DARK SHADOWS 477
















 

477

“David’s very unpredictable.”

 

“I always keep late hours.”

 

“I think they’re fairly reasonable people…including your husband.”

 

“Beware of dreams, Barnabas. Of yours and of those of everyone about you because that is the way the curse will return to you again. It will be a dream curse. First, one person will have the dream and that person will remain terrified by the experience until they tell the dream to a second person. Only this time, the dream will go a step further and be even more terrifying and that person will not rest until he has told the dream to a third person and that person will have the dream and he will tell it to a fourth and on and on it will go and each time the horror of it will increase and the terror will mount and the fear will be more unbearable…until finally, someone tells it to you, Barnabas. And then you will have the dream. Step by step you will go until the very end. And the dark and terrifying thing you will find there will turn your blood to ice!”

 

 

Nancy. Carolyn cannot get into Collinwood so she knocks. Cassandra answers and introduces herself, shocking Carolyn. No reprise. Carolyn gets a IDU. They both greet each other with “Good evening.”  Since when does Carolyn knock at Collinwood and wait for the door to be opened?

 

Cassandra tells her they were married last Wednesday. Carolyn also says, “IDK what to day.”

 

A light on Cassandra goes out. She tells Carolyn she and Roger knew each other only one day. Carolyn thinks she should stop asking questions if she doesn’t want to get one shock after another. She realizes she’s being rude and tells her the usual platitudes for kindness. David has remained in Boston for a few days longer. Cassandra wonders if he will like her. Carolyn explains that David is unpredictable: she might win him over immediately or he might be very angry…at Roger. Tony Peterson barges in, insists on speaking to Carolyn and grabs her arm and takes her into the drawing room. Cassandra also told Carolyn that Roger and she knew each a day before marrying.

 

At first, Carolyn told him, point blank, “I’m not in.”  Tony flubs. Cassandra listens outside the door as the two discuss Barnabas. Before that, Carolyn introduces Tony and Cassandra (they will have quite a history together thanks to the excellent BIG FINISH series THE TONY PETERSON AND CASSANDRA COLLINS MYSTERIES). She also steals Tony’s lighter.

 

What is with the hall just beyond the door that leads out of the foyer and into the other areas such as the kitchen? There seems to be a line across it horizontally and the bottom looks white…or there is some kind of freezer standing there or something. It looks VERY odd. It could be white or pink.

 

Barnabas is in his robe. Tony comes to visit him; Barnabas already knows who he is. “I always keep late hours.”  Barnabas, like Carolyn, calls Tony a non gentleman. When Tony tries to relate what happened and what he saw through the window, Barnabas says, “What the devil are you talking about?”  Barnabas tells him that he is not interested in Carolyn romantically. SO TONY APOLOGIZES and leaves!!! HUH? He saw a more than cousinly kiss and this explanation satisfies him. I’m not even sure it is an explanation. Barnabas also gets an IDK. Tony tries to smoke but finds his lighter missing.

 

Cassandra, all in green, is at the stone garden terrace. She uses Tony’s lighter to call to him and makes him want to find the flame. He does follow it, feeling it on his cheek, and finds Angelique fake crying. He tries to comfort her and tells her the Collins family are fairly reasonable people including her husband. Is he nuts? Reasonable people?

 

As for adding Roger into this, maybe he has settled that worker compensation/payment problem a worker of Roger’s had. Tony tells her Collinwood is strange to her.  Tony gets an IDK.

 

She does another spell/incantation as she uses the lighter to make him hypnotized. She tells him that when she needs him, he will come to her. The lighter goes out in a flub and she has to press it to open again as she does her spell.  She makes him look into her eyes. When she brings him out of it, she tells him he can have his lighter back. She found it she states.

