DL, Welcome back! Dry yet? You're alert to more details than I am. A few seconds of "Better draw the curtains Barnabas" "No just get on with it" would have helped.
Ever since Barnabas first wrenched his will and mind and instincts away from his vampire state, in 1897, based on his having been alive again in 1968 (I know what V Welles meant about crazy conversations overheard in elevators... listen to us!), he's been capable of staking other vampires (like Tom J), even though the next thought has to be: "Well, I guess you'd better stake me, too".
He's probably thinking that. Where to draw the line on that is an interesting issue that's often hanging in the air on DS, which they seldom, if ever, address out loud. We're left to ponder it on our own.
I think Julia meant that her actions
lately have not been forced, though I doubt they ever want to refer to anything like the Dave Woodard incident (sounds so much better than "murder")
ever having happened, ever again. If they had a show Bible (did Violet W say they had one?), it might be in there...
'"We won’t need these," he tells Julia.' (Referring to the hammer and stake...) "But put them in a handy drawer, I'm sure this happenstance will pop up again. Be prepared, my Boy Scout leader used to tell me!" Barnabas did
not say... though he
could have...
He does a near 360 as he watches her walk upstairs.
Isn't that the zombie with just the one "good" eye? Is it even possible we missed an
intentional joke there, with his having to try harder to see things, without binocular vision? Is it possible that DS was filled with such jokes and we miss them, because it's all played straight? Which might be one definition of "camp"... so are the "camp" fans right after all? No, because the seriousness was meant too; we have Violet Welles' testimony on that. A mixture? It could have been the actor's joke...
[spoiler]
(It is really a compliment to Julia that Jeb sent _four_ zombies after just one woman.)
Looking back, I think the plan started as one zombie per victim, and one of these would have been offing Roger, and another Barnabas, but offscreen, Jeb had already changed the plans to killing Quentin only, and kidnapping Julia intact, requiring a bit more personal attention from more zombies. If they couldn't whap her unconscious with just one whap, that is, and she struggled and screamed. ? This assumes Jeb thought things out to this extent... Okay it
is a compliment to Julia...
What exactly did he mean for one, and only one, of the zombies to have done to vampire Barnabas? Even we the viewers knew ahead of time in 1970 (between 1995 and 1840) that one vampire can survive a roomfull of zombies![/spoiler]