If you don't want to know the circumstances surrounding today's entry in this slideshow, then don't read any further...
[spoiler]Today's quote:
Ep #50 (1966) - David - 'I went down to TELL Aunt Elizabeth and they MUST have come in here.'
From "#0049/0050: Robservations 06/21/01: Where's Bill?"
Vicki drags David into her room. I want you to see what you did, she says sternly. Why did you have to come and wake me up for? he asks sleepily. I don't think you were asleep, but if you were, I'm not at all sorry I woke you up, she says--look at that, go ahead--tell me what it says. He doesn't respond at first, so she asks again. Death, he replies. And who wrote it there? she asks. I don't know, he says. I've had just about enough of this nonsense, says Vicki. I didn't write it! he says petulantly. Who did? she demands--a ghost or a widow?--I want you to take these tissues--she pulls them from a box on her dresser--and wipe it off. No, says David. I'm not fooling, he says, I didn't go near your old mirror, I was asleep in my room! I want you to take these tissues and erase that, right now! she orders, thrusting them into his hand. It wasn't me, he says, it must have been the widows. What's going on in here? asks Carolyn, entering the room. Something between David and me, explains Vicki--David, listen to me. They were in my room all night, he says, I went down to tell Aunt Elizabeth and they must have come in here. That's awfully strange, says Vicki, because they seem to have the same handwriting as you. Death? asks Carolyn--that seems to be the password for the night--she grabs her cousin and shakes him, demanding to know how dare he write that? Vicki stops her and gives David once last chance--either he wipes it off right now or else they go down to his Aunt Liz. All right, he says, viciously swabbing it off--there!--satisfied? Now I want you to go to your room, says Vicki--and I'm warning you, I don't want anything like this to happen again! I didn't write it! he hurls back at her--it was the widow! He goes into his room.
[/spoiler]
Something that I'd never really thought about until today is was it, as David repeatedly insisted, really the widows who'd put the warning on Vicki's mirror? Up to this point, the supernatural stuff on the show was all tease and considered fancifulness that was only in someone's mind, particularly David's. But that would change shortly with the actual sighting of Josette's ghost, followed fairly soon by Bill's ghost. Was Ep #50 the first concrete evidence that the supernatural really was at Collinwood? Though they did still leave it up to interpretation because David could have lied that he didn't write "DEATH" on Vicki's mirror and Vicki even remarked that the handwriting seemed to look like his - but was it? The widows definitely had Vicki on their radar because they were instrumental in saving her from Matthew, and Vicki often heard their wailing when something was about to happen. Perhaps the widows saw Vicki as someone who could be open to their communication. But I suppose we'll never really know for sure if Ep #50 was meant to be a first hint of proof of their real existence or merely just another tease...
Actually, it's too bad that the widows disappear after the first year of the show. Maybe they went on vacation and decided to never come back. Maybe they got tired that, despite all their contributions, David was the only one who truly believed in them. They probably said to themselves, "Who needs this?! We have much better things to do with our afterlives!!"
Though the real reason is more likely that the writers who'd kept the widows a part of the plot simply weren't writing the show anymore and the ones who were weren't invested in keeping them in play...