DARK SHADOWS 528
DARK SHADOWS 528
“All this time and energy you’ve
wasted on this Barnabas Collins.”
“I’m allergic to the cold
myself unfortunately.”
Lara. The narration mentions
the dream and that the final person to have it will be alone and return to a
former state. Why not go the whole spoiler hog and tell us that instead of
dying Barnabas will become a vampire again!? No reprise. Vicki and Jeff talk
about leaving. Jeff, the jerk, tells her it is only a dream!
WHAT? Jeff vs Vicki over Stokes. Something
falls as they argue. She gets an, “IDK what’s going on in your head.”
Vicki tells Jeff he cuts her
out of what he is feeling. He’s annoying when he feels it’s a bad thing that
she cares more for him than he cares for himself. What a dope he is.
She thinks he’s depressed and
he is jealous of Barnabas. Jeff tells her that Barnabas loves her. She insists
“No, he does not!”
WHAT? She says something
like, “Since I’ve been living here I’ve seen so many things, horrible things…I
don’t want anything else to happen.”
This time she wants to stop one from happening. SOMEONE SLAP THEM BOTH!
Jeff thinks she can just tell
Cassandra she went away to
Vicki tells her she will be
going away and Cassandra tells her that is impossible and not practical;
David’s training has been too casual.
She also threatens Vicki’s
position: she might not have a job to come back to. Blair summons Cassandra to
the gazebo and she has to leave. He talks to himself or to her telepathically
before she gets there and says she’s wasted time and weeks are like minutes to
her. There is a very VERY odd hug
between Jeff and Vicki and a too close up close up.
Blair tells Cassandra she has
become too common place, like a suburban housewife, and that he allowed her to
come here in the first place. He thinks she likes it here too much and that she
is just content teasing Barnabas Collins and likes it that way, too. He says,
“I have very little interest in this tawdry affair.”
Everyone in Collinwood distrusts
her and Nicholas sees she is in love with Barnabas. He tells her her words, “I
should have” are three words a witch never need say. HE let her come here,
allowed her to come here to take care of Barnabas Collins. He also tells her
she had the power to make him what he once was before but on the very first
night she was here. WHY can’t she just do that now? She had pleaded with him to
come here, Barnabas escaped her and that could not happen. He thinks it is
taking too much time.
She has a potion that she
will give to Vicki Winters to have the dream. Blair calls the plan
unimaginative and her incompetent.
Later, after he agrees to
drug her drink, Blair in Collinwood’s drawing room, calls Vicki, who is waiting
for Jeff to pick her up, in for a drink.
He tells her he is terribly
middle class (HE ISN’T) and doesn’t like to drink alone. He has a pen which
seems to house the potion. He tells her he is allergic to the cold and that she
should have her vacation during the winter. She tells him she likes the winter.
Blair tells her he is not fond of peace either. “I’m not fond of peace either actually.
In my personal life actually.” Why would he tell her that?
He only half heartedly tries
to get her to drink the drugged drink, sherry, as Cassandra later accuses him
of being. Vicki and Jeff leave.
When she appears on the steps
and the landing, Blair, comically, holds up the drink, “Care for a drink, I
have one already poured.”
He thinks it would ironic if
Cassandra had the dream. He calls that justice and adds, “and I hate to use
that word.” He feels like an apprentice,
drugging a drink for Cassandra. He also finishes with, “…and I wouldn’t be you
for anything in this world.”
Extreme close up on
Cassandra. She uses the flames (what is she Laura?) to see where Vicki is: the
cottage. Maggie tells Vicki she hates living alone, even though when she got
mad at Pop or angry at him, she thought about it. She now feels guilty about being
angry with him at times.
Why doesn’t Vicki explain to
Maggie about the dream? Vicki asks why she and Joe do not get married. Vicki
says everything is so right between she and Joe. Maggie asks if everything is
right between Vicki and Jeff and Vicki answers with an IDK.
Maggie says it is almost
midnight (an hour away!? Is almost to her?). Maggie tells Vicki Pleasant
Dreams. And that she and Joe are getting married very soon. Vicki will throw
her a shower. It is
In one of my favorite scenes
of the entire series, Angelique is already in the room or at least we see her
before the lights light her up. Either way, it’s an effective scene as it is
Angelique as the 1795 vision of her: 18th century gown, hair blond,
etc.
She plants the rosewater down
on a bureau and wants Vicki to use it, compels her to use it so that when she
does, it will induce the dream. Maggie comes in for some reason or other and
starts over screaming (but nothing compared to the really, overdone screaming
next episode in the partial reprise), then yells, “Vicki! Vicki!” the Vicki Vicki thing will not be reprised.
In the next episode, Angelique
seems to notice her and then vanishes! I’m not sure why ---maybe having the
three icons of DS in the same room or the bizarre nature of the scene: and
later on Maggie insists this is
Angelique’s ghost…certainly it is Angelique but…is it Cassandra?
All of these strange factors
make it one of my favorite scenes, plus the fact that just moments ago, general
soap talk about a marriage and shower were taking place and then we have
minutes later, a ghost/witch planting a cursed object in a room that will
induce a dream curse to continue! It’s just that strange and to be honest, the
thought of Angelique appearing in a room at bedtime to do ANYTHING scares me!
It is a well played moment
even if awkwardly staged…and also having Maggie’s over screaming. It’s not a
scene I ever forgot. It reminds me of a
better staged scene, the very ending in fact of a tv movie called DON’T GO TO
SLEEP of the image of a killer girl coming up, rising up from the foot of her
mother’s bed, even though the girl is supposed to be dead…is it her imagination
or the ghost of the killer kid?
The silhouette of the girl,
the light behind her, the shadows in front, is something that could have made
this even more disturbing. NIGHT OF DARK SHADOWS came very close to this but
isn’t as scary as that tv movie DON’T GO TO SLEEP.
As usual, Nicholas gets some
of the best lines although in his talk about the winter and about not liking
peace, I am unsure what he is talking about. I guess it is meant to mean that
he hates the winter and Vicki should feel the same, to get away to someplace
warm when winter hits here AND that he is not fond of peace, meaning that he
finds it unexciting.
Astredo is perfect here, a
sense of irony in his every word almost and a bit of humor as he offers the
drink that is laced with her own potion to Cassandra and tempting her to use
her powers more fully…or making her stew as he believes maybe she’s losing her
powers. He’s enigmatic and almost carries the entire episode but that scene is
just so well done. I love Maggie and Vicki together and I love Angelique as a
powerful threat and almost specter like presence.
There is a light on in an upstairs window at the Maggie Evans cottage. We never see the upstairs from inside.
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