I wish I could forget the mental image I have of Barnabas in the Superman suit out on the Collinwood ledge.....

 

Jeannie

Interesting point, ProfStokes, about 1960s Laura being more powerful because she had no dependence on another supernatural force for her power.  As we've seen here, THIS Laura would have failed multiple times if she'd not had Ra's intercession. I saw that storyline a few months ago, for what was only the 2nd time.  I really liked it more than I remembered. That Laura didn't bug me (no scarab jokes intended) near so much as this one does.  The storyline held together well, and was a supernatural creature but not one we'd seen over and over.

I also like the idea that there might be multiple types of phoenix. Might explain some of these paradoxes that we keep hitting ourselves on the head trying to resolve.

On to the comments on the episode:

Opening is not a redo of the day before’s finale, but flows nicely from it.  Nice lead in to the fade out with Quentin’s line: Someone is planning to kill me and I think you know who it is.   

Quentin is back to his cynical suspicious self.  Silver bullet means someone knows about him and that’s a short list of suspects.  Barnabas has suddenly offered his help just before the bullet is found, which rings all of Quentin’s alarm bells.

Nothing like blind terror to drive out common sense.  “I must find whoever was planning to use this – and kill him first.”  Managed to forget how well that strategy DIDN’T work last time, didn’t he?   

His paranoia is starting to gallop – he’s even suspicious of Beth and demands to know where she’s been and what she’s been doing. SERVANT ALERT – Beth actually refers to another servant. Or ex servant as the case may be. Bout time someone referred to the invisible staff.  Of course we know it’s an excuse, and she’s probably been to Mrs. Fillmore, but she’s smart enough to stick to a story that sounds plausible.  Needless to say once again a private conversation is held in the middle of the vestibule, and  once again Judith comes out on the landing and hears all.  She’s not too shabby about picking up on things, and she freaks him out staring at him.   Apparently Quentin’s not the only one in the family with a big bump of curiosity.  She’s getting a bit close from what she says to Barnabas about knowing how Quentin behaves when he’s in some sort of trouble.

Judith and Jamison both admire Barnabas so.  And not so long ago Jamison hated his guts because he was against Uncle Quentin, and then because Barn was against his mother. It’s  Barney Sue, round two.

No sooner does Barnabas leave than Dirk comes in through the French windows.  The bite marks are faded, and he’s been away three days.  (Hmm, that’s all it’s been since Laura incinerated?  Jamison sure bounced back fast.)  Dirk is definitely  a few sandwiches short of a picnic. Wonder if Laura did that all by herself or whether it was the combo effect.  FINALLY Judith stands up to someone who tries to tell her what to do and fires (ironic pun there) Dirk.  Can’t these guys figure out another way to menace people that ISN’T strangling?  It’s the first thing every one of  them goes for.

Dirk in the cottage talking to the fire.  The fire doesn’t talk back, but Quentin does.  Good thing Beth came in when she did, it looked like Quentin was losing, even as wussy as that fight looked. Just what he needed in the mood he was in.  The paranoia is now galloping fast enough to win the Kentucky Derby.  Now he’s managed to convince himself that Dirk is faking being mad, and Beth has been faking loving him all along – and is now trying to kill him.  Oops, seems it’s Beth’s story about Alice Austin’s mother that set him off.  He knew it was a lie, so it fed right into his feeling that Beth is playing him. Bad timing on the slap, you heard it first, and the actors didn’t get the choreography right.  Kind of a contradictory reaction he has after he hits her “now you’ve got another reason to want to kill me”.  Almost like he’s trying to drive her away, make her make his accusations true because he can’t believe in her loyalty or trust – or her belief in him.

Guess he never read Dracula – he has no clue about the marks on her neck. Can’t tell what he thinks, or whether he accepts the story.  All we see is that he doesn’t say anything to indicate he doesn’t believe her explanation. 

TC did a great job in the next scene.  Beth isn’t naturally mistrusting or deceitful, and the strain of  the whole tangle of lies on top of lies and keeping all the lies straight has her nearly hysterical. (Quentin's mistrust isn't helping either, I'm sure.) Unfortunately, she predicts exactly how it will turn out, with the web of lies collapsing and Barnabas’ hypnosis will do nothing to prevent that.

Now we have Beth playing watchdog, and Dirk barging in.  Silly Beth, letting Dirk get the gun.  Aren’t the vampire’s minions supposed to do anything to protect the vamp?  Wouldn’t that mean she’d have just blown Dirk away the minute he menaced Barn. And what about Dirk?  Best I remember he’s the only one Barn ever bit to have ever resisted his will and succeeded – even to the point of trying to destroy him. Nice cliffhanger with the shots and the slumped over Barn.  People must have been FREAKING when this showed the first time.

Jeannie

I think the only things they knew for sure was that there were 2 ghosts, a dead kid buried in the woods, and a gypsy named Magda had cursed someone.

I wish we could see the writer's notes on what they were planning to do.

