Discuss - Ep #0341

[Watching Project]

Robservations - #341

And if you'd care to look back, the first WP discussion topic for this ep:

Re: Discuss - Ep #0341

[DarkLady]

Farewell, Dr. Dave Woodard--all three of you!

Although we have only a kinescope for this crucial episode, it does contain some of Barn's most memorable--and horrific--lines.

As Dave’s lifeless body falls to the floor, Barnabas delivers a memorably angry yet poignant line: Loathsome I am and evil. You can mock me for that, but leave my pain alone!

At the end of the episode, Barnabas tells Julia, You no longer have any friends. And she doesn't--except for him. So he has accomplished his dreadful purpose. But Sarah seems to have seen and heard everything, because we can hear her sorrowful flute music as Julia groans in despair.

[dom]

After Julia refuses (or simply just can’t bring herself to do it) Barn kills Woodard. Magnus, What’s the big deal? What was so shocking about this? Barn’s killed before (so it's not his first murder) and Julia kills no one. Is it that it’s not a “bad guy” getting killed? (I ask curiously & with all due respect.)

I remembered this event totally wrong. I thought Julia killed Woodard so I am somewhat relieved. I don’t have to hate Julia (yes, I am giving her a free pass on this one) I all ready hate Barnabas, and Woodard chose death over compliance. I'm good with all this.

Julia is a mess and who can blame her? Barn is still being a bosshole. Him, I can blame. Why can’t he be a respectful killer? (snort) I wasn't at all moved by anything Barn had to say, as a matter of fact most of it made me sick to my stomach in the context of the episode. I'd have spat on him and told him to go ____ himself after his "Don't mock my pain" statement. We're supposed to feel sorry for him? I'm beginning to think DarkLady is correct in guessing that present-day Barn is becoming more unsympathetic so as to contrast the "nice" Barnabas of 1795.

I totally don’t get the bat in the window of The Blue Whale? WTF?

And the woman screaming outside/bats in women's hair/Don't hang around the waterfront if you don't like bats -- a bit of comic relief from the writers to shake off the shock of Woodard's murder?

Sam & the sheriff find Woodard dead. They both suspect foul play. Sam’s poignant “Oh, no, not Dave.” almost got to me to tear up and probably would have had it been Gerringer’s Woodard that got iced.

The lack of experienced technicians on set is excruciatingly obvious in this episode. Lot's of camera shadows.

My favorite lines: Please! Don’t let him kill you! (lol, only on DS?) & Barn: I know a dead man when I see one!

It’s weird, out of context I was I was impressed with so many things in this ep. and yet in context I didn’t really like it.

I'm glad (well, for the sake of converstion, lol) you brought up Sarah, DarkLady, because I wondered why we heard her flute during that part of the scene? You say it signifies that Sarah was a witness to Woodard's death and that makes sense. Anyone think that Sara is creating Woodard's voice for Julia to hear (that it wasn't really "Woodard" from the great beyond)? And if so, why? Why torture Julia? Maybe to recruit Julia as an unwitting ally in her crusade to...oh, yeah, not really sure what Sarah is up to.

And thinking along the lines of Lydia's thoughts that Sarah was willed into existence by Maggie's desperation, I have to wonder if maybe Woodard calling out her name had anything to do with her showing up unseen? What puzzles me is why Sarah (if witnessing this) didn't feel Woodard was worth protecting/saving as was Maggie and David? Does Barn's ultimate safety trump all? Throwing Sarah into the mix seems odd to me. Perhaps a definitive answer (in DS, yeah, right!) to that is yet to come.

[Joeytrom]

This episode also continues the revolving actors as we get Sheriff Patterson #3- Angus Cairns.
If Robert Gerringer & Dana Elcar were in this episode, it waould have much better then it was.

Did Dana Elcar and/or Vince O'Brien refuse to cross the picket line too?

[DarkLady]

I don't think Sarah needed to create Dave's voice for Julia to hear. I'm sure it was her own conscience.

And I still think that Sarah is a free agent who was awakened, so to speak, when Barnabas was freed from his coffin.

I don't think we're meant to feel sorry for Barnabas and his pain. I think his mentioning it shows us the big reason that Julia is in love with him and why she's trying to cure him: She somehow sees the humanity that is hidden far, far beneath his vampirism.

We get another example of the Collinsport police department's exemplary detective work when Sam Evans and Sheriff No. 3 rummage around in Dave's office.

[MagnusTrask]

After Julia refuses (or simply just can’t bring herself to do it) Barn kills Woodard. Magnus, What’s the big deal? What was so shocking about this? Barn’s killed before (so it's not his first murder) and Julia kills no one. Is it that it’s not a “bad guy” getting killed? (I ask curiously & with all due respect.)

dom-- I tend to forget that Barnabas takes the syringe from Julia and does it himself, too.   That may be a matter of the show flinching from showing the bizarre and disturbing moral moment that they seem to have been leading up to, where perhaps Julia did (originally) do the injection.

