High-born ne’er-do-well Roger Collins has summoned the family’s lawyer, kindly old Richard Garner, to the great house of Collinwood late at night. Garner appears in the company of his son and junior partner, instantly forgettable young Frank. Roger announces to Garner & Garner that he is in the worst trouble of his life.
Roger tells Richard that he wants a divorce from his wife, the mysterious and long-absent Laura. Richard replies that Frank is the firm’s specialist in divorce and will handle the case. Laura is not planning to contest the divorce, so that does not seem to be “the worst trouble” of Roger’s life. Roger is anxious to talk privately to Richard, and sends Frank off to the kitchen with well-meaning governess Vicki. Vicki and Frank have been on a couple of dates and would like to go on more, so he is glad to comply with this. In the drawing room, Roger settles in to tell Richard what his “worst trouble” is.
It turns out to be nothing new to the audience or even to Richard. Roger is worried that Laura will help dashing action hero Burke Devlin reopen a manslaughter case from ten years ago. He denies to Richard that he would have anything to hide were the case reopened, and in previous episodes we have seen that Laura has everything to lose and nothing to gain if she helps Burke. So the line about the “worst trouble of my life!” goes nowhere.
In the kitchen at Collinwood, Frank has news for Vicki. Vicki does not know that Laura plans to take her charge, strange and troubled boy David, to live with her, or that Roger is all for this plan. Vicki says that going with his mother might be the best thing for David, but that she would not like to lose her job.
Later, talking privately with Roger in the drawing room, she says the same thing. When Roger says that he thinks the family might find some other job for Vicki, she looks tremendously relieved and quickly assures him that she will do what she can to persuade David to go along with the plan.
Vicki is attached to David, but she has also said repeatedly that Collinwood is the only home she has ever known. After a childhood collecting phenomenally bleak experiences as a ward of the Hammond Foundling Home, Vicki finds herself living in a huge mansion and being treated as a member of the family. A person could get used to that. Alexandra Moltke Isles plays her responses, first to the news of her likely dismissal, then of her possible retention, with just the right shading that we can see her concern for David vying with her own material self-interest.
Vicki smiles in response to Roger’s suggestion that the Collinses may find her another job. Screeenshot by Dark Shadows Before I Die
Vicki is our point-of-view character, David is the focal point of many of the stories, and their growing friendship is the one narrative arc that has consistently held our attention thus far in the series. So the idea that both of them will disappear from Collinwood and therefore, presumably, from the show ought to generate at least a little suspense. It doesn’t really, not today.
Roger has called Frank and Richard to come to the house late at night because he wants to meet with them while their actual client, his big sister Liz, is asleep. Liz is determined to keep both David and Vicki in the house, and Richard explicitly says that the firm of Garner & Garner will do nothing against her wishes. So, while there might be exciting surprises brewing, they are not at all likely to emerge from anything being discussed in Collinwood tonight.
There are also some scenes between drunken artist Sam Evans and his daughter Maggie, The Nicest Girl in Town. Sam is working on a painting that he doesn’t want Maggie to see. Returning viewers will be bewildered by these scenes, since Maggie looked at the painting and discussed it with Sam in episode 129. Sam tells Maggie that he does not like the painting and that some external force he does not understand is driving him to paint it.
The episode intercuts these scenes with Vicki’s report to Roger on David’s nightmare about his mother beckoning him into a firestorm and with closeups of the fire burning in the hearth at Collinwood. Laura is obsessed with fire, Sam is afraid of Laura, and the painting depicts a blonde woman surrounded by flames, so there doesn’t seem to be much doubt that whatever force is driving Sam is associated with Laura. Again, there are plenty of unexplained details as to what this force is and how exactly Laura is connected with it, but the answer to the primary question seems too clear to be a source of suspense.
Mysterious and long-absent Laura Collins has returned to the great house of Collinwood, seeking custody of her son, strange and troubled boy David, and a divorce from her husband, high-born ne’er-do-well Roger. Roger is enthusiastic about this plan, but David’s attitude has shifted from eagerness to see his mother to the terrified belief that the person who has come to the house is not his mother, and that if he becomes close to her something terrible will happen.
These episodes are loaded with hints that there is something very strange about Laura. When Laura was due to visit the house yesterday, David thought he saw her appear on the lawn and then vanish, an idea Liz dismissed instantly and Roger took as evidence of his great desire to see her. David did indeed want to see Laura at that time; when she came into the house, he was afraid of her. Coupled with other indications that there is something supernatural about Laura and with David’s history of sensitivity to eerie happenings, these disparate reactions might lead us to wonder if there are two of her- a ghost who flickers on the lawn, and a corporeal being who comes inside and carries on conversations.
