Vampire Barnabas Collins stops by the great house of Collinwood to talk with well-meaning governess Vicki. Vicki is depressed because her fiancé Burke is missing and feared dead in the Amazon jungle. Barnabas offers to pay for a private search party to look for Burke. Vicki declines this offer, saying that she is sure the Brazilian authorities are doing all that can be done.
One might wonder what would have happened if Vicki had accepted. Barnabas has sold a few pieces of jewelry that he remembered were hidden around Collinwood when he was alive, but he does not appear to have any other source of income, and he has spent a great deal of money fixing up the Old House on the estate. If he were going to pay for a team of investigators to go to South America, presumably the writers would have had to come up with some story about how he got to be so rich.
Vicki starts to cry about Burke. Barnabas reaches out to touch her, and she recoils from him. This startles them both. Vicki is genuinely bewildered by her reaction; she has been very comfortable with Barnabas up to this point. He is hurt, but assures Vicki she need not explain. He backs away, looks at her sadly, and excuses himself. Jonathan Frid and Alexandra Moltke Isles play this scene with real pathos.
Blonde heiress Carolyn joins Vicki in the drawing room. Carolyn is surprised that Barnabas has already gone. Vicki tells her she is ashamed of herself. She tells Carolyn of her reaction, and of her inability to understand it.
Carolyn has recently become Barnabas’ blood thrall, and is working to advance his goal of winning Vicki’s love. She goes to Barnabas in the Old House. She finds that mad scientist Julia Hoffman is with him. Barnabas dismisses Julia so that he and Carolyn can talk privately. She tells him that she saw Julia and Vicki take a walk earlier in the day. There was nothing unusual about that, but afterward she found that Vicki had no memory of the walk. When she asked Julia about it, she lied to her. Barnabas realizes that Julia, who has extraordinary abilities as a hypnotist, is working to undermine his chances with Vicki. He declares that Julia may have signed her own death certificate.
This episode, like the two before it, is really about the conflict between Carolyn and Julia. We started with a contrast between them. In the pre-title teaser sequence, Carolyn was staring at the portrait of Barnabas in the foyer of the great house while we heard her deliver a pre-recorded monologue about her situation. “Vicki was my friend… but I can no longer have friends… other than you, dear cousin Barnabas.” In #341, Julia helped Barnabas murder her medical school classmate and onetime friend, Dr Dave Woodard. When Julia tried to back out of the murder, saying that Woodard was her friend, Barnabas growled “You no longer have friends.” Before they left the scene of the crime, Julia heard Woodard’s voice echoing “You no longer have friends, Julia.” This statement shattered Julia. When the same thought occurs to Carolyn, her devotion to her role as blood thrall allows her to receive it calmly, even cheerfully.
That gives way to a three-scene with Carolyn, Vicki, and Julia, in which Vicki makes it very clear that she does not remember walking with Julia the day before. Vicki exits, and Carolyn makes it equally clear to Julia that she knows she is up to something. Julia and Carolyn had almost nothing to do with each other until Barnabas bit Carolyn; Julia certainly had no reason to suppose that Carolyn was a likely threat to her. But yesterday and today Julia has found that she is up against a formidable adversary.
Dark Shadows Commentary 