Have a great day Stuart (or maybe that's hope you HAD a great day, given the time difference). 

 

Jeannie

YAY first post!  I know I won't get to watch, much less post tomorrow (late project at work. I'll consider myself lucky if I'm out by 9PM), so hopefully this will at least keep me from falling further behind.

Grayson voiceover.  We pick up near the end of the scene in yesterday’s climax, but shot from a different pov:  we see Laura hand with stake in it poised over the open coffin, but can’t see Barnabas IN the coffin.

Laura’s hand raises to strike – and Angelique of all people  “perhaps you’ve heard of me” grabs the stake from Laura and shuts the coffin.  MEEEOW the claws are out, as Ang recalls her memory of Laura’s portrait in Jeremiah’s room “looking arrogant and rather wooden in your riding habit”.  Interesting, Angie seems very vulnerable in this scene.  Her actions cue Laura in to the fact that she cares very much about what happens to Barnabas.  Laura is very manipulative, trying to play Ang by telling her she is a failure as a woman because Barnabas won’t love her by choice.  When that doesn’t intimidate Angelique, she shows her flames to demonstrate her powers then leaves.

Finally we see Magda, upstairs, oblivious to the fact that Barnabas was almost a shish ke bab until Angelique tells her what happened in the basement.  Magda, it seems was at Jenny’s grave when she should have been on guard duty.
Angelique is determined to protect Barnabas, and she has a cunning plan.  Magda is somewhat less than thrilled about being ordered to go fetch Quentin, however.  But Angelique is her match “Since Barnabas is in danger everyone will do what I tell them to do—INCLUDING YOU….”

Now we have Quentin in the drawing room with a Brandy (but no Colonel Mustard and no gun).    He’s wearing a smoking jacket I could swear I’ve seen on Barnabas before.  Oh, our boy is three sheets to the wind and then some.  No more booze in the bottle, he has a hissy and throws the bottle on the floor.  He’s all unkempt, with his stock undone and shirt partway open (DOWN TAEYLOR  ).  Selby does a great drunk.  He plays it like a friend of mine, 2nd generation NY theater, explained to me  long ago that a GOOD actor does drunk:  he’s not playing it as a man trying to be drunk.  He’s playing it like a man who is falling down drunk, but desperately trying to appear cold sober.

 Ooh that set is wobbly, the banister shook like mad when he grabbed it.  Needless to say Magda is the last person on earth he expected or wanted to see when he wobbled over to open the door.  He’s a scared little boy, trying to yell and pretend he’s tough, but he’s so scared of Magda that he keeps backing away every time she gets near him.  Love the dialog: “I refuse to lie down and die” and Magda’s retort “But you’re having trouble standing up.”  And AGAIN with the “I’m going to KILL you” as he lunges at her.  Love him falling flat on his face on the stairs.    She didn’t even have to try to avoid him.

Really great scene.  As much as Magda hates Quentin, that’s not all that’s there, she seems to have a lot of contradictory feelings all going on at the same time.  She points out, quite rightly from the shape he’s put himself in, that he’s destroyed himself, even without her help. She knows how Jenny loved Quentin and tells him how it would break Jenny’s heart to see him the way he is now.  Drunk as he is, that hit home as hard as Jenny’s knife.  I think he’s too drunk to censor his words or try to manipulate her by faking it, so when he remembers how Jenny loved him and he loved her, that’s probably real regret, even if there is self pity there.

For her part, I think she might be having regrets on some level too. There’s  probably some pity when he begs her for the sake of the fact that he really did love Jenny and she him, to end it by removing the curse.  We’ve seen that Magda is a kinder hearted person than she wants anyone to know she is.  But as she points out, if removing the curse would bring Jenny back, she would (interesting when we find out later she flat out CAN’T).  But it can’t so she won’t.  LOL she’s back to treating him like a bratty little boy.  Quiet and listen!  Nice touch when she’s explaining  what Quentin needs to do, the bits of business Selby does, making it look like Quentin is concentrating VERY hard and trying to kick his brain into gear. 

Quentin seems to have put himself together reasonably well, and he manages to make halfway coherent sentences even if he IS nursing his head.  Angelique must see that he’s out of it, she’s being very patient, for her.  Wonder if that line of hers about  having someone harm Barnabas being like “having someone pierce my heart with a knife” was intended to be a deliberate crack at Quentin.  We don’t get a reaction shot to judge by. Ang keeps pushing it though, until Quentin is pushed to telling her he’s not sure he can revive his interest in Laura to be any help.

Interestingly enough, his reply isn’t nasty words or misdirection:  its simple truth. “Look at me.  Do I look like I’m in any shape to help ANYONE?  Can’t you see I can’t even help myself.”  This piques Angelique’s interest and she wants to know what he has to help himself against.  For some reason, he decides against telling her about the curse, and says he doesn’t know.  Maybe not the best decision, because now she’s ticked off at his refusal to help, and guarantees him that however bad this thing is now, with her as an enemy it will be far worse.  Using his head for once, he realizes she WILL carry out her threat, and gives her the information she asks for on Laura.