We have seen Laura at the restaurant in the Collinsport Inn several times; the restaurant’s keeper, Maggie Evans, mentions that Laura never eats or drinks. On Wednesday, Laura’s ex-boyfriend, dashing action hero Burke Devlin, tells her that she seems profoundly different than she had been when they knew each other before. Yesterday, reclusive matriarch Liz told her that her personality had undergone a radical change. She is obsessed with fire* and with the legend of the Phoenix, suggesting that her radical change may have something to do with that myth. Maggie’s father, drunken artist Sam Evans, is possessed by an otherworldly power marked by theremin music on the soundtrack and paints a woman in flames, apparently a consequence of something Laura’s presence has stirred up in town.
Today, we have further suggestions that Laura is not simply a physical entity. She tells flighty heiress Carolyn that although she has been staying at the inn for several days, she has not unpacked her bags. Carolyn looks at Laura’s crisp outfit and flawless makeup and is bewildered by this remark. Laura also explains that a taxi brought her to the house from the Inn and that it is scheduled to return. When she decides not to leave, she tells Carolyn that she will call to cancel the return trip, but when Carolyn leaves her alone Laura turns away from the telephone- evidently there never was a taxi. When well-meaning governess Vicki takes the several mile walk between town and the house, she is wearing the soap opera version of a sensible walking outfit. The style-conscious Carolyn is the perfect person to highlight the improbability that Laura took such a hike looking the way she does.
Laura will be staying at the cottage at Collinwood. This has been established as an important location, and we’ve been waiting for someone to move into it since its previous occupant, gruff caretaker Matthew, confessed to Vicki that he had killed beloved local man Bill Malloy, had then tried to kill Vicki, and had become a fugitive. Carolyn mentions that Collinwood’s housekeeper, Mrs Johnson, had cleaned the cottage up when Matthew died, but that it needs another cleaning. I found this to be rather a poignant touch. Mrs Johnson had for many years been Bill Malloy’s housekeeper, and was intensely devoted to him. It was quite insensitive to ask her to clean the home of Bill’s killer, and it is quite reasonable that she did not do a particularly thorough job.
*I can’t resist mentioning that Mrs Acilius and I watched this episode while staying in a hotel. I don’t know if this was a consequence of Diana Millay’s performance as Laura, but we had to pause it about halfway in when a fire alarm went off in the building.
Strange and troubled boy David Collins is on intimate terms with many of the ghosts who haunt the great estate of Collinwood, but few living people would be likely to be called his friends. In some ways the closest of these is his governess, the well-meaning Vicki. The formation of that friendship was the one narrative arc that consistently worked in the first months of the show. David’s first words to Vicki were “I hate you!,” the most usual theme of their early conversations was his wish for her immediate death, and he at one point locked her up in an isolated room where it seemed she might die. But in spite of all his displays of hostility, the actors played the relationship between the two characters as one of a steadily increasing emotional complexity, and when David suddenly declares to Vicki that “I love you, Miss Winters!,” we see a dynamic story kicking into a higher gear.
Now, it would seem that Vicki and David’s hard-won friendship has come to a new crisis. David had found Vicki bound and gagged, prisoner of the homicidal Matthew. Overwhelmed by his terror of punishment, David did not free Vicki, but left her to be killed. Eventually she would escape, but only because the ghosts intervened and scared Matthew to death before he could bring his ax down on her head.
Today we have the first scene between Vicki and David since he left her in Matthew’s hands. She is trying to interest him in his math lesson. He describes himself as “not a brain in math- but I am a brain in history!” Vicki cheerfully says that she wants him to be a brain in everything. After a few such inconsequential remarks, David soulfully asks, “Miss Winters, why don’t you hate me?”
David had been calling her Vicki for some time before her ordeal with Matthew, so the fact that he is back to “Miss Winters” is an indication that he’s feeling uncertain with her. She responds jovially, and when David says that he abandoned her to be murdered she points out that he eventually told someone who would be interested in helping her. The subject then changes to a nightmare David had last night about his mother, and his doubt that he wants to see his mother again.
I think this is a missed opportunity. David Henesy and Alexandra Moltke Isles are great fun to watch together, and the climax of the arc centered on David’s mother will have everything to do with the relationship between David Collins and Vicki. So the “Phoenix” story really is the crown of the David/ Vicki storyline. A heart-to-heart conversation between them near its beginning, therefore, would be something the series could build on for months to come.
Imagining what such a conversation might be, I think of the personage Vicki met after David abandoned her and before Matthew came back with his ax. The ghost of Josette Collins appeared to her and told her not to be afraid. David had been paralyzed with fear, so afraid he would be sent to jail for the aid he had previously given Matthew that he can do nothing to help Vicki. Josette is one of David’s favorite specters, and he would be fascinated by any story about her. Telling David what Josette said, Vicki could broach the subject of David’s own terrible fears. After all, none of the punishments of which David is so obsessively frightened could harm him as gravely as he has harmed himself with his fears.
Yesterday, David’s mysterious and long-absent mother Laura said that she is much healthier than she used to be, in part because she went through psychoanalysis. Thus, the theme of therapy has been introduced. Today, a candid talk between David and Vicki could suggest that he needs an emotional catharsis, and that if he doesn’t get it in professionally recognized forms of therapy, he’ll have to get it as the consequence of tragedy. Instead of that talk, they just hustle the whole topic out of the picture for a while. It is realistic that Vicki wouldn’t want to discuss it in depth right now, but it is a missed opportunity for the show.
