DARK SHADOWS FORUMS
General Discussions => Current Talk Archive => Current Talk '25 I => Current Talk '09 I => Topic started by: Watching Project on February 26, 2009, 12:20:55 AM
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Robservations #734
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Trask sure is despicable! I well remember this part of the storyline well as I was being threatened with being sent away to school at the time it originally aired and seeing this was truely frightening to the boy who used to be me. When Jamison saw the key, I remember thinking you fool don't use it. Jamison seems so immature and unworldly. No wonder he a pawn for Quentin.
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I well remember this part of the storyline well as I was being threatened with being sent away to school at the time it originally aired and seeing this was truely frightening to the boy who used to be me.
You poor thing.
Some of the nuns at my Catholic school believed that children "learn through fear" too. Though to their credit, they NEVER thought of us as animals. (Though it's not surprising to learn that Trask looks down on animals too.)
Wow, what a great villain! He can stir painful memories, or inspire such hatred that you want to talk back to him through your screen. Or maybe that last one is just me? [snow_grin]
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<- also quilty of talking to the screen when watching [snow_grin]
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Hee hee! Cool. [snow_cheesy]
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I remember saying "WHAT?!" to the screen when Julia, in 1968, [spoiler]decided to bury Barnabas to be on the safe side, like a Monty Python dead budgie,[/spoiler] but I'm sure there have been other moments too. Now we're back in the part of the storyline that I've seen once again. What I love about Trask, especially Greg, is that he's a scenery-chewing melodramatic villain and there's much fun to be had from him in that way, yet at the same time he's a credible villain with weight to him that you can actually be motivated to despise.
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...yet at the same time he's a credible villain with weight to him that you can actually be motivated to despise.
And your avatar captures that very essence of him. Every time I look at it I'm transported back in time mentally to the feelings I had as a kid watching him on the show.
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Yay, cuz I've been anxiously awaiting the point at which you can participate again, Magnus.
And I prefer calling him by his first name too, btw, instead of Reverend.
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My mother once told me that "Reverend" was never really supposed to be a title, but just a sort of respectful adjective one could choose to use about a minister (or anyone else if you wanted), but that it became misused as a title in later years.
The thing that really launches the Trasks, especially Gregory, into genuine, supreme coolness is the fact that the minister crusading against evil is the villain, and the vampire is the hero. This epitomizes what was so great about the 60s. Clickes were being subverted and turned on their heads, and people were freer as a result. Hypocrisies were coming out into the open.
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I just call him Trask [naughty]
He is such a hypocritical slime at this point. Straight out of any of a number of Dickens novels, by way of the Brontes. Hmm thinking back a few episodes ago, Quentin sure had him and the kind of school he ran pegged awfully fast. Wonder if the boys were all sentenced to a school like that when they were young. Sure might explain a lot about the Collins boys if they survived a school like that We really don't have much of an idea when their parents died and who was making the decisions about their schooling.
Jerry Lacy sure knows how to pour on the twinkly eyed villainy. Love the final scene where he looks at Rachel with such a smirk.
Jeannie
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[contains spoilers for #739, #741, & #744 --admin]
I've just seen #734-744, and can't separate one from the others, not from my notes certainly, so I'll just start, never mind which exact ep....
First Note: "My dear lady, I would follow you anywhere!!" I think this was Trask being especially creepy, maybe said to Judith.
Is Laura sustained by the burning of her portrait?
Q to Laura re children: "I know what will happen to them if you take them." Does he? We never really find out where Laura goes and comes back from, do we? This may be explained in my VHS gap.
Q re hunting Jenny-- he says Jenny's an animal with a knife. Judith says Q is an animal with a gun. That was nicely done. Q's only slightly less dangerous than Jenny to Judith.
Jenny thinks Barnabas is a hotel bellhop!
I'll start going forward in these threads to find a spot to continue these remarks from.
