The evil Gregory Trask has married Judith Collins and become the master of the estate of Collinwood. Trask shows his daughter, the repressed Charity, her new home in the great house. In the drawing room, Trask tells Charity that he wants her to marry Judith’s brother, the rakish Quentin, to whom he refers as the one eligible bachelor remaining in the Collins family. This is odd- like his brother Quentin, Edward Collins is a widower, and unlike Quentin Edward is sufficiently conscious of the appearance of propriety that it would be relatively easy for the sanctimonious Trask to control him. Besides, Edward’s son Jamison is Judith’s heir, giving Trask a reason to keep a close eye on both of them.
Broad ethnic stereotype Magda Rákóczi enters and announces that she wants to speak with maidservant Beth Chavez. Trask says that he wants to talk to Magda alone in the drawing room. Charity wants to leave anyway; she hasn’t visited her mother’s grave today. Trask is worried because it is dark and both a vampire and a werewolf are loose on the grounds of the estate, but he and Charity decide it will probably be fine, so off she goes.
Trask gives Magda 24 hours to vacate her home in the Old House on the estate. She tells him she can prove that he murdered his first wife, prompting Trask to reconsider the eviction notice.
In the woods, Charity sees the werewolf, whom we know to be Quentin. She runs back home in a panic. Trask initially opposes Magda’s offer to walk Charity to her bedroom, but when she insists he crumbles. While Charity rests, Magda takes out her tarot deck and tells Charity she will read the cards for her. She brushes Charity’s objections aside as lightly as she had her father’s. She finds that Charity will be paired with an attractive man, but that this man is evil and that she must avoid him at all costs.
Charity has a dream in which she and Quentin speak tenderly to each other and kiss, only for him to zone out while a werewolf appears. The bulk of Charity’s dream consists of her and Quentin striking poses while the soundtrack plays the sickly little waltz Quentin obsessively plays on his gramophone, and David Selby’s voice recites some dreary lyrics that apparently go with it. This does nothing to explain the characters’ in-universe motivations, but it does explain the real-world reason why Dan Curtis wanted the writers to get the audience thinking of Charity and Quentin as a potential couple and to have her encounter the werewolf. In his post about the episode at Dark Shadows Every Day, Danny Horn explains that the sequence is product placement for some records that were released around this time. It’s interesting that Charity has inherited so much of her father’s money-mindedness that she sells advertising time in her dreams, but the actual sequence is unbelievably tedious to watch.
Vampire Barnabas Collins has stashed his coffin in its old hiding place, the hidden chamber inside the mausoleum where his parents and sister are buried. As dawn approaches, he tells his reluctant sidekick, broad ethnic stereotype Magda Rákóczi, that this is the last day he will have to leave the coffin there. The suspicions that had recently surrounded him have cleared, and he will move the coffin back to the basement of Magda’s home, the Old House on the estate of Collinwood, when he next arises.
The graveyard is immersed in a heavy fog. As Barnabas approaches the mausoleum, a familiar voice calls to him. His old nemesis and ex-wife, wicked witch Angelique, implores him to come with her and leave the year 1897. She warns him that he must return to 1969 now, or it will be too late. Barnabas tells Angelique that he has not accomplished the goals for which he came to the past, and that he will not leave until he has done so.
Longtime viewers may be puzzled when Angelique tells Barnabas that she has helped him before. In #757, Angelique did prevent her fellow undead blonde fire witch, Laura Murdoch Collins, from staking Barnabas, but that did not seem to be intended as a service to Barnabas. Rather, it recalled #417, in which Angelique prevented Barnabas’ friend Ben Stokes from staking him and freeing him of the effects of the vampire curse she had placed upon him. She told Ben that she wanted Barnabas to suffer forever, and nothing she says to Laura indicates that she has changed. Indeed, the only time she ever seemed to act out of goodwill towards Barnabas was in #410, when Barnabas was about to rise as a vampire for the first time and she, regretting the curse, tried to stake him herself. Perhaps there is a retcon coming up, in which it will be made possible for Barnabas and Angelique to join forces against some new enemy.
It certainly seems that the show is about to take a new turn of some kind. The major storylines with which the 1897 segment began are all approaching their natural conclusions, and a number of major characters have already been killed off. Longtime viewers will recognize an acknowledgement of these facts, not only in Angelique’s explicit statement that the proper time for Barnabas’ stay in the late nineteenth century is almost up, but also in the doings of another character in the graveyard.
Inveterate prankster Carl Collins suspects Barnabas of being a vampire, and in a dream visitation his late fiancée Pansy directed his attention to the mausoleum. Lurking outside it, he sees Barnabas open the secret panel and go into the chamber where the coffin is kept. Carl declares that “We’ll get him tonight! We’ll get cousin Barnabas… TONIGHT!”
Carl is played by John Karlen, who first appeared on Dark Shadows as the luckless Willie Loomis. It was Willie who, in a misbegotten attempt at jewel theft, inadvertently freed Barnabas to prey upon the living in #210. In consequence, Barnabas bit Willie and enslaved him. When Willie first served him, Barnabas would control him not only by the usual vampiric practices of blood-drinking and telepathic summoning, but also by frequent heavy beatings with his cane. Later, Willie would come to feel that Barnabas was his friend; it was never clear that Barnabas reciprocated this feeling.
Carl first met Barnabas in #706. He introduced himself by holding a gun to Barnabas’ head and threatening to shoot him if he did not admit that his story of being a long-lost cousin from England was a lie. The gun turned out to be loaded with a flag labeled “FIB,” and the whole thing was Carl’s idea of a joke. Barnabas’ icy response, starting with his incredulous tone while asking if “YOU are a COLLINS?,” set the tone for all of his subsequent dealings with Carl, in which his attitude ranged from undisguised contempt to barely disguised contempt. Yet Carl remained convinced that he and Barnabas were going to be great friends, and he even asked Barnabas to be the best man at his wedding to Pansy. Carl is much more enthusiastic about his supposed friendship with Barnabas than Willie is about his, and Barnabas is far more open about his hostility towards him, making the Carl/ Barnabas relationship a spoof of the Willie/ Barnabas one.
Ever since Pansy’s death, Carl’s thoughts about Barnabas have taken a darker cast. When we see him in the mausoleum, watching the panel open, we know that his plan to “get cousin Barnabas” will take him into the chamber where Willie forever lost his freedom. We know, too, that Willie’s misfortune revolutionized the show; when it puts this actor on this set, Dark Shadows is promising to make major changes.
We cut to the drawing room of the great house on the estate. Rakishly handsome Quentin Collins is talking with Magda. As Angelique cursed Barnabas to be a vampire, so Magda cursed Quentin to be a werewolf. Angelique placed her curse because she was upset that Barnabas did not love her and was under the impression she was about to die. Magda placed hers because Quentin had married and then murdered her sister Jenny. Magda did not know then that Jenny had borne twins to Quentin, a son and a daughter. Since the curse is hereditary, Magda has been trying desperately to reverse it ever since she learned of the children’s existence.
The children are still secret from Quentin, and so he does not understand why Magda is trying to help him. When he demands she tell him, she says “I. Did. Not. KNOWWW!” in exactly the same intonation she had used when she first heard about the children in #763. First time viewers don’t know any more than Quentin does what she is talking about- the children are not mentioned today. Magda makes up an obvious lie, saying that she hadn’t known how much Jenny loved him. That isn’t meant to fool the audience, and doesn’t fool Quentin. But when Carl enters, Quentin drops the subject and leaves new viewers in suspense about what Magda now knows that they do not.