Angelique points out that Magda must help steal the scarab with Laura’s lifeforce.  If  she doesn’t do it, Barnabas may find out that Laura endangered him and he’d kill Magda.  Now here’s a rich irony.  QUENTIN of all people tells Angelique that they can’t kill Magda, then blurts out about the curse.  Funny thing, Angelique doesn’t seem to have known, and isn’t curious, insisting “I can’t get involved in that”.  It’s rather amusing watching Angelique referee between Magda and Quentin, essentially telling them to stuff it and do what she says until she gets Barnabas out of danger.

Angelique as always, gets what she wants (except Barnabas).  Magda is at the cottage convincing Laura that she’s on her side, and only wants to control the way Barnabas dies, making sure she and Sandor aren’t implicated.  Ok, this is a new one, silver bullets for vampires.  Coming from Magda, is this the trap it seems to be. And why FIVE silver bullets?  Most revolvers have 6 chambers, not to mention whether it takes multiple bullets to do the deed.

And here we are again in the Old House, with the Book of the Dead, and Angelique in place of Charity as well as Quentin in place of Barnabas.  Quentin’s scared of the ceremony  and the “angry ancient gods”  (made me think of Lovecraft’s Old Ones). Angie and another  of her little dollies in another fireplace.  And Quentin, really getting into the incantation like an old time revival preacher.

Now we have dueling ceremonies to court the old Gods, as Laura begs intercession to crush her enemy….   

Jeannie

Nancy Barrett  voiceover.  Oh Joy, that means Charity the twit is in this ep.    Back to the graveyard, where Laura and her Renfield are doing their Pinky and the Brain routine at Ben’s coffin.  (And what, do you think possessed him to have his diary with THE SECRET buried in his coffin.  And who put it there, without reading it and letting THE SECRET get out.   If  it was family, you’d a thunk that some oral tradition, no matter how garbled by time, would have been passed down – but if so, Elliot sure is keeping it to himself in 1969.)

“Robbing a grave is a bizarre activity for a beautiful woman”... that’s our Barnabas, seeing Laura as a beautiful woman first, with her danger and threat only an afterthought.    Wonder why she didn’t try to use her powers on Barnabas?  We should have seen some evidence of it, even if she tried and failed.  But she stands there, even after Dirk is overpowered.  Even if she wanted to find out more about him, it’s at the price of leaving an enemy alive.  Interesting leap she makes there, connecting the dots of Barnabas with unusual powers, “not human” automatically meaning he’s the ORIGINAL Barnabas. 

Laura’s dress is starting to bother me.  Why does she get all gussied up in something that looks like a ballgown – just to go to Collinwood to check on her sick son?  Ramse Mostoller usually gets the costuming spot on, even if you don’t particularly care for an outfit, so this is weird. Though a line of Laura’s later in may explain this as she tells Charity how she “always surprised her (Nora) on festive occasions”.  This could explain the fancy dress – she is planning to go to Ra dressed in her finest.

Nora and the fire again, but Barnabas keeps her from getting hypnotized by it just in time.  Charity is even halfway human in this scene, being kind and helpful to Nora.  But now he’s the one hypnotizing Nora.  Denise Nickerson does a really good hypnotized/entranced kid.  And as long as Barnabas is there, he’s decided to get himself his midnight snack.   

You can almost feel sorry for Charity in this scene with Laura.  Barn has obviously just left, and she has to deal with a nosy Laura as she tries desperately to hide the marks on her neck.  But Laura isn’t destined to get the easy victory she’s assuming.  Whatever Barnabas did to Nora worked very well, as the child is refusing to go with her mother, and says she’s afraid of her.  Nora is immune to every argument Laura presents.  Laura knows it was Barnabas, but does she know what was done and how to combat it?

And the plotters meet once again in the graveyard, where Dirk explains  that when he searched the Old House, he found an empty coffin.  Again, Laura seems to have made some interesting logical leap to get “Barnabas is a vampire” from the disconnected evidence that the audience is shown she has.  Dirk, being Dirk, doesn’t believe it (he’s dealing with Laura and her supernatural doings and he doesn’t believe in the supernatural?  Not very bright, is our Dirk?)

OK, where’s Magda and Sandor when Laura and Dirk go sneaking into the Old House?  Isn’t the whole idea that they’re there to protect him?  Yet everyone from Jenny through Quentin and Beth, then Dirk are traipsing through the place, unchallenged, like it’s a tourist attraction.  Laura and Dirk have no problem getting to the basement (and as little trouble as Jenny getting in what should have been a LOCKED basement).  Laura gets to open the coffin then stand over Barnabas, gloating as she positions the stake and raises the hammer…..

