Wicked witch Angelique has cast a spell on lawyer Tony, compelling him to do her bidding. Today he calls on her at the great house of Collinwood. He is starting to remember some of the things he did for her. He can’t remember why he did them, and is troubled. She commands him to meet her at the gazebo on the estate. Up to this point in the series, Angelique and all other characters referring to this structure have spoken the word “gazebo” in its usual North American pronunciation, as /gəzɪ́jbəw/ (“ga-ZEE-bo.”) When Angelique tells Tony to meet her, she directs him to the /gəzējbəw/ (“ga-ZAY-bo.”)
In the gazebo, Tony shares his vague recollections with Angelique. He says that he does not understand why he would obey her commands. She tells him to look at her. When we heard this line, Mrs Acilius and I both laughed. Lara Parker delivers it with a little smile and a relaxed voice that made it sound like she was about to say “Of course you can’t resist me, I’m gorgeous!” Instead, she puts the zap on him and gives him more orders. But after she releases him from his trance, he again says that he doesn’t understand why he keeps coming to her, and she does in fact say that he’s falling in love with her. They kiss.
Angelique took up residence at Collinwood just a couple of weeks ago. She had cast a spell on sarcastic dandy Roger Collins and married him. Roger’s son, strange and troubled boy David, has been on a trip to Boston the whole time. David is about ten, but evidently he’s been incommunicado. He comes back today, and is surprised to find that he has a new stepmother. His surprise turns to alarm when he walks in on Tony and Angelique kissing. Later, he announces to Angelique that he will tell his father what he saw in the gazebo. He too pronounces it /gəzējbəw/. Evidently this bit of Collinsport English is taking root.
Angelique strikes David mute. The last time we saw her use her powers to silence a potential witness against her, Dark Shadows was a costume drama set in the 1790s, and her victim was indentured servant Ben. Ben was barely literate, but was able in #401 to write the letter A to indicate that she was the witch. Angelique has learned since then, and also prevents David from writing.
There are also two scenes where Angelique tries to find out if housekeeper Mrs Johnson has had a nightmare. Her motivation is to do with the Dream Curse, a dismal storyline I won’t explain, but the scenes are hilarious. Mrs Johnson is as commonsensical and down-to-earth as can be, while Angelique is as intense and melodramatic as can be. The two of them are naturally funny together, and these scenes leverage Clarice Blackburn’s gift for comedy of manners.
Wicked witch Angelique (Lara Parker,) pretending to be named Cassandra, met sarcastic dandy Roger Collins (Louis Edmonds) one day and married him the next. Roger’s sister, matriarch Liz (Joan Bennett,) confronts Angelique/ Cassandra. Liz tells her that Roger has not been well and urges her to annul their marriage.
In the course of her confrontation with Liz, Angelique/ Cassandra reveals that she is not all-knowing. She thinks that Roger owns the great estate of Collinwood and the family’s business. Liz quickly explains that Roger owns nothing. He lives as a guest in her house and works as an employee of her company. Angelique/ Cassandra takes this in stride, and stands up to Liz’ insistence that the marriage must end. The only sign that Liz’ words are having an effect on anyone at all comes in the very last syllable of the scene. Unfortunately for Liz, it is not Angelique/ Cassandra who is intimidated by her, but Lara Parker who is intimidated by Joan Bennett. Angelique/ Cassandra’s mid-Atlantic accent vanishes and the purest musical note of Parker’s native Tennessee sounds as the word “you” emerges as “yeww.” If there had been another page or two of dialogue, she might have ended with a honeyed smile and a lethal “Bless your heart!”