There also are some miscellaneous scenes I’d like to mention. Before Vicki gives David his lesson, we see them sitting down to breakfast in the kitchen with David’s father, high-born ne’er-do-well Roger, and his aunt, reclusive matriarch Liz. The kitchen is one of my favorite sets, and this is the first time we start a scene there with four people all sitting at the table. The scene doesn’t lead to much, but it raises hopes that the series will start to feature dialogue among larger groups of characters.
Roger at one point brings some firewood into the house. That’s a neat way of marking the transition from the part of the series including Matthew to the part including Laura. Bringing firewood into the house had been the usual way Matthew came into contact with the family when he was the caretaker, before he became a homicidal maniac. That someone else now has to perform this task marks his absence, and service to the hearth reminds us of Laura’s obsession with fire.
Liz breaks the news to David that his mother is back in town. David says he already knows. He says that in his dream he saw Laura wearing a blue coat and sitting beside the fire in the drawing room. Liz is unnerved by this. David was asleep when Laura was sitting beside the fire, and she was in fact wearing a blue coat. Roger refuses to be impressed.
Liz does not know what David told wildly indiscreet housekeeper Mrs Johnson on Friday, that he had seen a lady in a blue coat looking at him while he was using the swing set. Returning viewers know about that, and we also know that Laura’s fascination with fire is so strong that if her son remembers anything at all about her he would probably picture her staring into a fireplace. So the show is giving itself an out if it wants to abandon the hints it has been dropping that there is a supernatural side to Laura.
Strange and troubled boy David Collins is using a swing set near the long-abandoned Old House on the grounds of the great estate of Collinwood. This is a jarring moment for returning viewers. David just had a traumatic experience at the Old House. He had found his governess, the well-meaning Vicki, bound and gagged there, about to be murdered by the fugitive Matthew. Terrified that he would be punished, David had fled, leaving Vicki at Matthew’s mercy. Vicki escaped, but it is still odd to see David using playground equipment there so soon.
David is not entirely alone. Peering at him from behind a bush is his mysterious and long-absent mother, Laura. Spooky music plays when we see Laura. In yesterday’s episode, similar music played when drunken artist Sam Evans unaccountably adopted Laura’s mannerisms and painted a picture reminiscent of her fascination with fire. That suggested that there is something supernatural and dangerous about Laura. Her surreptitious watching of David, so near the haunted and malign Old House, leads us to wonder if he is the one in danger.
No one has told David that Laura is back in town. Wildly indiscreet housekeeper Mrs Johnson has found out about it, and while she tucks David into bed she drops a series of very broad hints to the effect that someone else may be watching over him soon. David doesn’t seem to catch her point, but he does mention that he thought he saw a woman watching him from behind a bush while he was using the swing set. Mrs Johnson responds with a brusque joke, but looks very interested. Since she knows Laura is back, she may well wonder if Laura is the woman David saw.
David’s father, high-born ne’er-do-well Roger, and his aunt, reclusive matriarch Liz, are deeply worried about what Laura wants. They haven’t been able to get in touch with her, and the last time they saw her she was profoundly mentally ill. Mrs Johnson knows of their concerns, but does not tell them that David may have seen Laura on the grounds of the estate. Mrs Johnson is disloyal to her employers, working as a spy for the Collins’ family’s arch-nemesis, dashing action hero Burke Devlin. We’ve already seen her give a report to Burke today, and presumably if she has any further information she will reserve it for him.
Late in the evening, Laura comes to the house. She tells Roger that she will gladly divorce him, and that she does not want a financial settlement. All she wants is full custody of David. She says that the course of psychoanalysis she underwent while institutionalized has done her a great deal of good, and that she no longer drinks. She does have a pronounced habit of staring into the fire, but Liz mentions that she has the same habit herself. Neither Liz nor Roger sees any sign that Laura is still suffering from whatever psychiatric disorder she had.
David begins to writhe on his bed as soon as Laura looks into the fire. In his sleep, he moans “mother, mother!” When she leaves, he sleepwalks into the foyer. The wind blows the front doors open, and he starts to run out, again calling “Mother, mother!”
Maggie Evans, keeper of the restaurant at the Collinsport Inn and The Nicest Girl in Town, greets her boyfriend, hardworking young fisherman Joe, with a hearty “So, whaddaya hear from the morgue?” As Dark Shadows gets to be more deeply involved with horror and the supernatural, that will become a plausible alternative title for the series.
Maggie wants to know the details of the death of Matthew Morgan, fugitive and kidnapper, whom she believes to have been scared to death by ghosts. Joe doesn’t want to entertain that idea. Maggie’s father, drunken artist Sam Evans, shows up and announces that he’s tired of the topic of Matthew’s death. He wants to talk to Maggie privately.
