins was on the show from #126-191 his issues were all absorbed into her arc. He formally renounced his grudge against the Collinses in #201, and has been surplus to requirements ever since.
There is just one thing I wish they had done differently about Burke’s death. During the early period of the show, there was a story about high-born ne’er-do-well Roger Collins trying desperately to hide a custom-made filigreed fountain pen of Burke’s. That dragged on for months, and dominated 21 whole episodes. It would have been a nice Easter egg for those of us who sat through those not-very-interesting installments if Liz had said the authorities were able to identify Burke’s body in part because that pen was on it.
There is a bit of intentional comedy this time that works very well. Telling Barnabas of Vicki’s refusal to accept Burke’s death, Liz exclaims “She can’t go on loving a dead man all her life!” Barnabas is clearly offended by this remark, quite understandably since he is deceased himself. He responds that “It has been known to happen.” But he manages to keep cool enough that Liz doesn’t notice.
This episode marks the last appearance of Sharon Smyth as the ghost of Sarah Collins.
Episode 1-274 of Dark Shadows each began with the words “My name is Victoria Winters,” delivered in voiceover by Alexandra Moltke Isles and leading into a few sentences vaguely related to the plot of the show. Beginning with #275, these voiceovers might be delivered by any actress with a speaking parts in that episode, and do not involve their character’s names. Many are written in the first person, however, as is today’s:
There has been a homecoming in the great house of Collinwood, and those who have returned have found that very little has changed. We still live within a ring of fear, a fear that is generated by the one who lives in the Old House, where on this night a kind of madness prevails, a madness that will lead to the threat of murder.
Every time this happens, the Dark Shadows wiki complains that “by this time in the series, the narrations are no longer spoken in character.” That complaint might have made sense if only a few of the episodes since #275 included first person pronouns, but dozens of them do. So we would have to say that they often are spoken in character, but that it isn’t always clear who the character is. The wiki editors will be glad from now on, because this is the last time a narrator says “we.”
Dark Shadows Commentary 