Carl knows that Magda lives with Barnabas, and refuses to talk in front of her. She teasingly asks “Mr Carl” if he “don’t like me any more,” and walks out with a bold stride, suggesting that Carl may at some point have shown signs of liking her rather too avidly for her husband’s comfort. Once she is gone, Carl tells Quentin that there is a vampire in their midst. Quentin dismisses this out of hand, telling him that their brother Edward staked a vampire named Dirk and told him about it in vast and gory detail. Carl asks who made Dirk a vampire; Quentin says that it was Laura. No, says Carl, Barnabas made Dirk a vampire, and Barnabas is a vampire himself.
Quentin begins to laugh, but within seconds realizes that there is a great deal of evidence in plain sight to support Carl’s assertion. He agrees to go with Carl to the mausoleum, but we hear his thoughts as he reflects that Barnabas’ efforts to help him are the only hope he has of release from the werewolf curse.
In the mausoleum, Carl wonders aloud where Barnabas came from. Quentin supposes that he was there all along. Carl is horrified at the thought that he is “the real Barnabas- our ancestor! Oh God, that makes it worse!” Quentin orders Carl to open the panel, and Carl obeys. As my wife, Mrs Acilius, points out, John Karlen once again plays the servant’s role.
In the hidden chamber, the brothers open the coffin, finding the diurnally deceased Barnabas. Quentin tells Carl to hand over the gun he has brought; Carl obeys. Quentin asks Carl if he knows how to get out of the chamber. When Carl says that he does not, Quentin turns the gun on him and forces him to stay. Quentin shuts his brother up in the chamber with the vampire.
In #384, set in the 1790s, Barnabas shot and killed his uncle Jeremiah. Barnabas and Jeremiah were about the same age, and had been very close; they were often compared to brothers. Barnabas was not yet under a curse when he committed that fratricide; it was an act entirely of his own will. Angelique was also partly responsible; she had cast spells on Jeremiah and on Barnabas’ fiancée Josette, causing them to conceive a mad passion for each other and to run off and get married. Enraged, Barnabas broke from the customs of New England and challenged Jeremiah to a duel. Consumed with guilt, Jeremiah deloped and let Barnabas kill him.
Barnabas’ killing of Jeremiah was murder under the laws which prevailed at the time in Maine, which was until 1821 part of Massachusetts. Indeed, Massachusetts’ anti-dueling act of 1730 provided that anyone who had either been killed in a duel or been put to death for winning a duel would “be given an unchristian burial at a gallows or crossroads, with a stake driven through their body.” Since the audience knows that Barnabas is fated to become a vampire, there is a chilling irony in seeing him volunteer for a staked burial.
Dark as was the shadow the duel cast over the subsequent history of the Collinses, at least Barnabas’ act showed a kind of twisted courage. But when Quentin uses Barnabas as a weapon to kill his brother, he is acting from the most abject cowardice. In the century that they have been subject to black magic, the Collinses have sunk from tragic grandeur to infantile squalor.
Quentin goes to the Old House and tells Magda what he has done. Magda is horrified at another murder. “No! Too many people are suspicious now. We’ve got to stop it or we’ll all be found out!” Since Magda is not a member of the Collins family, she is often the straight man reacting to revelations of their misdeeds and monstrosities. And since she is played by the charismatic Grayson Hall, the audience tends to adopt her point of view. So it is easy for us to forget that she is a functional sociopath. Despite all the killings we know to have resulted from her actions, it is still startling that Magda’s only objection to Quentin’s attempt to murder his brother is that she is afraid of getting caught.
We cut to another scene on the same set. Magda has summoned Angelique to the front parlor of the Old House. She asks Angelique to erase Carl’s memory so that Barnabas will not choose to kill him. Angelique taunts Magda as an “amateur” in the occult arts, and declares that she is done helping Barnabas. Magda says that she has read the Tarot, and that the cards tell her that Angelique loves Barnabas. She renews her plea to prevent the killing of Carl, but Angelique will not yield.
The reference to the Tarot rings a bell for longtime viewers. In the 1790s segment, Hall played the Countess DuPrés, Josette’s aunt. Angelique was introduced in that segment; she was the countess’ maidservant, and appeared to be a beginner in witchcraft. The countess was oblivious to Angelique’s sideline, and in #393 declared her to be an uninteresting woman whom she had known ever since she was an uninteresting child. The countess spent most of her time in the front parlor of the Old House reading the Tarot. That Angelique speaks so haughtily to the Tarot reader and “amateur” witch Magda on the same set highlights the reversal of roles in this segment.
Meanwhile, Carl searches the hidden chamber for a way to escape. He finds that one of the stones in the steps slides and reveals a lever. He turns the lever, opening the panel. He runs out and vows to destroy Barnabas, in the process almost knocking over a large tombstone that wobbles as if it were made of Styrofoam.
In episodes #310-315, made and set in 1967, strange and troubled boy David Collins was trapped in the hidden chamber for a whole week. He never did find the release lever- the ghost of Barnabas’ little sister Sarah finally took pity on him, materializing and showing it to him. The show avoids the implication that David is drastically dumber than his great-great uncle Carl by showing that the stone concealing the lever is already slightly ajar.
Laura Murdoch Collins, estranged wife of the stuffy Edward, is settling into the cottage on the estate of Collinwood. Broad ethnic stereotype Magda Rákóczi is acting as her servant. Laura talks quite openly with Magda about Edward’s rakish brother Quentin. When Quentin was banished from Collinwood the year before, that is to say in 1896, Laura followed him to Alexandria, Egypt. That occasioned her estrangement from Edward.
Laura knows that Quentin uses the cottage for rendezvous with the various women in his life, and has Magda go through the place looking for things of his to box up and send to him. They find a doll and a deck of tarot cards; Laura tells Magda that no one knows how thoroughly Quentin is obsessed with the occult. Magda is an expert tarot reader, and Laura asks her to read the cards for her.
Magda lays out the cards, and they keep indicating death. Laura is initially distressed by this, but brightens at the thought that they might mean that Quentin will soon die. When Magda says that the death to which the cards pertain is one that has already taken place, Laura loses all patience and dashes the cards from the table. We know that Laura is an undead fire witch who periodically incinerates herself and reemerges as a humanoid Phoenix, and so it would seem that she is upset that the cards are confirming Quentin’s story that he saw her burn to death the previous year in Alexandria.
A recently arrived, quite distant cousin of Edward’s, the mysterious Barnabas Collins, comes calling on Laura. Barnabas has come with a present. Laura at first believes that this means that her evening has taken a turn for the better, and tells Barnabas that she is glad to think they might become friends. When she unwraps the present and finds an eighteenth century oil painting that appears to be a portrait of her, she is caught off guard. She at first acknowledges the resemblance, saying that she might have sat for it herself; Barnabas agrees that she might have. When she tries to backtrack and asks Magda if her chin looks like the one in the portrait, Magda replies “They look the same to me.” After Barnabas leaves, Laura orders Magda to put the portrait in a closet.
We know that Barnabas is a vampire, who has traveled back in time to 1897 to prevent Quentin from dying and becoming a ghost who will ruin things for everyone at Collinwood in 1969. We also know that he was acquainted with Laura in the eighteenth century, when he was alive. In the early part of the episode, Magda reproached Barnabas with his carelessness, telling him he must want people to know about him. Showing Laura the portrait would seem to prove that Magda was right. It serves no purpose but to arouse her suspicions. All the more so since Barnabas’ own eighteenth century portrait hangs in the foyer of the great house at Collinwood. He has used it as evidence that he is a descendant of an ancient member of the family, and Laura has apparently accepted it as such. But now that he has confronted her with her own portrait from the same epoch, she has every reason to search for another explanation.
Laura was Dark Shadows‘ first supernatural menace, from December 1966 to March 1967. In those days a lot of details were established about her previous incarnations, many of which they have been retconning away with some violence over the last few episodes. We learned then that in each of her appearances, Laura’s maiden name was Murdoch. It is confirmed today that when Edward met her she was Laura Murdoch. We also learned then that in the eighteenth century Laura Murdoch married into the Stockbridge family, one of the most prominent in the area, and that she and her young son David Stockbridge died (by fire!) in 1767. We saw her tomb in a crypt belonging to the Stockbridges and still maintained, two centuries later, by an old caretaker.
