Hateful villain indeed, DarkLady, OMGoodness!!! How fabulous is Trask portrayed as compared to Tony Peterson?
I would have had Abigail prick her finger during her needlepointing though.
Those kinds of moments (Abigail gets a prick, and it's not Trask...) are always fun and add to verisimilitude, for the very reason some viewers don't want to see them, because they're so unnecessary to the plot. I'm always more about experience than story. I wouldn't mind an episode where the plot comes screeching to a halt, and we get a tour of the Old House bits we never see, or the grounds, etc.. -- or a pointless conversation about pudding, as long as it's entertaining.
Lacy comes into his own as Trask. I wonder if they threw him Tony P to get him under contract so they'd have him for 1795. How JL manages an over-the-top villain who nonetheless is credible and intimidating, I don't know. "Fun/scary" is a rare and delicate combination when you can get it, so treasure it.
Blow-by-blow commentary: Clarice VO. Nathan has had the Old House Forbesified, or it's been lemon meringued to within an inch of its life. TRASK!!! "You must be reverend Trask." I then ad-libbed for Lacy: "Yes I must, because no one else wants to be."
Things move very quickly once the Reverend arrives, and we get a full blast of Trask here, in his very first episode. It always stretches credulity for me, though, when anyone on TV manages to keep any adult prisoner while transporting them over long distances and with no weapon or vehicle.
Trask must be very frustrated by the ideas circulating in that era, fuming angrily to himself, "Age of Reason, Shmage of Shmeason!" His own version of reason tells him that tying a witch to one of "God's creatures" will identify her. Has he ever stopped and said to himself, "Hey, you know,
I'm one of God's creatures too...!" Though that may be more Greg-like. And he then would remember that he too is flammable...