 

While Barnabas is in his night robe, the doors of the Old House burst open. Angelique in full 1795 garb enters and immediately puts Barnabas into a sleep mode. She tells him to beware of dreams. He murmurs, “What evil game are you going to play this time?”   She is almost throbbing with excitement as she relates to him it will be a dream curse. There is something solid on Barnabas’s chair… I mean the upper chair. It could be a mike. The dream curse will begin with one terrified person and move from person to person until it will finally end with him. She goes o to say that the terrifying thing he finds there will turn his blood to ice. Barnabas gasps her name and rises up, awake. She is gone.

 

The last scene really works well and is one of my favorite scenes. Lara just puts her all into it and really acts up frenzy. Her Angelique is so passionate almost all the time but here it works despite that as she is almost sexual in her drive to relate the dream curse bit to Barnabas.

 

A fairly good episode is elevated to a great one with just that last scene alone. Lara makes the dream curse work at its inception.

 

478

Vicki. Maggie comes to Collinwood and meets Cassandra. No reprise. Maggie tells her she heard the good news and congratulates her. Cassandra keeps staring at her wildly and in a scary way. She tells Maggie she bears a striking resemblance to someone she new when she was a child.  Vicki and Maggie go into the drawing room; Cassandra says she is going to the study. She talks to either herself or Barnabas’s portrait. “She is the image of Josette.”  It will be an unexpected pleasure for her to have Maggie be the first one to have the dream.

 

As Vicki talks to Maggie, her mind seems to be somewhere else. Vicki tells Maggie that Roger and Cassandra were married the day they met. Vicki asks Maggie if she will let one of her friends stay in the extra room at her house/cottage. Maggie tells her she will just have to ask her father or clear it with him. It is a man named Jeff Clark, Vicki explains. Cassandra interrupts them: Jeff is on the phone. Once Jeff gets a job, he will move out. Maggie just reminds her she will just have to check with her father first. It should be okay. When Vicki goes to answer the phone, Cassandra stares with a wicked smile on her face and this makes Maggie uncomfortable.

 

Jeff has to meet Vicki in one hour. Lang flubs at a line that has to have him say “good mistake”. The camera also shakes as Jeff hangs up. They threatens each other but stop at Lang’s insistence they not hurt each other. Stupidly, Jeff gives Eric one more day before he will leave for good. Eric gives Jeff an unexpected injection.

 

Angelique wears a black shawl and a psychedelic dress and goes out of focus at the drawing room window. She begins the dream curse and wants a leaf she picks from a tree to find the image of the one that Barnabas loved…Maggie Evans. The leaf is on Maggie’s pillow. We see her room from a new side and do not see the French doors or the left side of the room. Her exit door seems to be in a new spot. As she starts to dream, the psychedelic lights start. Maggie asks, “Who are you?” to the person beckoning her to follow him through a door in her dream…this is Jeff Clark. Maggie is only heard in voice over. There are many candles and three doors or so. Lots of fog. Jeff closes the door, leaving her alone and locked in. There are strange shadows, swirling lights, and a chandelier that blows by the wind. “Through sight and sound and faceless terror, through endless corridors by trial and error ahead a blazing light does burn and one door leads to the point of return.”  There are also blowing curtains. Josette’s music box plays. Frankly I can’t tell the difference from the early music and this music. They both sound the same to me. In any case, the door she opens has a skull with eyes in the sockets coming at her when she opens it. She can’t scream. In reality, she wakes up screaming.

 

Jeff is strapped down, “You’re insane.”  Eric, “Perhaps I am.”  No perhaps about it bub. He challenges the forces of nature. Jeff tells him he is going to unleash a monster on the world. Jeff then realizes his head will be used. He is given another needle. We hear a strange knock. Lang says it is through your eyes that Barnabas Collins has chosen to see but Jeff is already unconscious. Eric raises a scalpel.

 

The credits have those psychedelic lights.

 

The dream curse is a good idea and the first time it is great. It’s only when the sequence has to be repeated over and over that it starts to get wearing.                               

 

 

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