Discuss - Ep #0797

[Watching Project]

Robservations #797

And if you'd care to look back, the first WP discussion topic for this ep:

Re: Discuss - Ep #0797

[MagnusTrask]

VO-- who?  Kinescope.  Quentin got all dressed up inbetween episodes, though still fresh from the Mill, and Magda is there, which she wasn't before.  Magda gasps in shock at the very idea of such a fine man as Quentin being killed........?! 

Here's the bizarre mess involving Eve, the family history, and a Barnabas who shouldn't even know most of what Eve did.  I've tried to follow his reasoning over the years...  Barnabas thinks that ... well, first Vicki took the modern history back to 1795.  So far so good.  It became evidence against her, so she returned without it.  Next, Eve goes back to 1795 and acquires the book, after the court returned it to the Collins family, I guess, despite its being a product of witchcraft, they think.  Eve gets it from Ben, brings it to 1968, and gives it to Vicki as a "wedding present".

That's where it stands until Barnabas bops back to 1897.  He knows about Eve and the Book, even though Eve didn't go around telling her enemies about it, and died soon after.  Barnabas trakes a wild crazy stab at temporal mechanics, deciding that in 1897 Eve's actions "haven't happened yet".. so the book should have made it from 1795 to 1897, with no detour back to 1968.  Well, the past of 1795 was already altered by Vicki and then Eve, so that things had (now) always happened that way, before Barnabas went to 1897.  It's done.  The past was changed, and there's only one past.

If Eve's actions "haven't happened yet", neither have Vicki's.  Neither woman's changes are superior to the other's... Yet Eve's changes are cancelled out.  If they are, then Vicki's are too.  Therefore, the family history never ended up in 1795 at all, and isn't sitting in the old court house in 1897.

But Barnabas is right, and it is.  I give up.  Barnabas thinks he's living in a post-Vicki but pre-Eve timeline, and because he thinks so, he is.

Quentin sees pentagram on Beth's forehead-- proceeds to try to save her life by mocking her love for him.  It occurred to me how utterly unfashionable Quentin's sardonicism is, these days.  It's great, though.  Beth goes on about waltzing in Vienna, and Q retorts, "If you're ever going to go, you'd better go now!"  The cyllinder record restarts on its own... what ghost did that? 

Seance for poor, dead Julianka.  She's POd of course, and curses Magda with seeing all her loved ones die.  They don't seem to be able to make her go away just by severing the circuit of touching hands.  Poor Magda.  This whole story is damage control that keeps failing... bigger and bigger disasters.  Knock on door, curse is coming true immediately.  Julianka is one powerful spirit.

[Uncle Roger]

And, if Magda had been unable to find the book at the courthouse, it.would have been entirely her fault.

[DarkLady]

In the teaser for this ep., Magda has replaced Angelique, and Quentin has cleaned up and put on a new suit (he keeps a change of clothes at the Old House?), all in the short time Barnabas has been out looking for Julianka--and finding her.

Before the séance, Magda tells Barn a childhood memory that Julianka's grandmother was "very scary" and used to frighten Magda and all the other children. But almost immediately, the conversation degenerates into a shouting match: But you are no longer a child, Barnabas reminds her. Jenny's children need to know what Julianka can tell us. Two gypsy children are doomed without your help. Resigned, Magda asks, When will we have the séance? As soon as you get Quentin, Barnabas replies. And remember, whatever happens must do so before dawn! Magda says, Perhaps I'm a fool, but something about all this frightens me. You are a fool, and a coward! Barnabas shouts, furious. Insulted, Magda retorts, You call me a coward. Would a coward go to the courthouse? Would a coward get that book? Would a coward do what I do for you every day? I have no time for your gypsy temper, Barnabas says. I still have this terrible feeling, Magda says. And I have no time for your gypsy feelings! the enraged Barnabas roars at her. Now go!

Meanwhile, Quentin is at his drunken worst and is downright mean to poor Beth, pentagram or no.

Irony is in fashion these days, but sardonicism, not so much.

Thanks for posting about the timeline, MT. I'm probably even more confused than Magda. But whatever Barn thinks he's doing seems to work for him, at least.

Julianka lays a super-heavy curse on poor Magda--as if having a vampire slave for a husband and a vampire for a master aren't enough. Sheesh.

[MagnusTrask]

I didn't mention the intense argument between Barnabas and Magda.  It wasn't just another bit of friction.  Maybe they intensified it just because these scenes had all gotten a bit same-y.  It made me wonder again about Barnabas's ferocious determination to succeed with his "mission", no matter what setbacks there are, no matter what consquences there are for him.

You can look at it in TV terms, and assume he's simply the "hero" out to help others, filling that standard TV role.  Then it's either admirable or a bit ridiculous.  He's a homeless fugitive, and he's still trying to help Chris and David and Quentin with all he's got.  He doesn't seem empathetic or concerned though.


Note that he's not correcting anybody when they talk about his mission into the past to save these people.  Or does he say that himself?  He didn't come on purpose, and doesn't know how to get back.  Maybe everything's frightening and up the air with him, and the only thing to grasp onto to give him a purpose, and any business there, is his "mission".  Maybe the moment he stops, he'll find he's a reviled creature with no place anywhere, not even in the time he's in.  Maybe he's angrier because he doesn't actually care as much as he pretends to (my impression), and sees no end to it.

[DarkLady]

It could be any one of those things or all of them, MT. Or it could just be that Mr. Frid was getting kind of tired of Barn's predicament.

In any case, Barnabas is about to start caring very deeply about where--and when--he is.