I forgot to cancel recording this show on my DVR so after I noticed that I got this week's ep I decided to watch it to see if it was any better than last week's. And it was - to a point. I feared the worst when the Osmonds were a part of it - and of course they were called upon to sing - but thankfully nothing about them was barf worthy. And the main plot seemed to be proving that in this week's story Native Americans fared infinitely better than women did last week. One might even say they came across as sympathetic characters. (Though why do I suspect that any Native American who might watch the ep may be horrified by any liberties taken with a ceremony held at the Native American camp because back when the show was made it doesn't strike me that the show had any sort of Native American consultant to make sure such things were accurate.) But any steps forward the show seemed to be making were pretty much wiped out by the summation at the end of the ep when Jamie's narration included, "it sure was amazing to find out that injuns was just as good as human beings." Oh well, one step forward, two steps back...
Well, if we’re going to be completely candid, the DS writers were hardly being “politically-correct” or “woke” with their treatment and portrayal of the Roma people otherwise known as the Gypsies.
Magda, Sandor, Julianka, Lazlo and King Johnny were all treated with contempt by most of the residents of Collinwood. In fact, Gabriel Collins seemed to take great pleasure, when he sneered the word, “Gypsy!” as he was addressing Lazlo, the fortune-teller. Heck, the Collinses showed their “great” affection and concern for Jenny Collins (Magda’s “lookalike” sister), when they locked her up her up in the tower room of Collinwood after she suffered a nervous breakdown, immediately following the departure of Jenny’s philandering husband, Quentin, who was in hot pursuit of Laura Collins, Edward Collins’s unfaithful wife. (Did you follow all of that?)
And, don’t get me started on Judith Collins-Trask, a truly “gracious” and “kindly”woman, and her dealings with and treatment of Magda and Sandor Racosi, the Romani “answer” to Caroline and Charles Ingalls of “Little House on the Prairie” fame.
In a show of “tolerance” and “love conquering all,” it would have been very heart-warming and inclusive if the DS writers had concluded the long 1897 storyline, with the crusty, old hidebound Count Andreas Petofi finally casting aside his long held prejudices and hatreds and actually finding love in the autumn (or late winter) of his years with a benign and gentle Gypsy woman of a “certain age.” Think “Silver Singles” comes to Collinwood!
Of course, who better to play the fey and limpid love interest of Andreas Petofi, but that great Russian actress of the stage and screen, Maria Alekseyevna Ousopenskaya (sp?), who moved us all as Maleva, the comely
mother of Bela (portrayed by Bela “Count Dracula” Lugosi), Romani fortune teller and unfortunate werewolf in “The Wolf Man”?
Well, excuse me, while I pop in my dvd of “King of the Gypsies” on this Fourth of July weekend and pray and hope for a more tolerant and inclusive America than we sadly observed in Collinsport, Maine from 1840 through 1897.
Bob the Bartender, who, as a young boy, was inspired to embrace worldwide tolerance and inclusion after hearing the song, “It’s a Small World” while touring the Pepsi pavilion at 1964 World’s Fair in beautiful Flushing Meadows-Corona Park, Queens, New York City, two years before “Dark Shadows” entered our lives and changed us all for the better as caring and thoughtful men and women!