Sam wants Maggie to get information about a mysterious woman who is staying at the inn. Maggie says that the woman won’t give her name or say much of anything about herself, but that she spent some time telling her about the legend of the phoenix. That rings a bell for Sam, making him uncomfortable. Maggie says she was glad to hear about it- “It isn’t something you hear the yokels around here talking about.” Not like the latest doings at the morgue…
Sam won’t tell Maggie why he wants to know who the woman is or why he is so agitated about her. He does tell her that he’s on his way to the tavern, and she doesn’t like that at all. Today’s episode and tomorrow’s go into depth presenting Maggie as an Adult Child of an Alcoholic. Joe volunteers to go to the tavern with Sam and keep an eye on him.
The mystery woman comes into the restaurant after Sam and Joe leave. She lights a cigarette and stares raptly at the flame of her match.
Maggie engages the woman in conversation. She starts with a cheery description of Matthew Morgan’s autopsy report. The woman’s bewildered reaction makes you wonder what it would be like to walk into a diner and be regaled with clinical details of an unexpected death. Maggie asks a series of questions. She leans further and further forward across the counter as she tries to get the woman to identify herself. By the time the woman leaves without giving any answers, Maggie almost falls face-first into her coffee cup.
Maggie goes to the tavern and tells her father that she made a fool of herself in a fruitless attempt to get the information he requested. Sam gets upset, then leaves to conduct his own investigation. He goes to the inn, looks in the guest registry, and finds a name. He goes to the telephone booth and watches the woman come into the lobby. He makes a phone call.
He is calling high-born ne’er-do-well Roger Collins. Ten years ago, Roger paid Sam to conceal evidence implicating him in a case that sent dashing action hero Burke Devlin to prison. Burke came back to town seeking revenge against Roger in episode 1, and he has by now figured out that Sam had something to do with the case as well. Roger and Sam hate each other, but are bound together by the case. Sam tells Roger to meet him at the tavern immediately.
Sam makes Roger buy him a couple of drinks, then tells him that the last person either of them had wanted to see has come back to town- Roger’s estranged wife Laura, the other witness to the event ten years ago.
The closing scene makes me wish they hadn’t put Laura’s name in the credits the other day. There has been enough evidence on screen that returning viewers will be fairly sure it must be Laura by this time, but if there were a chance it might be someone else Sam’s revelation and Roger’s reaction would have packed more of a punch.
In the long-abandoned Old House on the estate of Collinwood, fugitive Matthew is sharpening the ax with which he plans to kill his prisoner, well-meaning governess Vicki. In the great house on the same estate, strange and troubled boy David is struggling with himself. His hated father, high-born ne’er-do-well Roger Collins, and his idol, dashing action hero Burke Devlin, are waiting for him to tell what he knows about Matthew and Vicki, and he keeps asking for assurances that he won’t be punished if he tells.
While David’s pathological fear of punishment keeps her rescuers at bay, Matthew finishes sharpening his ax. In the secret chamber where she is bound to a chair, Vicki receives a visitor- the ghost of Josette Collins. The ghost tells her she need not be afraid. Vicki asks why not. The ghost simply repeats herself and vanishes. It is by no means clear that the ghosts mean to save Vicki from Matthew, or that they could keep him from killing her if that is what they want.
David finally tells Burke and Roger where Vicki is, and they get some shotguns. David delays their departure still further by pleading to go along with them. Meanwhile, Matthew is in front of Vicki, starting to swing his ax at her head.
Matthew hears ghostly voices and breaks off in mid-swing. He runs out of the hidden chamber to the parlor, where the ghost of beloved local man Bill Malloy comes strolling in to the room, singing one of the more family-friendly verses of “What Do You Do With a Drunken Sailor?” Matthew starts swinging his ax wildly at the ghost, which laughs at him. Four more ghosts, representing the famed “Widows,” follow, and he swings at them.
In her place of confinement, Vicki can hear Matthew screaming, but cannot hear the ghosts plaguing him. She calls out to Matthew, who falls silent. Burke and Roger come in, she calls to them, they find her and release her from her bonds. Matthew in a chair in the parlor, dead of fright.
It is notable that Burke and Roger do not actually save Vicki- the ghosts of Bill and the Widows do. When Matthew first tried to kill Vicki in episode 111, it was reclusive matriarch Liz who saved her. Now, it is again a female-led effort, though as the victim of Matthew’s first homicide Bill does get a chance to help. I suppose that fits with the nature of the genre- daytime soaps are addressed to a predominantly female audience, so it only makes sense that female characters will drive most of the major plot points. It doesn’t bode well for the future development of Burke- he’s a dashing action hero, after all, and if all the dashing actions are going to be precipitated by women, girls, and feminine ghosts he’s likely to be left out in the cold.
Matthew Morgan, killer of beloved local man Bill Malloy, has been hiding out in the long-abandoned Old House on the great estate of Collinwood for many days. He has been keeping well-meaning governess Vicki a prisoner in a secret chamber there. Strange and troubled boy David Collins believed that Matthew was an innocent man and has been helping him; now, David has found Vicki, and Matthew knows that the crisis is upon him.