Today, Barnabas and his blood thrall, Magda’s husband Sandor, go to the same set. But it does not represent a freestanding building, nor does it have a staff. It is in the basement of “the old meeting house.” And the stone panel sealing Laura’s tomb is quite different. The one we saw in #154 and #157 read “Here Lyes Buried The Body Of L. Murdoch Stockbridge, Born 1735, Died 1767.” Just the initial L because, as the Caretaker explained repeatedly, “The Stockbridges cared nothing for first names!” But this panel is inscribed “In Memory of Laura Stockbridge Collins, Who died in 1785.” The name “Collins” is because the show has neglected to develop any other elites in the Collinsport area, so if Laura is going to keep coming back and marrying into a leading family, she’s going to have to pick a Collins every time.
The date 1785 is just mystifying. Barnabas said yesterday that he was ten when Laura came along. In November 1968 we flashed back to the year 1795, when he was still human. Actor Jonathan Frid was just about to celebrate his 43rd birthday at that time; if Barnabas is the same age as his player, he would therefore have been born in 1752. That would make him 15 in 1767. That would give him five years to have known Laura before she took her son with her into the flames. It would also be plausible that she would not have been startled when she met Barnabas Wednesday, seeing only the resemblance to the person whom he claims was his ancestor. But if he were born in 1752 and she lived until 1785, she would certainly have realized she was looking at the same person.
It seems that the show really wants us to think that Barnabas was in his twenties in 1795. Of course life was hard back then, but the 43 year old Jonathan Frid was not going to pass for any age much less than his own.
Barnabas orders Sandor to open the wall. In the cottage, Laura can hear the chisel tapping at the stone. Magda can hear nothing. Barnabas orders Sandor to open the coffin; Laura rushes out of the cottage, leaving a bewildered Magda behind. Laura reacted when they messed with her tomb in 1967 as well, so they’ve preserved that much of the continuity, at least.
Vampire Barnabas Collins returns to his coffin at dawn to find it already occupied. Governess Rachel Drummond is resting there, and is under the impression that she is Barnabas’ lost love Josette. He exclaims that only his old enemy, wicked witch Angelique, could be “monstrous enough” to put Rachel in this position.
Longtime viewers remember that in #248 Barnabas forced Maggie Evans, who like Rachel is played by Kathryn Leigh Scott, into this coffin because she refused to submit to his attempt to brainwash her into thinking she was Josette. So we know that Angelique is not all alone in the ranks of the sufficiently monstrous. On the other hand, we also know that it was Angelique who made Barnabas a vampire in the first place, and that like others who labor under Angelique’s curses he is in many ways a reflection of her. So perhaps his remark is not so preposterous an example of lack of self-awareness as it initially seems.
Shortly after, Rachel comes to in the front parlor of Barnabas’ home, the Old House on the estate of Collinwood, and is puzzled to find herself there with him. She has no idea how she got to the Old House, and certainly has no memory of the coffin in its basement. Barnabas tells Rachel he found her wandering in the woods. She goes to pieces, overwhelmed that she is not in control of her actions. He talks soothingly to her. Rachel collects herself, but is still struggling not to let Barnabas see her cry. He offers to walk her home to the great house on the estate. This offer is sheer bravado on his part- the sun has been up for some time, and he cannot possibly expect to survive outdoors all the way to the great house. Luckily for Barnabas, Rachel declines his offer. Unable to keep her emotions in check any longer, she hurries out the front door, walking herself home.
At the great house, Rachel sees maidservant Beth enter the foyer carrying a baby doll. Rachel says that her charge Nora will like the doll very much. Beth sputters at this remark, and spinster Judith Collins summons Beth to the drawing room. Rachel eavesdrops while Judith scolds Beth for her carelessness. Returning viewers know that Beth is helping Judith and Judith’s brother Edward keep someone prisoner in the room atop the tower of the great house, and that it is hugely important to Judith and Edward that no one knows about this. Beth’s sputtering response to Rachel told us also that the doll is not for Nora, but for this mysterious prisoner. Rachel does not have all the information about the matter that we do, but she has enough to suspect something very much like the truth, so we wonder what she gets out of the conversation she overhears.
Later, Rachel meets Beth in the foyer and urgently pleads with her for information about Edward’s wife, the mother of Nora and of her other charge, Jamison. Beth tells her what Edward has already made abundantly clear, that the topic is utterly forbidden. Rachel sidles up to Beth, bends her head at an angle, and speaks in an urgent whisper, something we have not seen from either Maggie or Miss Scott’s other role, Josette. Indeed, Rachel is quite a fresh character, impressively so from an actress whom longtime viewers already seen for so many hours.
Rachel pleads with Beth for more information.
Judith overhears Rachel’s questioning of Beth and Beth’s response that Rachel should leave the matter alone. Judith dismisses Beth and talks to Rachel, telling her that Beth has given her very good advice. Judith has figured so far as a stern and menacing figure; it is something of a surprise that she does not fire Rachel on the spot, and even more of a surprise that she indicates she will not report the conversation to Edward.
The opening voiceover will tell us in a couple of days that Rachel’s reckless curiosity is “spurred on by her own fears.” Miss Scott has been playing this motivation all along. When we first saw Rachel, she and Edward were in a train station. He was being courteous to her, but she was stiff and awkward, clearly very much afraid of something. She is often seen reading, and her dialogue is both filled with signs of intellectual ambition and delivered with a frantic edge, suggesting that her studiousness has its roots in her attempt to defend herself against some danger. We have no idea as yet what that danger was or how it formed Rachel before we met her, but we know that her reaction to the evidence that she has found that someone is being held prisoner in the tower room at Collinwood is a deepening of her long-established fears, not the sudden appearance of new fear.
For her part, Judith’s main concern is finding her late grandmother’s missing will. The late Mrs Collins kept the provisions of her will secret, and it was stolen shortly after her death by some people who wanted to forge a new will and get the estate for themselves.
A woman named Magda Rákóczi shows up at the house, claiming to be able to help Judith find the will. Judith is violently prejudiced against Magda for her Romani ethnicity, and dismisses her offer of help out of hand. But Magda persists. Knowing that her grandmother had a fondness for Magda, Judith lets her into the drawing room and sits behind her while she reads the tarot. Judith keeps protesting that the previous cases Magda cites as evidence that the tarot can tell the future prove nothing, and that in her interpretations of them she is “making no sense whatsoever.”
Magda then says that the arrangement of the cards means that the will is hidden in the room where Judith’s grandmother died, in “the heart of the room.” In an entirely different voice than she has been using so far, Judith asks “What is meant by the heart of the room?” With that, Magda knows that she has Judith in the palm of her hand, and she starts to ham it up. “The hearrrt of the roooom… is a booook! A book that was very important to your grandmother! A very, very oooolld booook!” Judith decides this must be the family history, and she tells Magda that she will look through it at once.
In fact, Barnabas found the will and hid it in the family history. He has sent Magda to tell Judith where to find it. It comes as no surprise to us when Judith comes downstairs with the will and is jubilant to find that she is the sole heir of her grandmother’s vast holdings. After all, Barnabas wants the original provisions of the will to be enacted, and the only way to ensure that result is to see that it comes to the hand of the person who is its chief beneficiary.
We end with Beth standing at the door to the tower room, holding the doll and addressing the person inside as “Jenny.” We learned in #701 that Beth was originally maid to a lady named Jenny, that everyone thinks Jenny has gone away, and that it is surprising Beth has stayed on at the house in Jenny’s absence. Now it is confirmed that Jenny is the prisoner in the tower room. The obvious inference is that Jenny is Edward’s estranged wife, and that she has become the sort of crazy lady who appreciates baby dolls.