From #395 to #461, Dark Shadows was a costume drama set in the late 1790s. In that segment, Angelique came to Collinwood as a servant girl and used her magical powers to manipulate scion Barnabas Collins (Jonathan Frid) into marrying her. Barnabas’ parents, Joshua (Louis Edmonds) and Naomi (Joan Bennett) were unhappy about the marriage. Joshua demanded that it be annulled, as Liz today demands Roger and Angelique/ Cassandra’s marriage be annulled. Naomi took a more conciliatory approach. Advocating Joshua’s position and but showing Naomi’s temperament, Liz combines two challenges Angelique has already shown herself able to overcome easily. Returning viewers will therefore have little hope that Liz will be able to stave off the disasters Angelique has in mind for the Collinses.
Angelique/ Cassandra is eager to get to work on the evil plans she has for the people at Collinwood, and so she is trying to stop Roger taking her on a honeymoon. She contrives to injure her ankle. We see permanent houseguest/ medical doctor/ mad scientist Julia Hoffman (Grayson Hall) in the bedroom Angelique/ Cassandra will be sharing with Roger, bandaging her ankle. Angelique/ Cassandra asks a series of questions about old world gentleman Barnabas Collins (Jonathan Frid,) making Julia visibly uncomfortable.
Barnabas is the same man Angelique married in the 1790s. He is here in 1968 because she turned him into a vampire then. He was relieved of the symptoms of vampirism only a couple of weeks ago. He and Julia are becoming fast friends, and on Tuesday he told her all about Angelique. He identified her as the woman in a portrait that has obsessed Roger, and expressed his belief that Roger’s obsession was a sign that Angelique herself was returning to Collinwood. Julia can see how strongly Cassandra resembles the portrait, and knows that Roger’s obsession led directly to his marrying her, so she really ought to have figured out by now that she is Angelique.
Like the scene between Angelique/ Cassandra and Liz, the scene between her and Julia makes an instructive comparison with the parts the same actresses played in the 1790s segment. Angelique was originally lady’s maid to the Countess DuPrés. We saw her helping the Countess put herself together in a bedroom that was a different dressing of the set on which Julia is now attending to her foot. This apparent reversal of roles illuminates the extent to which Angelique’s command of black magic always made her a mightier figure than her nominal mistress. As a mad scientist, Julia is far more formidable than was the countess, but this scene leaves us wondering if she will be able to stand up to Angelique for any longer than could her counterpart.
Well-meaning governess Vicki (Alexandra Moltke Isles) had traveled back in time and was at Collinwood through the 1790s segment. She recognizes Angelique, knows well how dangerous she is, and is desperate to stop her. She tries to tell Liz about the situation, but Liz has a very limited tolerance for information about the supernatural. Vicki later meets Julia at the gazebo on the grounds of the estate and shares her information with her. Julia knows as much as anyone about the strange goings-on, and what Vicki tells her confirms what she already has reason to suspect. However, Julia pretends to have trouble believing Vicki.
This pretense enables Julia to probe the limits of Vicki’s own knowledge. Barnabas and Julia do not want Vicki to know any of Barnabas’ secrets. Julia incredulously asks Vicki if she thinks the Barnabas Collins of 1968 is the same person she knew in the eighteenth century. Vicki turns away from Julia, looks troubled, and says that she does not believe this. Vicki has encountered plenty of evidence to that effect, not least when Barnabas bit her and sucked her blood, and the audience wonders what she knows. We see Julia studying her, trying to find the answer to the same question. In the first year of Dark Shadows, Vicki represented the audience’s point of view, the resolutely normal outsider getting to know the Collinwood crazies. In this moment, we see Vicki through Julia’s eyes. We identify, not with any sane person from the world of sunlight and natural laws, but with a mad scientist who has cast her lot with a vampire.
Vicki thinking about Barnabas, with a facial expression straight out of MAD magazine. Screenshot by Dark Shadows Before I Die.
Angelique/ Cassandra and Roger chat in their bedroom. He seems utterly delighted to be married to her, until she slips something into his drink. Suddenly he starts having doubts. Nothing we have seen leads us to expect she would want him to feel this way. The scene leaves us scratching our heads.
