Tag: meet matthew

Episode 40: Their shrieks and their moanings

In the teaser, Bill asks Sam for a cup of coffee. When Sam brings it, the music abruptly stops, to start again when the cup is in Bill’s hands. Apparently the hand-off was an occasion that called for a respectful silence.

Bill proves to be quite an effective action hero. He spends one lunch hour plying Sam with Sam’s own liquor, and Sam tells him that Roger has demanded he leave town and has threatened to kill him, because he has information that could send Roger to prison. That’s more than Burke and his private detectives have managed to dig up in years of snooping.

Roger wanders from the Evans cottage to the restaurant to Collinwood, in each place to be told that it’s the middle of a working day. By the third time this happens, it’s worth a chuckle.

Roger encounters Burke and brings Carolyn’s ring back from him. This thwarts Carolyn’s plan to get a date with Burke by deliberately leaving it behind. She goes to see him anyway. He tells her that shenanigans with rings were a cliche in comedies written long before they were born. At that line, the theater types involved in making Dark Shadows would probably think back to examples reaching back to Shakespeare and beyond, all the way to Plautus and the ancient Greeks.

Burke refuses to take Carolyn to an appointment he has in the city of Bangor. I was going to write “He refuses to take her to Bangor,” but that’s almost as venerable a comic cliche as are hijinks with rings.

Episode 39: Questions don’t mean a thing

Yesterday’s episode was a relaunch of the series, with a new actor (a new kind of actor, in fact) as Matthew Morgan, an exposition of the Revenge of Burke Devlin story so straightforward as to include a bibliography of its origins, an emphatic closing of the Who Failed to Kill Roger? story, and a checklist of the other narrative threads in progress. The relaunch continues today, with an established character re-introduced as a potential action hero.

That character is Bill Malloy (Frank Schofield.) Bill is first seen with Liz in her sanctum, the drawing room at Collinwood. She is approving his plan to dramatically improve the capital plant of the cannery without laying off any employees. He tells her about Burke’s investigations of the family’s debts. Regular viewers know that this investigation was a deep secret, and that only a capable businessman could have learned what Bill knows about it. The scene itself makes it clear that it is difficult to get Liz to face facts about the threat Burke poses, and that Bill is equal to that challenge.

Roger is at the Evans cottage, demanding Sam back out of painting Burke’s portrait, hiding in the bathroom and listening at the door when Burke comes and poses, emerging to threaten him after Burke leaves. Sam is helpless to get rid of Roger, Roger is helpless to control Burke, Burke is helpless to get Sam to start talking. Burke leaves the cottage to meet Bill at the restaurant.

The restaurant is in the Collinsport Inn, Burke’s home base. So far Burke has maintained the upper hand in most encounters there. Even when Matthew came to the restaurant yesterday and informed Burke that he might kill him, Burke kept his wits about him. But when Bill and Burke sit down together, Bill drives the conversation from beginning to end. Bill asks Burke to leave town, and declares his opposition to whatever plan he may have to harm Liz, Carolyn, or David. In return for Burke’s backing off, Bill offers to help him clear his name, presumably at Roger’s expense. Thus Bill breathes new life into the Revenge of Burke Devlin story- no longer is it a static confrontation between dashing but stymied Burke and charismatic but despicable Roger. Now the action is coming from a third, independent, corner.

Back in the Evans cottage, Sam and Roger are reprising their mutual helplessness, when Bill walks through the open door. Roger has just been yammering on at length about the information he doesn’t want Sam to give Burke. As the credits start to roll, we are wondering how long Bill was standing there and whether he has already learned everything Burke has spent all this time trying to uncover and Roger to hide.

Image captured by Marc Masse

Episode 38: The Count in his castle

Vicki first met Matthew in the basement of Collinwood, back in episode 6. So the basement is Matthew’s territory. Not even the cottage where he lives is more so. Before we ever saw it, we heard him go on about how it was a gift from Liz. When we do see him there he’s having an uncharacteristic moment, baking muffins. The basement is the dusty, forbidding workspace is where we expect to find a dusty, forbidding workman like Matthew.

In his remarks on episode 37, Patrick McCray complained about “writing shortcuts that occasionally make Victoria look like a moron.” I didn’t quote him in my post on that episode, because I don’t agree with his assessment of the scene- he thinks Vicki is falling for Roger’s obvious lies, I think she is disregarding them because she knows she has him where he wants him and is about to squeeze some information out of him. But this opening scene is definitely a case of Idiot Plot. Vicki chased David into the basement in episode 6, only to be menaced by Matthew and scolded by Elizabeth; she followed the sound of the sobbing woman there in 37, to be yelled at by Roger. Those were moments of hot pursuit, when she could claim that in the heat of the moment she forgot Elizabeth’s prohibition on going to the basement. But now, she’s just looking for some books. There’s no reason she couldn’t have asked Liz about the books before going to the basement. What’s more, she’s going after those books only because David, last seen telling her he’d make her wish she had never come to the house, suggested she go after them. I realize she’s had a stressful few days, but unless she’s had a massive head injury off-camera, going to the basement at David’s suggestion is inexplicable.

Of course, the out-of-universe explanation is obvious- a new actor is taking over the role of Matthew, and they want to introduce him on this set. On the one hand, the scene is a reprise of the first introduction of Matthew, thereby making it clear that this is a new start for the character. On the other hand, because it is his territory, and our point of view character is trespassing there, he is all the more menacing to us than he would be if we met him in someone else’s space.

