DARK SHADOWS FORUMS
General Discussions => Current Talk Archive => Current Talk '24 I => Current Talk '13 II => Topic started by: Watching Project on July 04, 2013, 03:54:09 PM
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Robservations #493
And if you'd care to look back, the first WP discussion topic for this ep:Re: Discuss - Ep #0493
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Once upon a time, Barnabas used a small, windowless room in the basement as a prison for his unwilling vampire bride, Maggie Evans. Now he, Julia and Willie watch as Adam sleeps in the same room.
Barnabas tells Willie that Adam was afraid of Julia at first, until she taught him how to eat. When Willie asks why, Julia explains hesitantly (and with vast understatement), Adam doesn't seem to deal well with pain. Barnabas puts Willie in charge of teaching Adam to speak, with warnings of dire consequences for both of them if Willie messes up. Really stupid move on Barn's part! Why doesn't Julia dissuade him? They're exactly like 18th-century parents who hand their children over to nursemaids to raise and don't give them another thought. But I guess that's how Barn was brought up himself.
Left alone with Adam, Willie lights up and things go downhill from there. Adam eventually winds up at the terrace and plays with the splashing water as if he really were a little kid. Mrs. J. finds him and screams about a monster. Eventually Barn and Julia find him, sedate him, and chain the poor guy in his underground prison.
There's just no excuse for such crappy parenting.
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Willie's life lesson #1 for Adam: smoking! I know how they can beat the Dream Curse. Just find a midget, dress him up to look like David, tell him the Dream. I'm a genius. Adam is the best thing on the show now, and will continue to be, until he starts getting lines. I wonder if they paid him less before that.
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They needed Willie released to help but where was he? The opening voice over makes no mention of the past, I think, for the first time since the return. I guess this is the ultimate in child not seen nor heard. Locked in a basement with no light etc. No toys except for Willie. Julia mentions she taught him to eat. Willie says, I don't know anything. When asked to teach Adam. The episode ends with Adam chained to the wall crying. No wonder nobody likes windcliffe, if Julia treats her guests like its 1950 in a North Dakota asylum.
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The opening location stills have markedly improved. In the Old House basement cell Barn, Jules & Willie wait for Adam to wake. Barn gets Shakespearian and romantic about Adam’s primal state while Willie frets over having to be left with him after he wakens. After B&J leave, Willie lights a cigarette and Adam grabs it and burns himself, knocks Willie out and escapes the Old House into the night. Jules talks to Mrs. J. at Collinwood and finds out she’s had the dream and that behind the last door were bats. This alarms Jules because it would seem that things are coming down to the wire for Barn. And discovering that David is next in line to hear the dream adds to her dread. Jules suggests Mrs. J. leave town so as not to pass the dream. But Mrs. J. is too afraid to do anything. Willie barges in chasing MJ off and tells Jules that Adam’s escaped, etc. Julia & Willie leave to get Barn to decide on their next move. Adam wanders upon Collinwood’s terrace and discovers the fountain. He drinks from it and despairs at his reflection in the basin. Mrs. Johnson wanders out looking for David but comes upon Adam. Mrs. J does her best ‘Mrs. J.’ third-degreeing Adam and eventually flustering him up to what she interprets as menacing behavior. She starts screaming and Barn, Jules & Willie run out to see what the commotion is about. Mrs. J. tells them of a strange man and they don’t get it until she claims he was more a monster than a man. Mrs. J & Julia talk while the men search for Adam. MJ’s gripped by paralyzing fear but ultimately decides she will leave Collinsport for David’s sake. Barn & Willie find Adam in the woods and coax him back to the Old House where he is put into a deep sleep and a heavy duty ankle bracelet and matching chain. Adam wakes and pathetically grieves over his new predicament.
Afterthoughts: Pretty emotional episode for me. I was distraught right out of the gate with the thought that Willie was to be locked up with a free range Adam. I was slightly comforted when they did not lock the cell door. Mrs. Johnson really tugged at my heartstrings with pretty much her whole performance sans the meeting with Adam at the fountain, where I got my comic “go get ‘em Mrs. J.” rocks off. Another new outfit for Mrs. J. – I wonder what’s up with that? Not that I’m complaining mind you, but like, it is supposed to mean something to us? So far R. Rodan is giving a good performance as Adam and though the writing was week in spots today – I do like how they are writing the Adam character. The bit with the fountain was very good, IMO. Karlen is especially good also today.
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Everybody seems to be suffering from a severe case of Victoria-itis - i.e., cluelessness - in this episode.
First, Barnabas and Julia leave the highly volatile Adam alone with the highly unreliable Willie. Is anybody really surprised that that doesn't go well?
Then, Julia practically has to have a house fall on her before she can figure out what's bothering Mrs. Johnson, even though Julia would clearly have been focused rather intently on whether or not Mrs. J had had that confounded dream the night before.
Finally, the already hyper-terrified Mrs. J walks towards the strange "monster" in the garden rather than hightailing it out of there lickety-split (is that redundant?).
I get that characters often have to act in idiotic ways to advance a plot, but there seemed to be more than the usual quantity of that in this episode.