DARK SHADOWS 576

“And we’re going to be very happy together.”

“We want you to be. All of us here.”

“Well, for once, I think you’re going to get what all of you want.”

“Roger, of all the nice things you’ve done, this is the nicest.”

“Jeff, you know how I feel about the Collins family and how much I love them. This is obviously a family decision. They’ve done it because they like you and they want to help you.”

“You will be lying in a coffin and everyone will think that you are dead.”

Vicki. Different reprise. She says good evening louder. He also asks WHO ARE YOU instead of WHAT IS YOUR NAME as in the cliffhanger. She goes out of focus. She repeats her IDK.

Jeff reacts to seeing her move in with her teeth, “Hey, hey!” This was not in the cliffhanger.

Jeff gets up. She’s out of focus but this time it’s meant to be Jeff’s POV as he recovers. As he gets up and moves away from her and toward equipment, we hear grinding sounds against stone but neither of them seems to be the cause of the sounds.

Angelique wants him to start the experiment. She knows she will be free when her life force goes into the body. She knows he worked with Dr. Lang and lies that Adam told her. She asks him when it will be ready. Jeff, “I don’t know.”

She says, “You don’t seem to understand how serious I am.”

Davis seems to be trying not to look at the teleprompter and succeeds, however, it may or may not be true that Lara is feeding him lines and/or saying his lines so that it fits her character, rescuing him or none of that may be true.

She is serious and desperate. She puts her arms around Jeff and bites him again.

He seems to play this as sexual and this seems to be as sexual as DS gets.

Collinwood drawing room: Roger comes to Vicki and drinks and gives her one, too. Roger says they are all happy for Vicki aobout her engagement. Roger says he was surprised to have heard about her engagement (would have loved to see his reaction) and that he doesn’t know Jeff Clark terribly well. He thinks Jeff seems a very presentable young man.

Vicki says, “For once all of you are gonna get what all of you want.”

Roger asks what kind of work Jeff plans on doing but she says, “No, IDK.” When she reveals that Jeff is interested in business but has no experience, Roger says they do not require that, the provide it.

Roger tells her he will offer Jeff a job. Vicki tells him that is the nicest thing he’s ever done of all the nice things he’s done (like what?). “Roger, of all the nice things you’ve done, this is the nicest.”

Roger says it’s not a job exactly but then he says actually it is. What?

When Roger gets up off the couch, the camera has trouble staying with him and/or shooting Vicki on the couch and when she gets up, too. It tilts and misses them as center of the screen. It shakes.

Two of their young executives are going to a sales training program in Boston and he cannot see why Jeff cannot go with them. Camera as they talk goes off and then up and down and to the side. This means they will be able to get married sooner. Vicki tells him this, “Roger, you don’t know. This means that we can get married sooner.”

“Well, I’m not sure I like that idea at all,” he seems to be joking?

Vicki says, “We’re going to be very happy. IDK how to thank you.”

He seems to start to put a hand and arm around her.

Jeff will remember Angelique but she commands no one else must know. Jeff gets the rare, “Oh, I understand.”

Jeff goes to Vicki. Roger has a toast with Jeff to their engagement. Roger tells him he and the family are very fond of Vicki and concerned about her future. Since Vicki chooses Jeff, that’s good enough for them.

The training program will take six weeks and he has to leave the day after tomorrow. It will be a university training program. The work or position he does will be determined by the work he does at the seminar. Jeff seems happy but cannot leave the day after tomorrow. He claims he can maybe go in a week. Roger seems to look at the teleprompter.

Roger says, “You don’t seem to understand.”

Roger tells him these universities do this kind of thing about once a year and Roger himself cannot change it. Jeff turns it down. “I can’t expect you to understand.”

“I can’t. At all.”

It suddenly occurs to me that Angelique’s bites must have been rather small ones ---there’s no blood on Jeff’s clothes and the fang marks are not seen by Roger or Vicki and not noticeable?

Then it is Vicki vs Jeff. Jeff asks if she trusts him. She says, “I think so.” She tells him she loves the Collins family and offering a job is perhaps a tradition of the Collins family.

