Idle Thoughts--Adventures in Babysitting 9/18-9/20

I am going to try and recreate what I wrote before yesterday's column vanished.  I should explain that I didn't save it anywhere and it's entirely possible (in fact very probable) that it's going to be different from what I wrote yesterday.  I apologize for that, but that's the best I can do (thank God I didn't throw my notes out).

Fashion notes first . . .

Yet another clunker in Bennett's wardrobe (don't they know that I live for the clothes? )  The lines of the light blue number were not good and the bow at the neck didn't improve it any.  And then they went and put her in pink!  Powder, baby, pastelly pink.  That is just so wrong.  

Great Caesar's ghost, what the hell was Maggie wearing?  The material reminded me of a tablecloth (albeit a psychedelic one) and those sleeves.  Ick.  Major ick.

And then in their salute to DIY and home improvement, Carolyn and Julia showed up in the same scene wearing upholstery fabrics again.  The midnight blue completely overwhelmed Barrett's fair complexion and that pea-soup green did nothing for Hall.

Onto the shows . . .

The Elizabeth-fear-o'death-story: Bored now! (if only I were EvilWillow, I could do something about that).

For once found myself nodding my head in agreement at what Barnabas was saying about Jeff.  Jeff does has a lot to answer for.

You know, I'm less than sympathetic with Chris.  Just what does he do with his days?  I mean, I'm a procrastinator, but I'm Ms Speedy in comparison with him.  Don't quite get what the big deal is with the sleeping pills.  There are other doctors in Collinsport.  They've got a hospital.  They probably even have a drug scene (they certainly have a thriving prostitution thing going on).  Would it be that hard for Chris to score some sleeping pills or tranqs?  For that matter, he's done his best to rid himself of any responsibilities and there's a full moon only three days out of a month, couldn't he have made a trip into a city and tried to find some restraints or chains or something.  

What gets me is that he usually seems pretty surprised when sundown or a full moon comes around.  Some advice, Chris:

Buy yourself a watch and an almanac.  Use them.

And any remaining shred of sympathy I could have conceivably had for the loser totally went out the door after watching his reaction to Joe being committed.  Creep.

Moving on.  Even without Quentin, you just know that those children are going to be emotionally scarred for life.  Elizabeth is blathering on about being dead and buried alive and all I could think was: poor Amy.

Speaking of Elizabeth, I'm at something of a loss as to why they keep pushing sedatives on her.  She's usually not hysterical; if anything she's generally been oddly calm.  Why would give depressants to someone with that kind of melancholia?  Wouldn't they just aggravate the problem?

Not going to dip into the utter stupidity of Maggie being hired as governess.  I've said my piece and I've heard the theories (some of them perfectly valid).  Not convinced.

There were some very nice performances from Frid (particularly on the 18th.  He got a chance to play restrained and the dialogue was decent for a change),Crothers, and Nickerson.

Hopefully Maggie has a good homeowner's policy because it looks like Chris and Joe did a fair amount of damage to her house.  Was amused to see the werewolf stagger back into his hotel room.  Presumably no one was staffing the desk that night.

Maggie, sweetie, this is not a new life you're beginning.  It's a slow descent into madness and despair.  Get out while you still can.

Thought Elizabeth's dream sequence was kind of neat.  I loved Amy's distorted voice singing in the background, although what was with the "Mrs. Stoddard" on the part of Cassandra?  They were on a first name basis, weren't they?

Tour-de-force performances from Joel Crothers and Denise Nickerson.  I'm always sad to see him go.  In a way, maybe the problem was he played Joe so well, that no one in power could see that he had the ability to do other types of parts.  Speaking of Crothers and his last scenes, I was watching them and thinking.  I realize Joe was deranged at the end, but I have to say, it was probably the first time in a good long while that anyone actually actively tried to do the right thing by Amy.

So the kids go missing for like the zillionth time and it occurs to me that it might be more efficient for the family to put a disaster plan into effect.  (Carolyn, you take the first floor main wing.  Roger, you tackle the west wing.  Willie, the outbuildings, etc.)  

I've written the next bit like three times now, and I should warn you all: it's a rant (big surprise, right?).  I'm going to try and restructure it a bit though.

Throughout all the plots on DS, from inception to conclusion, there is a recurring theme of emotionally neglected children.  I find it kind of disturbing.  I'm glad it's there because I think it gives the show depth and it makes sense in terms of the characters.  That said, it's a reprehensible thing on the part of those same characters.

David is emotionally isolated.  His early life sounds miserable.  Dad's a nasty, sarcastic, bitter drunk.  Mom's insane and a drunk.  Their marriage is violent and David witnesses this.  He comes to Collinwood and the first positive, normal (well, comparatively) maternal figure he has is Elizabeth.  Despite some bonding that he does with Vick, it's Elizabeth that'd provided the only kind of moral grounding and suppor the kid's ever had.  The loss of someone like that . . . well, it's big.  It has to be big.  