Yesterday, we were in the great house on the estate of Collinwood when dying nonagenarian Edith Collins met mysterious newcomer Barnabas Collins. She told Barnabas that she recognized him. Edith had been entrusted with the Collins family’s darkest secret, which was about Barnabas. He is a vampire, entombed in the 1790s to be kept forever away from the living. Now it is 1897, and Edith sees that the family has failed. She must tell the secret to her eldest grandchild, Edward Collins. Edward comes into the room and Edith tries to tell him what has happened. She has difficulty speaking. Edward asks Barnabas to excuse them. He replies “Of course,” and leaves the room. He does stand at the door and listen to their conversation, apparently waiting to see if Edward will come out with a crucifix and a sharpened stake.
Today, we find that Edith was so shocked by the sight of Barnabas that she has lost her sense of her surroundings. Barnabas was kept in a chained coffin in an old family mausoleum, and Edith does manage to say the word “mausoleum” to Edward, but that’s as far as she gets with the secret. Thereafter, she weaves in and out of the moment, reliving several periods of her life, some as far back as the time of her wedding to Edward’s grandfather.
At the word “mausoleum,” Barnabas rushes back to the Old House on the estate, where he has been staying. He tells his unwilling servant, a woman named Magda Rákóczi, that she must fetch her husband Sandor and that she and Sandor must go to the mausoleum at once, take the coffin out of the secret chamber where it is hidden, leave no trace of any kind in the chamber, and carry the coffin to the house. Magda points out one of several facts that make it impossible to comply with these orders, which is that Sandor is in town where Barnabas sent him. Barnabas refuses to acknowledge this or any other insuperable difficulties, and goes back to the great house.
While Barnabas is sitting in the drawing room clenching his fists on the armchair where he is waiting to see what Edward will do when he learns that he is a vampire, a hidden panel opens and a man carries a pistol into the room. The man holds the pistol at Barnabas’ head and demands he tells him who he really is. The man identifies himself as Carl Collins, one of Edward’s brothers. Barnabas yields nothing. The man discharges the pistol, from which emerges a flag labeled “Fib.” He laughs. Barnabas is not amused. The audience may not share Carl’s sense of humor either, but the subsequent scene in which Carl claims to see that Barnabas has a kind face, predicts that the two of them will become close friends, and offers to let him borrow the pistol and play jokes with it himself, is hilarious. Jonathan Frid plays Barnabas’ icy reaction to Carl perfectly, and as Carl John Karlen does not betray the least glimmer of awareness of Barnabas’ affect.
Carl goes to the Old House to call on Magda. The scene there begins with Magda showing her palm to Carl. He wants her to read the Tarot cards; she says the cards will not speak unless she has money in her hand. Like his siblings, Carl is convinced that the secret which Edith keeps and which she has vowed to disclose only to Edward is the key to control of the family fortune. Magda knows better, but she goes through the cards anyway. They tell her that the family’s fortune is even larger than anyone knows, that when Edith’s will is found it will come as a surprise to everyone, that the surprise will lead to murder, and that the person who inherits the money will not keep it. The Queen of Cups turns up in a position that indicates Edith is still in control, but the last card Magda draws leads her to gasp and stand. She reels about the room, and declares that Edith is dead. “The cards are silent.”
Back in the house, Edward lets Barnabas into Edith’s room. He closes his grandmother’s eyes, and tells Barnabas that she did not tell him the secret. He vows to learn the secret even “if it’s the last thing I do!” We cut to Barnabas, looking uncomfortable. No doubt he is thinking of how inconvenient it would be if Edward were to find out the secret and he had to see to it that it was indeed the last thing he ever did.
This is the sixth consecutive installment to which I have given the “Genuinely Good Episode” tag, a record so far. Like the preceding five, it is stuffed with wonderful things. The acting is all very very good. Isabella Hoopes does a marvelous job as the delirious Edith, as Edward Louis Edmonds gives a master class in how to play a stuffy man, and the pairings of Grayson Hall, John Karlen, and Jonathan Frid with each other all unfold brilliantly, full of laughs but never losing their dramatic tension. So many of the episodes fans most enjoy would be drab for people coming to the show for the first time that it is always a memorable occasion when we see one like this, that anyone should be able to recognize as an outstanding half hour of television. It’s true the visual side lets us down a little; even by the standards of 1960s daytime television, the color is murky and there are too many closeups. But Sam Hall’s script and the performances are so good that no fair-minded person will complain very much about those problems.
Fans will take a special interest in Edith’s ramblings. When it first aired, viewers had no way of knowing how much of what she says about the family’s history will be reflected in upcoming episodes. The writers themselves probably didn’t have a much clearer idea about that than we do. But watching the series through for the first time, our default assumption about each of her lines is that it will have some significance as we go, so if we are committed to watching the show we listen closely.
We’ve already learned that Edith is over 90, so the very latest she could have been born is 1807. More likely she was born a bit before that, sometime between 1801 and 1806. She says today that her father-in-law was Daniel Collins. From November 1967 to March 1968, Dark Shadows was set in the late 1790s, and we saw Daniel. He was about 11 in 1795, so he would have been born in 1784 or thereabouts. So he could have been no more than 23 years old when Edith was born. Presumably his son Gabriel was the same age as his bride, though he might have been significantly younger. Edith does say that she always hated Daniel; perhaps she was a good deal older than Gabriel, and Daniel disapproved of her initially for that reason.
Edith tells us that Gabriel has been dead for 34 years, placing his death date in late 1862 or early 1863. She does not mention his cause of death or say anything about their son who was the father of Edward, Carl, and the others. It is firmly fixed that Edward and Carl’s brother Quentin was born in 1870, so Gabriel’s son must have survived him by several years.*
Edith says several times that the secret has been passed down from generation to generation and that she must tell it to Edward because he is the oldest. That seems to imply that Daniel told his oldest child, whom we presume to have been Gabriel, and that Gabriel told his oldest child, whom we presume to have been the unnamed father of Edith’s four grandchildren. He would then have told Edith before he died, either because Edward was not yet old enough to hear it, or because he was not available at the time.
But that implication is not at all secure. Edith says that Edward must be the keeper of the secret because he is the oldest- she doesn’t say what the connection is between being the oldest and keeping the secret. For all we know, she could have decided on her own to invent that tradition, starting with Edward and continuing with Edward’s oldest child. And when she says that it was passed down from generation to generation, she does not specify how many generations have been involved or which member of each generation did the passing. All we know is that someone of one generation learned it from someone else of a different generation, and that Edith believes it is the family’s responsibility to keep Barnabas from preying upon the living.
I think it’s reasonable to assume that sometime between 1897 and 1967 the secret was lost and not continually passed down. Perhaps in the original timeline Quentin was successful in killing Edith before Edward arrived, or maybe Edward died later in life before he was able to pass it on.
As far as Joshua passing the secret on, maybe he did, or maybe it was the elderly Ben Stokes who started the tradition?
Joshua was Barnabas’ father, and Ben Stokes was a much-put-upon indentured servant who was Barnabas’ devoted friend. They were the two people who knew that Barnabas was a vampire and that he was entombed in the secret chamber of the mausoleum. I replied to “Mike”:
I love that idea. Edith’s desire to tell the oldest son may lead us to assume that it has been handed down to the oldest son generation after generation, and it does lead the “Fab Four”** to assume that it brings with it some kind of power and access to riches. But their assumption is wrong, and ours may also be. Perhaps Joshua never told anyone. Perhaps the first person to tell the secret was Ben Stokes, and the person he told was Edith.
