DARK SHADOWS 527

 

DARK SHADOWS  527

“How astonishing life is.”

 

Thayer David. No reprise but a full detailed narration.

 

It is an hour later. WE KEEP SEEING THE SAME STILL FOR THE NARRATION and it’s starting to get on my nerves. And it looks bad, a far cry from the earlier years. There is talk of Vicki’s “missing hours”.

 

 

The painting is back to its full image. Blair tells Jeff and Vicki, “How astonishing life is.”  He feels the most interesting things in life are the unexplained.

 

 

He feels he and Jeff will meet again. Jeff feels the same way. WHAT? If Vicki is still in the house and Jeff comes to see her often and Blair is now living there thanks to Roger’s invitation last episode, they are sure to “meet” again.

 

Also: WHY does Jeff keep referring to Vicki’s sleepwalking as “that night” when it IS the same night as this scene?

 

AND: Jeff now seems to remember Angelique/Cassandra and refers to her powers. So, now he knows she is the witch?

 

 

Tomorrow Jeff will go to Stokes. Jeff kisses her on the eyelid. What the? Then he goes deep into a kiss with her and sorry, their kisses are just not sexy at all but kind of gross IMO.

 

 

Drink in hand, Blair tells himself—yes, he is talking to himself---that Angelique has been rescued by him again so he’s done this before. Jeff crashes in---and must have heard him talking to himself!?

 

Jeff runs to Blair and tells him to stay away from Vicki. He gets a IDK what you had to do or what went on here tonight. He shows him the button. Blair smiles and makes some excuse.

 

Adam is reading a dictionary. He is fluent now, more or less. Stokes thinks he’s made tremendous progress but Adam undermines himself by mentioning Stokes talks to him in small words. Stokes denies this.

 

 

Stokes questions Adam, who talks about Barnabas and Dr. Hoffman.  Adam was driven in a car with Willie, Barnabas, and Julia. Stokes knows Willie. When Adam simulates how Barnabas hit him and hurt him, his shirt rides up and we might see a scar on his stomach, too.

 

 

BTW, BARNABAS AND JULIA WERE SUPPOSED TO COME TO STOKES TO TELL HIM EVERYTHING. They never got there. Miss Winters and Jeff arrive, Adam hides in another room. Stokes sends Vicki back to Collinwood, his eyeglass seems to fall. Stokes hypnotizes Jeff using his eye glass.

 

 

The thing Jeff remembers about his first night of memory is that it was raining, he was lost, and Eric Lang gave him food. Lang made him do horrible things, he tells Stokes. Stokes asks that when Jeff refused to help Lang further who else did, Barnabas and Dr. Hoffman? Jeff gets an IDK TWICE. BUT he DID know that the two of them were always in Lang’s laboratory. And then when Stokes asks if he can recognize Lang’s creation, Jeff gets another IDK but changes that to reveal that he, Jeff, can recognize Lang’s creation.

 

 

Stokes calls Adam out and Jeff recognizes him, “He’s alive!”  Adam goes back out. Jeff wonders if Lang made him, too. He makes him come out of it and without remembering anything. Nice guy.

 

 

I totally forgot that Jeff, briefly, thinks Lang made him, too.

 

 

At Collinwood, talking to Stokes, Vicki gets an IDU.

 

 

Stokes came to Collinwood and wants Julia Hoffman. Vicki mentions that she went into town with Cassandra (what is with those two always with each other?) and it is now that Stokes learns that the witch is back. Blair meets  Stokes. They’ve met before. Blair sold the dealer the portrait of Angelique. Another thing I forgot: Blair had the portrait of Angelique and sold it to the dealer. He also met Stokes there but seemingly forgot that or pretends to now. Blair denies he was there and claims to never have been in Collinsport before.

 

 

Blair leaves, telling him that he is mistaken but that they will meet again. WHAT IS IT WITH THIS WE’LL MEET AGAIN nonsense. Is it supposed to be a threat? It’s not threatening, really! Blair was just returning from his afternoon walk.

 

 

Stokes tells Vicki she must leave Collinwood tonight other wise she will have the dream and Barnabas Collins will be her beckoner and he’ll have it and he will die.

 

During Sullivan’s credit, the credits shake like a wave or some overhead projector transparency moved. During Hall’s credit, something falls! Also there’s a shadow moving like a mic.

 

It looks like a long line on the transparency or a scratch. When I first saw it, I thought a row of lights fell. It continues as if something is on fire but it’s not. Something red happens during the logo of Dan Curtis…was it a fire?

 

A ho hum ep. I’m already tired of Blair; Jeff is annoying, Adam is just there, and I’m unsure if he’s meant to be a threat, a hero, or what. Stokes is also quite annoying, seemingly thinking of himself powerful when clearly he’s not. His hiding Adam is a curious thing for the most part.

 

NOTE: that was ten years or more that I wrote that and I don’t feel the same way now.

 

Oddly, DARK SHADOWS and its entire output, the cast, the music, the sets, the houses, almost all of it, no, no almost about it, ALL of it have become for me, a sort of comfort show, comfort TV where as in the past they unnerved me and maybe even bored me, now they do not. I can’t seem, at times, to get enough of it and contemplate the comics, the audios, and the fan fiction when I’m done with this extra long project of going through it one more time formally (the second full time but actually probably the third or fourth informally).

 

As Professor Stokes hypnotizes Jeff with his monocle, when he says “Back into time,” someone in the studio coughs.

Nicholas tells Stokes that Cassandra returned to Collinwood yesterday afternoon. It was night-time when she came back to the house in yesterday’s episode.

A shadow crosses the room at the beginning of the closing credits.

The director’s credit for JACK SULLIVAN is partly hanging off the credits roll; you can see the last few letters flap as they go by.

As the credits end, there’s a flicker of special effects flame over the Dan Curtis Productions logo.

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Behind the Scenes:

The desk that Adam is sitting at today is a familiar prop from the Old House set. The desk was originally in Roger’s office at the cannery, in the pre-Barnabas days when scenes happened at the cannery. Stokes’ drawing room is actually a redressed version of Roger’s office, plus the fireplace from Matthew Morgan’s cottage.

The green lamp has also made the rounds of Collinsport; it was seen most recently in episode 513, in both the Evans cottage and Tony’s apartment. (Thanks to commenters Laura and Prisoner of the Night for prop-spotting.)