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The scenes when Trask disciplined Jamison for eavesdropping were truly frightening to me as a kid. [shiver] Trask was a tyrant who went way overboard with the discipline. I don't blame Jamison for using the key to get out! [ghost_rolleyes] Being locked in the closet was really terrifying. In a way, Trask reminds me of my dad. As bad as my dad was, though, Trask was much worse. Luckily, I was able to hide in the bathroom or outside to escape my father's rageaholic temper. I've never been locked in a closet! That would be really scary! [ghost_shocked]
Poor Tim, being blackmailed by Trask to entice Rachel to come back to the school. [ghost_sad] That last scene, when Trask said, "Good evening, Miss Drummond," was also quite scary. Rachel thought she was "home free", and then was surprised by Trask's presence. Horrifying. Reminds me of the "boogie man". I hate Trask! [angry1] (But I love the actor, Jerry Lacy, because he was so convincing as Trask and did a wonderful job.) [clap2]
I'm glad that Magda gave the brooch back to Rachel. [ghost_smiley] Indeed, Magda did seem to have a soft heart for some people in some circumstances. She was a "tough cookie" when she needed to be, and a savior at other times - a "tough cookie" with a "heart of gold". She talked tough many times when she really wasn't that tough. That's a big reason why I love her character so much. [love2]
----- Sally -----
[ghost_cool] [hippy2]
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My heart goes out to young Sally. *hugs*
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I just decided to send the post I just wrote to you Sally in a PM.
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Thanks, Midnite and Magnus. [ghost_smiley]
*Hugs* to you, too, Midnite. [hug]
I'll reply to your PM soon, Magnus. [ghost_wink]
----- Sally -----
[ghost_cool] [hippy2]
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Whoops, just saw this. HUGS, SALLY!!!!!!!!!!!! Sorry you had to go through that.
Jeannie
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Thanks, Jeannie! [ghost_smiley]
----- Sally -----
[ghost_cool] [hippy2]
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I'm glad that Magda gave the brooch back to Rachel. [ghost_smiley] Indeed, Magda did seem to have a soft heart for some people in some circumstances.
I didn't expect Magda to gave the brooch back. It would have been so easy for her to say she had sold it already and hadn't gotten all that much for it. Maybe Magda felt bad for Rachel because Barnabas had behaved badly to her.
I was surprised when I read the posts previous to mine in this topic, because the substoryline about Jamison being mistreated left me absolutely cold: it seemed a little too cartoonish to me. And yet it resonated with people. I guess I'm just lucky. But I did think that, given the choice between being locked up in a closet (with books!) and being involved in whatever fate Laura has planned for the kids, I'd definitely choose the closet.
I think EmeraldRose may have missed a milestone here. This was surely the first and possibly the only episode in which there were three people locked up: Jamison in the closet, Rachel in the secret room in the mausoleum (I'll bet Magda didn't show her how to open from the door from the inside, and I noticed that Magda didn't say anything about bringing a chamber pot to her), and Jenny in a basement room at Collinwood. Granted, we didn't see anything of Jenny today - but she was still locked up, tending to her babies. THREE people!
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I was surprised when I read the posts previous to mine in this topic, because the substoryline about Jamison being mistreated left me absolutely cold: it seemed a little too cartoonish to me. And yet it resonated with people. I guess I'm just lucky. But I did think that, given the choice between being locked up in a closet (with books!) and being involved in whatever fate Laura has planned for the kids, I'd definitely choose the closet.
I just said something about this in commenting on another episode, but to me the mistreatment of Jamison was pure Dickens by way of Bronte. The nasty schools and vicious headmasters were bread and butter to Dickens. Trask is SO much like a character he might have invented. Then again, Dickens was into melodrama, too. He was the soap opera writer of his time, and his cliffhangers were famous.
GREAT catch about the THREE people locked up in the space of ONE episode! [salute]
Jeannie
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Well, here's the milestone marking the first (and possibly only) episode in which three people were locked up - Jamison, Rachel, and Jenny. [milestone] Thanks for bringing that to my attention, Lydia. [ghost_wink]
----- Sally -----
[snow_bigglass] [hippy2]
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Gregory Trask is the definition of pure evil in my book, as far as the human villains go. He's a sadist who hides behind a collar and black suit, enjoys torturing and tormenting poor children, intimidates those he has under his thumb and he has the nerve to call himself a Man of God. When in reality he's anything but. Some may find Trask cartoonish, but I don't...I find him frightening and scary thing is there probably are people like him who suscribe to his deluted and twisted way of thinking in today's world. Not just reverends, but teachers, parents, etc.
His attitude about children being animals who need to be taught be fear is truly sick. He enjoys power and he enjoys exorcising his power in the most despicable and inhumane ways. He wanted an excuse to come down even harder on Jamison and that's why he put the key in there. Even if Jamison hadn't stoled the key and left the room, Trask would have thought of something else to give him an excuse to punish the boy.
Sad part is, Jamison's suffering at the hands of Trask MIGHT have been avoided if Rachel had just come clean with Edward
and Judith. Maybe they wouldn't have believed her anyway but at least it would have shown that she had some backbone and wouldn't allow Trask to intimidate her anymore. Unfortunately that wasn't the case.