Discuss - Ep #1240

Robservations #1240

Third mention of 1841?   Morgan announces to Flora that Gabriel is now "at peace"...  Collinses should know better than to assume death means peace!    As for the lottery, is Kendrick a Collins now?   Morgan came up with a clever way of testing Catherine's feelings for Bramwell, by asking if she'd marry Bramwell if Morgan dies in the Room.

Is David Selby watching all this from his hospital room?

They didn't start mentioning 1841 until the last episodes?

Almost the last episode and we get (I think) a new set: Flora's boudoir. Yay set designers!

I love the scene with Julia and Kendrick--can this be a slight thaw?

I'll bet everyone was glad Kendrick insisted on participating in the lottery, and I love the expression on his face as he succumbs to the power of the occasion. The more people take part, the greater the odds of any individual's NOT being chosen.

Not even a mention of a funeral for Gabriel. That seems odd, considering that Flora still thought of him as the baby of the family. But they're dropping like flies, as is usual when we approach the end of a story line. A corpse-littered stage and an almost-empty Collinwood seem to be mandatory.

I looked for any sign on the family's faces saying "We lucked out again, just as we did when Melanie got rid of the Stella problem for us!   Goodbye, thorn in our side!" but nothing.   Kendrick could just go mad of course, and become worse trouble.

Well, if Carherine is considered a Collins by marriage, then I suppose that Kendrick should be also. By the way, if Brutus' instructions were for the entire family to participate, why were there no repercussions when Bramwell's branch of the family did not participate?

I would think that Kendrick isn't a Collins because he wasn't born a Collins, and didn't become "Kendrick Collins" once married.   As for repercussions, we haven't seen the lottery go "well" during this storyline, so maybe Brutus was PO'd about it...  Did they say that Barnabas and Josette didn't participate?   Also, was Brutus dead set on a lottery?   Wasn't that part just a suggestion?   What's important to him is that the family get one Collins to stay in the Room I think, by whatever means.

As best as I remember, it was Brutus who suggested the idea of a lottery.  And I think that Bramwell made a remark that the curse of the locked room was a problem for those at Collinwood, not him

It's always good to see Joan Bennett again, and it's fun to see Flora now that we know that truth about Melanie's parentage.  I noticed that Kendrick called Flora "Mrs. Collins".  He's Collins enough to participate in the lottery, but not enough to be familiar with his mother-in-law by adoption.  Incidentally, in the matter of who's a Collins and who's not a Collins, we do not know whether Flora was born a Collins or not.  And maybe after Kendrick goes into the Room and ends up dead or insane, Brutus will gleefully inform everybody that it doesn't count because Kendrick's not really a Collins.

Almost the last episode and we get (I think) a new set: Flora's boudoir. Yay set designers!

It looks a lot like the playroom to me.  Still, I do appreciate the efforts to keep the things going despite the impending cancellation.  When Daphne was in her coma, I figure they were still hoping for a reprieve, and then it became obvious no reprieve would come, so they woke Daphne up and killed her off.

Not even a mention of a funeral for Gabriel.

I could swear I heard somebody say something about putting Gabriel's body in the basement just after he died.

Interesting that the lottery vase is kept in plain sight in the drawing room - a perpetual reminder of the curse.

Yes, I believe Uncle Roger is correct. If I remember, Brutus mentioned the idea of a lottery in his letter.

Maybe the family is having all this trouble BECAUSE Bramwell has always refused to participate in the lottery. If so, he certainly isn't taking the hint, is he?

Flora may or may not have been born a Collins, but what counts is that she married into the family, so that makes her one. A woman left her father's house to marry; a man abrought his wife home to his house. Thus women were transferred from the custody of one man to another--and any property they had went with them.

If the recycled playroom is her boudoir, good for her. The playroom was always one of my favorite sets.

Kendrick's calling Flora mrs. Collins is a bit odd but not underheard of, even today.  My cousin and her husband were married for decades but he always called them Mr. and Mrs.

I'm not sure it's even unusual.  I think I'd leave it to my new mother-in-law to say, "Call me Flora."   I wouldn't impose informality on the matriarch of a powerful family, which I'd just joined without their knowing it, and without their having been invited to the wedding.

Even more so when you consider that Kendrick appears to be the first guy that Melanie was involved with and that they really hadn't known each very long before they got married.