DARK SHADOWS FORUMS
General Discussions => Current Talk Archive => Current Talk '24 I => Current Talk '08 II => Topic started by: buzz on December 18, 2008, 05:25:44 PM
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I was watching the episode where Maggie escapes from Barnabas' cell in the basement of the old house and wondered how others felt about the conclusion. Maggie successfully escapes and makes her way onto the beach but drops to the ground exhausted. Barnabas finds her and is about to kill her when Sam hears Maggie's screams. Barnabas runs and hides as Sam finds Maggie.
Only a few episodes earlier Barnabas was ready to kill both Willie and Maggie. It has been explained that Barnabas has superhuman strength (tearing apart the bars in Dr. Woodard's offfice) in addition to his vampiric powers, so why didn't he just kill Sam and then Maggie? Why did he run? I think it would have made more sense if Sam had been with Sherrif Patterson and his men, or Barnabas thought they were with him, but this was never mentioned. Is there a logical explanation for Barnabas running away and allowing Sam to rescue his daughter?
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Maybe Barnabas believed Sam WAS with the sheriff and his deputies, or at least thought he could have been. Why he didn't follow Sam to see one way or another, I don't know. Maybe he was hoping Maggie would die on her own before she could tell Sam anything.
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certainly a possibility. Another one being that the human side of Barnabas stopped him from killing both Maggie and Sam. He could have done the same to Willie and Maggie earlier but he appeared to hesitate, listening to Willie's pleading, perhaps looking for an excuse not to kill them.
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I know it's unfair but ...
The pacing of this scene really doesn't work for me. Given the strength of the Undead, Barnabas would have had plenty of time to just snap Maggie's neck and then dematerialize. Instead he just hovers melodramatically over her body until you hear Sam's shouts.
Perhaps it was some secret bit of remorse that kept him from killing her. Or, perhaps, David Ford was just a wee bit late catching his cue.
Happy Holidays!
G.
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I tend to think it was his constant internal struggle with his conscience. He was often cruel to Maggie in those episodes (making her stay in a coffin? Ewww!), but he still had to contend with the human side of himself that kept dangling morality in front of him. Again, the genius that Mr. Frid brought to the character.
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Early on the character of Barnabas became conflicted and not the typical monster. In the Jason storyline he takes an interest in his cousin Elizabeth's problems and offers assistance when she is prepared to jump from widow's hill. The introduction of Sarah helped to futher humanize him. It was a combination of the qualities of Jonathan Frid and the writers recognizing what they had to work with.
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When I first saw this episode, I was under the impression that while Barnabas was hovering over Maggie (and then later while watching from the bushes), after hearing Sam, that he was using his powers to hypnotize Maggie into forgetting what had happened to her, or at least attempting to block out her memory some way. It always seemed to me that Maggie needed a little help forgetting the events that had happened to her, and I always thought Barnabas supplied that help. The reason he showed up at the hospital later on was because he wanted to see if his little trick had worked.
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I don't think Barnabas could have caused Maggie's memory loss, because if he could have done that, then later on he wouldn't have been dependent on Julia's hypnotizing skills to keep Maggie quiet.
I haven't seen this episode since it came up in the Watching Project over a year ago, but it seemed to me then that Barnabas had no problem with the idea of killing Maggie. If I remember correctly, my impression was that at that point he had pretty much outsourced his conscience to Sarah, but it was never very clear-cut.
There's got to be an answer, but I don't have it yet.
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Well, going off of my theory, which is probably far fetched, but plausible nonetheless, Barnabas was able to control Maggie's memory up to a point, just like he was able to control Maggie up to a point. Her will was strong (as evidenced in the story), and so Julia's expertise was needed to control the situation.
The writers couldn't really kill off Maggie, and they couldn't really off Barnabas. I think that was the problem they ran into at the end of this storyline. They were probably intending Maggie to escape and tell everyone Barnabas was her kidnapper, but they couldn't let her do that. If they killed Barnabas, they would have killed the ratings. [santa_tongue]
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Maybe Barnabas thought it would be bad luck to murder the man who did his portrait.
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Maybe it was because she was close to the entrance to the tunnel that went to the Old House which would point to Barnabas. I think that he didn't really want to kill her.
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And there's always the theory that since Maggie resembled the beloved Josette in appearance, Barnabas just couldn't bring himself to do away with her as Sam appeared on the scene.
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I like both of the above replies, but if he didn't do anything to Maggie's memory, he would still get caught. Would Barnabas just sit around and hope for the best? Was the life of Maggie really worth his own life? I've always needed something more to answer these questions, which is why I explain it all away with hypnotism. If you watch the scene, the way Barnabas is looking at Maggie, you can definitely infer that he is doing something to her mind. Like I said, this is just my theory, but it closes a lot of loopholes: Why Barnabas didn't kill Maggie, why Maggie lost her memory and needed a specialist to get it back, etc...
