Wakey wakey Quentinkins.      He’s transformed back, but finds himself prisoner, tied to a chair (with the obligatory torn shirt) in some unfamiliar place with stone walls.  Footsteps come down the stairs to where he is.  Aristede, again – who once again has lost track of the hand.

And down comes the pendulum (obligatory Poe mini plotline and, given the time it was shot, probably by way of a Batman cliffhanger).    We fade into the credits with a nice shot of the horrified Quentin, who sees the pendulum descending over a table, and  knows it doesn’t mean anything good.  

Barn finds Ang in the drawing room, Risky.  Oh LOL she tells him how risky it all is, and his reaction is that he can get away fast enough.  She has to point out to him that it’s not HIM she’s worrying about, but herself.  Doesn’t think of that, does he – only whether HE is in danger.  

He wants the hand to give Julianka – but Angie won’t give it.   Barn is in one of his “its all about ME” periods, and decides that the whole purpose of Ang’s deal with Quentin was to spite him – no concern for Quentin at all.    Interesting – she says she does care for Quentin , feels “strangely sorry for him”.  

Barn and Ang are at it again – he always assumes the worst with her, accusing her of never having felt sorry  for anyone in her life.  She gives it right back, pointing out he never acknowledged she had feelings. (I would guess this includes him dumping her so coldly after their affair, which of course was the catalyst got the whole thing started.)

She’s making deals again.  Now it’s she’ll give him the hand IF he doesn’t interfere in her plans for Quentin (makes you wonder what she knows about how the history originally played out, and how much a part she was in the original events.  Is this HER way of trying to fix the damage Barnabas did to history, or is she just thinking of Quentin as a convenient way to keep her status with the family? )

A neat factoid to keep in mind with the pendulum scenes is that Mike Stroka claims (I thnk I saw this on one of the Anniversary tapes from a Fest), that both he and Selby went up on their lines somewhere in one of the  scenes, then basically ad libbed it from whatever point that was, on.  Story I remember is they knew the basics, but winged it on the actual dialog.

Funny, the way Selby played the terror before the credits, it gave the impression that he knew or suspected what Aristede intended.  Now he asks questions that  imply he doesn’t know what is up, and though, resisting, isn’t really fighting as you’d think he would had he pieced it all together. (Guess he didn’t read Poe any more than he read Dracula. )  Now Quentin gets to use the so far used by about every character  statement : “you’re insane”.  Yeah, telling him he’s insane is really going to change his mind about what he’s doing.

Note where on Quentin’s body the pendulum is positioned.  I remember it moving at least once or twice as they cut back and forth to the scenes.  

Barnabas  has brought the hand and Julianka, not being stupid, insists on seeing it.  JF made a nice blooper recovery here.  He tripped over the words then got out the right dialog about curing the curse.

Interesting fact comes out here,  Julianka says that she could count on one hand the number of people who understand the hand and know how to use it.  Does that mean she isn’t the last hope after all, that there is another ?

So much for help.  Julianka was there only for the hand.  Barnabas keeps trying to talk her into it, but used everything but a reason that might have helped: the half gypsy children affected  by the curse if it’s not removed.  He keeps playing up the benefit to Quentin, whom Julianka has no reason to care about –but doesn’t even mention the children, whose plight might have moved her.  He just goes straight to offering her money.  Probably insulted her by doing that –but I don’t think that would occur to him.  He doesn’t think much more of gypsies than Edward and Judith do.  And to prove it, when she turns him down, he goes to his usual approach – scaring her with his vampire powers.

Aristede knocks on the French Windows, and whatever it is, Angie looks like the cat that ate the canary when she goes out to meet him.  Ah, now we find out why Aristede came up with the elaborate plan for Quentin.  Somehow  he found out (must have been eavesdropping, since it’s not  been told to anyone yet) that Ang is engaged to Quentin.  So, he is using Q to get the hand from Ang.  He is enjoying milking it out and tormenting her with the news that he has a half hour to live, and “he’s already started to die”.  Cut to Quentin about to get cut by the pendulum, which now seems to be over his upper chest.

