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« on: December 03, 2014, 04:07:47 PM »
Pansy and Tim at the Blue Whale, showing no sign of Tim and Charity's former relationship. She's just Pansy to everyone, now. Charpanitysy has just staked our antihero, and rambles drunkenly, upset about it, but it's not clear if it's out of guilt or not. It opens after the theme with a nice cough from Nancy B, as she tries to drink something. Those little touches of spontaneiety really help with suspending one's disbelief.
Tim, it turns out, knows about the vampire. Apparently everyone knows, and believes it. That should make its way to the world of 1969 when they get back. There should be a legend or scandal about that 1897 vampire Barnabas Collins. In the altered timeline, Barnabas should have had to explain his way out of being ID'd as the famous vampire of the turn of the century, when he introduced himself at Collinwood in 1967. Wait, no, he never got back into the coffin, so he never got to 1967 for Willie to unchain. Now I'm giddy and need to sit down. Oh, I'm already sitting.
Tim has only one suit. He really wants to be a show biz agent, but he's chosen the wrong town to get a start in. He wants to represent anyone with a strange secret. (Imagine if this caught on, everyone with a secret in Collinsport getting an agent...) Edward and Kitty reunite. Ed's not at all concerned for Kitty's safety when he invites her to live at Collinwood, nexus of vampire and werewolf activity for the area.
Pansy predicts that the dreaded Music Box will cause Kitty's death. During Ed and Pansity's conversation, he says they'll get her proper treatment (psychiatry is full of abuses at the best of times, but in 1897 I wouldn't send my worst enemy into its clutches...), and she gets off a good line: "Who gets proper treatment in this house?!"
What's Tim trying to blackmail Edward with, exactly? There's no new bad news to offer to help conceal. I guess he wants his ten percent agent's fee for getting Charipansy to the big house for her cash reward for staking the vampire. Only she refuses any reward. Tim maintains his smug demeanor as he leaves, anyway. He's really dumb, or is just covering his failure.
The music box in Kitty's room is presented as a great danger, despite our sympathies supposedly being with Barnabas, now. I guess we need to see Barnabas as someone who can't help bringing devastation upon his loved ones because of what he is, and how his cursed nature distorts him as a person, no matter how he tries to go against it. It's a pretty sophisticated point of view of a character, and many shows try and fail to portray protagonists in this way now. One is the revived version of Doctor Who, but they just don't get away with it. The Doctor is just not a dark, conflicted character. These days it's considered cool to make your hero a sort of anti-hero, though, so they try. With Barnabas, it's totally appropriate and works, if you see that's what they're doing. And they did it before it was "cool", therefore it actually was cool.... however, now that I see this, I just can't believe in and root for Barnabas, as I did as a child. I've lost that, and I hate that I've lost it.