Now the kid "says" he wants to be alone.  Okay, I can sort of see that Barnabas is clueless and solipistical enough for it not to occur to him that maybe he shouldn't pay too much attention to that.  It's still reprehensible in my view, because when you're in charge, it's now your responsibility to think about these things.  But there are other people in the house and it doesn't occur to them either?  Like maybe Maggie, who ostensibly is supposed to be there for the kids?  Or Carolyn?  Or Julia--the frigging PSYCHIATRIST?  Or even Mrs. Johnson?  I won't even get back on the topic of Amy and her creep brother who can't be bothered to even try.

And the reason they're not trying to reach Roger for like the second time is what?  He's in London, for godsake, not the Amazon.  Even if he was on a bender or screwing the locals he's got to be staying somewhere.  Hell, you leave a message with the hotel: "Mr. Collins' sister is dead.  PLEASE HAVE HIM CALL."  Worse case scenario, someone gets on a plane, tracks him down and drags his drunken ass back home (presuming that he is drunk and not just uninformed).

The will thing was stupid.  I don't care.  It was completely devoid of logic and it was poorly written.  I could have bought it that somehow they weren't going to embalm Liz.  I could also have bought Barnabas saying "well, this is what she wanted, but of course, we're going to have to tell people."  Because they would have to tell people.  This is not that old guy who lives in apartment 5 and no one has ever seen.  This is not the lady who lives in the corner house who everyone forgets about.  This is the the woman who is the largest employer in town.  This is someone who has half the populace in the town limits dependent on her.  This is the person who makes the decisions.  Suddenly no one hears from her and her cousin from England is calling all the shots?  Uh huh.   Not buying.

Anyhow.  

I used to do some babysitting when I was a teen.  I wasn't particularly good at it, but at least I can say that no one died, shed blood (theirs or mine), or damaged property on my watch.  Barnabas, Maggie and Mrs. J clearly can't say the same.  The first two are hysterically inept and Mrs. J has evidently forgotten everything she must have known.  Here's a clue:

That wide-eyed, innocent, butter-won't-melt-in-my-cherubic-mouth is always an indication that they're guilty of something.  Even I know that much.

Crankily yours (for the third time ,
Luciaphil

Luciaphil,

   I hope you are printing out each and every one of your Idle Thoughts to keep as future reference and not relying on comp archives.

   Just ask RobinV what happened to some of her Robservations from long ago and far away.

   It's better to have a hard copy than no copy.

Luciaphil, thanks for posting this again for us.:-)

As for the recent events at Collinwood,  there's just too many loopholes to even begin to understand what's going on. First of all what I can't understand is why during the entire "Liz death thing" everyone, including her own daughter keeps telling her "it's just your imagination" and then when she's finally dead and buried, Carolyn now insists that her mother isn't dead and then goes on to spend all her time at the Masoleum! This makes absolutely no sense to me whatsoever.

Another thing that gets me is how little everyone seems to be grieving over Liz's death.  I can understand David being under Quentin's possesion, but as you've stated in your post, Liz was perhaps the only real maternal figure he has had since he came to Collinwood.   You would think that he'd be somewhat disturbed over it. And then there's Barnabas who's only real concern seems to be over Vicky and how to go about saving her.  Boy if I were Mrs.Stoddard and saw all this going on, Im not sure I'd want to come back!

It's so strange how no body can seem to locate Roger. Im sure he left his hotel number and address so even if they can't locate him by phone, there's still Special Delivery mail or better yet, wire him a message!  Im wondering just how hard they're really trying to locate him!  Barnabas' only concern is saving Vicky and I don't think that I've yet to see him pick up a telephone to try and locate Roger.

I also hate to see Joel Crothers go. It's too bad they couldn't find something more interesting for him in the upcoming storyline.

Amazing reconstruction job!  I recognized some differences towards the end, where I think you went into a bit MORE detail this time!!  But, most of it seemed quite familiar, including many of the little sarcastic comments, which I'm sure you repeated exactly as they were!

First of all what I can't understand is why during the entire "Liz death thing" everyone, including her own daughter keeps telling her "it's just your imagination" and then when she's finally dead and buried, Carolyn now insists that her mother isn't dead and then goes on to spend all her time at the Masoleum! This makes absolutely no sense to me whatsoever.

I referred to this on the main board the other night - haven't checked yet, but I have a feeling it's probably one of the lost posts - so---

It made absolutely no sense to me that, as Cassandra says, she kept insisting to her mother that it was all in her mind, but now suddenly she believes that she isn't dead!!  And, if she really believes that, why did she let them put her in a coffin and take her to the mausoleum!!!!!