Anyone else wonder how Aristede set up such an elaborate mechanism in a few hours?  He also doesn’t seem the type for so much manual labor.

Tune in next week, same Bat time, Same Bat channel.  

Jeannie

LOL.  But which one is the learner, and which one the master? <insert Darth Vader breathing>

Jeannie

Opening with the same scene with the scarf and the poppet.  Is it me, or are they reusing the doll with the tricorn  hat that she used for Barnabas?  I really like Angie’s dress.  I don’t think we ever see it again, either.

Ah, we haven’t seen Beth in a long while.  Apparently she’s been there (though not on screen)  and is in the loop, since Edward refers to Judith being “worse”.  This infers Beth’s witnessed Judith’s decline from the beginning. She seems to be back on the payroll again, too, as he wants her to go with him to take Judith to Portland to Rushmore Sanitarium.  She seems really shocked by the mention of a sanitarium (I’d think so, since they were so careful NOT to take Jenny to one to hide their deep dark secret of insanity in the family – now after a short time they’re carting Judith off).  Considering the reputation of mental hospitals at the time (which has been pretty well covered in various topics about Jenny), I can’t say I blame her.  

At least she’s back to being Beth with a backbone   (and she actually used the servants staircase for a change).  She stands her ground politely but very firmly when Edward wants her to NOT go Quentin hunting. (Note that it was a request “may I ask” not the order that one would usually give an employee.) Apparently there’s an unspoken understanding that there’s something between Quentin and Beth, else Edward would  have dug in his heels and made it an order.  Or questioned why she was taking it on herself to see to the well being of a grown man with no ties to her.  Both Edward and Judith, no matter what they know or guess, treat her with respect, so apparently Beth is not thought of as another one of Quentin's doxies (poxie doxies?   ) He’s also straight to the point about it just being Quentin’s niormal carousing, “one of his sprees”  and he’ll come back when he’s done.  “Unfortunately, he always does.” LOL nice line there for LE, reminds me of the wonderfully dry, snarky GOOD lines he used to get as Roger.

The undone Aristede, lying on the ground where Angie left him is now roused by a mysterious pair of feet.  Said feet are attached to a nasty, domineering character, connected somehow to the mysterious hand – our first introduction to Victor Fenn-Gibbons.

Quentin in the canopy chair, and Beth comes in the unlocked as normal door, looking for Barnabas.   Quentin gets up and she screams.  She still has a brain, she recognizes the voice!  FINALLY , SOMEONE WITH A BRAIN!!!  

Ego, thy name is Quentin. “I’d rather die than look like this the rest of my life.” Life is tough, get over it. Though, on the flip side, he wants Beth to leave and forget about him, for her own good.   He’s done some growing up.  He’s thinking of someone besides himself here, as he needs every bit of help he can get from everyone.  It’s against his best interests to try and convince someone who helps him so much to leave. Yet he’s trying to get her away, because there’s no future for her with him.   Bless her, she stands her ground and tells him she won’t, and they can find a way out.  There’s very mixed emotions here. She holds him like she’d like nothing more than to protect him from all this. It’s like he doesn’t understand how she can accept him, when he can’t accept himself, and doesn’t feel he’s worth her putting herself in danger for.  Even the hesitation before he hugs her fits into this.  He wants the comfort and caring, but doesn’t feel he’s worth it.  

Edward picks the WORST time to distrust someone.  The audience knows Ang is trying to help, but all Edward sees is that as Barn’s fiancé Ang  -- by his calculation – HAD to know everything about him, including where he is now.  VERY nice performance -- actually a performance within a performance -- that LP gives as she relates to Edward her version of what happened with Barnabas.  VERY nicely played;  bits of business, gestures.  Perfect.  

Ang has brought Edward around, but now we have the arrival of Victor Fenn-Gibbons, with a letter of introduction from Edward’s friend the Earl of Hampshire.   Oopsie – Angie walks out of the room with the hand in hand (so to speak).   As soon as Angie makes for the door with the box, we see the kindly mask drop, and the look of pure fury cross Fenn-Gibbons face.