I think Danny Horn described Thayer David’s acting style well when he said that “He’s loud, and disruptive, and he plays to the balcony. Not this balcony, naturally; I mean the balcony in the theater next door.” He’s relatively subdued in his first outing as Matthew, but the appliances the makeup shop constructed on his face prepare us for the titanic approach he’ll be taking in the weeks ahead.

Matthew goes upstairs. In the foyer, a more or less neutral space among the residents of the estate, Liz gives him a shopping list to take into town. She then asks him into the drawing room, her home base. There, she asks him to do something horrible- take the blame for Roger’s car crash. He is shocked at the request, and asks for an explanation. She doesn’t give him one, but he agrees anyway. Thayer David’s anguished face shows the terrible price Matthew is paying for Liz’ insistence on covering up what really happened between David and Roger.

This encounter closes the story of Roger’s crash. Along with the Mystery of the Locked Room, Vicki’s search for something David might like, and the talk about ghosts, it ties Thayer David’s Matthew in to four of the stories we’ve been following.

We next see him in town, ordering coffee at the restaurant in the Collinsport Inn. There he’s tied in to a fifth story, The Revenge of Burke Devlin. The Inn is Devlin’s territory, and Matthew encounters him there. Still unhappy because of Liz’s shocking request, Matthew is in no mood to be diplomatic with the known enemy of the family he is sworn to serve. He tells Devlin that if he makes trouble for Liz, “I’ll kill you.” Devlin tries to reason with him, asking if it makes a difference whether the family deserves trouble, to which Matthew does not respond kindly.

Even before Matthew came to town, Devlin had met another Collinwood resident at the restaurant. Carolyn sits at his table and notices he is reading The Count of Monte Cristo. She summarizes the plot, and realizes that it is one of the sources of The Revenge of Burke Devlin story-line. She’s so self-aware it wouldn’t be surprising if she and Burke started gossiping about what the new writers coming on board next week have in mind for their characters. She drops the subject, and immediately starts wheedling him for a date. When he begs off, she deliberately leaves a ring behind.

Back at Collinwood, Carolyn and Vicki talk on the landing overlooking the foyer. This is the first conversation we’ve seen in that space. A couple of times, we’ve seen David Collins standing up there by himself, looking menacing, or as menacing as a not-very-tall nine year old boy could. In the years to come, a succession of villains will take turns declaring themselves to be Master of Collinwood by standing on this spot and looking at the camera. The last of these will be the ghost of Gerard, played by an adult actor about the same height as the nine year old David.

This time, the space is not being used to suggest menace, even though the camera is shooting up at the same drastic angle. Instead, it is a relatively intimate place, separated from the public-facing foyer by the stairs and leading to the bedrooms. Carolyn and Vicki are there because they are at home. Carolyn confides in Vicki about her plan to leave the ring where Burke would find it, obligating him to call her and return it. Vicki confides in Carolyn about the sobbing woman, and Carolyn admits to having heard her many times, and to having lied when Vicki asked her about the sounds her first morning in Collinwood. The friendship between Carolyn and Vicki is settling in as a wide-open information exchange, a regular channel not only to keep the audience up to date on what’s happened in previous episodes, but to make it possible for characters to learn enough about what’s going on to make plans and take action.

Back down in the foyer, Liz talks to Vicki about the basement. Vicki tells her that she can’t believe in ghosts; Liz assures her there’s no one being held in the locked room. Liz offers Vicki the key to the room and invites her to let herself into it and search it. Vicki declines the offer. Liz repeats it, doing everything she can to show that she has nothing to hide. Vicki declines again, and turns away. As soon as Vicki can’t see her, Liz’ face resolves into an expression of immense relief.

Over the closing credits, ABC staff announcer delivers the usual blurb for “Where the Action Is.” He trips over the title. It sounds like he’s stifling a laugh or is distracted or something. Unusual to hear him commit a blooper!

Dividing Dark Shadows into Periods

In the posts that follow, I link to comments I made on Danny Horn’s blog Dark Shadows Every Day. Unlike most daytime serials, Dark Shadows tended to restart itself from time to time, dividing the show into major periods. I’ve tagged most of these posts with the periods of the show to which they refer. 

There are several ways of periodizing the show. The scheme I use is this: 

Episodes 1-45 “Meet Vicki” 

Episodes 46-126 “Meet Matthew”

Episodes 127-192 “Meet Laura”

Episodes 193-209 “Meet Jason”

Episodes 210-260 “Meet Barnabas”

Episodes 261-365 “Meet Julia”

Episodes 366-466 “Meet Angelique”

Episodes 467-626 “Monster Mash”

Episodes 627-700 “Meet Amy” (subdivided into “Chris the Werewolf,” 627-638, and “The Haunting of Collinwood,” 639-700)

Episodes 701-885 “1897″ (subdivided into “Meet Quentin,” 701-748, and “Meet Petofi,” 749-885)

Episodes 886-969 “Leviathans”

Episodes 970-1060, “Meet Another Angelique” 

Episodes 1061-1198, “Meet Gerard” (subdivided into “1995,″ 1061-1070, “The Re-Haunting of Collinwood,” 1071-1109, and “1840,″ 1110-1198)

Episodes 1199-1245, “Dying Days”