We end with Angelique/ Cassandra alone in the foyer of the great house, looking at the portrait of Barnabas that hangs there and vowing to restore the curse that had made him a vampire. We know that she is Angelique and that such is her goal, so her speech doesn’t set up any new story points.
It does give us some world-building information. Angelique says that the only way she knew that Barnabas was walking among the living in the 1960s was that Vicki had traveled back in time to the 1790s and told her. That explodes a theory some fans like that Angelique herself called Vicki back in time. When Vicki left the 1960s in #365, it was quite clear that the ghost of Barnabas’ little sister Sarah was sending her on the journey. Sarah has been fading steadily from our awareness, not least because child actress Sharon Smyth aged out of the part, and so it is not surprising that people expect a retcon to attribute the time travel story to a different force. But not only does Angelique rule herself out with this line, Sarah’s name comes up in the conversation between Julia and Vicki, reminding regular viewers of the original explanation.
More importantly, it confirms that once one person has made a wrong-way journey through time, a gate opens through which other unexpected things may come. To some extent we saw this when Barnabas himself was released from his coffin and Sarah’s ghost began showing up around the estate. The cosmological point will become extremely important for the rest of Dark Shadows, as one time-travel story keeps leading to another. Dark Shadows is often described as the story of the house, and so I can’t resist an inelegant metaphor from the building trades. It’s as if Vicki wrecked the plumbing of the universe when she went through the pipes backwards and then abruptly forward. Time will never flow the right way again.
This is the first episode of Dark Shadows credited to a director other than Lela Swift or John Sedwick. It is also the first production of any kind directed by Dan Curtis, the series’ creator and executive producer. Curtis’ inexperience shows at several moments when the camera is in an awkward spot or the actors are unsure what to do, and in his post about the episode on Dark Shadows Every Day Danny Horn documents several of the more egregious examples with screenshots and detailed analysis. The impossible deadlines and tiny budget on which Dark Shadows was produced meant that even Swift and Sedwick, who were seasoned professionals and ambitious visual artists, sometimes had to turn in work that wasn’t much better than what first-timer Curtis manages today, and longtime viewers of the show will take even his worst stumbles in stride.
At the top of the episode, it is daytime, and much put-upon servant Ben Stokes (Thayer David) finds the lady of the house, Naomi Collins (Joan Bennett,) standing at an open coffin that holds the corpse of her son, Barnabas. Ben knows that Barnabas is a vampire who will rise at night to prey upon the living. Naomi has never heard of vampires. All she knows is that Barnabas is dead, and that his coffin has been moved from the family mausoleum to a room atop a tower in the mansion. Ben pleads with her to leave the room and to go with him back to the main part of the house.
Naomi questions Ben. Ben tells her that Barnabas has a “sleeping sickness,” and has been in a coma ever since the night he apparently died. Ben does not like to lie to Naomi, but her husband, haughty overlord Joshua, has judged that the truth would kill her, and Ben is governed by that assessment. He does tell her that the “sleeping sickness” is a symptom of a curse, that the wicked witch who placed the curse was Barnabas’ sometime wife Angelique, and that Joshua is in Boston trying to find someone who knows how to lift it.
Ben asks Naomi how she came to be in the tower room. She tells him that naval officer/ sleazy operator Nathan Forbes told her that Barnabas was being kept there, and also that Barnabas was responsible for the series of murders that had recently taken place in the town of Collinsport. At that, Ben vows to kill Nathan. To his chagrin, Naomi forbids him to do this.
In the part of Dark Shadows set between August and December of 1966, Bennett played reclusive matriarch Elizabeth Collins Stoddard and David played her fanatically devoted handyman Matthew Morgan. When well-meaning governess Vicki came unstuck in time and arrived in the late 1790s, she at first mistook Naomi for Liz and Ben for Matthew. This scene takes longtime viewers back to the days when Matthew was always on the lookout for someone who represented a threat to Liz’ interests and she was always sternly prohibiting him from murdering anyone for her sake.