The scene between Barnabas and Magda brought another question to my mind. In #334, Barnabas was able to lock the panel in the mausoleum that leads to the secret room. Why doesn’t he just do that? It has also been made clear that as a vampire he is far stronger than are humans- if he wants to move the coffin from the mausoleum to the Old House, surely he could pick it up himself and do it more quickly and with less risk of detection than could Magda and Sandor. My wife, Mrs Acilius, agrees that we don’t know why Barnabas doesn’t lock the panel, but she says that it is perfectly clear why he can’t move the coffin- that is manual labor, and he is an aristocrat. His servants must do that.
*In a later episode, Quentin will mention that he knew Gabriel, throwing the 1862/3 date into question. But they never get around to any stories that depend on anything that happened in Gabriel’s later years. By the time we get to that one, only obsessive fans will remember his name. Eventually we meet two characters named Gabriel Collins, one in episodes that will air in 1970 and the other in the 1971 film Night of Dark Shadows, but a death date in the 1860s is not relevant to anything we learn about either of them.
**The “Fab Four” are Edith’s grandchildren, Edward, Carl, Quentin, and their sister Judith.
We begin the part of Dark Shadows set in the year 1897 with an episode featuring a glittering script, a strong cast, and a hopeless director. Henry Kaplan’s visual style consisted of little more than one closeup after another. The first real scene in the episode introduces us to Sandor and Magda Rákóczi, a Romani couple who live in the Old House on the estate of Collinwood. They bicker while Sandor throws knives at the wall. Thayer David really is throwing knives, but since we cut between closeups of the targets and of the actors we cannot see anything dynamic in that action. He may as well be whittling.
Magda ridicules Sandor’s pretensions as a knife-thrower and as a patent medicine salesman, and busies herself with a crystal ball. She tells him that when “the old lady” dies, they will have to leave Collinwood. He says he knows all about that. She wants him to steal the Collins family jewels so that they can leave with great riches. He eventually caves in and sets out for the great house on the estate, more to escape her nagging than out of greed.
Regular viewers will remember that we heard Magda’s name in December 1968. The show had introduced two storylines, one about the malevolent ghost of Quentin Collins and the other about werewolf Chris Jennings, and the characters were starting to notice the strange goings-on that Quentin and Chris generated. The adults in the great house had no idea that Quentin was haunting them or that Chris was a werewolf, so they held a séance in #642. Speaking through heiress Carolyn Collins Stoddard, Magda mentioned “My curse!” and said that “He must not come back!” It was clear in the context of the episode that the “He” who “must not come back” was Quentin. Chris was a participant in the séance, and he broke the circle before Magda could explain what she meant by her “curse.” Séances held in #170 and #281 were cut short by the person whose secret the medium was about to expose; that it is Chris who interrupts this one would suggest to longtime viewers that Magda not only knew Quentin, but that the curse she is about to explain was the one that made Chris a werewolf. Carolyn and her uncle Roger Collins talked a little about Magda in #643, and psychic investigator Janet Findley sensed the ghostly presence of a woman whose name started with an “M” in #648. We haven’t heard about Magda since.
As the living Magda, Grayson Hall manages rather a more natural accent than Nancy Barrett had when channeling her concerns about “my currrrrssssse.” The exaggerated costumes Hall and Thayer David wear make sense when we hear them reminiscing about the old days, when they made their livings as stage Gypsies with a knife-throwing act, Tarot card readings, and a magic elixir. Even the fact that Magda is peering into a crystal ball during this scene is understandable when they make it clear that they are staying in the Old House as guests of the mistress of the great house, an old, dying lady who enjoys their broadly stereotypical antics. But there is no way to reconcile twenty-first century sensibilities to Hall and David’s brownface makeup. Some time later, Hall would claim that one of her grandmothers was Romani. If that was a lie, it is telling that only someone as phenomenally sophisticated as Hall could in the 1970s see that she would need to invent a story to excuse playing such a character.
Objectionable as Sandor and Magda are, their dialogue is so well-written and so well delivered that we want to like them. Moreover, the year 1897 points to another reason fans of Dark Shadows might be happy enough to see Romani or Sinti characters that they will overlook the racist aspects of their portrayal. It was in 1897 that Bram Stoker’s Dracula was published, and it depicted the evil Count as surrounded by “Gypsy” thralls. The character who has brought us on this journey into the past is Barnabas Collins, and upon his arrival he found that he was once more a vampire.
In addition to the strengths of the dialogue, the acting, and the intertext, there is also a weakness in this episode that softens the blow of the brownface. Today the picture is so muddy that it is possible to overlook the makeup. That’s Kaplan’s fault. It would often be the case that one or the other of the cameras wasn’t up to standard, but when the director was a visual artist as capable as Lela Swift or John Sedwick, there would always be at least some shots in a scene using the good camera, and others where the lighting would alleviate some of the consequences of the technical difficulties. But Kaplan doesn’t seem to have cared at all. He had made up his mind to use a particular camera to shoot the Old House parlor with a subdued lighting scheme, and if that camera was not picking up the full range of color, too bad. He’d photograph a lot of sludge and call it a day.
Meanwhile, a man knocks on the door of the great house. He is Quentin, and the person who opens the door is Beth Chavez. We first saw these two as ghosts in #646. Beth spoke some lines during the “Haunting of Collinwood” story, but Quentin’s voice was heard only in his menacing laugh.
We already know Quentin as the evil spirit who drove everyone from the house and is killing strange and troubled boy David Collins in February of 1969. His behavior in this scene is no less abominable than we might there by have come to expect. He pushes past Beth to force his way into the foyer, does not bother to deny that he has come back to persuade his dying grandmother to leave him her money, pretends to have forgotten someone named “Jenny,” makes Beth feel uncomfortable by saying that her association with Jenny makes her position in the house precarious, orders Beth to carry his bags, twists her arm, and leeringly tells her that she would be much happier if she would just submit to his charms. David Selby sells the scene, and we believe that Quentin is a villain who must be stopped. But Mr Selby himself is so charming, and the dialogue in which he makes his unforgivable declarations is so witty, that we don’t want him to go away. He establishes himself at once as The Man You Love to Hate.
In an upstairs bedroom, the aged Edith Collins is looking at Tarot cards. Quentin makes his way to her; she expresses her vigorous disapproval of him. She says that “When Jamison brought me the letter, I said to myself ‘He is the same. Quentin is using the child to get back.'” Quentin replies “But you let me come back.” She says that she did, and admits that he makes her feel young. With that, Edith identifies herself with the audience’s point of view.
The reference to Jamison and a letter reminds regular viewers of #643, when Magda’s ghost caused a letter from Quentin to fall into Roger’s hands. It was addressed to Roger’s father, Jamison, and was written in 1887. It read “Dear Jamison, You must return to Collinwood. I need your help. You must intercede with Oscar. Only you can save me.” They’ve revised the flimsies quite a bit since then; now it is 1897, Jamison is 12, and we don’t hear about anyone named Oscar.
Not about any character named Oscar, anyway. Edith tells Quentin that “Men who live as you do will not age well.” Quentin tells Edith that she ought not to believe in the Tarot, because “This card always has the same picture and people change, even I.” On Dark Shadows, which from its beginning has taken place on sets dominated by portraits, these two lines might make us wonder what it would be like if it were portraits that changed while their subjects remained the same. Oscar Wilde’s Picture of Dorian Gray was published in serial form in 1890 and as a novel in 1891, and it was a sensation on both sides of the Atlantic. The dialogue is so witty that the characters must be well-read, making it quite plausible that Quentin’s remark was meant to remind Edith of the book. Especially so, since Wilde was released from prison in 1897, bringing him back to public notice in that year.
Edith tells Quentin that old and sick as she may be, she can still out-think him. She declares that all of her grandchildren will get what they deserve. All, that is, except Edward. Roger mentioned Edward in #697, naming him as his grandfather and Jamison’s father. Edith says that Edward is the eldest, and therefore she must tell him “the secret.” There is a note of horror in her voice as she says this; Quentin misses that note, and reflexively urges her to tell him the secret. She only shakes her head- the secret isn’t a prize to contend for, it is a burden to lament.