Jeannie

Hope you're doing better, Magnus.  Post when you feel up to it.  We're not going anywhere and neither are the posts.

Jeannie

YAY, I'm caught up, at least temporarily!!!

No replay this time, the scene starts with Barnabas in the foyer, joined by Beth.  Smart girl, she’s trying to deflect suspicion, but can’t convince Barnabas that the animal couldn’t have been wearing clothes or walked like a man.  One good thing about the double standard is everything she says can be explained away by the menfolk as overwrought female hysterics; poor little woman, can’t be thinking clearly after she was attacked.  I’m thinking she knows that, too, and is using it.  


Laura flounces in wearing a new dress.  Very fancy and floaty, but it doesn’t look like a nighty.  Wonder what would have happened if she;’d happened across wolfieq?  Would she have been able to manage something with her powers? (Just got a sick mental image of a werewolf with a hotfoot.)  It’s now open warfare between Barnabas and Laura, but who will make the next move?  It’s nearly dawn.

Beth just has NO luck.  The foyer is seeing as much traffic as a train station, and now Laura is insisting on waiting right there until she sees Jamison.  Not even instructions to lock up are making an impression on Laura. She’s on a Barnabas soliloquy and is getting awfully close.  It seems she’s the first one to wonder why Barnabas is NEVER seen in the daytime.   But Beth doesn’t seem to be paying attention.  Beth gives into Laura awfully quickly, since, like Charity, Laura  has NO rights in that house, and Beth was specifically instructed to insure she leaves.  

So Laura is making the next move, getting her Renfield to snoop at the Old House for her.  Barnabas leaves a note for Magda.  Here’s hoping this one works better than his last note left for trespassers.  Laura and her magic create a fire that Barnabas disappears from, with Dirk conveniently snooping from the window.  One wonders, though, if the Old House was abandoned, how can Laura remember Edward showing it to her? Or maybe she’s remembering Jerimiah showing it to her, and this is the cover story.  Like Barnabas she seems to have a peculiar idea that something she remembers is going to be just where she remembered it, even 100+ years later.

Thank goodness Laura was speaking, else Quentin would have walked right in on the conspirators.  At least this time he seems to have been elsewhere when he came to, and not transforming in the middle of the foyer.  Good thing Beth was still lurking about, since just pulling himself up the stairs seems to have knocked him out.  Realistic looking fall; he just seemed to go boneless and fall any old way.  

Smart of  Beth to get him into the drawing room; at that hour the servants would all have been up, leaving out the back staircase.  And with the rucus over Jamison, anyone's  guess if the front one would have traffic.

Poor Quentin – can’t tell from the framing if it’s because of the last thing he remembers, or it’s the look on her face that tips him off, but he now knows that she can tell him what happens to him.  Got to give him some points for not trying to run away from it (maybe for the first time in his life, he’s facing something head on).  He wants to KNOW, no matter how bad it is – and he knows from the way she’s trying not to tell him that it’s BAD. TC & DS do a very fine job with this scene.  We see quite a play of emotions from Quentin as Beth tells him past her tears. Beth’s not telling him all of it, and not really in order, but she’s telling him the basics, which might be all he can handle just now. I think this is probably a time when Quentin wishes he weren’t so quick, because I think he figured out very quickly that if he attacked Beth and had to be beaten off, that he’s responsible for the dead girl. But he still hasn’t learned!   As soon as Beth reminds him it’s not him, it’s the curse, what does he do?  Threaten to kill Magda.   So, Mr. Know-it-all, worked out well for you the last time, did it? Beth, thank goodness has more brains.  Points out essentially what Evan told him: you need Magda to remove the curse, which calms him down.  Once he’s off that track, he does think logically – how to lock me up so I don’t hurt anyone else.  And his other thought is logical, too: research and find out what can be discovered about the curse to deal with it and maybe get rid of it.  

Another great Quentin and Beth scene, all told.  Sweet in a very sad way near the end, where he just puts his head on her shoulder and wants to be held.   This isn’t the lecher or the rake, just a man in a horrifying situation, even if he did bring it on himself,  simply wanting comfort and human kindness from someone he cares for.

From the sublime to the ridiculous: Dirk and his careful and efficient method of getting into the secret room without anyone guessing he was there.  Just so convenient, isn’t it, that the stuff Laura wanted is so  easily accessible and quick to find?

And more on the ridiculous: Quentin and Beth picking the front landing to have a conversation about the lack of a full moon and things that happened to him last night and the night before.   Of course, that’s right up there with Quentin trusting Evan Hanley again.  

Cut to the graveyard, which is Grand Central station lately.  Where’s the old caretaker’s incestors when you need them?  And is it just me, or wouldn’t a plain pine box like this one have rotted by then?