If someone told you "I think my husband is trying to kill me" your first response would probably be disbelief.  But if she turned up dead the next day, you'd call the cops and tell them what she said, wouldn't you?

So what if Carolyn steadfastly refused to listen to her mother's claims that she would be buried alive....it only makes sense that NOW she would question the reality of her mother's 'death'.  

And if she thinks it's possible that Liz might not be dead, then where else would she be but beside the coffin, waiting for some sign?

The stupid part is that they ever put her in a casket and took it to the crypt in the first place...instead of carting her off to Wyndcliff, where medical practices are so bizarre absolutely NO ONE would have questioned the private room for the "corpse"!

Rainey  

THANK YOU!  You did an awesome job recreating the original.  I was thrilled to see my favorites out of your observations repeated.  (I can remember what I read in a post, but don't ask where I left my car keys.  <sigh>)

I promise you won't have to rewrite this one.  Soon as I log off the forum I'll do a backup.

Luciaphil, thanks for posting this again for us.:-)

As for the recent events at Collinwood,  there's just too many loopholes to even begin to understand what's going on. First of all what I can't understand is why during the entire "Liz death thing" everyone, including her own daughter keeps telling her "it's just your imagination" and then when she's finally dead and buried, Carolyn now insists that her mother isn't dead and then goes on to spend all her time at the Masoleum! This makes absolutely no sense to me whatsoever.

It makes sense to me. It's still stupid, but it makes sense. Carolyn, nor anyone else for that matter, took Liz seriously in her obsession with being buried alive; now that she has "died" Carolyn at least wonders whether she was telling the truth after all, and is desperately clinging to that hope. She at least seems to be grieving for Elizabeth, unlike anyone else.

Another thing that gets me is how little everyone seems to be grieving over Liz's death.  I can understand David being under Quentin's possesion, but as you've stated in your post, Liz was perhaps the only real maternal figure he has had since he came to Collinwood.

I thought this was poorly executed as well; but perhaps Quentin told David (or Amy, over the phone) that Elizabeth is actually alive and not to worry about it.

It's so strange how no body can seem to locate Roger.

It's not so strange, really. Everyone is so self-absorbed with their own little problems they all probably figured someone else took care of it. I can just see the revelation after a couple of weeks. "Hey, I thought YOU called Roger." "Me? I thought YOU were going to call him!"

I also hate to see Joel Crothers go. It's too bad they couldn't find something more interesting for him in the upcoming storyline.

From what I can gather, this wasn't a factor in his decision to leave the show. I'm sure they could have and would have come up with a new character for Crothers to play in 1897, but he simply felt he had a better offer elsewhere. Money wise, he probably did.

I hope you are printing out each and every one of your Idle Thoughts to keep as future reference and not relying on comp archives.

I don't keep hard copies, or for that matter copies on my PC.  I simply don't have the time or the space.  Besides my opinions change and hell, next time around, I may have something different to say.

This is my process for writing them up (if anyone is curious):
1. Watch the shows
2. Take notes (e.g. WTF is with that outfit?; Creep. Loser.  Sloppy, sloppy writing).
3. Write up, frequently having to figure out what I was talking about when I wrote the notes because I am very bad about using proper names instead of indefinite pronouns.
4. Post.  

I have tried c&p ing from Word, but it does strange things to characters like the apostrophes and I spend more time trying to edit than it does to type directly into the forum.

Thanks for all the comments

Luciaphil

It makes sense to me. It's still stupid, but it makes sense. Carolyn, nor anyone else for that matter, took Liz seriously in her obsession with being buried alive; now that she has "died" Carolyn at least wonders whether she was telling the truth after all, and is desperately clinging to that hope. She at least seems to be grieving for Elizabeth, unlike anyone else.

What you're saying Chris does make sense to me and I can understand where you're coming from, as now that the deed is done, Carolyn perhaps has second thoughts. What I can't understand though is why she (or anyone else for the matter) simply choose not to believe her?  I mean before this whole "death scene" thing, Liz was a stable and sane woman, then one day she suddenly starts talking about death and being buried alive.  I can't even think of one person who gave her the benefit of the doubt. And given all the strange happenings that go on there almost everyday, I feel Carolyn should have known her mother alittle better than that.  If you truly love or care about someone and you know them to be perfectly sane and then one day they start talking about death and being buried alive I think I would at least give that person the benefit of the doubt.

It's funny because when someone is telling the truth, no one believes them, but when they tell you a story and lie to no end, they believe every word of it.

The only good thing is that they at least complied with her wishes to be buried with a bell attached to her coffin.  Perhaps in some small way they may have actually thought she was telling the truth.   I shudder to think of what might have happened had they not bury her as she wished.  :-)