This one's good too.
Dom asked why Trask and his trial was necessary.... I'll guess that 1795 was a huge ratings success, and that fans clamored for more. This storyline now isn't really a storyline at all... not like Roger vs. Burke, or Laura 1967, or Barnabas-Maggie-Sarah, or 1795. Instead, it's a less-planned, open-ended, meandering sort of thing. They're throwing every complication in that they can think of, and interweaving them all. They can afford to throw in a ratings-grabbing bit of 1795 nostalgia without ruining the master plan, because there isn't one. Or so it seems. (They do seem to keep throwing bits of 1795 in, whether they make any sense at all or not, right up until 1897, and even return to 1795 right after. Fans must have loved it.)
Another of those complications: reviving the Barnabas-Maggie story, just when everyone in town was acting all doped-up and oblivious to the implications of having criminally-insane Willie back. They'd glossed over all of that, making the rest of the storyline run much more smoothly, but now they're calling our attention to this bit of the past again. The mood was done well. When Maggie somnambulated to the Old House, was the music something specific to the old Barnabas-Maggie story? Have we not heard it since then?
In an amazing coincidence, Liz's new death phobia leads her to guess someone was buried alive in the alcove! Joe's almost a villain now. I like Nathan more than this version of Joe. At least he came out and said, finally, how insane it is to have supposed abductor Willie in town, much less at her front door. Someone had to. Willie's not as good with his dukes now, as when he came to town.