DARK SHADOWS 586

“You are a very imposing man, Barnabas. And I still find it difficult not to be frightened by your manner.”

“Love is not a word that I use.”

“Barnabas saw Adam?”

“I don’t know. He makes no sense. I tried to question him but he’s too upset about Vicki. He seems to know it was Adam without explanation.”

Nancy Barrett. Different reprise and it looks edited differently. Different shots. Adam Voice Over.

Vicki passes out. Adam seems upset that he’s killed her and looks at his own hands. Carolyn comes to Barnabas to try to open the door. She runs for the key and says, IDU. He tells her he cannot explain.

Adam leaves out the window. When they get the door open, Barnabas exclaims, “Thank God.” We see the Afghan. Or an Afghan.

Barnabas does tell Carolyn that Adam did this to Vicki, who seems alive. He tells her to get Julia. A small part of his dialog as he talks to Vicki is …hard to hear, he does use the word, “UPON” but I can’t make out the rest of what he says at first.

NOTE: Barnabas didn’t cause the curse: Angelique did. He also didn’t use Vicki as a pawn, Adam did and Nicholas did but he doesn’t realize Nicholas did that by manipulating Adam. He’s being too hard on himself for once.

Then something odd: it looks as if the dialog has been redone or reedited or refilmed. It seems dubbed over the end of the other dialog. He laments over the curse, “must everyone I love die?”

BUT wasn’t the biartch’s curse that everyone who loved him will die.

Carolyn is about to call the police but suddenly Blair is there on the steps and moves to her and hangs up the phone and convinces an at first irate Carolyn that it is best to not call the police. He calls the police gendarmes (the sub titles translate this as local gorgons!) as in France (read MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE).

When Carolyn explains more, Nicholas asks if Barnabas saw Adam. Carolyn answers IDK.

Blair is confident in these matters and tells her that Adam is the local whipping boy (see THE WHIPPING BOY). She tells him so many strange things have happened since Adam came here. Blair lies and tells her he was with Adam when Vicki was attacked. He tries to lay blame on Jeff Clark, who had motive.

Carolyn goes back up to Vicki’s room and notices Julia has left. That makes no sense except for the fact that Grayson Hall is not in this episode. Vicki is in shock but will be all right. Carolyn questions Barnabas.

West Wing: Blair scolds Adam and tells him that Carolyn “his friend” was going to call the police.

Adam tells Blair about the fact that Barnabas and Julia were going to use Maggie Evans for the life force. Adam didn’t know that Nicholas Blair knew Maggie. She lives in the Village (see THE PRISONER).

Blair claims they must stop them from using Maggie and asks where Willie took her. Adam answers, “I don’t know.” Adam does know that Willie is in love with Maggie Evans. If anything happens to Maggie Evans, Nicholas tells Adam he will hold him directly responsible.

Adam guesses that Nicholas is in love with Maggie. Blair says, “Love is not a word that I use.”

Carolyn comes in (and says “Good evening”) and Blair insists to Adam that he do the talking before she gets there. Okay, Carolyn is an IDIOT. Adam tells her he is angry with the way his life has turned out. He’s always bragged that he has never lied to Carolyn but he does now. After she swallows both their stories, she leaves. He tells Nicholas he is sad that he lied to her. Blair asks if he ever wants to be near her or close to her he had to. He tells Blair that he wants to be with Carolyn as long as he lives.

Carolyn turns the fake candle lights off at the front of Collinwood’s foyer. She re-questions Barnabas. She cannot understand him, “You’re not a man who lives on his prejudices.” DOES SHE EVEN REMEMBER THAT HE WAS A VAMPIRE? THAT HE BIT HER? For his part, he seems shocked that she’s able to resist anything he says and she does. Barnabas plays on her care for Vicki vs her care for Adam. Carolyn tells him she cares a great deal about Vicki but she wants proof that it was Adam and also proof that he kidnapped Vicki earlier. Like I said, she’s a jerk. She knows Adam attacked Tony.

Blair has gone over some new plan with Adam and declares that Adam should not lose his temper this time, no matter how hard Barnabas tries to make him lose his temper. Adam is a jerk. He says to Nicholas, “I am very grateful. You are my friend.”

After Adam leaves, Nicholas turns to the camera and smiles, a great villain. The music into the commercial starts but then after the commercial, it ends as we return to the “action” at the Old House photo. It seems like it should have ended before the break and not after but never mind.

Barnabas finds the Old House door still open. He goes in and finds Adam casually playing solitaire while sitting. “Good evening, Barnabas,” he says. I don’t know what is scarier, Adam on a rampage or a controlled, calm Adam!