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i just watched this episode last night in fact, or was it today? no last nite, late last nite which is why i had trouble remembering. anyways, i don't think he was trying to make her forget, if you remember he didn't know sarah was around than. if my memory serves me right, he did know there was a little girl around the area buut NOT his little sister. i admit i forget this part so i may be wrong. please correct me if i am indeed incorrect. anyways,
as for him not killing Sam, i don't think he had a reason TO kill him. yes he had earlyier threatned to kill him if she made any noise. buut that was than, also if you look at "David Ford" he's not a skinny little thing for him to pick up. maybe if Willie was with him he may have killed him soo than he can have help moving both the bodies.
another guess is simply this, he was debating on what to do with her, he was one minute threatening her.
& he hadn't yet decided on HOW to kill her. if you remember Barnabas had told her he'd kill her slowly. or something along the lines of that. or he just didn't want to bodies to have to have removed. cause for one thing "Maggie" was in a way considered dead by the police. buut "Sam" will be missed. killing Jason later on was a guy that nobody would miss. he was to leave town anyways. well i'm out of guessing for the time being. everyon here has good idea's on why he just didn't kill them both.
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I don't think Barnabas killed either Sam or Maggie because it would not have made any sense to the storyline. If Maggie or Sam would have died where would that story have gone? I know Barnabas with his strength would not have had a problem killing Sam as he (Sam) was so preoccupied with seeing Maggie after all the stress of her kidnapping but maybe he thought there were others around as already stated so why risk it? I'm glad he did not kill them. Barnabas would have been left as a truly vicious monster with no guilt for the sadness he caused those that cared for Maggie.
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i agree, buut i wasn't refering to the storyline or the writers. buut just barnabas in particular. story wise & writers wise i agree. & i'm also THRILLED that he didn't kill them. i was just saying like the 1st poster of this thread that since Barnabas has strength & can take the two of them to kill them. why didn't he? i don't think he was starting to really be humanized yet. i'm in the middle of episode #286 i think? which actually just ended. & he's already started to i guess you could say Court Vicki Winters & he's just starting to look a tiny bit humanized well towards her anyways. he hasn't stopped being evil yet. that's not for awhile in this era of the show.
anyways that's what i think the original poster meant.
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It seems to me that Barnabas doesn't know quite what to do. Above all, he does not want to be discovered as Maggie's kidnapper. To kill Maggie on the spot would perhaps jeopardize his secret when Sam came along.
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Happy New Year everyone. I was thinking that maybe he did not kill her either was because he actually began to care for her and others too but Maggie especially. Maybe he could not go through with it despite his strength. Yes, I know if Maggie was discovered his plans and discovery would be all screwed up again. However, he sure threatened her enough but he never actually did her any real physical harm..mental agony yes but not any real physical harm. For all his interest in Victoria he always kept his interest in Maggie too. For the rest of the show they had a type of bond and maybe it stemmed from that encounter.
(edited by admin)
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I don't think that Barnabas would have felt any compunction about killing Maggie at that point.
I don't think he was hypnotizing her in any way.
I don't think he would have had any trouble - physical or emotional - killing Sam as well.
I don't think it occurred to him that other people might come along.
I don't think he was worried about consequences. After all, he didn't think about consequences when he was planning to kill Burke in cold blood. It was left to Willie to point out the consequences to him.
I need to watch this episode again, but what I'm thinking is that maybe Barnabas was thrown off by the location. He had just come through the maze underneath the Old House that exited onto the beach. Maybe, because of that, he still had a feeling that he was in his own house - or at least in his own territory - and it was a great shock to Barnabas when Sam stumbled uninvited into that territory, to such an extent that Barnabas was slightly disoriented and couldn't think fast and clearly.
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or cause he was just completely taken aback when he heard Sam coming & it surprised the hell out of him & he didn't have time to think or react. soo he just bailed. i also viewed that episode the last nite i think? that you pointed out Lydia. & you would be correct. he just wanted to kill burke, & he had forgotten that Jason was a nobody that nobody could care less if he was killed or never returned EVER again. well maybe the law on the killing part had they decided to have "Sheriff Patterson" find out he was killed. but other than that nobody really cared about him. except maybe Willie to a degree. anyways, Burke was a rich man & that has always bugged me on how did he make his millions? & [spoiler]why did they kill the character off?[/spoiler] i know why the actors left. maybe they just ran out of story for him & for things for him to do? anyways, Barnabas did forget that Burke was a well known & liked man by MANY & a rich man & people would look for him IF He all of a sudden Vanished!
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Perhaps some part of Barnabas was relieved when Sam arrived, for it meant he wouldn't be forced in to killing Maggie, in effect, Sam was saving him from himself.