Well, before all this happened, Nathan and Barnabas were friends. I guess the point was to show us that whereas Nathan is merely weak and cowardly and selfish, Trask is a villain of the deepest dye. It is a nice scene!

Vicki finally connects all the dots and realizes that Angelique was the witch.

Angelique's grave is empty. To all intents and purposes, she has disappeared. [spoiler][We won’t see her again till Roger brings his new bride, Cassandra Blair, to Collinwood.][/spoiler]

Big bad mistake by Peter at the end of this episode. He is starting to get on my nerves.

The idea of there being more than one Rev. Trask makes my blood run cold.

But Gregory doesn't appear on the scene until [spoiler]1897, so he must be Lamar's son and the Rev.'s grandson. Otherwise he would have been about a hundred years old. [/spoiler]

Angelique appears, makes poor Ben look like a madman, frames Vicki, and disappears with one last trademark laugh. Is this the last we'll ever see of her????

Angelique's answers to the judge's questions are absolutely truthful--with one crucial exception.

I think Joshua at least is wearing mourning in the form of a purple rosette for Abigail (and Barnabas and Sarah and Josette and Jeremiah). Naomi, however, is wearing her dark green velvet gown. Maybe she's just fed up with everyone around her dying.

Three cheers and three cheers more for Naomi! She is profoundly perceptive about Abigail's misdirected gifts. I'll bet Abigail would have given Joshua a run for his money if she had set up a rival business. Sadly, he just doesn't get what Naomi is trying to tell him--probably happens all the time, too.

In the fight scene, Peter has to duck a chair that Nathan throws at him but finally knocks Nathan down, despite the latter's couple of inches and probably 20 pounds in his favor. (Hey, I don't arrange these fights, I just report 'em!). Nathan wipes some unconvincing blood off his face and tells Peter, You may have won this round, but you'll lose the fight. We’ll see who won when Vicki is freed, Peter retorts. Despite the unconvincing blood, though, Roger and Joel do pretty well and are careful to stay out of each other's way.

And yes, that is the real and actual blue and buff U.S. Navy uniform. Here is a Web site that describes it--scroll down a bit for the lieutenant's uniform. I couldn't find a pic, but the description is pretty thorough.

When Trask said that physical LOVE was beyond his comprehension, that doesn't necessarily mean that he is neglecting his biblically prescribed duty to be fruitful and multiply. I also think that Lamar is gestating somewhere.

MT, I also remember that consensus from the 1960s. I think the pendulum may be swinging our way (if I may be so bold) again. Look at the generational shift on gay marriage, to give just one example.

I love love love, Naomi's defiance of Joshua at the end of the episode. As for the carriage and driver being ready, I'll bet she had already ordered them before she even spoke to her husband.

I agree with what's been said. I suspect the father and mother of Abigail, Joshua and Jeremiah died shortly after Jeremiah was born. If Abigail was at least a young teenager and Joshua a few years younger and Jeremiah still an infant, she would have felt it her duty to raise them. Probably she sacrificed her chance at marriage and considered that her duty to her brothers as well. In those days, if a woman wasn't married by age twenty, she was considered an old maid.

Welcome, MS!

I seem to remember that at some point Naomi comments that when Abigail was younger she did not lack for suitors and could have had a home and life of her own instead of feeling that she had to take care of her brothers. This makes me think that Abigail was the oldest sib and much older even than Joshua, who seems to defer to her opinion a lot of the time. But the much-younger Jeremiah didn't much care for her.