When he first knew Barnabas, he thought he was an imposing man and a gentleman, even now Adam finds it difficult not to be frightened by Barnabas’s manner.

Adam tells him that Maggie Evans is unsuitable for the life force. He has someone else in mind and tells Barnabas that he does not need to know who it is. Barnabas asks if it is a stranger. Adam tells him, “The only woman I want to bring that body alive…the woman I want my wife to be like…is Carolyn Stoddard.”

Review: Also awesome. Watching this set of episodes one thinks DS can do no wrong. Of course it can but these episodes are DS at its best with good cliffhangers, complications for characters, pitting characters not always against each other against each other and having villains who are multi layered at best and menacingly evil at worst and there is no worst here: it’s all good from Vicki’s attack to Adam’s monstrous declaration that Carolyn will be the life force…WHO would not want to watch more!??? Stunningly good.

The person who wrote the DARK SHADOWS EVERY DAY blog seems, most of the time, even on good days and good episodes, NOT to be a big fan of DS. However, here, he or she has some good points: Here they are:

And problem number three is the women. I know that it’s odd to say, “This storyline about creating a female love-slave for a violent psychopath isn’t particularly strong on women’s issues,” but Dark Shadows isn’t just a fantasy-adventure story, where you can marginalize all the female characters and move on to the car chase. It’s also a soap opera, and soap operas are supposed to be about women, and women-related subjects like feelings and consequences.

But here we are, watching an episode of daytime television that begins with strangling a woman who doesn’t struggle or even cry out, and then the rest of the time is mostly Carolyn talking to a series of men who lie to her and boss her around.

This is a real problem, and it’s going to come up again. The Bride of Frankenstein story has turned into a reverse beauty pageant, where the guys get together and argue about which woman they’re going to sacrifice on the altar of mad science. This hot potato is going to be tossed around between Carolyn, Vicki and Maggie all week.

Julia is the one female character in the story who actually has agency of her own, but she’s kind of sidelined too — mostly just turning the knobs and flipping the switches while the guys decide whose life force they’re going to extract. The fact that they can have this whole episode with Julia off-camera pretty much says everything.

It’s going to be a rough week, folks, and I’ve already used up my Dark Shadows board game material. This might get ugly.

Dark Shadows bloopers to watch out for:

In the teaser, when they cut from Vicki waking up to Barnabas in the hall, the camera on Barnabas swings wide, and it takes a second to get it under control.

When they’re in the hall trying to get into Vicki’s room, Barnabas asks Carolyn, “Are you sure there’s no other way to get in?” Vicki’s room was actually used as Josette’s room in the later part of the 1795 storyline, and Barnabas used a secret panel to get in and out of the room a couple of times.

Barnabas uses a key at Vicki’s door to push the key out of the lock on the other side. Carolyn looks at the studio for confirmation that the falling-key sound effect played, so they can go on with the scene.

When Barnabas frets over Vicki, he keeps talking and accidentally overlaps himself, as his thinks monologue begins.

Two weeks ago, Adam smashed through his door on his way out, upset over Carolyn’s rejection. Today, the door is magically fixed.

Nicholas says, “Adam is getting rather used to being blamed.” Adam shouts his next line, then trails off for the last word: “I AM NOT USED TO… it.”

Barnabas tells Adam, “Our bargain is to give you a life force.” He should have said, “to give you a mate.”

AND, there's at least one interesting thing here about Blair I never thought about and it's from the DARK SHADOWS BEFORE I DIE blog:

John: I was surprised they didn't go for the—"Oh my gosh, Vicki's dead..." path after Adam choked her out. Good thing they were able to call Julia in, considering she had the day off today!

Christine: Adam's not happy he had to lie to Carolyn about attempting to kill Vicki, but is not unhappy that he attempted to murder her friend in the first place.

John: Nice to see Blair worked up over someone other than Angelique. I thought he was going to give Adam a beating when he let on that Barnabas was going to use Maggie Evans for the life force. Though I'm still curious what Blair's fascination is, if not just a love interest. Do you think Blair has history with Josette?

Christine: Blair said, "Love is not a word that I use," which makes sense, considering his nature. I believe the orange slice encounter would exemplify the depth of Blair's feelings for Maggie. His fascination with Maggie has everything to do with lusts of the flesh, though it's interesting to think that he may have had an encounter with Josette back in Martinique.

John: I must admit, after their head-butting this evening, Barnabas is probably fine using Carolyn for the experiment.