Maybe the key bounced a little... My only note on this episode is that, after the makers of DS might have driven even themselves crazy, with all the wheel-spinning and manufactured delays in getting on with the story, maybe they felt a need to shake the show up, even having characters do things you'd never expect them to do. Without actually moving the plot forward, of course! So what's one of the last things Burke would do? Say to hell with the vendetta for a night, and tie one on with Sam! He gets weepy into his beer, or mixed drink, and actually loses all backbone and goes, "Why don't people like me?", basically. Sam even gets to lecture him...
I think other characters did similarly odd things, but can't remember.... I got 2 or 3 ep's ahead, then the weekend came... These comments may be more for #85, but the bar stuff slops over into #86...
As for Roger's callousness, I'm never surprised. In fact, it's only been upon watching 1966 DS this year that Roger has made any sense to me. His vague good-guy status in later years always bothered me. He was one of those supposedly wonderful Collinses Barnabas was driven to protect, but he was aloof, distant, seemed superior-minded but was diplomatic enough not to say it out loud.... and sort of passive regarding family problems.
TV is reluctant to show the callousness of the wealthy, and of course TV networks are owned by them. So Roger was sanitized, or at least, attention was taken off him. They needed Louis Edmonds to stay on, of course, because of the great characters he played in past storylines.