Discuss - Ep #0024

[Watching Project]

Robservations #24

[Janet the Wicked]

Carolyn and hat boxes. When do we ever see Carolyn wearing a hat, other than when she was wearing her riding habit?

One of these days I am going to pop into Dunkin Donuts and request a container of coffee.

Burke’s ham sandwich – butter and mayo, no lettuce.
I was watching Alton Brown the other day. He was doing a healthy Goods Eats episode. He paired avocado with sardines.
I don’t know which is worse, Burke’s sandwich or Alton’s.

And I don’t know if the hamburgers were cold or just plain lousy, but Miss Barrett didn’t seem to be enjoying hers. It reminded me of a future episode (I don’t remember which one), where Joan Bennett takes a sip of coffee and makes a face as if there was either booze in that cup or really bad coffee.

Best line in the show:
Carolyn: “I swallowed it, Burke. Every bit of it.”

[Midnite]

LOL for Carolyn's line!

Welcome to Timothy Gordon!!!, appearing as the restaurant customer who chats with Maggie at the counter and uses the hotel stairs.  Gordon had some memorable uncredited parts in his nearly 30 DS appearances-- besides also showing up in the Blue Whale, it's his hand that we see in #210, and he was the menacing hand of Petofi and (again) Barnabas, a spectator at a certain hanging, a 1795 family servant, the wedding minister in a particularly nasty dream, and [spoiler]Jeremiah's ghost.[/spoiler] TG attended some of the earlier Fests.

Since the lobby set was used for this ep, the phone booth has returned to its proper place.  And there's now a number on the door to Burke's suite, but is it #24?

[Janet the Wicked]

Welcome to Timothy Gordon!!!, appearing as the restaurant customer who chats with Maggie at the counter and uses the hotel stairs.  Gordon had some memorable uncredited parts in his nearly 30 DS appearances-- besides also showing up in the Blue Whale, it's his hand that we see in #210, and he was the menacing hand of Petofi and (again) Barnabas, a spectator at a certain hanging, a 1795 family servant, the wedding minister in a particularly nasty dream, and [spoiler]Jeremiah's ghost.[/spoiler] TG attended some of the earlier Fests.

Oh, how very, very cool!

[DarkLady]

Cool, indeed!

Truly a revolting sandwich. I guess it pays not to eat in the Collins Universe.

[alwaysdavid]

The cafe gets three customers!!! 
Collinsport or one of it's surrounding towns must have an upscale Department store.  I remember the days of boxes with string tied around them.  Does Carolyn shop for her mother?
Great statement that they hadn't changed the decor in Burke's room in 20 years. 

[DarkLady]

I also remember those boxes tied with string and the little handles to carry them with!

I think at one point Mrs. Johnson takes David to [I forgot the name], a big store in Collinsport, to buy clothes. This might be somewhere around the [spoiler]Grant Douglas/Leviathan stories[/spoiler]. Actually, I wonder who drove them to town--somehow I can't see Mrs. J. behind the wheel. 

And much later, or rather earlier, [spoiler]Joanna Mills talks about seeing Samantha Collins in her carriage in Collinsport, going to all the shops[/spoiler].

With the cannery in Collinsport, it would make sense that the biggest stores would be there too--the better to tempt the cannery workers and fishing-boat crews on payday.

[michael c]

"brewsters" was the name of the oft-mentioned and oft-shopped at department store of the leviathan episodes.

they even created a box and i think a shopping bag for it in a nice bit of prop-styling.

speaking of burgers in one of these early episodes mrs.johnson is seen at a STOVE in the collinwood kitchen for it's one and only appearance. i think she's flipping a burger.

forget dunkin' donuts i'm going to walk into starbucks and order a grande-half-caff-misto CONTAINER of coffee. if the "barrista" looks at me strange i'll tell him it's for constable carter...who b.t.w. HATES mustard on a sandwich. but who eats butter on a sandwich?

yes and of course the infamous "room twenty four"...home to weary collinsport bachelors across the centuries...begins it's life here as burke's trio of rooms(a.k.a. "the presidential suite"). i love how carolyn and vicki compromise their small town "reps" waltzing in and out an unmarried man's hotel room unescorted. shocking!

[Lydia]

I like seeing early Maggie collecting and spreading gossip through the town.

Is Burke starting to think twice about having come back to Collinsport?  History repeats itself.  He believes himself to have been railroaded into jail ten years ago, and now it looks as though it could happen again.  Burke is a rich, powerful man now, apparently, but Collinsport may be too much for him.  Or else maybe it's staying in Room 24 that's too much for him.

I liked the description of the boat Joe hoped to buy with his friend: it needs some work.  Oh, gosh, don't they all!

[michael c]

not to get too literal about the whole thing but in terms of burke's "fortune" the numbers just don't add up...

he was away from collinsport for ten years. five of those were spent in prison. in the five subsequent years he's amassed a fortune great enough to pretty much buy and sell whatever he wants(including collinwood)and enough "power" to order everyone...including law enforcement...around.

realistically i don't see how that much wealth and power could be(legally)accumulated in such a short span of time.

[DarkLady]

A boat is a hole into which you throw money.  

It doesn't seem too implausible to me that Burke has built up a fortune in just five years. I think his fury and desire for vengeance are the engine that propels him through life.

[alwaysdavid]

While he was in prison, he had time to figure out how to amass a fortune and it's never been said he got it by legal means.  He's protrayed as being ruthless in getting what he wants.  He could have a host of sweat shops in Japan pouring out cheap made in Japan goods.

[michael c]

true devlin has a vendetta against the collins family and a chip on his shoulder the size of texas...

but one thing he despises about the collins family is what he perceives to be their dishonesty and hypocrisy. he's written i think as a basically decent human being who was greatly wronged by a particular group of people(the collins')and out for revenge against them but not the kind of person who engages in sweatshop labor or other behaviors harmful to people in general.

sweat shops, child labor, drug peddling, prostitution and the like are just not in the nature of the character. remember in this storyline ROGER is supposed to be the creep and burke the person wronged by a powerful family.

[DarkLady]

Yah. I think Burke made good use of the business section of the prison library, but I don't see him amassing his fortune by illegal or unethical means. Since he hates the Collinses so much, I'm sure he wouldn't want to do anything that would make him be like them--or at least as he perceives them. Most of all he wouldn't want to be anything like Roger.

[Lydia]

I don't get the impression at all that Burke would mind being illegal or unethical.

Burke told Joe, if I remember correctly, that he struck it big in Montevideo, and that it was a matter of grabbing a huge but fleeting opportunity.  Burke could very well have been lying to Joe, but I figure there was a nugget of truth there.  How Burke got to Montevideo I don't know; maybe he worked his passage.  But I surmise that the name Montevideo was chosen because nobody watching a show like Dark Shadows would have been there, so the viewer could give free rein to his or her imagination.  Maybe Burke helped to bring down a government, or else to set one up.