In the great house on the estate, David calls for his hated father, high-born ne’er-do-well Roger Collins. Roger does not answer, but the ghost of Bill Malloy appears and tells David to help Vicki. David is used to seeing ghosts, and tries to engage Bill in conversation about the circumstances of his death. He asks him whether Matthew really killed him, or if, as he has been hoping all along, it was Roger. All the ghost will say is that he must help Vicki.
The ghost vanishes when Roger comes in. David tells him he has something important to say, but that he won’t tell him unless he first promises that he won’t be punished. When Roger will not give such a promise, David tells him that something terrible will happen tonight, and it will be his fault. Roger snaps at him, and David replies that he hopes he gets pneumonia and dies. David’s pathological fear of punishment led him to try to murder Roger in the first month of the show; now it leads him to resign himself to Vicki’s death and to wish for Roger’s.
In the woods, Matthew sees Bill’s ghost. The ghost tells him that someone will die at Collinwood before the night is out. This message is not immediately helpful to Vicki; Matthew interprets it to mean that the ghosts want him to kill Vicki. Indeed, the first time he heard a ghostly voice, Matthew’s immediate response was to leap up and put a knife at Vicki’s throat. Bill’s encounter with David would indicate that he’s trying to help, as would his previous apparition to Vicki in #85. He just isn’t very good at it. We aren’t sure about the other ghosts yet.
Vicki manages to get loose and makes it as far as the front door. Matthew meets her there. He is relaxed and cheerful, and asks her why she is frightened. He calls her “Miz Stoddard,” indicating that he believes she is reclusive matriarch Liz. Vicki plays along, but Matthew breaks out of the delusion before she can get away. He shoves her back into the chamber and ties her up again. He goes to get an ax to kill her with.
Back in the great house, David places a phone call to dashing action hero Burke Devlin. He leaves a message telling Burke that he has an urgent message about Vicki. Burke comes running. He and Roger bicker, and David won’t tell what he knows unless he can be assured he won’t be punished. Matthew is moving slowly, but David’s phobia and Roger’s angry interference combine to keep the potential rescuers from moving at all.
The restaurant at the Collinsport Inn appeared in the very first episode of Dark Shadows. Well-meaning governess Vicki arrives in town, and stops there on her way to her new home in the great house on the estate of Collinwood. Counter-woman Maggie Evans, The Nicest Girl in Town, gave Vicki a bit of a hard time at first, but quickly emerged as the person likeliest to be her friend. And indeed, Vicki and Maggie have visited each other, had heart-to-heart talks, etc.
We’ve seen the restaurant many times since. As part of the inn, it has always figured as territory associated with dashing action hero Burke Devlin, arch-nemesis of Vicki’s employers, the ancient and esteemed Collins family. It was Burke who brought Vicki to the inn and therefore sent her Maggie’s way, and the major scenes in the restaurant since have revolved around Burke and his doings. By making the whole complex of the inn an extension of Burke’s personality, it established him as a force equal to the Collinses with their mansion and its precincts.*
Today marks a shift in the use of the set from a symbol of Burke’s power to a neutral space where new characters are introduced without giving away their relationships to the ongoing storylines. While Burke figures in the conversation, he doesn’t appear in the episode, and the action does not depend on what he has done.
Maggie presides over the place. Her interactions with newcomers begin from the fact that she works there. The only other public spaces we’ve seen are the Blue Whale tavern, where the bartender does not speak and any conversations start as part of whatever story the speakers are involved in, and the sheriff’s office, which is nobody’s idea of a casual hangout. So Maggie is elected Welcoming Committee.
A blonde woman in a stylish hat takes a seat at a table while Maggie is at the counter bantering with her boyfriend-in-waiting, hardworking young fisherman Joe. Joe tells Maggie that the woman looks familiar, but that he can’t quite place her. After Joe leaves, Maggie gives the woman a menu, pours her a cup of coffee, and talks with her.
The woman asks about Grace, whom Maggie replaced at the restaurant five years ago. She confirms that she lived in Collinsport when Grace ran the restaurant. Since she is from Collinsport, Maggie is surprised that she came to town on the bus and is staying at the inn. The woman asks about the Collinses. Maggie says that high-born ne’er-do-well Roger Collins is the same as ever, only more so. When the woman asks what that means, Maggie explains that he is the person in town likeliest to play the role of Ebenezer Scrooge.** The woman asks about Roger’s son, strange and troubled boy David Collins. She is happy when Maggie says that David is a cute, clever boy, and startled when she says that “a nice dungeon would help” him to be easier to live with.
The woman is never named, but returning viewers will have a very short list of people she might be. The ongoing storylines are:
Vicki’s quest to learn the identity of her birth parents. The woman doesn’t look anything like Vicki, and the one potential lead Vicki has discovered in her time in Collinsport is a portrait of a woman who looks exactly like her. If the woman is connected with that storyline, therefore, it would likely be in some roundabout way- we wouldn’t expect them to cast a blonde actress as a close relative of the brunette Vicki after the big deal they made of that portrait.
