I don't remember ever seeing this ep on first run. First time I saw it was back on the last Sci fi run, what was it, 2002 or so? Had the same reaction every time since then., He comes through the door with the riding boots, planter's hat, and sarcastic wisecracks and all I could think was -- they're setting him up to be Rhett Butler! A lot of the interchange with Beth in that scene in the foyer definitely had the tone of the Scarlett/Rhett verbal fencing matches. And, like Rhett, there's a lot more to him than the wisecracking, care for nothing and no one surface, as we find out as things progress. Defintely one of the most complicated and interesting characters to come out of the series.
The scenes with Quentin and Edith are a HOOT. He is playing penitant little boy, butter wouldn't melt in his mouth and she SOO completely has his number. He's a practiced BS artist -- and she's not buying it. For someone they keep describing as crazy and addled, she's sharp as a tack when it comes to seeing right through her "favorite grandson" and cutting him down to size.
And Magda and Sandor.. what can I say that someone didn't already say? Magda is my absolute favorite Grayson character, bar none. (Sorry, Julia fans.
). She's funny, wisecracking, and smart. And beneath the wisecracks she and Sandor clearly adore each other. Excellent period touch too, about him wanting to go out on the road selling his cure all patent medicine (that cures nothing). Another nice period touch was Edith's throwaway line about kissing and germs. Still on Edith, who hasn't had a parent or grandparent call them by a sibling's name once in a while --or run through a list of siblings and pets names till they hit on the right one.
I too noticed a little difference in the appearance of the wands on the table originally, but the flipping around to make them match the door made sense to me.
As to the three seated piece of furniture, I have NO idea where I remember this from, but I think I've also heard them referred to as chaperone chairs (or maybe they had different names/nicknames in different parts of the country as well?)
Good point, too IluvBarnabas, about how this is the only time he seems to be able to summon someone to let hijm out of the coffin. Deux ex machinas R us, but they did need some way to get him out and about.... At least its not as mindbending as some of the gaping plotholes and contradictions they hand us at the end of every storyline.
Oh and a few throwaway lines make me wonder what parts of the storylines they had worked out and what tentative, not to mention which were simply red herrings. Like the implication that Jenny Collins was someone that Edward would have fired Beth because of, since he would be pained by reminders of her.
And snickers of foreshadowing about how Edith tells Quentin about dissipation aging him.
Jeannie