Ben is a far saner man than Matthew ever was; the contrast between them shows the effect that growing up in Collinsport, a town suffering from the consequences of a curse that has been working its way for many generations, has had on Matthew’s personality. While Ben is a brave, kind-hearted fellow whose fierce loyalties sometimes overpower his good sense, Matthew is a paranoid ogre who kills Liz’ friend Bill Malloy and tries to kill Vicki. It isn’t just one family that will be warped by Angelique’s curse. It will breed monsters everywhere the Collinses’ influence prevails.
Naomi then turns her attention to the B-plot. Nathan has married fluttery heiress Millicent Collins, only to find that Millicent has signed her share of the Collins fortune over to her little brother Daniel. Nathan responded to that news by crafting a plot to murder Daniel. His first attempt failed when Noah Gifford, the henchman he hired to abduct Daniel and drown him, fell afoul of Vicki. Vicki found Noah strangling Daniel near the place where she was hiding, having escaped from gaol, and shot him to death. After that, Daniel and Vicki went back to the mansion and told Naomi what they knew. Naomi recognized Daniel’s description of his attacker as a man she had seen with Nathan earlier, and realizes that Nathan is trying to murder the boy. So she orders Ben to take Daniel into town to stay with the Rev’d Mr Bland, a clergyman who looks like a duck.
Naomi confronts Nathan, who keeps telling her that whatever Barnabas might look like during the day, he gets up at night and goes out to murder people. She tries to shut him up, but later she is still wondering whether she should go back to the tower room after dark to check his story out.
She sees Millicent standing in the foyer, staring at the portrait of Barnabas that hangs there. The portrait of Barnabas first appeared under the closing credits in #204, and from #205 on it figured as a means through which Barnabas could communicate with the living. Barnabas bit Millicent the other day, and she hears him summoning her.
Among the 1960s characters who receive their commands from the vampire while staring at the portrait is Liz’ daughter Carolyn, who like Millicent is played by Nancy Barrett. Millicent at times evoked an early version of Carolyn. Until the spring of 1967, Carolyn was tempestuous and irresponsible, sometimes friendly to point-of-view character Vicki, sometimes hostile to her. Millicent is as timid and overly dependent as that version of Carolyn was headstrong and self-centered. One way or another, each is a Spoiled Heiress, and evidently that’s a favorite meal of Barnabas’.
Naomi follows Millicent to the gazebo on the grounds of the estate. There, she sees Barnabas. She is stunned that the son whose corpse she was looking at just a few hours before is up and moving. He bites Millicent, and Naomi lets out a scream. Barnabas looks up, and realizes that his mother has caught him in the act.
The vampire’s bite affects each victim differently. The first victim we saw was Willie Loomis, whom Barnabas’ bite transformed from a dangerously unstable ruffian to a sorely bedraggled blood thrall. Willie was at first gravely ill, then ran to Barnabas like an addict desperate for a fix, and eventually settled into life as a sorrowful servant who could not run away from Barnabas but could resist him to the point where Barnabas occasionally found it necessary to keep him in line with beatings.
The second victim we saw was Maggie Evans, The Nicest Girl in Town. She reacted very much like the first victim in the 1790s segment, gracious lady Josette, who, like Maggie, was played by Kathryn Leigh Scott. At first, those two were alternately blissful and snappish, happy to be under Barnabas’ power and defensive with anyone who might interfere with it. But each recoiled from him by the time it became clear he planned to kill her and make her into a vampire herself. Each escaped from him to the shore below Widow’s Hill- Maggie by running through an underground tunnel that rose to the shoreline, Josette by flinging herself to her death from the top of the cliff.
Later, Barnabas bit Carolyn. She initially contemplated his most gruesome crimes with pure glee and showed great energy as his protector and enforcer. Soon her conscience reappeared, but she was still doing his dirty work faithfully when Vicki disappeared into the past.