Isabella Hoopes plays this scene lying on her side in bed, a challenging position for any performer. Her delivery is a bit stilted at the beginning, but after she makes eye contact with David Selby she warms up and becomes very natural. I wonder if the initial awkwardness had to do with Kaplan. He held a conductor’s baton while directing, and he used to poke actresses with it. I can’t imagine a person in bed wearing a nightgown would have an easy time relaxing if her attention was focused on him. Once she can connect with Mr Selby, though, you can see what an outstanding professional she was.
Quentin goes to the drawing room, and finds Sandor behind the curtains. He threatens to call the police, and Sandor slinks back to the Old House. Magda berates him for his failure to steal the jewels, and he insists there are no jewels in the great house.
Meanwhile, Barnabas is in his coffin, trying to will someone to come and release him. In #210, dangerously unstable ruffian Willie Loomis had become obsessed with Barnabas’ portrait in the foyer of the great house, so much so that he could hear Barnabas’ heart beating through it. Barnabas called Willie to come to the secret chamber in the old Collins family mausoleum where his coffin was hidden. In his conscious mind, Willie thought he was going to steal a fortune in jewels. His face distorted with the gleeful expectation of that bonanza, he broke the chains that bound the coffin shut, and Barnabas’ hand darted out, choking him and pulling him down.
In the Old House, an image suddenly appears in the crystal ball. We can see it, the first time they have actually projected an image in such a ball since the first one made its debut in #48.
Magda notices the image, and tells Sandor to look. He recognizes the old mausoleum. She says that the jewels must be in “the room,” implying that they already know about the hidden panel and the secret chamber behind it. Sandor says it is absurd to imagine Edith going to and from the mausoleum to retrieve pieces of her jewelry collection. Magda ignores this, and urges him to go there. He reluctantly agrees to go with her.
The two of them are heading for the door when they hear a knock. It is Beth, come to say that Edith wants to see Magda. Edith wants what she always wants- to be told that Edward will return before she dies. Sandor says Magda can’t go, but Beth says she will regret it for the rest of her life if she does not. Magda tells Sandor to go on his way without her, and says that she will bring Edith some ancient Gypsy cards, cards older than the Tarot. When she talks about Romani lore, Magda taunts Beth- “but you wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?” Her sarcastic tone implies that Beth has tried to conceal her own Romani heritage.
Sandor opens the secret panel and looks at the chained coffin. He tells himself the jewels can’t be hidden there, then decides he may as well open it anyway- if he doesn’t, Magda will just send him back. Longtime viewers remembering the frenzy in which Willie opened the coffin in #210 will be struck by the utterly lackadaisical attitude with which Sandor performs the same task. Men’s lust for riches may release the vampire, but so too may their annoyance with the wife when she won’t stop carping on the same old thing.
When Willie opened the coffin, it lay across the frame lengthwise and he was behind it. When he raised the lid it blocked our view of his middle. We could see only his face when he realized what he had done, and could see nothing of Barnabas but his hand. The result was an iconic image.
Farewell, dangerously unstable ruffian- hello, sorely bedraggled blood thrall. Screenshot by Dark Shadows Before I Die.
When Sandor opens the coffin, its end is toward us. We see Barnabas at the same time he does. Barnabas’ hand darts up, and also for some reason his foot. The camera zooms in as Barnabas clutches Sandor’s throat. Unfortunately, the shot is so dimly lit that not all viewers will see this. My wife, Mrs Acilius, has eyesight that is in some ways a bit below average, and she missed it completely, even on a modern big-screen television. It’s anyone’s guess how many viewers would have known what was going on when they were watching it on the little TV sets of March 1969, on an ABC affiliate which was more likely than not the station that came in with the poorest picture quality in the area. As a result, the image that marks the relaunch of Barnabas’ career as a vampire is nothing at all. There is so much good stuff in the episode that it easily earns the “Genuinely Good” tag, but Kaplan’s bungling of this final shot is a severe failure.
This is the second of three episodes featuring Cavada Humphrey as Madame Janet Findley, a medium called in to investigate the strange goings-on at the great house of Collinwood. Humphrey’s performance so utterly dominates the segment, and I have so little to add to what I said about her style in yesterday’s post, that all I can do is make a series of more or less miscellaneous observations about its other aspects.
Today Madame Findley meets children David Collins and Amy Jennings. Amy and David are coming under the influence of evil spirit Quentin Collins. She questions them in the drawing room, and finds a hidden panel that leads to the long-abandoned west wing of the house. Over the children’s objections, she enters the secret passage. As soon as she is in, they hurriedly close the panel, locking her in. Evidently their objections were part of a ruse designed to lead her to Quentin’s stronghold. All too often on Dark Shadows, the audience knows too much about what characters are trying to do. This scene stands out, because they really do keep us guessing whether the children want Madame Findley to go into the secret passage. We don’t really know what their goals are until we see them shut her in.
Earlier in the episode, Amy’s brother Chris dropped in. He was very eager to see permanent houseguest Julia Hoffman, MD. Amy mentioned to Chris that there was another visitor in the house. When Chris asked who it was, Amy replied, “Her name is Madame- Madame something- at least that’s what they call her.”
I heard these lines in the voice of T. S. Eliot. The rhythm is reminiscent of a section of his poem The Waste Land, which in 1968 was an extremely familiar text to people with literary ambitions:
Madame Sosostris, famous clairvoyante,
Had a bad cold, nevertheless
Is known to be the wisest woman in Europe,
With a wicked pack of cards. Here, said she,
Is your card, the drowned Phoenician Sailor,
(Those are pearls that were his eyes. Look!)
Here is Belladonna, the Lady of the Rocks,
The lady of situations.
Here is the man with three staves, and here the Wheel,
And here is the one-eyed merchant, and this card,
Which is blank, is something he carries on his back,
Which I am forbidden to see. I do not find
The Hanged Man. Fear death by water.
I see crowds of people, walking round in a ring.
Thank you. If you see dear Mrs. Equitone,
Tell her I bring the horoscope myself:
One must be so careful these days.
It was indeed a mysterious Tarot card that prompted matriarch Elizabeth Collins Stoddard to call for help, and that call brought Madame Findley to the house. The card she interprets is the Tower of Destruction, which unlike the cards Eliot’s Madame Sostris describes actually appears in existing Tarot decks. She doesn’t have a cold, and she isn’t in the business of selling horoscopes door to door. On the contrary, as Humphrey plays her she is a dazzling presence.
Liz did not call Madame Findley directly. She telephoned occult expert Timothy Eliot Stokes, who introduced her to La Findley. At first sight, Stokes appears to be a stuffy academic with an impossible Anglophile manner, but as we get to know him he turns out to be very much at home in the bizarre netherworld in which the show takes place, so much so that his supernatural adversaries fear that he may have powers surpassing theirs. T(homas) St(earn)s Eliot was so much like T(imothy) Eliot St(oke)s in the first impression he made, so highly regarded by the sort of people who wrote Dark Shadows, and so generally famous in the 1960s that it is very likely that Stokes’ name was at least partly inspired by him.
It’s true that Madame Findley’s name lacks the exotic glamour Eliot gave his character. I suppose if you have all of Europe to choose from, you can take your stray Tarot cards to someone named “Madame Sosostris,” but if you are limited to central Maine, you have to settle for “Janet Findley.”
I made a remark about Madame Findley’s name in the comments on Danny Horn’s post about episode #647 on his great Dark Shadows Every Day:
It’s just delightful that they introduce an otherworldly, mystical character, played with an actress who brings a genuinely eerie note to her performance, and her name is… “Janet Findley.” It’s like Monty Python and the Holy Grail, when they meet the wizard who is known as “Tim.”
