...blowing in her ear and expecting her to follow him anywhere, anymore."

...she doesn't swallow.

...three-handed canasta.

Julia really goes to town on Barnabas with her no-nonsense prying & goading, & her warnings & demands. And Barn gives as good as he gets. It was a joy to watch on so many levels, in & out of context. Julia is clearly a master manipulator. She repeatedly offers Barnabas a cookie, and when he grabs it she immediately slaps it out of his hand --

Barn: I merely wished he were dead, I didn’t say that I was actually going to kill him.
Jules: But you’d like to, wouldn’t you?
Barn: I’d relish the opportunity
Jules: Just don’t make the opportunity.

I’m still not sensing “love” or even “like” but there is “something” surfacing here between them.

Barn: Doctor, I’ll be a lot easier to get on with if you don’t start giving orders. I find it a most unattractive habit in a woman.
Julia: Oh? You seem rather sensitive today. What’s bothering you?
Barn: Nothing

Julia went from a doctor to a woman in one sentence. And Barn’s “Nothing” had an intimate quality to it that grabbed my attention.

Your rent is due: After Julia’s cat and mouse game with Barn, she becomes the fly to Liz’s spider. Liz finally gets around to questioning Julia about her work & credentials, and proves she is no pushover or scatterbrained host. Fortunately for Julia, Barn saves the day…uh, I mean, night. So much fun has been poked at Julia’s tenure at Collinwood over the decades that I could not watch this scene without laughing out loud. But despite the unintended comic relief, I very much enjoyed the scene for what it was. Julia’s paper plate is piled pretty high by episode’s end.

I guess 1795 must be right around the corner because we are hearing a lot about the family history & Sarah & the blatant Burke as Jeremiah set-up. I’m not really ready to like Barnabas but the writers sure are presenting us with a glimpse of the man behind the monster.

Vicki says yes! Good…for nobody. Vicki shows some common sense, telling Burke she doesn’t really know him, she just knows how she feels about him. But in no time (with the help of a mini tantrum & apology by Burke thrown in for good measure – a scene barely pulled off by AG) she decides to go with her heart and not her head. I’ll buy it.

Afterthoughts: This episode had me laughing out loud regularly but in a good way.

The opening scene’s color scheme was visually stunning and Barn’s blue smoking jacket/housecoat/ dress/whatever, is gorgeous. I’m watching VHS tapes and for whatever the reason the visual clarity of this ep is vastly improved from the usual quality.

Eyeliner & mascara - I so miss the sixties! Does anyone think it odd that Dr. Hoffman wears so much of it?

I was going to type that Barn is starting to lose his cool but it just occurred to me that he is becoming human from the injections so I guess that explains a lot of Barn’s emotions being uncontained in public – as in the scene with everyone in the drawing room congratulating Burke & Vicki.

ROBE! Thanx, Lydia! I was so taken by it that I couldn't even come up with the proper word for it. If it's a relic, I wonder where it came from?

Yes, and under normal circumstances, had Vicki's name come into the conversation, the gentlemanly 'duel" would have degenerated into a brawl: Think Joe Haskell vs any male Blue Whale patron attracted to Carolyn. But Barn is no average foe, and neither is Burke for that matter.

I like it also when Vicki shows tenderness towards a subject. Alexandra really shines in these scenes. As a matter of fact, the character totally won me over (through thick & thin, smart or dumb) when she displayed incredible sensitivity toward David early on in the series, when anyone else would have quit and recommended military school. I melted and became a huge Vicki fan from that moment on.

I'm glad you came up with a plausible reason for Vicki's reluctance, IlB, because I was stumped. I wanted to think that it had something to do with her having a subconscious attraction to Barnabas, but that's obviously not the case.

...the foot bone's connected to the shin bone, the shin bone's connected to the thigh bone, the thigh bone's connected to the ...!!"

...and not much has changed since 1970 in the world of soaps, except there being far fewer of them.