DARK SHADOWS 546

 

DARK SHADOWS 546

“When two people wage war, the innocent are often caught in the crossfire.”

 

“You are Adam. Your heart is here. When this heart stops beating, Barnabas Collins will be a vampire again!”

 

 

“Why are you suddenly admitting that you’re Angelique? This is some new trick.”

 

Louis Edmonds does the narration!!!!

 

Eric Lang message is heard yet again. Reprise. And a cough.

 

The reprise IS different but only slightly and the only way I know if that when the door opens, in the cliffhanger last episode, there was NO light coming from the crack by the hinges of the door and in this reprise there is full light. There is also no odd look from Cassandra as she raises the axe. It merely switched to a longer shot as we zoom out and see…Nicholas.

 

 

The door behind Cassandra closes by itself. Just before the theme starts, Blair appears in the room.

 

 

Oh and the axe just seems to be in Cassandra’s hand.

 

 

Adam grabs Cassandra and wants to kill her. Blair tells him he will take care of her and that she hates Barnabas just like he does. He eases when he hears this but he still wonders why she wants to kill him.

 

When Adam is choking her, he asks her why she was trying to kill him. She says, “You wouldn’t understand.”    Nicholas, in trying to get Adam to stop, despite him already commanding him to, says, “He might. He hates Barnabas Collins, too. A singularly unfortunate thing to do, obviously.” 

 

 

 

 

 

Nicholas Blair tells Adam Carolyn would not like it if Adam hurt her and Carolyn likes him to be gentle. Blair tells him that when two people wage war, innocent bystanders get caught in the crossfire. Adam says I do Not Understand.

 

 

Adam lets her go with prodding and promises from Blair.

 

 

Cassandra on the landing outside the door and before the steps downward, let go by Blair and Adam, gets a voice over. She calls herself a fool and should have known Nicholas would find her out.

 

 

Cassandra down in the drawing room, has in her hands a clay figure or makes a clay figure or uses the old one (with a pin hole already in it) and attempts to torture Adam before killing him. How stupid was Blair to let her go or she to take her time doing this? AND how much of a lunatic is she to do this and to expect to get caught again? When she does this, a loud musical cue into the commercial is quite LOUD. She repeat, “You are Adam,” again and she keeps talking again about the curse being brought to Barnabas what the curse meant him to be.

 

 

 

 

Teleprompter looking by Cassandra and later when he appears next to her to stop her, Blair.

 

 

Up in the West Wing, Adam asks Blair, “Why do people hate me?”  Blair tells him not to mention that Cassandra was here to Carolyn. Adam distrusts the word friend.

 

 

Say, Lara’s hands sure are ugly. She brings pain to Adam but Blair soon stops her from behind. Now I’m confused. She hates Barnabas, which is what I thought Blair wanted from her but then he rails against her for showing such emotion. Are they forgetting their lines?

 

 

He’s looking at the teleprompter, too. She wants him to forgive her but he tells her, “What would my master think?”  His master is her master she tells him. The devil? A minion of the devil? Not stated here. He corrects her---her master lives at the Old House: Barnabas.

 

 

He turns her into…Cassandra Collins, a human being, a regular woman, no longer a witch and no longer part of  “our coven”. He tells us and her that she was born in the year 1774 but is now mortal.

 

 

Hmmm, later, it is said she was born much earlier as in the 1600s. Perhaps, even Nicholas did not know this.

 

 

She has no powers and she proves this as she tries and fails to use the clay doll to finish Adam off. Blair flubs over “…designed to concern…designed to cause little concern…”

 

Blair knows that Roger is coming down the steps before Roger does. Blair also balls up the clay doll so I guess one has to focus on what one wants to kill the target of the clay doll? Or his powers were not in function to that against his own wishes. So it’s not the doll, it’s the witch or warlock using it that gives it the power to kill?

 

 

 

After giving her hard time, Blair leaves Roger with her to give her a hard time.

 

Her hair is messed up big time in the scuffle with Blair and now with Roger. Roger vs Cassandra.

 

 

He tells her their marriage was a mistake and that she has never been interested in him. There is nothing between them  she says—she used him to do what she is about to do now.

