To sum up the action, there's a crank call and heavy breathing, though in different scenes.  And there's a box and a boa and bull, oh my!

Would you believe that someone could own an antique box and never once took a peek inside?

Marie Wallace is no longer playing Eve, but she IS playing the female half of a couple who is the more curious one that falls first to temptation.  And we know how that will end.  Eve had Nicholas (a snake in the grass for sure) whispering in her ear, but Megan's "apple" is a box with an actual serpent on top (albeit one with 4 heads).  I'm rambling, sorry.

Liz to Barnabas:  "The ghosts are gone now."
Par.  A.  Dox.

Why would Maggie let her guard down in front of a stranger who avoids giving his name, and who claims to have known her father well and says he remembers her although she doesn't remember him?  And then they have a conversation directly in front of a portrait of her mother but he says nothing about it; if he really was an old friend of Sam's, wouldn't she expect him to recognize the woman who was married to Pop?

KLS tripped a little, oops.  And as Taeylor points out under the next episode, Pansy's boa is in the antique shop.

A thing without a soul.  What does that mean?  I have a general idea, but I find that I'm having trouble nailing down the details.

As I first watched Buffy's soulless vampires and demons who resented humans and sought to regain their ancient rule of the planet, I was reminded of the writings of Lovecraft but also this part of DS.  Of course, this storyline seems to rip off HPL at every turn.

Doesn't Mitch Ryan leave shortly after this episode? ...
if that's the case, I would assume that the writers wanted to wrap up the plot quickly so that Ryan could play out his character to an end.

Burke got his long-awaited moment in #201, when the story shifted from Roger's secret to Liz's.  Barnabas was released in #210, yet Mitch Ryan's final appearance wasn't until #248.

There wasn't a conscious effort to match the Burke stories to the actors playing him since MR wasn't phased out-- he was fired.

No, but I'm sure MB can. 

Magnus, #894/5 is a single episode, and the 2nd part of your comments seem to be for #896.

Hi, Claude!  "Reunion" by Dale Clark might have what you're looking for, though David isn't the sole focus of the book.

The article from Saturday's LA Times (p. E4) is currently here: Conrad Bain has diff'rent priorities

In case it leaves the page, the article says that Bain, 86, has listed his Brentwood home of 34 years in order to reside near his children in Northern California.

I missed you too, Taeylor!

How interesting that Magnus said Barnabas should have toned down his deceptiveness while Gothick called the performance subtle.  I fall more into Magnus' camp-- while I'm relishing JF's unrelenting wickedness (it's too bad TPTB didn't have the cojones to stick with it despite fan impatience) and especially enjoyed his villain-pretending-to-be-warm-and-fuzzy turn opposite Julia in this ep, it just would've made more sense for the sake of his mission to not fawn over Carolyn quite so much in front of Julia.  And no offense, but I'm just not seeing the subtlety.

I can't say I'm surprised that Carolyn chose Barnabas' advice over Julia's.  He seemed to be playing along with her insecurities and fears whereas Julia dismissed them outright.  [Using Carolyn as an example,] when the voice inside a woman's head tells her that a man is being guarded, then hello, her subconscious knows that he probably IS hiding something.

What's Julia's medical specialty?

Hematology and Psychiatry

As for Julia's medical proclivities, did anyone else find it amusing that she would purchase a pill box?

The voiceover tells us that the mysterious box is something that Barnabas "somehow brought from the past"; did the writers realize that they made a mistake by having him appear in the present holding the freakin' book instead of the freakin' box?  The redo of the first scene has Julia wearing her gloves instead of carrying them, and we come to realize that Carolyn is a budding water conservationist because she wears the same skirt and blouse for the 3rd day in a row.

I wish we could have seen Mrs. Johnson lying for Carolyn instead of just hearing about it.

That pentagram is HUGE.

(Who knows what was going on in those photos with the candles?)

Ha!