We get some information here that Fenn-Gibbons claims to have served with Kitchener in the Sudan, his rasping voice a souvenir of a wound he received.  History buff that I am, I only have the vaguest memory of Kitchener and Africa. So I got nosy.   Here's a wikipedia entry about him.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbert_Kitchener,_1st_Earl_Kitchener
Looking at this, my guess is that FG is claiming to have served with him in the early 1880s.

Cut to The Old House, with Angie and the hand joining Quentin and Beth.  Beth is skeptical, apparently no one filled her in on the hand.  Angie for some reason doesn’t even want him to open the box and show it to Beth.  Is her explanation of being afraid of what it will do her real reason?  Or is something else going on?  Most of the characters have opened the box and looked at the thing with no ill effects – or maybe Ang is afraid it will go at Q again. Beth keeps asking questions, intelligent ones.  Ang makes her leave because the ceremony must be only between her and Quentin.  Wonder if that’s true, or whether she just doesn’t like Beth’s questioning -- and the fact that Beth feels she has the right to question this on Quentin's behalf.  Beth doesn’t want to go, but Quentin finally talks her into it.  She gives Ang quite a look before she leaves,  I don’t think she trusts her.  Hmm, does she have any idea about Ang’s real origins?  Maybe the audience is supposed to assume Quentin filled her in way back when?

Hmm, Edward was shooing Beth off to bed at 9PM because they were to leave with Judith at sunup, yet here he is with Fenn-Gibbons as the clock strikes 11.

Oh, now we have it: why Ang. wants Beth out and away.  Her price.  She wants Quentin to marry her.  This girl just doesn’t learn – blackmailing men into marrying her is NOT going to make them love her.   Slime – his immediate reaction is why would you want to marry me, knowing what I am. (Didn't stop Beth, did it, dingdong? Speaking of whom, note that he mentions NOTHING about that as a reason he can't marry Ang. Double slime.   Question arises of which one of them he thinks he’s going to be BSing – maybe both of them (and as we find later, this little promise has BIG repercussions down the road.)

The ceremony begins.   Oh dear, think she’s over her head with this one.  The hand is getting out of her control – and it wen’t straight for Quentin.   Oh, this is bad, she doesn’t know what to do to stop it, and is as close to panic as we’ve ever seen her.  His transformation pains are starting, without the full moon.   And he transforms.  Angie seems rather calm considering she has no special protection to keep the wolf from ripping her up.  Now we see that this little debacle has a witness: Fenn-Gibbons staring through the window.

Jeannie

didn't the spratt house burn down at some point during the original run of dark shadows?

The house burned in 1969.  Here's a link to some very detailed information and photos of the house and the site:

http://www.hudsonvalleyruins.org/yasinsac/spratt/spratt.html

FYI the last time I was at Lyndhurst with an out of town friend (think it was maybe three years ago, now -- it was the last time the Fest was in Bklyn), the docents were singularly uninformed about where on the property one could find the ruins.

Jeannie

LOL so do I! 

Snicker, I just thought of my friend Linda, who not only wants minions, she wants the litter carriers from Fractured Fairy Tales to carry her around on a litter!

Jeannie

I will send the Hand over to heal your car.   If the mechanic gets in the way though....

LOL, Thanks, but it might melt my engine like it melted Quentin's face.  And don't mess with my mechanic, I've been using him since the 80s.  Mechanics who are honest, reasonable and listen to women when they explain what's wrong are worth their weight in gold.  (FYI the actual problem was only a worn out gasket.  It's the labor to get the engine out to get to the thing that's the killer.)

One of the very few moments in DS that even now can make me shudder... when Trask threatens Judith with a parade of... ALL THE DEAD.   No one can help her, there's no way out, only she will be able to see them (she thinks)... locked in an asylum, if she tells anyone they'll just keep her there longer.... she's imagining this going on forever.

Yes, that is a nightmare, straight out of a horror movie.  Carnival of Souls just popped into my mind, speaking of hauntings and tormenting by multiple ghosts.

It's good to see that vain, over-enunciating weasel with the twisty knife walk in, isn't it?   First entrances of characters are the big DS moments for me, and he knows how to enter a room.

