I'm with Magnus and Taeylor-- I watch episodes in clusters. How many at a time depends on how long it takes me to write up stuff. If theres lots of goodies in the episodes, I end up pausing them over and over to write and it takes an hour to do an episode.
LOL Taeylor on your catch about the Ten dollars and real money value. They did something similar in
Raiders of the Lost Ark with the watch that was "ten dollars from any vendor in the street" or something like that, when real value for the time would have been waay less.
On to the show:
Recap of the last teaser. Poor Tim, now Trask’s pawn more than ever. Hmm methinks Evan’s hypnosis works better than Julia’s – and without the oogly medallion.
Apparently Trask has had this in his mind for some time., but how could he be sure he could find someone skilled in hypnosis to set up a patsy for him? Unless this convoluted plan with the poison and the book and the cards as a trigger is Evan’s plan, once Trask gave him the outline of what he wanted to do….
Cut to the desparate, scared witless and trying to drink it away Quentin. The moon will be up in 4 hours, and he;s playing cards wih Beth while they both try to pretend everything is normal. One would think they’d be trying to find a safe secure place to stash him for the night….but instead he’s wallowing. Interesting that they choose a card game to try and get his mind off things. Quentin being Quentin, I'd have though his first choice for oblivion without thought would have been talking her into some mindless nookie.
Scared to death and lashing out at everything.
He’s got Beth on the edge of tears again, but there’s a number of possible reasons. I don’t think she’s so thin skinned and helpless that she’s all hurt by his sarcasm and lashing out. Is she hurting for him, because she knows by now what’s behind it when he acts this way? Is she angry that he’s wallowing instead of trying to do something productive? Apparently she intends to try to do something.
He’s got a point about her easily making things worse (which also ends up being foreshadowing, since so much they do tends to go that way), after what happened with Trask. Notice she doesn’t seem shocked , scared, horrified or surprised when he mentioned trying a Black Mass; apparently she knows about and has come to terms with his involvement with the Black Arts. Nice bit of introspection there about “paying for all the things I’ve done and gotten away with”. Tells the audience that despite that line about getting rid of Beth’s “inconvenient conscience” he knows when he’s done wrong as well. Key differerence between him and Trask: he knows he’s done bad things even as he weasels out of the consequences, whereas Trask feels all his actions are both moral and justified. I believe it’s the lack of understanding of right and wrong, and a lack of empathy which is where we get into psychopath territory.
Nice scene with Magda and Tim (and nice misdirection of the audience, when the conclusion of the last scene leads the audience to think the knock on the door will be Beth). Magda is smart – she knows something is seriously up, but she’s going to see what she can get out of it. Pity Tim can’t break the programming and use the nightshade on [spoiler]the RIGHT Trask…..[/spoiler]
Finally we have Beth and Magda. Another great scene, set up so we join it in progress with Beth running out of arguments to try. Wonder about Magda’s reference to helping Quentin many times before that Beth doesn’t know about. Again, you see Beth’s backbone: telling Magda she wouldn’t want to understand about placing the curse, and wouldn’t want to be a gypsy to be able to do such evil. Deciding that curse or no, she would go away with Quentin and travel with him to go find a cure (wonder if HE knows this yet?).
I get the feeling that Magda likes and respects Beth, not to mention feels sorry for her, else she would be far nastier with her. Seems Beth also hit a nerve, that she would marry him despite the curse. Wonder if Magda is surprised that she cares that much, or surprised that Quentin can inspire that kind of loyalty.
Oh this is nicely played. Magda explains that the curse will fall on his son, and Beth drops the other shoe. The way TC gives that cynical smile and throws the truth at Magda, she seems almost Quentin like in her pleasure at the hurt the news will cause Magda.
Interesting detail in Beth’s retelling of what happened with Laura Quentin and Jenny. “Laura was trying to steal Quentin from her”. So, Mr. Ladies man notwithstanding, can we take Beth’s word that Laura was the aggressor there. So we find out Edward tried to pay Jenny off to leave after Quentin was tossed out, then Laura left . I’m puzzling over how this time frame fits in with Laura leaving long enough after Quentin for them to have exchanged multiple letters before then. Jenny was pregnant enough to know it herself, yet not enough pregnant that her ladies maid noticed; she apparently found out when a still at least partially rational Jenny told Edward. And it was Edward, then in charge of things and presumed heir, was the one made the decision to make Quentin cease to exist by sending his children away and pretending they never existed either.
Poor Magda, now reaping the rewards of lashing out in blind pain. Again, Beth is smart , she understands that when Magda advises her to get something to protect the boy, that she has no way to end Quentin’s curse. But in the next scene, she’s back to not so smart. We see it’s nearly 7PM, apparently dark, and here she comes into Quentin’s room without a worry in the world. Apparently Quentin’s curse has the same time delay as Barn getting back to the coffin long after sunup, because no sooner do they dare to hope, than the pains start….
Ok, back to why didn’t they think of somewhere to stash him? He finally talks her into leaving, and she doesn’t even lock the door – doesn’t it occur to EITHER of them that he could kill one of the children?? ??
All the outbuildings on the estate and you don’t get any indication that either of them considered seeing if locking him in one for the night would keep him contained?
Back to Evan and Tim, and another card game. LOL like the aside about Edward – that he plays cards badly because he always suspects everyone else of cheating. But when the card comes up, it doesn’t look llke things are going as planned – Tim is now forcing EVAN to drink the brandy.
Jeannie