The mistress of Collinwood, reclusive matriarch Liz, hasn’t left home in eighteen years and no one knows why. Liz is the first person the woman asks about, so it could be that she has come to shed some light on this puzzle. The only women who lived in the house eighteen years before who have gone away since were the servants, so it could be that this woman is a former Collins family servant who has come into money.
Homicidal fugitive Matthew’s abduction of Vicki. Matthew has always been friendless, and his only relative is an elderly brother. He has always lived in poverty, and did not know the servants who were connected with the house before Liz became a recluse. So it is difficult to see what connection he could have to this woman. On the other hand, the ghosts with whom the show has been teasing us since the first week have been making their presence very strongly felt as that story reaches its climax. The woman may have some connection with the supernatural back-world of the series, and that may somehow link her to Matthew or Vicki.
Vicki’s love-life. Vicki and Burke had been spending a lot of time together, but she has told him that because he is the enemy of her employers they can never see each other again. Burke doesn’t seem to be ready to accept this. Since she has been missing, Burke has taken an aggressive part in searching for her. Vicki has been seeing instantly forgettable young lawyer Frank, but we haven’t seen him since she’s been abducted (that I recall; the guy is very forgettable.) The woman seems to be a bit too sophisticated for Frank, but she may be a rival for Burke’s affections.
Joe’s breakup with flighty heiress Carolyn and his budding romance with Maggie. Maggie doesn’t recognize the woman at all, Joe can’t identify her, and their working-class backgrounds make her almost as unlikely a connection for them as she is for Matthew. Still, if she is a former servant at Collinwood, she might have some connection with one or the other of their families.
Burke’s quest to avenge himself on the Collinses in general and Roger in particular. There is a woman involved in Burke’s grudge against Roger- Roger and a woman named Laura were in Burke’s car when it killed a pedestrian. They both testified that Burke was driving, saw him sentenced to prison for manslaughter, then married each other. Burke swears that Roger was driving, and Laura was apparently Burke’s girlfriend, certainly not Roger’s, before the night of the fatal collision. Laura is still married to Roger, though they have lived apart for some time, and she is David’s mother. The mystery woman’s reactions to Maggie’s descriptions of Roger and David would make sense if she were Laura, as would her evident affluence and her separation from friends or relatives.
Vicki’s effort to befriend David. If the woman is David’s mother, she could complicate this, the quietest but most consistently successful of all the show’s storylines.
Maggie’s reference to “a nice dungeon” is ironic. There are dungeons about, both literal and figurative. Matthew is keeping Vicki bound and gagged in one inside the long-abandoned Old House on the grounds of Collinwood, where his helper David visits him today. David doesn’t know that Matthew is holding Vicki until the end of the episode, when he stumbles upon her. As David Collins, David Henesy gives a splendid reaction to this shocking sight:
Before the mystery woman enters, Maggie herself seems to be in a kind of dungeon. Her dungeon is built not of stone walls or iron bars, but of careless writing. Joe is filthy and exhausted after many long hours searching for Vicki, who is missing and may be in the clutches of a murderer. Even though she is Vicki’s close friend and The Nicest Girl in Town, Maggie doesn’t show a moment of concern for her. She giggles, jokes, and smiles all the way through her conversation with Joe. Not only is her dialogue out of character, it is composed entirely of cliches that remind you forcibly that you’re watching a 56 year old soap opera. For example, when Joe mentions that he crossed paths with Carolyn in Burke’s hotel room, she exclaims, “That is a convention!” The dread Malcolm Marmorstein strikes again…
*My wife, Mrs Acilius, developed this point in our discussion of the episode.
**Louis Edmonds would indeed have made a marvelous Scrooge. It’s too bad the cast of Dark Shadows didn’t get round to performing A Christmas Carol until 2021, two full decades after his death. It was a great performance, highly recommended, and is followed by a Q & A every fan of the series will find fascinating.
Each of the 1225 episodes of Dark Shadows features one name under the credit “Written by.”* A total of nine names rotate in that spot. While we know that some episodes included writing from uncredited contributors, the only such contributors we can identify come from among that tiny group of eight men and one woman. For example, Malcolm Marmorstein, credited with today’s script, wasn’t officially named among the writers until #115, but he may well have written additional dialogue as far back as #46. Joe Caldwell’s name doesn’t appear on-screen until #245, but he will actually be writing some of the scripts attributed to Ron Sproat starting this month, maybe this week.
Opinions will of course vary as to which of the nine identifiable writers was better and which was worse. Few, however, will find a place for Marmorstein on a list of Dark Shadows’ eight best writers. Although he had extensive experience in the theater, Marmorstein had none of the sense of what actors can do that Art Wallace and Francis Swann brought to the first nineteen weeks of the show. Nor did he know how to structure a drama, write crisp dialogue, or invent fresh story points. Directors Lela Swift and John Sedwick collaborate with a uniformly strong cast to put Marmorstein’s scripts on such a strong footing that at moments they seem like they are about to be good. Those brief flashes of hope are invariably, cruelly, disappointed.