Yeah Aristede is a lot of fun, and I forgot to mention it, but in a few places his relationship with Petofi called Jason and Willie to mind.  A. is a great character, and he'd be a great fit as a villain in a silent movie serial.  Hmm, come to think of it, that's one cliche they missed.  No one got tied to the railroad tracks in Collinsport.

Jeannie

Ah, gotten ahead in trying to catch up.  Guess being on enforced vacation due to the car's head gasket repair is doing SOME good.

Comments:

Replay of Quentin entering Collinwood through a wide open front door.  Unlocked is bad enough, but wide open? 
Did anyone else notice he reversed the lyrics?  He said calling me to you, not calling you to me.  I AM QUENTIN, he  keeps saying.  That same deliberate tone that he used with those lines  at the end of the storyline.

HA!  HE sees Minerva!  Damn and Trask comes along.  “No prowler’s going to come on MY property!”  Presumptuous once again – and Quentin’s out the door.  Once again, someone who didn’t see the face didn’t recognize the height , build and clothing.  Oh JL is having way too much fun with this.  On the surface all concerned and worried, yet we have that smirking undertone of satisfaction in Judith’s torment.

LOL Evan is no fool, as he points out, and doesn’t trust Trask not to double cross him.  What a piece of work Trask is.  “But I’m a man of the cloth” with that self satisfied smirk.  Nice bit of character development in Evan’s line :”My poor client. She waited so long to marry – then she got YOU to take care of her”.   Aside from the double meaning there, we see that Evan pities Judith, but his ambitions come first.  Evan has some limits on what he thinks they can get away with.  And we actually get a reference to Carl’s funeral.  From what Evan says, the plan is to convince her that Edward’s the one died, and Carl is still living.

Minerva and the knife again.  Now he hits her with the paper, and insists that she sign it without reading it.  Then  they pull it on her that Edward is dead and Carl is in Europe.  She’s hit her limit and she signs. Oh Trask is gloating all over the place at being Master of Collinwood.  Evan points out this is all dependent  on Judith staying ill, which of course Trask intends on her remaining for a very long time.

Nice touch with her talking about hating snow and not wanting to play in the snow   Carl burying her in the snow?  That I could see, if they were closer to the same age (slight seque here, but does anyone else see kid Quentin conning kid Carl into licking a frozen pump handle in the winter?) but she’d have been the big sister and would have had a shot at getting away from a little kid.   Flashback to Liz here, “don’t bury me in the snow, don’t bury me alive.”

LMAO here we have a ceremony by Evan – and the stagehand running  muttering across the camera frame.  Love the way HAA is so into it that he doesn’t even react.   Stage trained actors are grand and HAA is always wonderful doing these  ceremonies.

Now Judith is even more lost.  It seems she thinks Minerva is  her ladies maid (Finally a reference to a servant who HAD to have existed!) and has dismissed her, then the nonsequitur that Ladies’ maids are hard to find. 

Makes me think of the interesting layers of plot that could have been there had they been able to show all the servants who should have been there – especially  Judith’s ladies maid and  Carl, Edward and Quentin’s valets.  Oh  that could have been a comedy,  with Quentin trying to keep his valet from finding out how fast he’s going through shirts and suits. 

Judith is all disjointed now, and at times makes me think of Ophelia.   Hmm, that line of hers, “she thinks I stole from her”.  Apparently she thinks she stole Minerva’s husband – or she  may just be remembering Jenny’s green dress.   

Trask is as calculating as every, trying to push her over the edge by threatening that Minerva and Rachel and Dirk will be back to haunt her.  Can anyone place the room they’re in?  I could be wrong, but it seems too plain to be the room we saw her in before, yet it doesn’t seem quite right for the tower room(and wouldn’t that be an irony if he stashed her there).

Oh that was dumb of Trask, why would he not work out the terms BEFORE everything went down.   Speaking of dumb, why does Quentin keep going back to Evan for help. He’s proven he will double cross Quentin, and has on more than one occasion.  LOL Quentin actually turns DOWN a drink!   And now we start the game of button, button who’s got the button with the hand.  Quentin just finds it when the nattily dressed fop walks in and demands the hand.

Jeannie