The situation is so messy that as much as I want to let Julia totally off the hook, I can't.   She prepared the injection.   She met Barnabas there, not telling anyone else, not getting help.   She kept silent afterwards.   The consequences would have been extreme for Julia if she'd gone to the police (probably involving Barnabas killing her that night), but when you're about to help to kill your old friend, you do something.   She was a co-conspirator.

If Barnabas had just shown up and throttled Dave on his own, none of this shock would have been there, except that for the audience, the bad guy wins.   Everything you say is understandable and makes total sense, though.   Julia didn't do it.  Technically.   Maybe it's the cold-bloodedness of it, maybe it's our putting ourselves in Julia's place, imagining being in a position you probably can't ever forgive yourself for.   I'm not sure.   It's certainly unexpected.  A very original moral situation is thrown at us.

[DarkLady]

When I first saw this episode back in the 1980s, I found it extremely disturbing. One does have to give the writers credit for taking Julia's moral dilemma almost to the limit. It would have been too much for Julia to kill Woodard herself. But as Magnus points out so well, she did prepare the injection and failed to do anything to prevent the death of her old friend. So by almost any standards, she is Barnabas's accomplice and just as guilty as he is in the eyes of the law.

In light of the later relationship between Barnabas and Julia, [spoiler]I always wondered whether or for how long this unalterable, vile deed united them or stood between them. Much later, when Barnabas saves the Collins family bacon over and over again, is he trying to atone? Too bad the writers never thought to explore those possibilities. In fact, after Vicki goes back in time, Dave Woodard, his courage and his death are all forgotten.[/spoiler] Oh well.

[Midnite]

Did Dana Elcar and/or Vince O'Brien refuse to cross the picket line too?

Elcar refused and was fired because of it.  O'Brien became his replacement (and continued on the show for more than a year), though it's difficult to tell since their eps from around that time were taped out of sequence:

Elcar's last ep taped on 9/15/67; Vince O'Brien's 1st as the Sheriff taped on 9/18/67.

I channel surfed into a scene the other day between Dana Elcar and Michael Cavanaugh on MacGyver-- 2 Sheriff George Pattersons!

[Mysterious Benefactor]

I channel surfed into a scene the other day between Dana Elcar and Michael Cavanaugh on MacGyver-- 2 Sheriff George Pattersons!

I love when things like that happen. Like when Ivana Milicevic and Eva Green appeared in the same scene in Casino Royale, or how Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Gully McGrath are both playing Lincoln's sons in Lincoln.


But to get back to this ep, as most know by now, I'm often one of the first to jump all over Barnabas when it comes to his behavior, especially when it comes to the ways in which he all too often treats other characters exceedingly badly.    However, that being said, I love how Joe Caldwell gave Barnabas the line: "Loathsome I am, and evil - you can mock me for that - but leave my pain alone!" The first half is a decidedly truthful self-realization, and the second half is a perfect juxtaposition to his abhorrent evilness in killing Dr. Woodard. And I don't think it was meant as a way for the audience to ever consider forgiving Barnabas for his actions because killing Woodard is one of the worst things he ever does on the show. But at the same time, in the midst of the deed, it does remind that there is another side to Barnabas. The deed of killing Woodard is 100% abhorrently evil, but Barnabas himself is not. The line definitely begins to lay the foundation for the anti-hero that the show will eventually turn Barnabas into.

[DarkLady]

Well said as always, MB!

[MagnusTrask]

When Barnabas reveals something of his inner torment, I don't experience it as an attempt to get us to forgive him for anything.  It just is what it is, feelings which people have who have done awful things.   Though MB may have just said it better.

[dom]

I don't think we're meant to feel sorry for Barnabas and his pain. I think his mentioning it shows us the big reason that Julia is in love with him and why she's trying to cure him: She somehow sees the humanity that is hidden far, far beneath his vampirism.

Wow, that's deep. I'm very shallow re: Barn right now. I can barely look at him without feeling disgust. Just about everything he does and says makes me sick to my stomach. Still "too fresh" for me I guess. Not in "big picture" mode yet, lol.

[dom]

dom-- I tend to forget that Barnabas takes the syringe from Julia and does it himself, too.

I figured that was probably the case once I too realized that I was remembering it wrong. I was so ready to go off on Jules, lol.

The situation is so messy that as much as I want to let Julia totally off the hook, I can't. She prepared the injection. She met Barnabas there, not telling anyone else, not getting help. She kept silent afterwards. The consequences would have been extreme for Julia if she'd gone to the police (probably involving Barnabas killing her that night), but when you're about to help to kill your old friend, you do something. She was a co-conspirator.

I get it. I want to say that I can see myself getting up to that point but I wouldn't be able to go all the way, but Barn being unstoppable really changes everything. I'd have died first or killed Barn, yeah, killed Barn before getting to that point. I guess I'll have to take back my free pass for Jules. Can't hate her though like I hate the Barn character right now. I feel sorry for her, But not him.

[alwaysdavid]

Barnabas appears quite gleeful when he says death was due to heart attack.  He says the fatal curiosity is cured. Banabas and Julia from this time period seem far removed from ones from late 1968 when I originally started watching.  When I caught this on PBS in the 80's, it was a surprise as was that Julia was interested in Barnabas as more than a friend.