Discuss - Ep #0400

[Watching Project]

Robservations #400

[Lydia]

Reverend Trask's exorcism turns out to be quite an impressive three-ring circus.  Jerry Lacy and Lara Parker are both great at incantations, and I always love fire - at a safe distance, anyway.  When the flames sprung forth in Vicky's room, the look on her face seemed to say to me, "Am I in fact a witch, after all?"  But I don't think that's what she was thinking.  As far as I can remember, Vicky never doubted that she was one of the good guys.

I can't remember the exact words of Angelique's incantation, but there was something about calling upon evil - or something like that.  Has she ever specifically invoked evil before this?  Dark powers, yes - but evil?  That bothers me.  At this point, I don't think Angelique thinks of herself as evil or even as allied with evil.  Later on, she considered herself as allied with evil - but right now I think she'd say, "I'm a good person making use of the tools at hand to get the good things that I deserve in life.  This has nothing to do with evil."

I'm always surprised by Barnabas's horror at the thought that his wife might be the witch.  He was cornered into marrying her, he never claimed to love her, and she's turning out to be jealous and temperamental.  But she's still his wife.

[MagnusTrask]

But she's still his wife.

Yeah, the union in the eyes of God carried extreme weight, even though it was only mere humans and paperwork (and lies) involved in it...   I don't know where everyone got the idea that God loves ceremony and technicalities (which is all their marriage was) or legalities, above all else....

spoiler


It just struck me that in DS they like to imply thoughts or feelings on the parts of characters, without their ever being voiced.   Someone here talked about Quentin's strange reaction to the Barnabas-Carl incident, how he seemed to just accept it, but maybe he was really scared of what Barnabas might do if he were to object.    VW may very well have thought "Am I a witch?" for a moment, or any number of other things at different moments.    Not every thought and feeling comes out in dialogue.    Perople don't talk about every single feeling, apart from on modern American television.

All that Devil stuff with Angelique is problematic for me.    That's of course how Christianity eliminated competing pagan religions, like Wicca (if that's a noun), by telling everyone they worked for the Devil.    As soon as the Devil got involved in DS, we have his agents doing Bad for its own sake, not for recognizable, understandable human motives.    That undercuts any drama.

[Sunny_Collins]

Angelique seemed almost fearful of the exorcism, trying to convince those cards and herself that it could have no power over her.

I thought it was funny when Trask began the exorcism, Barnabas says he has better things to do and walks away.

I wonder why Angelique wants to revive some of the old customs. that seems to imply she has no intentions of ever giving up her witchcraft.

[michael c]

magnus makes a good point...

evil for it's own sake,at least in terms of d.s.,doesn't make for very compelling storytelling.

as suave and entertaining as nicholas blair was his storyline,creating a master race dedicated to serving satan,was boring and stupid.without understandable human motivations for doing something...be it love,lust jealousy,hatred,revenge...it's just not that suspenseful or interesting drama.

for me the show was at it's most successful when it stuck to understandable emotions no matter how outrageously they ended up being played out.

[Misty]

Angelique was quite good at building a house of cards----with no mistakes! I have a few questions here. I don't know, maybe I'm thinking too logically, but it seems to me that Barnabas would be more curious about Trask. Why leave him alone?
When Barnabas heard Angelique's voice, why not open the door and check it out? Yes, Vicki screamed, but there was time.
When the "fire" appeared in Vicki's room and she couldn't smother it (even the ever-present afghan didn't work), she heard Trask shouting and knew he was looking for her. Surely there was another exit from the house-----having lived there she would know of it.
The fire was only burning in her room.

Well, the plot must go on I suppose.         Misty

[EmeraldRose]

I loved Trask's "exorcism"! He was so over the top!  Fun to watch!  We know Trask was a charlatan, because Vicki was forced out,  instead of Angelique! Speaking about Angelique - that was a great house of cards she built! That scene with her chanting with the cards and setting them on-fire was one of the few scenes I remember from when I first watched the show.  Her hair and her dress were perfect. She's such a beautiful woman.

I agree with Magnus and mscbryk - evil for evil's sake is boring! It's much more interesting to see Angelique's brand of evil, which is rooted in emotion. She's the witch we love to hate!

Yes, that sounded odd to me, too, when Barnabas had a hard time believing his wife was the witch! This was a GREAT show!

----- Sally -----

[Lydia]

Oh, dear, I'm doing a lot of disagreeing today.

When Barnabas heard Angelique's voice, why not open the door and check it out? Yes, Vicki screamed, but there was time.

Before Vicky screamed, I can't remember how long Barnabas stood outside Angelique's door, but it's understandable that he would want to see if he could get a handle on what was going on before opening the door.  After Vicky screamed, he had no idea what was happening to her, so he had to rush off.

When the "fire" appeared in Vicki's room and she couldn't smother it (even the ever-present afghan didn't work), she heard Trask shouting and knew he was looking for her. Surely there was another exit from the house-----having lived there she would know of it.
The fire was only burning in her room.

There was indeed another exit from the house, and we saw it when Angelique caught Nathan Forbes setting out to take food to Vicky when she was hiding at Collinwood.  But in the case of fire, you take the shortest route out.  And the fact that it was only burning in Vicky's room wouldn't mean a thing.  Fire can spread very, very fast.

We know Trask was a charlatan

I think not.  A charlatan knows he's a fraud.  I think Trask believed in what he was doing, even though he wasn't any good at it.  I wonder: had he ever had such astonishing success at catching and proving a witch as he did in Collinsport?  Or were there witches all across New England giggling at how easily he was pointed towards a substitute?

Her hair and her dress were perfect.

Angelique's hair may have been perfect, but I thought the dress was ugly.  It's the one that she's wearing in the portrait that shows up later, and I am currently revising my uncomplimentary thoughts about the painter of the portrait.  Now that I've seen and recognized the dress in the flesh - so to speak - I have decided that no painter could have made it look good.  There's just no accounting for my taste, I guess.

I'll end this long note with an agreement:

for me the show was at it's most successful when it stuck to understandable emotions no matter how outrageously they ended up being played out.

Yes, when we can relate to the emotions, it always works better.  When I broke my foot, I kept expecting everybody on the show to be on crutches like me, or limping at the very least, and it was a great lesson in how much of ourselves we put into the characters.

[arashi]

For me I have to wonder why they didn't move Vicki somewhere else? Hiding in the woods AWAY from the house had to be preferable to hiding where Trask suspected she was.

As for Vicki wondering if she might indeed be a witch, I wondered that as well. The fire forced her out of the room and straight to Trask while he was performing an exorcism to drive her out. I think even for a moment she might have panicked and thought she just might be. I mean how else did she transcend time?

[Roland]

Finally, somebody caught Angelique in the act.  I was always amazed at just how loudly she would recite those incantations of hers, often in pretty public and centralized locations such as the drawing rooms of both the main house and the old house.   Why no one ever heard her at other times is beyond me.

[Lydia]

I've got a half-baked theory that a lot of the scenes don't take place where we see them taking place.  It happens so very often: people say and do things in the drawing room, with the doors open, that should only be said and done in very private places, and 90% of the time they're not caught.  I figure that although the production may be constrained by budget limitations to put the scenes in public places instead of in rooms that would be to expensive to build, in actual fact the scenes took place in more appropriate places.  I suppose you could call it the Docudrama Theory of Dark Shadows.

[Roland]

And a very interesting theory it is!