I wonder if there’s any connection between the name “Janet Findley” and the name “Janet Fisher,” whom Carolyn mentioned as a friend once of twice in the first season. Seems like a lot of Janet Fs. For that matter, I wonder if there’s a connection between Tim the Wizard from Monty Python and Tim(othy Eliot) Stokes, who a couple of episodes back had to tell Vicki that he isn’t a wizard.
–Comment left by Acilius, 8 October 2020, on Danny Horn, “Episode 647: The Wire,” Dark Shadows Every Day, 12 May 2015
That remark drew a response from a commenter who posts as “Mary”:
Findley is a popular name on Dark Shadows. In addition to Janet, Margaret Findley is one of the ghostly widows, Thomas Findley is one of Jeb’s zombies in the Leviathan storyline and Findley’s cove is the location of Carolyn’s cottage in 1995.
Comment left by “Mary,” 18 February 2021, on Danny Horn, “Episode 647: The Wire,” Dark Shadows Every Day, 12 May 2015
When Madame Findley asks about the closed-off parts of the house, Liz tells her about both the west wing and an east wing. The phrase “east wing” had come up a couple of times in the first year of the show, but it always seemed to be either a case of the writers not having made up their minds which side of the house the deserted wing was on or a slip of the tongue by the actors. This is the first time the show makes it clear that the house really does have two deserted wings.
Humphrey was too perfect for Dark Shadows to play only one role. In a comment on Danny’s post about this episode, I indulged in a little fanfic about another part that would have been right for her:
Cavada Humphrey looks quite a bit like Jonathan Frid. I wonder what 1795 would have been like if Barnabas had had an older sister who bossed him around, stood around during his ridiculously childish fits of petulance, occasionally acted as his conscience, and time and again serve as his enabler and protector. It would have been funny to see Grayson Hall’s Countess express disapproval of such a relationship.
Heck, that older sister could have been Sarah. Just because she’s a child in her ghost form doesn’t mean she has to have died at that age. Maybe she comes back in the form in which her relationship to her brother took its permanent shape, when she was about nine and he was about seven. Of course, that possibility is foreclosed at Sarah’s first appearance, when she tells Maggie not to let her “big brother” know she saw her, but I suppose they could have retconned that away with a phony flashback where she says “little brother.”
Comment left by Acilius, 8 October 2020, on Danny Horn, “Episode 648: Astral Disturbances,” Dark Shadows Every Day, 14 May 2015.
I’m very fond of Sharon Smyth, and Sarah’s last appearance in the 1795 segment was so poignant it would have been a substantial loss for her not to have been in it. On the other hand, she had so much less to do when she was playing a living being than she did in the preceding months when Sarah was a ghost, and so much of what she did get to do was outside her rather sharply limited range, that it is not difficult to imagine a different kind of Sarah making the eighteenth century insert a more compelling drama.
When well-meaning governess Vicki came unstuck in time and found herself in the year 1795, regular viewers of Dark Shadows could expect certain plot points to be resolved before she returned to the 1960s. We would learn how Barnabas Collins became a vampire, and how he wound up trapped in a chained coffin in the secret chamber of the Collins family mausoleum. We would learn how Barnabas’ little sister Sarah died. We would see Barnabas’ lost love, gracious lady Josette, marry his uncle Jeremiah Collins. We would see Josette jump to her death from the precipice atop Widows’ Hill. And we would see Vicki escape from some dangerous situation and find herself back in her own time.
Now, the only items on that list left unresolved are Barnabas’ chaining and Vicki’s return. The show has made it clear to people paying close attention how each of those events will happen, and they could fit them both into one episode. Into any given episode, in fact- they’ve given us all the foundation we need for both stories.
But they aren’t going home to a contemporary setting quite yet. The eighteenth century segment has been a ratings hit, Dan Curtis Productions owns the period costumes, and several fun characters are still alive. So they have decided to restart some storylines they had shut down earlier and to build up some new ones.
The main thing that happens today is the first step towards restarting an apparently concluded story. Fluttery heiress Millicent Collins had shared a series of wonderful comedy scenes with untrustworthy naval officer Nathan Forbes, become engaged to him, and discovered that he was already married to someone else. Since that discovery, Millicent has been grimly determined to exact revenge on Nathan, and the rest of the Collins family has regarded him with icy disdain.
Nathan has made a discovery of his own. He has learned that Barnabas did not go to England, as his family has been telling everyone, but that he is still in Collinsport, and is the serial killer preying on the young women of the town. Last week, he made it clear to the audience he had a plan to turn this information into money, apparently by blackmailing the Collinses. Today, we learn that his plans are more complicated, and involve a renewal of his relationship with Millicent. Late at night, he shows up at the lodgings of a visiting witchfinder, the Rev’d Mr Trask. He asks Trask to take a letter to Millicent.
Trask does not want to let Nathan into his room, since the corpse of a prostitute is sprawled across his bed. She is Maude Browning. Barnabas murdered her in Friday’s episode. As part of his campaign to make life difficult for Trask, he deposited her remains at his place.
Nathan won’t take no for an answer, so Trask throws a blanket over Maude and lets him in. Nathan notices Maude’s arm sticking out from under the blanket and is delighted to think that Trask is not the fanatical ascetic he seems to be. Trask breaks down and starts telling Nathan what happened. He tells him that he was astounded to find Maude’s body on his bed, and he asks him to help get rid of it. Nathan agrees to do so on condition he deliver the letter to Millicent.
We then cut to the great house at Collinwood, where Millicent is studying a layout of Tarot. All the Dark Shadows fansites point out that Millicent misidentifies the Queen of Cups as the High Priestess. This is not the fault it is often made out to be. On Dark Shadows Before I Die, Christine Scoleri reminds us that the Countess DuPrés made the same mistake in #368. Since the countess introduced the Tarot to Collinwood and presumably taught Millicent how to read the cards, it would have been a break in continuity had she called it anything else.
Millicent looks at the cards and addresses the absent Nathan, telling him that she is filled with hatred for him and that he faces certain destruction as punishment for his mistreatment of her. Naomi Collins, mistress of the house, enters and asks Cousin Millicent to whom she is speaking. When she answers that she is talking to Nathan, Naomi tells her Nathan is not there. Millicent replies that he does not need to be present to hear her voice. Since Barnabas was able to magically project his own taunting voice across space into Trask’s hearing in Thursday and Friday’s episodes, this claim of Millicent’s has a curious resonance for returning viewers.
Trask shows up with Nathan’s letter. He wants to meet with Millicent alone in the drawing room to give it to her, but Naomi insists on being present. They stay in the foyer. When Naomi forces Trask to tell them that the letter is from Nathan, Naomi takes it and tears it to pieces. Millicent says that she approves of Naomi’s action, but we can see a flicker in her eye and hear a quiver in her voice that suggest the hatred of Nathan she spoke of a few minutes before may not be quite so undiluted as she would like to believe. Trask leaves the house, Naomi leaves the foyer, and Millicent gathers up the shredded pieces of the letter.
Back in his room, Trask goes to sleep. He has a dream. The dream sequence begins with an image reminiscent of pieces moving in a kaleidoscope.
That kaleidoscopic pattern was part of a visual effect we saw when Dark Shadows was still set in 1967. That effect introduced scenes that took place in #347, #352, and #354, when mad scientist Julia Hoffman hypnotized Vicki and took her to the Old House at Collinwood. At Collinwood, Barnabas’ helper Carolyn spotted Julia and Vicki, putting Julia in great danger.
The echo of those episodes is startling coming on the heels of the scene we just saw, in which Millicent figures as a student of the countess. Julia and the countess are both played by Grayson Hall, and Millicent and Carolyn are both played by Nancy Barrett. The relationships between their characters are different now, shifted as the colored pieces shift in a turning kaleidoscope. But remembering those earlier episodes, we might remember that what is seen in a semiconscious state might be a message sent to manipulate and deceive, and we certainly remember that people who go to the Old House are in danger from Barnabas.