Think you're probably right about the bare bones of the plot.  Maybe a few more things:  Quentin was a rascal who came to a bad end, he was PISSED, he had an affinity for children, there was an 1897 werewolf that someone knew how to protect against, and the female ghost died wearing a wedding dress (that last is a guess, based on the mostly very appropriate costuming, and my running into the clone of Beth's dress on a Victorian costuming site, with the provenance given as an 1890s wedding dress).

Yeah, wouldn't writers notes on intentions be a wonderful thing?  Course I'd also like to see the character sketches the actors made up to get a handle on their characters, but that's just me.    Hey as long as you want the impossible, you might as well wish for multiple impossible things before breakfast. 

Jeannie

Laura: "O great god Ra, why have you forsaken me?"
She has GOT to be kidding!!

Maybe she'd like a list?  I get this mental image of Laura, after returning to Ra, being in as much hot water as Angie was when Nicky sent her back to Diabolus.  Her cunning plans are right up there with Baldrick (Black Adder)

Magda to Quentin:  "What do you DO here? This is a public house? You come, you go, as if you live here. You do not. Get out."
LOL, what a beatdown.  She's managing to not only berate him (which gets better, as others pointed out), but also to start working on getting him out of the Old House before Barnabas emerges from the basement; of all the DS characters, could Magda the one who's the most clever?  She definitely thinks fast on her feet, and as we saw in the cottage in the last ep (when she relieved Laura of the scarab), she lies convincingly too.

I'd put her right up there in the top 5 smartest characters myself.  She outthinks most of them at one time or another, and is very quick to pick up on things that happen or she is told about.

Laura to Dirk:  "I must take the children.  I promised Ra."
Huh??!  I thought she wanted the children.  I don't understand!

Sense I got is that Ra wanted the kids, and that that was part of the Phoenix thing in each one -- they had to bring the kid (in all but this case, we're only told of one male child).

Had things gone differently (and they surely would have in a Barnabasless 1897), would she really have returned for Dirk?  And didn't he realize the price of admission was burning alive?

That might be giving him too much credit for brains and for thinking ahead.  He didn't seem too swift on connecting cause and effect in other cases.

Quote from: Pansity on April 19, 2009, 03:13:07 AM

Ok, now this is the second time he’s watched  a woman burn to death.   That sort of thing could really give someone a phobia.   

And they both came back, yikes.

Was trying to answer some private correspondence this weekend, and discussion of an on line psychopath made me think of this subject.  Quentin as we first see him is a self absorbed, callous guy.  One could reasonably discuss  whether or not his manipulation of others, bullying and physical abuse take him over the line into the territory of psychopath. But his reaction to both burnings show that he's not that far gone.  He has what one would think of as a normal reaction of sick horror to watching and hearing someone burn to death.    For those who would take that normal reaction for granted as a given -- not necessarily.  The individual whose pattern of behavior made me think of this routinely told people who had experienced 9/11 in NYC (including one person who was on a cell with a friend in a Tower when the Tower imploded) how watching people falling, and seeing people on fire was the funniest thing they ever saw. That lack of anything resembling empathy or compassion is what I understand to be the clinical definition of a sociopath.

Jeannie

Belated Happy Birthday Mark Rainey.  Hope it was a great day!

 

Jeannie

YIKES that was  a bad blooper by me.     Don't know how that one oozed right out of my brain.   

LOL on the bandaged bloody ghost which would have shown up if Gail Strickland weren't avaliable.  Not to mention that the bandages would be on body parts never originally injured. 

and LOL on Magnus and Taeylor filling in the blanks and providing us with body parts.  Guess they like the same slasher movies my friend Kelly loves.

Jeannie

Don't feel bad Magnus -- my reaction after reading the posts was WHAT vanishing staircase (and I just saw the episode earlier today).

and Taeylor -- I thought it was Joan, too, and I have the DVD.  Must be something other than your tape quality.  SNICKER -- you noticed that about Wolfie's shirt too.  Obligatory Himbo beefcake.   Note the other example I put in my comments below. 

We open on wolfie, sprawled out on the top of the rocks, and Magda, approaching him with the gun.  (Is this the first time we see a woman pull a gun on Quentin?  We know it won't be the last....)    She goes through with it, and the werewolf grabs his chest as if the bullet hit him there.

 Ok, her logic seems screwy.  Killing Quentin insures the kids escape the curse?  One would think it would move it right to them.  Even if the pentagram  is used exactly as she says and does protect the boy, the GIRL didn’t get a pentagram, so she would still pass it on , whether or not Quentin is alive – which is what we saw with Chris back in 1969. Seems they stayed consistant with the werewolf lore when they used it again in Leviathan.  What Barnabas describes about Quentin healing if he transforms while the beast is alive vs him dying with the beast fits what was used later for Chris.

HUMPH – Barnabas has a nerve digging at Magda about “it only takes a moment for the future to be destroyed by one silver bullet in the hands of a gypsy”.  Of course HIS constant interference has had NO effect on how events have been  playing out.    <WHAP> He knows no more about how things need to go to “put right what once went wrong” than Magda does.  And, sorry Barnabas fans, I think Magda is smarter than Barnabas….he’s just more accustomed to assuming he's always right, and everything will always go his way – not to mention blaming everyone but himself when things go wrong.

