We open in the secret chamber in the old Collins family mausoleum, where the woe-begotten Sandor Rákóczi has inadvertently freed vampire Barnabas Collins from his coffin. When dangerously unstable ruffian Willie Loomis freed Barnabas from the same coffin in 1967, Barnabas bit him on the wrist, because ABC-TV’s office of Standards and Practices wouldn’t allow one man to bite another on the neck. But now the ratings are high enough that the network will let Dark Shadows get away with a whole lot more than they would when the show was losing its time slot. So Sandor winds up with two big gashes near his right carotid artery.
Barnabas asks Sandor what year it is. He is shocked to find that it is 1897. The last Barnabas remembered, it was 1969 and he was going into a trance mediated by the casting of I Ching wands. Evidently he had hoped that he would encounter the ghost of Quentin Collins on an astral plane outside time and space and do battle with him for the souls of various characters who live at the great house of Collinwood in the 1960s. But instead he has been transported back to the period when Quentin was alive. In fact, Sandor tells him that this very night Quentin returned to Collinwood after a year away.
A few days before he left on this uncertain and frightening journey into the past, Barnabas reflected that when Quentin was alive, he lay in his coffin. They knew nothing of each other. By that time, Barnabas had been free of the effects of the vampire curse for almost a year. He did travel back in time once before, when he spent episodes #661-665 in the 1790s, and the curse reasserted itself then. So regular viewers should have taken that reflection as a hint that Barnabas might return to Quentin’s time and once more be the vampire he was in his first months on the show.
Barnabas is shocked to find that Sandor and his wife Magda live in the Old House at Collinwood. That was Barnabas’ home when he was alive in the eighteenth century, and he became its master again when he returned in the 1960s. He orders Sandor to get him some clothes; Sandor replies “I won’t get you nothing.” Barnabas tells him that he will do whatever he says. In a very hard voice, he says “You are a Gypsy.” As Sandor, Thayer David indeed wears a stereotypical Romani costume, complete with earrings, a flowing wig, and brownface makeup. It sometimes strikes me as odd that Barnabas’ first meal in 1897 was blackened whitefish. Barnabas follows this ethnic identification with “You know what will happen to you if you do not.” Bram Stoker’s Dracula, published in 1897, made it clear that Sinti and Romani people are experts on vampirism, so I guess Barnabas had some grounds for that statement. At any rate, Sandor does comply.
Magda is on her way to the great house. The mistress of the estate, Sandor and Magda’s patroness Edith Collins, has summoned Magda to visit her as she lies on her deathbed. She wants Magda to read the cards and tell her that her grandson Edward will come home before she dies. As she enters the house, Magda is waylaid by Quentin.
Quentin grabs Magda by the neck. When she protests, he threatens to do it harder. He tells her that when Edith dies, she and Sandor will be thrown off the estate. Magda says she expects that, but Quentin says it needs not be so. If she can persuade Edith to leave all her money to him, he will cut her and Sandor in for 10%. Magda does not agree. Quentin says that he is their only hope, because “I have no prejudices against your kind.” If this is how people with no prejudices against them treat Romani, you can just imagine how the bigots behave.
In fact, you don’t have to imagine for long. After an interlude with Barnabas looking over the interior of the Old House and showing dismay at its poor condition, we return to the great house. Quentin’s older sister Judith comes downstairs and sees Magda. She reacts with unconcealed disgust. Magda excuses herself, and Judith takes Quentin into the drawing room.
Judith closes the drawing room doors, complaining that the servants keep listening in. That is one of many indications that there are no background characters in 1897- everyone is playing an angle. Judith offers Quentin $1500 to go away. Quentin says that he is surprised how highly she thinks of him. He could easily spend that much before dawn, even in the village of Collinsport, and come back the next day claiming to know nothing about it. She mentions something about his word of honor, but neither of them can take that seriously enough to merit a complete sentence.
Quentin insists on seeing their nephew, 12 year old Jamison Collins. Judith complains that it is late and Jamison is asleep, but Quentin says he promised to wake Jamison as soon as he arrived, regardless of the time, and “I keep my promises to Jamison.” When Jamison does come in, Quentin is hiding. Jamison protests that he is too old for such games. Quentin jumps out and startles Jamison. Quentin takes this reaction as proof that Jamison isn’t too old at all, and the two of them share a happy laugh. Quentin gives Jamison a model ship with a plate reading “The Jamison Collins.” Jamison is delighted with this truly thoughtful gift. Judith appears, and Jamison clutches Quentin, shouting “I won’t say it! I don’t want Quentin to leave!”
In 1969, Quentin’s ghost has taken possession of strange and troubled boy David Collins, who like Jamison is played by David Henesy. He wants David to turn into Jamison, in which process he will die. It was to save David’s life that Barnabas meditated upon the I Ching and entered the trance. In this scene we learn that Quentin’s deadly attachment to the image of Jamison had its origin in a healthy love for the living Jamison.
This may suggest a parallel to regular viewers. In his first months on the show, Barnabas was hung up on his lost love, the gracious Josette, and embarked on monstrously evil schemes to turn various living women into vampiric replicas of her. We then had a long flashback to the late eighteenth century, in which we saw that Barnabas and Josette once loved each other and were happy, until a cruel fate ruined everything for them. With Quentin and Jamison, we see that it is not only sexual love, but also the filial love of uncle and nephew that can be twisted into something dark and murderous.
It is not just the audience- Barnabas, too, is thinking of Josette. In the Old House, he meets Magda and demands to know where the portrait of Josette that once hung over the fireplace has gone. “Did you pawn it?” he demands, in a contemptuous tone that admits of no response. He asks who sleeps in Josette’s old bedroom upstairs. When Magda says she does, he declares that he “will not have it!” Magda asks who he is to be so imperious about what he will “have,” and Sandor begs her to be respectful towards him. In view of Quentin’s casual violence towards Magda, Judith’s flagrant loathing of her, and Edith’s hobby of keeping her and Sandor around to amuse her by performing the broadest possible stereotypes of the Sinti and Romani, there can be little doubt that Barnabas’ rage is not just at the idea of a stranger occupying the holy place of his idealized beloved, but at the sight of a member of an ethnic group he has been raised to consider inferior occupying it.
Quentin comes calling. Barnabas hides behind the barred window of the cellar door. Quentin badgers Magda for information about her meeting with Edith, and Sandor says that she is ill and will talk to him tomorrow. Quentin can tell something very strange is going on, but ultimately has to leave without further information.
Once Quentin is gone, it is Magda’s turn to press Sandor for answers. She tells Sandor that Barnabas has “the mark of death” on him, and demands to know who he is. She grabs the hand with which Sandor has been holding a kerchief at his neck and sees the bite marks. She gasps, turns to the cellar door, and exclaims “Vampire!”
Barnabas’ portrait was first seen in #204, he was first named in #205, he first appeared in #210, and he first spoke in #211. But it was not until #410 that anyone spoke the word “vampire” on screen. Up to that point, they had used a number of circumlocutions and ambiguous terms, such as “the undead.” For a while, it looked like Barnabas might not turn out to be a vampire exactly, but some other kind of monster who only occasionally sucks blood, as a treat. It’s a relief that people were more direct in 1897.
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