FAREWELL, HANNAH STOKES! This episode unfortunately was Paula Laurence's last appearance on the show.
I always felt bad that Quentin shlashes up the portrait of Maggie--it was one of the nicest ones they had on the show, and I don't think we see it again.
While Cyrus is attempting to psychoanalyze Quentin, he slips up by saying, Will is strange; no one ever knows exactly what he’s up to. Quentin is exhausted but still asks, Why do you say that? Cyrus starts to explain but remembers that he was Yeager when he saw the coffin in Will’s basement. But when Cyrus is Cyrus, he really is a good friend. He tells Quentin that he plans to give up his research and urges Quentin to get Maggie back to Collinwood. Quentin blows a fuse yet again but finally realizes that he's overreacting.
Great scene with Cyrus and "Alexis": Cyrus brings Quentin back to Collinwood, where they discuss Quentin’s “yearning” feeling. It was a feeling deeper than I’ve ever felt before, Quentin says, but I still don’t know for what or whom. Angelique comes to the landing and greets them (tripping on the top step as she comes down). She is wearing a strange gray-blue dress with a pattern like python scales. Quentin goes upstairs, ostensibly to try to rest, while Cyrus and "Alexis" stay in the foyer to discuss the “yearning” feeling Quentin had at the lab. Probing for information, "Alexis" comments, Quentin has seemed to be under the influence of very strong emotions since the night Maggie left--could his feelings for Maggie really be so deep? With an increasingly pained expression, Cyrus answers, Who knows the depths of the truest of our feelings? Who knows what emotions lie at the core of our being--waiting, lurking, ready to spring without wa-- Then he notices "Alexis" watching him. All I mean, he continues, is that Quentin misses Maggie but isn't ready to admit it. What can we do? "Alexis" asks. Why, nothing! Cyrus answers. He has to make the decision himself. Don’t you agree? Oh, yes, of course, Angelique answers as she must, but... well, the last thing I want to do is interfere with Quentin's relationship with Maggie.
Up in Angelique’s parlor, a deck of tarot cards is lying on the circular table. Hannah Stokes is tying on her cape when Quentin walks in on her. I was worried about you, Hannah says. “Alexis” said you were unwell. I’m better now, he says, but he still looks like a lost little boy. Hannah excuses herself and starts to leave, then turns back and gives him the most explicit warning she dares: Quentin, please be careful. But he barely seems aware that she’s left. Quentin picks up one of the tarot cards, which turns out to be Le Pendu (the Hanged Man).
Fearful for Quentin's life, Hannah urges Angelique to remove the spell. Angelique insists that everything is fine and that the spell will dissolve once Maggie returns. Then I want nothing more to do with it! Hannah announces, and despite Angelique’s repeated commands, she refuses to have anything to do with Angelique as long as Quentin is under the spell. She marches out of the house (and sadly, out of the story), past the startled Angelique, who calls to her in vain and seems frightened for the first time.
In his laboratory, Cyrus takes out the antidote from the safe and stares into the green liquid for a long moment. He thinks to himself, John Yeager is gone. He must never come back. He must be forgotten. But how? I can't erase my memory of him. Then the answer comes to him: But maybe I can--by working hard and helping others. No more experiments. His face aglow with medical fervor, he resolves, I will be a doctor again. I will forget Yeager's thoughts and the things that he saw and the things that he did. I will never think of them again!
Quentin tries to drown his sorrows but that seems only to make the spell worse. He stares at the slashed portrait and thinks that he's killed Maggie herself. He picks up the letter opener and aims it at himself--then changes his mind. A moment later, he turns away with an unnatural calm. I understand it all now, he tells himself, I know what it is I must do. He sits at the writing desk and pens a brief note.
"Alexis" returns to her room and deals out the tarot cards herself. Quentin didn't leave his hand for her to find, but she lays the cards out in the same pattern. She tells herself that the cards will tell her whether Hannah is right and if there is any danger.
Quentin makes his way up the stairs. On the landing, he obligingly reads the note to us: "I had to do this to be with the one I love." Yes--in the attic room, he thinks to himself. That was the meaning of the first dream--and what the tarot cards meant. It is all so clear now. So clear! He crosses the landing to the door leading to the upstairs hallway.
As Angelique deals the fourth, fifth, and sixth cards into the “H” pattern, a hangman’s noose casts a shadow on the wall of the attic room. Then the noose itself comes into view, with a chair directly below it. Reluctantly, Quentin slowly steps up onto the chair. Taking the noose in both hands, he brings it closer and closer to his head.