Millicent differs from all those others in that she simply continues to go about her business in between Barnabas’ meal-times. Granted, she was already deeply disturbed by that point, so that her business was conducted mostly in show-stopping mad scenes. But it’s still odd that she can talk to Nathan as if their marriage were the main thing in her life.
When we finished watching this one, my wife, Mrs Acilius, wondered if these differences were simply the result of the victims’ personalities coming through or if the vampire can pick and choose how to apply the pressure. He wanted Willie as a slave, and the reaction he produced gave him that. He wanted to turn Maggie into a reincarnation of Josette, and wound up getting the same reaction from Maggie that he had got from Josette. He bit Carolyn in a moment of desperation, with no plan in mind, and her reaction is complicated and volatile. He bit Millicent to keep her quiet, and her reaction is remarkably inconspicuous. Maybe we’re just supposed to think that Barnabas is fabulously lucky, but there is an opening there to tell a story about how him deciding what he wants to do to a person when he sucks their blood.
Naval officer/ sleazy operator Nathan Forbes seemed to have lost his best chance at getting rich quick when his fiancée, fluttery heiress Millicent Collins, discovered that he was already married when they got engaged. Since then, he has figured out that Millicent’s second cousin, Barnabas Collins, did not go to England as the family has been telling everyone, but that he is still lurking about the village of Collinsport and has murdered several people there. Among Barnabas’ victims was Nathan’s wife Suki.
Widower Nathan has a plan to profit from this information. Today, we see the first step in Nathan’s plan. He persuades his henchman, commercial mariner Noah Gifford, to wear a mask, carry Barnabas’ cane, and assault Millicent while he lies in wait. Apparently he will rescue her, and she will tell her family both that Nathan was the hero of the incident and that the attacker carried Barnabas’ instantly recognizable cane.
The whole episode is full of comic moments, and the climactic scene of the assault at the gazebo had my wife, Mrs Acilius, laughing out loud and making comparisons to A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. That reaction shows that Nathan and Noah are a more successful rewriting of Dark Shadows‘ first seagoing con man, Jason McGuire, and his henchman Willie Loomis. Jason was supposed to be a comic villain, but the writers never gave him much that was funny to do or say. Actor Dennis Patrick was such a talented comic that he could pad his part with facial expressions, tones of voice, and gestures that got laughs, especially in his scenes with Willie. But it was never at all clear why he needed Willie, and most of the time he was on camera Jason was grinding the other characters down with a depressing blackmail scheme. But Nathan keeps scrambling to find his way into his marks’ good graces, and he and Noah get up to all sorts of high-jinks. Regular viewers will be happy to see a demonstration of what Jason and Willie might have been had Dark Shadows been able to employ a better writing staff in 1967.
Another major improvement over the period when Dark Shadows was set in 1966 and 1967 is the show’s use of Joel Crothers. He did what he could with the part of hardworking young fisherman Joe Haskell, but since Joe’s only note is earnestness he always winds up as less of a character than a function. But Nathan is always working an angle, is never quite predictable, and is tremendously fun to watch. The prospect of seeing Crothers return to the role of Joe is one of the major reasons the audience might want to prolong our stay in the eighteenth century.
Closing Miscellany
Noah remarks on one of the odd quirks of the Collins family when he mentions that the vacant Old House on their property is still full of all sorts of valuable objects. From the first week of the show, we’ve seen that disused parts of their estate are heavily stocked with high-priced antiques. This acknowledgement of the oddness of that fact leaves us wondering if the show is going to change it.
Today marks the only appearance on Dark Shadows of actress Charlotte Fairchild. Fairchild plays a downstairs maid who tells Millicent that a man has brought her a fan. Her angular figure and pale complexion made her a perfect choice to play an eighteenth century servant, and she does a fine job with the dialogue.
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.
Acilius on Dark Shadows 