Again with the timing on the cock crow.  Barn is still nattering on, and demanding that Magda keep the beast alive till dawn – which the cock says is now very close, so why the big production over what they’ve already discussed?
Oh oh, we’re back to a six cylinder gun, from which Magda’s lost a bullet. OI and again no one watches a dangerous person.  Wolfie seems to have gotten his strength back, and right on the cusp of dawn is now on the loose again.  These people just do NOT seem to get the concept of locking creatures behind doors. May not stop them, but it would sure slow them down – which might be all that’s needed this close to dawn.  LOL amusing in the transformation shot how you see so clearly that the werewolf’s brown eyes change to Quentin’s blue ones.

Snicker, his shirt sure got ripped up real quick.  Even after being shot – twice – wolfie’s shirt was all buttoned up. Made me think of  a scene in Falcon Crest.  All the regulars were in a plane crash.  Every male who survived it had artistically ripped up shirts with bare chests showing.  Yet one of the women was wearing a white dress white hose and stockings – and didn’t have a hair out of place or a smudge on her clothes anywhere.  None of the other women had no much as a snag in their pantyhose either. 

Quentin is now chasing after a crying woman’s voice instead of figuring out how to get back to the house unseen.  Smart move <not>! Oh, but here he is sneaking in the front door.  All the secret passages in that house and he comes in the way that’s most likely to get him seen by someone.  And the crying has followed him, to boot – along with the very unwanted and possibly noisy enough to raise the house Dorcas.  He’s still got some work to do on his compassion:  no regrets, no apology, it’s all about “they mustn’t know”.  Of course he goes for her when she won’t shut up, and finds out, as Nathan Forbes did before him that “you can’t kill me – I’m already dead.”  Uh, not to gross anyone out, but wasn’t it mentioned that Dorcas was ripped apart to the point where they spoke of “body parts”.  Looks kind of intact to me.  Also curious why she didn’t come haunt him before.  If I remember right he killed her at the 1st transformation, and he transformed again the night after, which was the day she was buried. It took the ghost a whole month to find out who he was and come after him?

Of course the next scene is him in his room with the music and the brandy, hands shaking so badly he can’t  tie the stock around his neck.  The second round with Dorcas really does him in.  Between that and the brandy he nearly blows the whole thing to Judith, who came to check when she heard him screaming  (again, he’s supposedly off in his own wing, how did she hear him and get there that fast).

Maybe it’s the elephant in the room that neither of them will mention, but I would think he could have tried to convince Judith that Jenny was haunting him, and hung the whole thing about murderer, etc on that.  Can’t really get a handle on what Judith thinks is going on, whether she pins it on what happened with Jenny, the drinking, or both.  She does in all innocence set off his paranoia by noticing that he’s behaving like a cornered animal, and he’s terrified of letting her suspect anything.  She really seems concerned about him in this scene, while he’s going off like an adolescent screaming GET OUT OF MY ROOM.  Sense I get is she doesn’t leave because he’s being obnoxious and demanding it – she leaves because she sees she’s getting nowhere and gives up on trying to help.  Wonder what she would have done if he'd opened up to her about what REALLY happened?

JUST what Quentin most wanted to hear out of a clear blue sky.  The cousin he doesn’t quite trust telling him obliquely that he knows all about his curse.  Good thing he’s both sober and not freaking out at this point, he has the presence of mind to deny everything.   Barnabas boggles my mind.  He apparently considers Quentin “foolish” (read stupid) for not trusting him and telling him everything, and not realizing that Barnabas is his “only chance”.  And what information does he have that would lead him to trust Barnabas and know he’s there from the future to change things?  Great, Barnabas, expect him to trust you just cause you tell him to, and tell him nothing much except you cant tell him much.

Good for Quentin, he mistrusts everything he’s being told, because he sees the real possibility of a trap. He tells Barn straight out that the hand of friendship could be hiding a knife.  Since he doesn’t have any of the knowledge the audience does about what Barn and his motives are, this only proves he has a brain. He finally gives in, because he has no better options, but with his eyes wide open for something to go against him.

AGAIN with the conversations about curses and other incriminating stuff WITH A DOOR WIDE OPEN SO ANYONE COULD HEAR.

Now we go from bad to worse, with Barnabas being told by Judith about Jamison’s dream – that David Collins is dead.

Jeannie

Just looking at that man distracts me! LOL

He ain't exactly chopped liver now, either. 

I love your warped sense of humor! As the old 70’s song says, “Keep it coming love, keep it coming, love don't stop it now don't stop it no!!” Being a child who was required to attend church I am sitting here laughing out loud because that song was sang frequently.  Thankfully it won't be stuck in my head since I recited Keep It Coming by KC and the Sunshine Band!

Thanks on the warped sense of humor. I get a kick out of  yours, too.  Specific thing I connected to was the way it was used in one of my favorite movies  Inherit the Wind.    Throughout the thing you have the townspeople and the band singing it, as protection against the eevils of Spencer Tracy's Clarence Darrow clone and his defendant.

Jeannie