Heiress Carolyn Collins Stoddard is mourning her father, who was recently murdered. She tells Maggie Evans, governess to the children in the great house of Collinwood, that she will not rest until she finds the killer. Maggie urges her to leave that up to the Maine State Police. Returning viewers know that the culprit is a monster from beyond space and time. We also know that the monster takes the form of a very tall young man who, when he first materialized, asked people to “Call me Jabe.” They called him “Jeb” instead.
Jabe has no impulse control, no awareness of other people’s feelings, and no long-range plans. He wants to marry Carolyn tomorrow, which, considering that a disagreeable encounter yesterday was the first time he met her while in his current form, she would be unlikely to agree to do even if her father had not just been killed.
Carolyn is taking the night air on Collinwood’s terrace when she hears some strange noises. Most of them are being produced by the late Sheriff Davenport, whom Jabe recently murdered then raised from the dead to serve him as a zombie. He’s hanging around in the bushes, idly watching.
Jabe shows up and says he’s sorry if he startled Carolyn. He tells her that they will be married tomorrow, exasperating her beyond endurance. She gives him a piece of her mind. She uses the word “crazy” to describe his behavior, prompting him to get very stiff and snarl “Don’t ever call me that!” She turns to go, and he grabs her arm. She tells him to let go. He refuses, and she threatens to scream. He still does not let go, but she breaks away and goes back inside.
Maggie sees a flustered Carolyn come rushing into the house. She asks her what’s wrong. Carolyn won’t answer. She hurries upstairs to her bedroom.
Carolyn’s distant cousin, old world gentleman Barnabas Collins, comes in. He and Maggie talk about Carolyn. Maggie says that she is deeply impressed by Barnabas’ concern for Carolyn. She takes his hand. They put their heads together and talk quietly about how important their friendship is to each of them while the camera zooms in on their hands. Barnabas used to be a vampire, and spent the spring and summer of 1967 torturing Maggie so viciously she suffered a complete mental collapse. Her psychiatrist, Julia Hoffman, saw in Barnabas her chance to pursue her dream career as a mad scientist, and so she sold Maggie out. She used her magical powers of hypnosis to rewrite Maggie’s memories so that she forgot all about what Barnabas had done to her. Her feelings of terror were replaced by warm friendliness towards him. Still, longtime viewers will find it a bit jolting to linger over this handclasp, with its suggestion that romance may be about to bloom between Maggie and Barnabas.
The next day, Carolyn finds a note of apology and some red roses in the drawing room. They are from Jabe. She is putting them in a vase when Barnabas turns up. He is concerned when she tells him the flowers are from Jabe. She says she is not sure what to make of Jabe.
We hear Barnabas thinking that if Carolyn starts seeing Jabe, there will be no hope for her. He’s thinking of Jabe’s monstrous nature and his association with the Elder Gods who are on their way to destroy the human race, but even first-time viewers who know nothing of those things have seen enough of Jabe to agree with him. Regular viewers know that, while there is, in an ontological sense, more to Jabe than Carolyn has seen, she has already taken the complete measure of his personality and temperament. If she winds up deciding he is an acceptable partner, it can only be because the writing staff has decided to sacrifice her character once and for all to the business of moving the plot forward.
Longtime viewers will find this prospect especially disturbing. The terrace was the scene of many grisly encounters between Maggie’s predecessor, well-meaning governess Vicki Winters, and Vicki’s boyfriend, a repellent little man named Peter who preferred to be called Jeff. Peter/ Jeff was not a monster from beyond space and time, he was something much worse- a character played by Roger Davis. At least when Jabe grabs Carolyn’s arm, it is only the characters who are in an abusive situation. When Peter/ Jeff clutched at Vicki, Mr Davis squeezed Alexandra Moltke Isles out of shape and blocked the camera’s view of her. Vicki, Dark Shadows‘ original protagonist, had been pushed to the margins of the story for a number of reasons, but it was her inexplicable insistence on sticking with the loathsome Peter/ Jeff that finally made it impossible for her to continue on the show.
For some unaccountable reason, the producers and directors seem to have liked Mr Davis. They kept him on the show for a couple of years, in a variety of roles, and allowed him to assault his scene partners with abandon. The writers seem to have caught on that he was not so good; his most recent character, Harrison Monroe, was a robot who just kept yelling at everyone until his head fell off. But the directors were still fans; when Christopher Pennock joined the cast as Jabe last week, they told him to imitate Roger Davis. To his credit, he instead conducted himself in a professional manner. However much of a dead-end Jabe is, you will never see Pennock hurting another member of the cast or obstructing her performance.
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