There are indeed some bright spots in today’s episode. Reclusive matriarch Liz is in the drawing room of the great house of Collinwood. Well-meaning governess Vicki and homicidal fugitive Matthew are both missing, and Liz is worried that Vicki may have fallen into Matthew’s hands. Wildly indiscreet housekeeper Mrs Johnson shares her conviction that Matthew has killed Vicki, and won’t stop talking about this belief even after Liz expressly orders her to do so. Clarice Blackburn plays Mrs Johnson as a woman with no self-awareness whatsoever, and no screen actor has ever had a more effective way of showing horror at displays of social maladroitness than did Joan Bennett. In their hands, this scene is laugh-out-loud funny.
A knock at the door rescues Liz from Mrs Johnson’s untrammeled morbidness. The sheriff has come to report to Liz on the state of the searches for Vicki and Matthew. Mrs Johnson answers the door and won’t let the sheriff see Liz until she’s given him a piece of her mind about the incompetence of his department. There aren’t any memorable lines in this exchange, but the contrast between Blackburn’s highly animated movements and Dana Elcar’s cheerful placidity is so obviously suitable for comedy that it feels funny.
Back in the drawing room, the episode starts to fall apart. Liz and the sheriff talk about the searches for Vicki and Matthew. The dialogue is full of repetition and wasted words. Liz asks if the sheriff has an idea where Matthew might be, to which he replies, “He could be anywhere, and everywhere.” Might he hurt Vicki? “He might, but on the other hand he might not.” After all, “he’s very unpredictable.” Then, “you know how unpredictable he is.” Yep, unpredictable, let’s repeat that word five or six more times, that’ll keep us busy until the commercial break.
They could have cut some of that smoke-blowing and replaced it with lines about what the sheriff has done. My wife, Mrs Acilius, wishes the sheriff had mentioned telephoning Vicki’s former residence, the Hammond Foundling Home, and asking people there about where Vicki might have gone and whom she might have tried to contact. That might not have led to any action, but at least it would invite us to imagine that something might be going on somewhere.
The scene between Liz and the sheriff does have an effective ending. She asks him if he holds out much hope for Vicki. He replies, “Frankly, no.” She turns to leave the room. We break for commercial on that downbeat, which lets the bleakness of the situation sink in.
Strange and troubled boy David Collins comes home. David is the one person who knows that Matthew is hiding in the long-abandoned Old House on the grounds of the estate. He has been delivering supplies to him. Even David does not know that Matthew is holding Vicki prisoner in a hidden chamber. David sees that the sheriff is in the house, and asks Mrs Johnson if the sheriff has any news about Vicki or Matthew. Mrs Johnson seizes this opportunity to resume denouncing the sheriff’s incompetence, saying that the only clue he can recognize one that tells him it is time to eat and make himself even fatter than he already is.
David is about to move on when Mrs Johnson questions him about the pack of cigarettes he stole from her earlier. She sets some punchlines up for David in this exchange. She mentions that she lit a cigarette while serving David his breakfast, to which David replies by asking if she is supposed to smoke while working. She says she knows that she set her pack of cigarettes on the table when she and David were alone in the kitchen, and that she hasn’t seen it since. He suggests it walked away by itself. She tells him he’s the only one who could have taken them; he says that if he wanted cigarettes, he wouldn’t steal them, he’d buy them. None of these lines is much on the page, but as delivered by Blackburn and David Henesy, they are genuinely funny.
David goes into the drawing room and talks with the sheriff. Picking up on Mrs Johnson’s remark about the sheriff’s vigilant observation of meal-times, David asks him what it means when the whistle blows at the cannery. “Lunch,” says the sheriff. Again, not a world-class piece of comic material, but Henesy and Elcar make it land.
David then asks the sheriff for the details of his search for Matthew. The sheriff happily answers all of David’s questions in detail, as if he were giving a briefing to the state police. He tells David that anyone who might be hiding Matthew will go to jail.
This scene shows the limits of what a good actor can do with bad material. David is going to return to the Old House at the end of the episode. He will be prompted to go back there because he has learned information from the sheriff that Matthew will want to know. While there, he will set up suspense by revealing to Matthew that the sheriff has triggered his intense phobia of jail. That locks the sheriff into playing his scene with David as a babbling oaf.
In Elcar’s first episodes as the sheriff, he had made indiscreet remarks to David, but as we saw him observing the reactions those remarks elicited from David and others he seemed to be using them as ploys to advance his investigations. For example, in #59, he had given David some information that excites him and unnerves his father, high-born ne’er-do-well Roger Collins.
We can see how he might use similar tactics in this situation. After all, Vicki is David’s governess, and David has spent more time with her than has anyone else. Matthew had been the caretaker in the house where David lives, and David knows him quite well also. In this conversation, when the sheriff refers to Matthew as unlikable, David becomes very excited and exclaims “I like him! Er, I did like him, I mean.” If the sheriff knows his business he might well pay very close attention to everything David says, and keep encouraging David to say more. He will certainly notice David’s terrified reaction to the idea that someone helping Matthew will go to jail, and test his reaction to further comments on related themes. But if he takes any note at all of David’s attitude, the current storyline will end within minutes. So in this scene, Marmorstein leaves Elcar no way to play the sheriff as an intelligent character.