Is he turning it down on pride? When she urges him to tell her more about what’s going on, he tells her to trust him, she always has until now. He leaves.

Liz is taking out dresses. The camera moves off Liz and sways to…a lamp? Carolyn goes to Liz and they share some time. Liz has a red dress in the closet that Carolyn assumed she had thrown that one away.

BTW, we see Liz in maybe 14 episodes during the episodes numbered in the 500s. She was in 520, 569, 570, 571, and this one. She’ll be in 577 and then will not be seen until 603 (vacation time?). It just feels as if she’s no longer the star of this show but a minor player!

Likewise, we haven’t seen Carolyn since 555!

Liz actually smiles. Carolyn feels it is so good to see her mother doing things again.

Carolyn talks about that red dress that they bought when together in Boston where they had lunch before the matinee (does anyone still use that word?). It was Liz’s birthday. They hug.

Carolyn missed her when she was at Windcliffe.

Carolyn realizes now how Liz made all their lives so much easier. She wants to take her mother to Boston. Liz tells Carolyn about when they think she’s dead. Liz teleprompter. She shows Carolyn a black dress that she wants to be buried in. She knows she will die. Carolyn sits on the bed and is distraught. Liz looks in the mirror with her black dress.

Liz has a dream later on. Angelique is in it and laughs in darkness. Angelique repeats the spell she put on Liz but is seems different. It has added to it something about her lying in the coffin and everyone will think she is dead. There is an open coffin and fog in a dark area/room. Carolyn and Roger are there. Roger ordered the coffin closed but it is open.

Liz voice over. She’s blinking but supposed to be dead? Or alive but everyone thinks she is dead? Roger wanted the coffin closed and so he closes it. Angelique laughs.

Over Liz screaming but no one can hear her. Liz wakes up screaming. Carolyn rushes in and seems to jump dive onto the bed. The credits are five seconds long.

Review from over ten years ago: kind of repulsive. Kind of depressing. For some reason, DS is at its worst when it is real life depressing and this Liz storyline is as depressing as they come. Fortunately some time later, they merge it with the werewolf sighting(s), at least I think they do.

The other thing is: I’m sure I’ve seen this storyline in some movie or book or someplace else. I am sure it is not original to DS.

Of course, Poe’s Premature Burial deals with this effectively. This episode and arguably the one before it start off a 7 episode boredom/depression fest before a string of GREAT episodes.

Of course, now in 2025 and not watching so many so fast, I feel differently. I really like this episode and everyone does a great job. It’s really good to see Vicki and Jeff together again and to see Roger at all especially the new, kinder Roger. He may not be as interesting or as funny as the sardonic, almost menacing, formidable Roger but he’s likeable this way.

On the other hand, it’s VERY depressing, the last parts with Liz’s death. Highly negative. And haunting.

I also like that Vicki declares her love for the Collins family. And that they want to help Jeff, who’s shared very few scenes with any of them.

Dark Shadows bloopers to watch out for:

When Angelique wakes Jeff up, there’s a terrible scraping sound from just off-screen.

During Vicki and Roger’s conversation in the drawing room, the camera goes completely out of control for a moment — apparently a collision between the camera and the drinks cabinet. The actors suppress smiles as they go on with the scene.

When Jeff shows up at Collinwood to see Vicki, he’s just been bitten by a vampire, but he doesn’t have the tell-tale wounds on his neck. He even rubs his neck a couple times, just to draw attention to the fact that he’s not wearing the regulation post-bite turtleneck.

In act 2, Roger tells Jeff, “I think you’ll find the program instresting, and informative.”

There’s another bad moment for the cameraman at the start of Liz and Carolyn’s first scene. As the camera moves around Liz, it wobbles and then swings out of control for a second.

Behind the Scenes:

Some familiar props show up in the Liz/Carolyn “cleaning out the closet” scene. The Ralston-Purina lamp has made its way upstairs from the Collinwood study, and the first dress that we see Liz examining is the green, purple and orange outfit that Cassandra used to wear when she was casting spells.

the dream sequence spares no expense on the vaseline and dry ice, and probably the nicest coffin we've seen on the show yet.