 

Cassandra goes to the Old House, knocks and enters to Barnabas.

 

 

NOTE: You would think being human, Barnabas would NOW go to bed at a decent hour.

 

She admits she was once mistress of this house and this gains her entrance. She is let in and she explains when she left this house as Cassandra for the first time, she cried as the room was different and yet so much the same.

 

 

She tells him one word can save her (BUT doesn’t say what that one word is: love?).

 

She says, “Tell me why you never loved me.” 

 

“I loved Josette,”  he says.

 

“I hate you,”  she shoots back. He tells her she’s proved that. He looks at her with what she thinks is pity but he claims that she is too dangerous to pity.

 

 

She goes on, “Why did I love you so much, even dying.” 

 

 

 

Barnabas looks and sounds WORRIED that she’s dying and approaches her. She tells him she is dying and she pulls a gun, “But if I am to die so must you.”

 

 

 

Review: AWESOME. Goodbye Cassandra. Goodbye Batman villain Catwoman and Joker ala Cassandra and Blair. Honestly, without something like this the pair of them were becoming as scary as a 1960s BATMAN villain couple (for those not in the know, that’s not very scary but comical) and maybe not even as interesting or as funny.

 

 

THIS episode is awesome however as the scenes between Cassandra and Barnabas as she finally admits she was Angelique and he shows pity, vulgar-ness for her, and even worry for her is just charged with sexual energy and excitement.

 

 

 

The gun was foreshadowed by the axe she tried to kill Adam with. Again, this episode is saved by the Angelique/Barnabas stuff as well as Blair acting at his most dangerous…but just what is he?

 

 

And what is his plan?

 

 

And why does he seem to turn against Angelique’s plan to kill Barnabas or return the curse? I guess it has to do with his plans for Adam…to have…well, we’ll see. In any event, a good episode…

 

 

When Cassandra turns off the tape recorder in the teaser, someone in the studio coughs.

Nicholas tells Cassandra, “Your departure has already been arranged, of course. It will be orderly, designed to concern — cause little concern or regret.”

---

Behind the Scenes:

In the teaser, Cassandra listens one more time to Dr. Lang’s message on the tape recorder. This is the last time the message is heard on the show, thank goodness. The message was heard in 13 episodes following Lang’s death.

Sam Hall wrote all five episodes this week. It’s the first time that one writer has written a full Monday-to-Friday week of the show since Francis Swann in November 1966. There have been a few times when one writer has done five episodes in a row, but split across a weekend — especially in September 1967, when Gordon Russell and Ron Sproat were the only writers on the show for about six weeks.

Episode 546: A Little Bored | Dark Shadows Every Day

Our thoughts

John: Holy Axus-interruptus, Batman! While I'm glad Adam has lived to see another day, I was kind of hoping that his dismembered limbs might live on to attack Angelique, EVIL DEAD 2-style...

Christine: We all have our dreams...  I loved how Nicholas removed her powers, kicked her out of the coven, and then cackled madly about it. I was surprised he finally did it after all the times he threatened her and never followed through.

John: Poor Roger, only now realizing the girl of his dreams (or portrait) never truly loved him. Do you think anyone will point out that he has particularly bad taste in wives?

Christine: Liz may do so once she's back from the hospital, and free from Angeqlique's spell. Unfortunately, Nicholas didn't have the foresight to realize that without her powers, Angelique no longer has any hold over Roger, who will probably ask them both to leave, causing Nicholas to lose access to Adam. 

John: I wonder if Cassangelique found Roger's gun in the drawer in the drawing room, or if she stopped by the gun shop in Collinsport on her way over to the old house.

Christine: She must have grabbed it from the drawer while Nicholas spoke with him in the foyer. That was some quick thinking. Angelique continues to have a funny way of showing Barnabas how much she loves him by threatening to kill him. Can't wait to see how this all turns out.

Nicholas:  This hand is no longer the servant of my master. This hand is no longer the recipient of my master’s grace.

Nicholas:  This mind is no longer the property of my master! And this heart is no longer our domain!