Booga booga at the end with the appearance of Barnabas, watching and lurking as they defile Ben’s grave.

Jeannie

Nancy Barrett voiceover, so we get to see Charity again.    And we pick up, not with the previous scene, but  a continuation of it.  We see Beth’s reaction, and meet our fuzzy (and short) friend for the first time.     (If you can be too short to be a stormtrooper, how come you can't be too short to be a Quentin?  )

Good thing for Beth he went for her with his hands first, and apparently had his nails IN.    Hmm made me think he was going for strangling – wonder if that’s a remnant of Quentin coming through?  Again, Beth seems to use her head, even when terrified.  She couldn’t get out the door, and went for the most realistic next shot – standing in the Pentagram.  Though collapsing into the chair afterwards WITHOUT shutting, much less locking, the door was NOT a bright thing to do.  I’m thinking lock the door and pile furniture on it, then stay in the pentagram all night – but that’s just ME.

Now we cut to Jamison in the Dickensian hellhole which is Worthington Hall.  And through Tim and Charity we learn that they also bury people as soon as it’s decent.  Dorcas is already buried by the next night after she was murdered.  It also seems, from their interaction, that Charity is really taken with Tim, but he’s not too eager to spend time with her. 

Charity is truly her father’s puppet,  believing everything he says and believing in everything he does.  She doesn’t hesitate a moment in punishing Jamison and turning Tim in.   Jamison, however, changes everyone’s plans completely.    Luckily he makes it past the roaming werewolf, and finds Beth, who believes him. 

Charity puts on quite a few airs for a modest and humble preacher’s daughter.  By sheer fluke I paused the disk at random to type up a thought.By chance it was a still of Beth,  and the look of sheer disdain that she gives Charity is quite interesting.   The antagonism between the two seems to come from nowhere, as I don't recall whether they had any interactions before, and if so what it was about. It makes me wonder if there’s some scene or scenes between them that were never shot -- or that we're to assume there were. Charity is very full of herself, giving orders to the help in someone else’s home.  It’s not her house,  Beth is apparently in charge until the family comes home (since the budget doesn’t cover the butler who would have been  there), so Charity is being extremely nervy telling Beth what they will do and where they will wait.  She'd probably have her own standign orders from whoever left her in charge, which probably didn't suit Charity's delusions of grandeur about being lady of the house.

Oops – Beth tells Charity she needs Edward’s permission to search.  Shouldn’t that be Judith, or did she put Edward in charge while she’s out. (And isn’t this the 2nd night in a row that Edward is out dining with Barnabas at the Old House?  That was what was said the first night Quentin wolfed out, too.  Even aside from that, I just love the mental image of Edward sitting there with Magda and Sandor as waitstaff.  If I was Edward, I’d invest in a food taster.  )

Smart move on Tim’s part, to use Charity’s looking like a fool to get her to leave. He knows exactly what happened, judging by his thanking Beth.  Rather creepy thought, though that WolfieQ is out there, and the French windows are wide open.  One half expects  the wolf to bounce through the window when Beth is looking out and calling for Jamison.

And right on cue, here’s WOOOLFIE, lurking around the house, as Beth goes out to find Jamison.  Again, got to give her points for guts.  She could stay inside and cower, but she’s willing to put herself at risk to keep Jamison safe.  She’s smart enough to find and bring a pistol, but she has no way of knowing that it won’t help unless she has silver bullets.  Nicely played when she sees the wolf on the rock, about to pounce.  Her hand is shaking as she holds the gun and she looks horrified.  She wants to shoot, but I’m betting it’s being Quentin is what’s stopping her. 

But will being the screaming damsel in distress bring any help in time?


Jeannie

I'm embarrassed to admit that I've never read An American Tragedy, though of course I've heard of it.  The only Dreiser I studied was Sister Carrie, when in Junior High.

From your summary and reading a synopsis, it sounds like just the sort of thing the scriptwriters would -- and did -- lift from on a regular basis. (Another book gets added to my already teetering to be read pile.)  Thanks for bringing it up.  I'd not have thought of it from that point of view, given my lack of familiarity with the book.  The irony of Quentin never knowing for sure exactly whether it was deliberation or panic really appeals to me, especially given his horror after the fact.

I agree totally about the genius of 1897. They don't spoon feed the audience every little thing, but leave it to the audience to interpret.  It also goes without saying that they managed that little magic trick of stealing classic plots and circumstances and combining them in such a way as to feed into timeless universal truths.

Jeannie

There was a line in last nite's penultimate ep of Buffy that reminded me of this storyline's Quentin.  I'm paraphrasing, but I think Buffy said to Xander-- "Every time you pick up a sword in this house I'm afraid you'll break one of the good lamps."

    Something tells me that was likely a deliberate in joke.  If I remember right the Buffy/Angel people, like the Stargate folks, love in jokes and references.

Jeannie