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« on: August 02, 2014, 04:49:12 PM »
Fake Angelique burns. I love these Quentin-Magda post-Curse scenes. It's just such a weird relationship. The soap opera format allows for stuff like this, whereas in a horror movie, you'd just get the big dramatic bits, the betrayal, the Curse as the act of revenge, then the horror of the transformation... but with a day by day soap, the real life consequences go onscreen too! Other plotlines interweave, forcing unexpected twists, where you just don't know how the characters are going to handle all these strange moments. Magda listens to Q ramble about having seen Ang burn, but thinks he might have seen Barn in his coffin...
I wrote in my notes, did anyone in 1897 utter the word "phoenix", then later, Barnabas does. Is Laura's other world Egyptian heaven? It's up a mountain as we find out in #760, so it might be like Olympus. A mountaintop is closer to the Sun than the ground is. I should throw in for anyone who doesn't know that Ra the Sun god wasn't onew of the usual pantheon of Egyptian gods. The sun-god was a sort of temporary heresy set up by King Tut's father, and contrinued by Tut. They threw out all the traditional Egyptian gods, and replaced them with one god, the Sun. This didn't go over very well, and the old pantheon was re-eastablished after Tut.
Laura gives Dirk The Letter! Barnabas as bat gets Dirk economically-- nice quick shot, in which the bat is actually not embarrassing for once, maybe because we see it so briefly. I find I enjoy the use of very short shots, very short scenes, in DS at this point. It's part of the development of the show. In-and-out fast is very good storytelling, sometimes.
Barnabas and Laura get their cards-on-the-table scene. We wait months to see those! Barnabas is like a bat having eaten a canary, throughout. I think he only ever really enjoys himself through revenge. Nice cold smile... Somehow his research has led him to characterize her as a "phoenix"; he asks her if she always has been one, even in the 1780s, and she does not answer. Wow does he know so much, she asks him? Funny you should ask... Barnabas reveals behind Door #1... Dirk!! That vampire is a born showman.
Anyone in the family, or any servant, could have walked in at any point during all of this, spoiling the whole show Barnabas was putting on. Yet he lets the conversation slowly unfold, waiting for the right moment to reveal Dirk... he's got style. you have to give him that!
Welcome back, Angelique! She's quite the phoenix arising repeatedly from her own ashes, herself! Ang is a showman too, bothering to put pillows in place of Jamison, just for the reaction from Laura, when it wasn't really necessary. And Ang appearing in a spotlight in a corner of the room is always the best special-effect-that-isn't-an-effect-at-all, that there ever was! And for once... we're glad to see her!