After the sheriff leaves, David and Liz have a scene in the drawing room that builds up to a tremendously frustrating moment. David keeps asking his aunt one question after another about Matthew and Vicki, Vicki and Matthew, does Matthew have Vicki, is Vicki in danger from Matthew, then without taking a breath “Do you know any secrets about the Old House?” Liz responds “I wish that someday you’d ask an important question.”
Granted, we know that Matthew is holding Vicki prisoner in the Old House and Liz does not, but it is hard to imagine anyone failing to see the connection between these two thoughts. Joan Bennett and David Henesy had a fine rapport that made the scenes between Liz and David Collins a delight, and you can see them trying to save this exchange. David is in a panic at the beginning of the scene and gets steadily more worked up as it goes along. We see Liz observing his agitated emotional state, paying such close attention to his facial expressions, tone of voice, and frantic bodily movements that she misses key elements of his words. It’s a valiant attempt on their part to make the scene work.
David wants to go to the Old House to see Matthew. In the foyer, Mrs Johnson again confronts him about the cigarettes. He yells at her to “Get off my back!” and runs out. This might have been an attempt to show that David feels his world closing in on him, but it doesn’t succeed. We’ve already seen those two characters say everything they had to say about that topic on that set. Repeating it just feels like filler.
*There are reference works that draw on the original paperwork produced by the makers of the show; even these list one writer per episode. That’s how the Dark Shadows wiki manages to list a writer for every episode, including those that don’t show writing credits on-screen.
The actors do what they can to hold it together, and there are a couple of memorable lines. Reclusive matriarch Liz calls her daughter, flighty heiress Carolyn, a “young girl” during yet another conversation pleading with her to stop dating the family’s arch-nemesis, dashing action hero Burke Devlin. Carolyn asks when her mother will admit that she is a woman. “When it is a fact,” Liz replies. Carolyn declares that “It won’t be a woman who bestows that title on me, but a man- Burke Devlin!” Everyone in Collinsport seems to be living according to a rule of chastity, so Carolyn’s open declaration that she plans to have sex with Burke is rather startling.
Liz’ brother, high-born ne’er-do-well Roger, comes home. Liz tells Roger that well-meaning governess Vicki is missing and may be in danger. Roger refuses to take an interest in the matter. When Liz is shocked by his indifference, he says that she sometimes expects too much of him. Considering that Burke and hardworking young fisherman Joe are searching the grounds of the estate for Vicki, and that the sheriff’s department has been involved in the search as well, Roger’s disregard for Vicki is not merely cavalier, but childish in the extreme.
When Roger finds out that Carolyn had been on a date with Burke, he tries to take the authoritative tone that her mother had taken with her earlier. Neither Carolyn nor Liz is impressed with the attempt this boy-man is making to impersonate a paterfamilias. Liz and Roger are the prototype for Dark Shadows‘ most characteristic relationship, that between a bossy big sister and her bratty little brother. She tries to correct his behavior, and when he disappoints her she shields him from accountability. In this scene, she sees yet again how useless he really is.
Burke and Joe come to the house to report that their search for well-meaning governess Vicki has been fruitless. Roger makes one sarcastic remark after another to Burke. Louis Edmonds is so skilled at delivering acerbic dialogue that these lines are fun to listen to, even though they don’t advance the plot or add to our understanding of the characters in any way.
It’s a shame the scene isn’t better written. During the nineteen weeks when Art Wallace and Francis Swann were in charge of writing the show, they hinted that there may have been some kind of sexual relationship between Burke and Roger. This time, Burke has borrowed Roger’s shotgun, and Roger very conspicuously handles the gun after Burke returns it to him. He unloads it, and for no reason that we can see reloads it. As directed by Lela Swift, the actors are uncomfortably close to each other, and can’t keep themselves from getting closer as they exchange their wildly bitter remarks. In the hands of Wallace or Swann, or for that matter of almost any moderately competent writer, that scene would have made sense as a Freudian interlude. But today belongs to Malcolm Marmorstein, and the evidence of repressed sexuality doesn’t add up to much.
Carolyn tries to break the tension in the drawing room by playing “Chopsticks” on the piano. All she gets for her trouble is an irritated look from her mother.
Joe and Carolyn were dating when the series started. All we saw of their relationship was one breakup scene after another. They have a nice loud one today. If there had ever been anything between them, it would be a dramatic moment.
Earlier in the episode, Burke had told Joe he didn’t think he would ever really put his attachment to Carolyn behind him. We’ve seen Joe have a couple of happy dates with Maggie Evans, The Nicest Girl in Town, and are hoping the two of them will have a storyline together. The prospect that Burke may be right and we may be sentenced to sit through yet more bickering between Joe and Carolyn is too dreary for words.
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