Watching the storyline this time around, I've been surprised at how brief this period has been. I remembered Maggie as having wandered around in Josette's dress for days and days - weeks and weeks - when in fact there are only a very few episodes in which we see her that way.
Somehow this episode didn't grab me today. There are some episodes that I can watch over and over again and feel the suspense as if I were watching it the first time - but this episode didn't have that magic today. (If only I could have watched it with dom!) We're supposed to be cheering Maggie on in her re-assertion of her identity, and I keep thinking, "Forget Maggie. If you'll just be Josette, Barnabas will never hurt you again. He'll always be the courtly gentleman worshipping the ground you walk on, and don't you want that?" In fact, I felt quite sorry for Barnabas, thinking he was so close to his goal, and being hoodwinked.
Then when Barnabas was talking on and on about how after tonight, Maggie will be free of his power and will be Josette forever, I was thinking: "Don't be so sure. Once she's a vampire herself, I'm betting she'll revert to being Maggie no matter how thorough a brainwashing job you do." Maggie doesn't know that, of course. She doesn't know much of anything, or else she wouldn't be trying to kill Barnabas with a metal chisel. And that sends me off on another tangent: if the chisel had been made of wood, would she have picked it up? Could she have picked it up, with intent to destroy?
I'm not surprised that Maggie didn't run away. She tried it once, and it didn't work. (Somehow that sentence transports me straight to Gilligan's Island.)
Still, there's a great Friday cliffhanger. We've seen enough of Barnabas's violence to know that Maggie's punishment is going to be very, very ugly.
And the necklace was beautiful.