Barnabas tells Willie he has to keep his promise to Dr. Woodard to let him take a blood sample from Willie. He had to do this to remove suspicion from himself. Poor Willie. We know what Barn plans to do, would it have killed him to just tell Willie, "Don't worry, Willie, I will fix everything, he'll never see anything in that blood sample"? but no he wants to keep Willie in torment. If this relationship had not improved at some point, I fear my sweet Willie would have perished before the age of 30 from stress!
I still fail to see how Barnabas as merely Willie's employer (to the outside world) can order him to allow the doctor to take a sample of his blood. Burke and the doctor both think Barn should have this much authority over him as though Willie were his son, not his employee.
If Willie's blood sample and Maggie's have the same impurity, in my mind that would mean they had both been attacked by the same madman/animal/whatever, not that Willie is the one who caused Maggie's suffering. Why must they assume that he is the one who's kidnapped her? I know it's partly based on his past, but again, if this were true, where is he hiding her? Barnabas lives in the house too, and they don't know his secret so...??
Burke asks Dr. Woodard if Maggie's attack could have been by a wild dog, he recalls what happened the night Vicki sat with Maggie. Dr. Woodard says no. I think if anyone had heard that pack of wild dogs at Maggie's window that night, they'd know that if they'd have gotten to her they'd have torn her to shreds, not merely left a couple holes in her neck. Dr. Woodard reminds Burke of the fact that his office was trashed, and Maggie's blood samples were stolen. No animal did that. Burke then comes right out and accuses Willie Loomis and the doctor reminds him that Willie isn't strong enough to have done this (he didn't mention the bars on the window but that's what he means) I wanted to remind Burke that he himself had bested Willie in a fight at the Blue Whale and if Willie had possessed the strength necessary to have done what was done in the doctor's office, he'd have flattened Burke with one punch. Burke is afraid something might happen to Vicki. It's clear that by now he has developed strong feelings for her.
When Dr. Woodard comes to take Willie's blood sample, Barnabas is again in his polite, gentlemanly mode and makes excuses for Willie's reluctance to give up his blood saying he's squeemish. He waxes eloquent about how it must be awful to give up even a drop of blood, since that is like surrendering part of your own self. I thought about how the vampire bites someone and drinks their blood, forcing them to surrender their will to him, how much that happens in this show and it seems his words have merit, at least supernaturally. When I've had to have blood drawn for a doctor or given blood, I never felt that I was surrendering part of myself.
After Willie leaves and the doctor is fixing to leave, Barn asks to see the blood sample. Dummy doctor gave it to him. It seems that in these extreme circumstances, the doctor would apologize and say no, but he casually handed it over. Barn looks at it in the candlelight and we do not see him switch slides, I looked carefully. The camera removes from him and focuses on Dr. Woodard who has turned his back to pack up his stuff. This must be when he did it.
Both men fear yet hope that there is some connection between Willie and Maggie (Barn lying of course) not that they want Willie to be guilty of anything, but at least it would provide some answers. They talk of the perpetrator and Barn says he is both more than a man and less than a man. Interesting analogy. When Dr. Woodard says he sounds as though he sympathizes with him, Barn says he loathes him very much. I wonder why if he loathes him (at least the vampire part of him) he [spoiler]wants Maggie to become what he is and when she refuses, he wants to torment and kill her for it.[/spoiler] Dr. Woodard asks Barn to keep Willie at home until he learns anything. He should have asked Willie this, not Barn, why does he think Barn is Willie's keeper? Do they sense something in this relationship that goes beyond the usual employer/employee relationship and if so, why are they not questioning it? Maybe they think because Willie lives in the same house as his boss, that gives his boss more rights than he otherwise would have had? Possibly...
In the scene with Vicki and Burke at the bar, I recall reading either here or on one of groups that Alexandra Moltke was only 19 when she first began to play Vicki. Yet if I'm not mistaken she does go to the Blue Whale every now and then and has a drink. Since the legal age was 21 at this time, the actress would not have been able to go to a bar and have a drink, so Vicki must have been being portrayed as at least 21.
Willie begs Barn to let him run away and Barn refuses, even mocks him, "Are you lost?" If they come for him and start interrogating him, what will he tell them? He's sure Willie will betray him due to his sympathy for the girl and the fact that he can't bear physical pain (my poor sweet Willie!) Barn grabs Willie's shirt and pushes him to the floor. THEN he finally tells him that switched the slides and that Willie is safe. It turns out that when he stole Maggie's slides, he took some others as well and the one he gave Dr. Woodard belonged to someone else. I thought the doctor had said that only Maggie's slides were taken but I could be mistaken.
I hate how Barn kept Willie off balance, wondering if he'd protect him from liability for Barn's crimes. Willie then says he knew Barn would protect him, and Barn says you knew nothing of the kind, I protected you this time but I might not always. We see that later on [spoiler]after Willie was shot, Barn and Julia frame Willie for Barn's crime![/spoiler]
Dr. Woodard reports to Burke and Vicki that he found nothing in Willie's blood, and they ask what he found in Maggie's blood. He tells them in detail that Maggie's blood had a substance that should have been rejected but wasn't, it was like an unholy union, as if Maggie had accepted into her blood something inhuman.
WOW!!
Alondra
