Again, why the duelling pistols in the Drawing Room?
I don't know why there were there, but I like the fact that there's a certain amount of continuity. When Daphne didn't shoot herself, her business with the pistols might have been gratuitous, but now when we see Quentin open the pistol box, we say, "Oh, yeah." The rule of three says there should be another scene with the pistols, but it really should have come before Daphne's scene, telling us why the pistols were there. Then we would have had a nice Pistol Arc.
Ben Stokes Jr.
Ben Stokes (the Younger?)
Have we been told that there was ever another Ben Stokes in parallel time than the one we saw today? Because I don't see any reason to assume it.
Quentin promised Ben that Carrie wouldn't be hurt in the séance, and promised again and again and again, and yet this Quentin has struck me as anything
but a starry-eyed optimist.
Fun scene with Catherine and Morgan/James
But why was Catherine's deceit necessary? Couldn't they just have drugged his food? This episode seemed to me to be filled with people behaving foolishly - Quentin saying no, no, Carrie wouldn't be hurt in the séance, Quentin deciding to go through with the risky business of Catherine deceiving James-in-Morgan, James-in-Morgan (who doesn't trust any Collins, no, not he!) not insisting that he and Catherine switch glasses before he drank, and then James-in-Morgan wasting time, as Magnus noted, blustering to Brutus instead of telling the tale to Julia. But that last bit of foolishness did seem to be in character for James Forsythe. He's always more interested in Brutus than in the 1841 folk.
Oh, and by the way, why was I surprised that there was a decanter of brandy - or something - in Morgan's room? This is Collinwood, after all.
