Yes, very nice work by DS in the very first scene. He really brings it all ever day.
Yay, I'm so glad to find other people are fed up with the Josette thing! I'm looking forward to your spoiler too, MB.
It looks like daylight behind the stained-glass windows at the rectory when Barnabas rushes to tell poor Julia about his latest Josette obsession. Did she recognize you? Julia asks. No, Barnabas admits reluctantly. That is just as well, Julia opines, since the last time you saw Josette, she killed herself because of you. [A palpable hit!] Of course, Barn wants to change all their plans and even thinks he can figure out a way to deal with Petofi while still getting his Josette (as he already refers to her). No doubt Julia gets a little more than medical zeal out of sticking a needle in his arm.
Barn races back to Quentin to get information about the latest houseguest. Quentin fills him in, then has the grace to warn him to leave Collinwood before something awful happens. But Barn is too dreamy-eyed to listen. After he leaves, Quentin mutters, Judas! Judas!
Greatly daring, Julia goes to Collinwood to see Quentin. Almost like the patient wife of a philandering husband, she tells Quentin that they've been through the whole Josette business before. Quentin tells her that Kitty wants to see Edward, who is in Bangor at the moment. Julia begs Quentin to help her persuade Barnabas to stick with Plan A. Quentin begs Julia to persuade Barnabas to leave. Julia rather desperately suggests, Have _her_ go to Bangor herself and meet him. You’re being unreasonable, Quentin argues. It sounds that way, Julia acknowledges, but I don’t want anything to happen to Barnabas Collins. Do _you_? Eyes wide with guilt, Quentin is silent for a moment, the replies, No, I don’t. Then try, Julia urges him. Warn _her_ that if she stays here, there will be a tragedy for her. I’ll try to think of something, Quentin says. Julia prepares to leave, saying, I must go--I’m afraid Barnabas will come to the rectory and find me gone. Please don’t tell him I was here--and try to do something. After Julia goes, Quentin hears her voice in his head: I don't want anything to happen to Barnabas Collins. Do you? Do you? Do you? Do you? Do you? Do you? Do you? Do you? Do you? Do you? His eyes roll up as if he’s in pain, and he covers his ears as if that will shut out those last two words.
Very nice work by DS and NB in their scene. We learn that not only does Pansy have a job at the Blue Whale but that she has moved out of Collinwood and is living in town. She blames everyone for forgetting poor Carl, and especially "some people"--glaring at Quentin--for not getting the vampire. Quentin asks if she would stake Barn herself, if she knew where he was. Her answer is an emphatic yes--and she suddenly realize that Quentin knows where Barnabas is! Realizing he's said too much, Quentin tries to backtrack. No, he insists, shaking his head. Then why are you talking that way? C/P asks. I was just talking, Quentin replies as he gets up from the sofa and puts his glass on the little table. You sure sound like you know, C/P comments. Well, I don’t, Quentin replies. If I did, I’d go to the police. I get these feelings sometimes, C/P says. This time, you know more than you’re saying. No, I don’t, Quentin insists. I think you’d better go back to town--it’s getting late. I couldn’t sleep tonight, she says sadly, not thinking about Carl. Finally it dawns on Quentin, and he really looks at her: You really did love Carl, he says with some wonder. And he loved me, she says sadly. I guess nobody ever had before. Soon it will be dawn. Quentin starts at this news, and C/P sees the change in his expression. What’s the matter? she asks. Nothing, he replies. Go home, he urges her, go home. Oh, you are afraid of the dawn, she says. You are like me. Dawn means a new day starting--except for people like you and me. We never get new days, Quentin. We just go on reliving the old ones. [This is so sad, and NB does such a good job here.] Hey, why are you staying up, Quentin? Why? But he pushes her away as he tells her, Go home, please. She looks at him unhappily, then quietly drifts out the front door. Through the drawing-room window, he watches her progress away from the house.
And yes, the cave is really gorgeous. Black, black paper wrinkled and staped, and no doubt helped by more of that wonderful lighting wizardry. Maybe that's why Quentin loses his nerve. Finally he realizes he can’t betray Barnabas. His face trembling the whole time, he hurls the mallet and stake to the ground and shuts the coffin. You faced whatever you had to! I will too! he tells his unknowing friend. Then he turns and runs out.
A moment later, C/P enters the cave to the accompaniment of Pansy’s song, played by a sad flute with spookily sliding violins. She spots the mallet and stake on the ground where Quentin very unwisely left them. She opens the coffin and stares at the slumbering vampire for a long moment. Then she picks up the implements of destruction, her eyes ablaze with anger. Placing the stake over Barnabas’s heart, she does not hesitate but brings the mallet down with a cry of triumph. In what was probably one of the most jolting scenes in 1970s daytime television, Barnabas screams as his blood wells up around the stake, but she hammers the stake down again and again with a triumphant little sound at every blow. We see the blood-soaked stake in Barnabas’s chest, then the blood streaming from his mouth as he falls still.....