Trask’s dream brings him face to face with the ghost of Maude, accusing him of having her remains dumped in the sea, so that she cannot rest. She predicts that everyone will learn that her dead body was in his bed. He denies both her accusation and her prediction, but does not convince either her or himself.
Another ghost then appears. It is that of Trask’s great supporter, repressed spinster Abigail Collins. Trask tries to tell Abigail that he is innocent of Maude’s charges, but she tells him she has no idea what he is talking about. She wants to tell him that there is a great evil he must destroy. Trask has a vision telling him the evil is lurking in the Old House. He resolves to go there.
All of the acting is excellent in this one. That’s no more than we would expect from most of the cast members we see today, but Vala Clifton’s two turns as the living Maude were pretty bad, so that it is a pleasant surprise that she is so good as Maude’s ghost. The physical space gives her a hard job. She is standing a very few feet in front of Jerry Lacy with only a couple of wispy stage decorations indicating that she is separated from him, but she strikes a pose and maintains a degree of stillness that really does create the sense that she is speaking to him from another realm. She also manages to keep up an ethereal quality while making it clear that Maude is determined to be avenged. I wonder what her first appearances would have been like if she had had more time to rehearse. If they had been as good as this one, Ms Clifton and Maude would be among the more fondly remembered parts of the eighteenth century segment.
Dark Shadows became a hit after vampire Barnabas Collins joined the cast in April of 1967. Displaced from a previous era, Barnabas spent most of his time trying to con people into believing that he was a native of the twentieth century. The difficulties Barnabas encountered in his performance in the role of modern man dovetailed so neatly with those actor Jonathan Frid encountered in his characterization of a vampire that his every scene was fascinating to watch.
The audience’s main point-of-view character for the first year of the show or more was well-meaning governess Vicki. Now Vicki finds herself in a situation like that which made Barnabas a pop culture phenomenon. The ghost of Barnabas’ ten year old sister Sarah has sent Vicki back in time to 1795, when Barnabas and Sarah are both living beings and the vampire curse has not yet manifested on the estate of Collinwood. Vicki and Barnabas have traded places- she is now the time-traveler who must trick everyone into thinking she belongs in their period, while he is her warm-hearted, if uncomprehending, friend.
Unfortunately, the show has not chosen to write 1795 Vicki as a fast-thinking con artist. By the time the Collins family of 1967 met Barnabas, he was wearing contemporary clothing and telling them a story about being their cousin from England. Vicki shows up in her 1967 clothes and carrying a copy of a Collins family history printed in the 1950s. She goes around blurting out information she learned from reading that book and introduces herself to each character by telling them that they are played by actors who had other parts in the first 73 weeks of the show. Vicki’s natterings have convinced two ladies in the manor house, repressed spinster Abigail Collins and visiting aristocrat Countess DuPrés, that she is a witch.
Today, we open with the countess setting a trap to expose Vicki. Haughty overlord Joshua Collins vanished from the front parlor yesterday, in the middle of an argument with his brother Jeremiah. Jeremiah looked away from Joshua for a moment, and when he looked back his brother was gone and there was a small house cat in his place. The countess insists Vicki come into the parlor and reenact Joshua and Jeremiah’s argument. Vicki keeps protesting that the whole idea is silly, but the countess will not be stopped.
The countess imitates Joshua. This is the first time we have seen Grayson Hall play one character mimicking another, and it is hilarious. I suppose it would have ruined the laugh if Vicki had shown that she was in on the joke, but at least it would have provided evidence that Vicki hasn’t left her entire brain in 1967.
The countess tries to get Vicki to speculate on what goes on behind closed doors between Joshua and his wife Naomi. Vicki says that “It’s not my place to judge their marriage,” managing to sound like a dutiful servant, if not like an eighteenth century English speaker. The countess goes on testing Vicki with provocations that seem unconnected with each other, and she tries not to say anything wrong. That goes on until the cat reappears.
Barnabas is Joshua’s son. He enters and sees the cat. Vicki leaves, and Barnabas tells the countess he doesn’t think he has ever seen the cat before. Caddish naval officer Nathan Forbes enters to confer with Barnabas about the search for Joshua. Nathan overhears the countess suggesting to Barnabas that Vicki is a witch and is responsible for making his father disappear.
Nathan finds Vicki. He tries to warn her that the countess suspects her of being a witch. This is the second time we have seen someone explicitly tell Vicki that she will have to do a better job of faking her way through her current situation, after a scene in #367 where the kindly Jeremiah told her in so many words that she would have to make up a better story to tell people about herself. No one had needed to do that for Barnabas when he was lying his way through 1967, and if they had he would have had a stake in his heart before he’d been on the show a week.
At least Vicki tried to absorb what Jeremiah told her in #367. When Nathan tells her today how bad she has made things for herself, she just gets uptight. There have always been times when the writers solved plotting problems by having Vicki do something inexplicable, but now it seems Dumb Vicki is the only side of the character we will be allowed to see.
The countess confronts Vicki again, inviting her to take a lesson in tarot card reading. As the countess probes Vicki for information, we hear Vicki’s voice in a recorded monologue, wondering if she could tell the countess the truth. She may as well- she has pretty well blown any chance she ever had at establishing a false identity for herself.
When the countess asks Vicki where she was trained to be a governess, she says that she was raised in a foundling home in Boston and was trained there. The only false part of this account is that the foundling home was in New York. Changing the location to Boston only makes it that much easier for people based in Maine to check her story and prove it false. When the countess asks when she was born, she says “March 4, 19-” and catches herself. The countess remarks on the strangeness of the slip, and Vicki is conscious enough not to fall into her trap when she invites her to put the wrong digits after “17.”
By the end of their encounter, it should be obvious even to Vicki that the countess suspects her of witchcraft. The countess presses Vicki about her knowledge of the supernatural, telling her that Barnabas regards her as clairvoyant. Vicki tries to dismiss that as “his joke.” When Vicki protests that she does not know why the countess keeps asking her questions about the supernatural, the countess impatiently tells her that she certainly does know. She declares that something terrible is happening in the house, and that she is determined to find out what it is.
Having made it clear that she thinks Vicki is a witch, the countess leaves her alone in the room with the layout of tarot cards she had been studying. Vicki decides to rearrange the cards. She thinks to herself that she will thereby warn the countess of the upcoming tragedies. But the countess will know that the cards are not where she dealt them, and it will be obvious that it was Vicki who moved them. She will know that she is receiving a message, not from whatever realm tarot cards are supposed to access, but from Vicki. If that message foretells disasters that in fact occur, she will only be confirmed in her suspicions. It is difficult to imagine a stupider act Vicki could have committed.
Difficult, but for a writer as imaginative as Sam Hall it is not impossible. In the next scene, Vicki is talking to Barnabas while the countess stands nearby. Vicki tells Barnabas that Joshua will return. She speaks with such assurance that Barnabas takes it as another sign of her clairvoyance, and the countess reacts with horror, hearing the witch declare that she is about to lift her spell.
The moment when Mrs Acilius shouted at the screen, “Vicki, SHUT! UP!” Screenshot by Dark Shadows Before I Die.
Alone with the countess, Barnabas admits that he is starting to think that she may have a point about witchcraft. The countess answers that he is becoming wise.
Closing Miscellany
The asthmatic Grayson Hall has a coughing fit during her scene with Vicki and the tarot cards. It is one of the less amusing bloopers, she really sounds like she’s suffering.
I chuckled a little when Vicki stops at “19-” in giving her birthdate. Alexandra Moltke Isles’ year of birth is given on various websites as early as 1943 and as late as 1949. I think it is only fitting that someone so central to a show like Dark Shadows should be a little mysterious, so I’m glad that all we really know about Mrs Isles’ birth is that it took place on 11 February 194-.
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.
Dark Shadows Commentary 