Hooray!! We've entered Character Acting Heaven!! Welcome Magda, Sandor, corporeal Quentin and Beth, Judith, Jamison!!!!!
It's only really 1897 after the DS theme finishes... so this is ep 1 of the story I guess. We get the information immediately, in a close up of some unspecified thing that Sandor's aiming knives at, which I always thought was a calender, but no, it's some simple picture, maybe a chidren's picture, which just happens to have "1897" on a tag below it. Maybe the year was a last minute inspiration.
Grayson's in heaven I think, character-acting her heart out! DS from here on is filled with wit and absurdity, as well as being more adult and darker. The humor starts with the very situation of gypsies apparently squatting in the Old House drawing room! I suppose first viewers are instantly thinking "They're-a-gonna git a spankin' from Barnabas! Wait'll he sees this!!" Nice bit of insanity, though not overtly played for laughs, thankfully.
I think living Quentin, with his sometimes-clever sarcasm, is a step up for DS. We haven't had a funny character before, not one who intentionally joked. We needed this. (Stokes did come to think, but he just stepped in from the sidelines occasionally and went away again-- and Q is non-stop sarcasm jokes) DS at other times is so humorless, as if they felt things were so out-there that they didn't dare make jokes, for fear of looking too ridiculous. Every other show was getting wittier though, and DS needed to catch up. The show actually gets smarter because of it.
Q's first living line: "Hello. Hello." I'd forgotten we do see him arrive in ep 1. Q grabs Beth's wrist to dominate and subjugate, the classic bully tactic toward women and children, I think. Clever to avoid showing it (sparing TC), but just showing their faces. You totally know what's happening.
Beth refers to "Miss Edith". How do you produce a generation of the family and stay "Miss"? We hear about Gabriel later. Sandor approaches the secret room, door opens before he pulls on the ring. He's not as nicely shocked as Willie was.