Discuss - Ep #0225_0226

Robservations - #225_226

Nicely written show.  During most of it, nothing concrete happens.  People are just talking, and an atmosphere is conveyed.  It can't be easy to write that sort of thing, but it was done well.  Good for Ron Sproat!

The end of the show is Barnabas's first bite, when Frid mis-inserted the fangs so he couldn't do what became the standard fang-baring.  Knowing about this, I can see him disposing of them in his mouth before the non-bite.  It reminds me of the scene in The Mummy (latest version) when Arnold Vosloo chews up the bugs.  I'm not sure I agree with Frid that this was his best bite: the improvisation was a little too rough.  The whole scene was pleasingly ominous, however.

Episode #225/6

Maggie's dream is repeated, and afterward she calls Joe on the phone. Nice that she has a phone in her room. She tells him she's very scared and could he please come over? He agrees. Then we see them entering the Blue Whale. The sit down at a table and order drinks from Bob. She apologizes that this is not like her. She tells him the dream scared her, it seemed so real, now that it's over she feels like a child for being so afraid. She describes the dream in which she was in the woods, came upon the casket, it opened of it's own accord, she looked in and saw herself. Then looking back at herself, she became a skull. Joe wonders what caused this, someone or something that happened recently? She can't pinpoint anything, so he suggests that maybe it's all the girls who have been attacked.

Throughout this whole episode Joe was very understanding and supportive, and I liked seeing how he took good care of her.

Sam and Barnabas enter, Barnabas is going to buy Sam a drink to show appreciation for Barnabas' hard work, they see Joe and Maggie, and come to them. Sam thought Maggie was in bed hours ago, and Joe takes the blame for bringing her out again (she had told him to say nothing about the dream to her father). Barnabas greets Maggie and she becomes nervous, knocking her drink over, and Sam teases her about wasting good booze (LOL!) Barnabas then orders for all of them. Sam and Barnabas then sit with them and Sam begins to say maybe he should paint only at night. Barnabas comments that the night allows one to be in touch with himself (though in his case he has no choice!) Joe says he likes to get up early. When Barnabas asks Maggie directly if the night affects her she says not really. [spoiler]Later when Barnabas is trying to woo Vicki he will ask her this same question.[/spoiler]

Maggie and Joe get up to dance and Barnabas tells Sam how extraordinary Maggie is, she's kind, generous, gentle [spoiler]later on he will say the same things to Vicki.[/spoiler] Sam comments that she is also tempermental but a woman should have some fire in her veins. Barnabas pretends to agree but really I felt that he was being polite. We know [spoiler]based on his future relationship with Julia and other women that he doesn't like a woman with fire in her veins, he wants her to be docile and submissive![/spoiler]

As they dance Joe notices that Maggie is trembling. She's sorry for not being good company and he says he has no complaints (very sweet!)

Barnabas tells Sam that if he were of that nature (HAH!) he'd be jealous of Joe since Maggie brings out our better instincts (he is really slinging it!) Sam comments that it sounds as if Barnabas is interested in Maggie, Barnabas says he's interested but not involved. (Baloney!) As for the better instincts thing, yeah right she brings out his instinct to bite her neck, is that a better instinct??

After their dance Maggie wants to drink at the bar rather than going back to the table. Joe thinks she must be mad at her father for some reason and she says no, he asks if it's about Barnabas, and she says no. She seems to not know exactly what it is, but it's clearly that Barnabas makes her nervous. She can't really put her finger on why he makes her nervous.

Burke enters and comes to Maggie and Joe and when he learns that Barnabas is there with Sam he wants to meet him, so he goes to their table. Barnabas says that his man Willie Loomis (ticking me off, boy oh boy doesn't this sound so possessive? Does he really think he owns Willie? He does but we know it has to do with his fangs and they don't. Don't they think it's sort of weird that he would say my man and not my servant?) mentioned Burke, told him that there was trouble between them and Willie accepted blame. This floors Burke, he can't believe Willie said that! Sam comments that Willie has changed, but Burke tells Barnabas he should get rid of Willie. He's being bossy again but this is not gonna work on Barnabas. Barnabas tells him like he told Liz that Willie has changed, he works hard, he will cause no further trouble and offers to buy Burke a drink to make amends for the trouble "his man" caused. Then he said something that made me drop my jaw in amazement. "I hate violence, I can't bear the thought of violence, serenity is my favorite emotion." Yeah I'll remind him in a future episode in which he [spoiler]beats Willie with his cane for telling Vicki where Maggie could be found. Later on Jason opens his fat yap and says bad stuff about Willie, causing Barnabas to get angry all over again so he goes home, opens the door and hollers "WILLLIIIEEEEEEEE!!!" and brandishes his cane and beats him all over again for the same offense! Oh yeah he just hates violence doesn't he?[/spoiler]

Joe and Maggie are ready to leave but she doesn't want to go over to the table and say goodnight. Joe is confused about her attitude, so she bravely goes over to the table and they say goodnight. Then Barnabas wishes her sweet dreams and she looks at him in confusion.

Later in her room, she looks at the bed as if she is afraid to get into it, and sits down to read. Sam enters and notices that her book is upside down, and wonders what's wrong. She can't tell him so he leaves. She gets into bed but just at that moment the dogs start howling. Poor Maggie, that always unnerves her so how is she gonna get any sleep?

At the Blue Whale, Burke and Barnabas talk about his cane. Barnabas says the wolf represents the savage beast now tamed and made a servant and of course I couldn't help but think of my poor sweet Willie, how Barnabas has tamed him and made him a servant. (But I like him to be a bit savage and you took all that out of him!) Burke asks to hold it and enjoys the feel of it. I started thinking he plans to get one for himself. He even comments that Barnabas has tamed Willie! He asks if the cane is pure silver but Barnabas has become distracted, and we know what he is planning, so he runs off abruptly leaving Burke to look confused.

Maggie is in bed tossing and turning, the dogs are still howling. Barnabas appears at her French doors and opens them (cool looking doorknob). He enters the room and looks down at her, approaches the bed, holds up his cane and smiles. We know what happens next though we don't see it. Poor Maggie. :-

Alondra

What wonderful dialogue in this episode:  "Serenity is my favorite emotion."  "A savage beast made familiar."  All deliciously Gothic and it must have sounded eccentric and Victorian in a bar in a small town in "Way Down East" Maine.

When Barnabas first enters Maggie's room, the show itself enters a new era, one very different from how it had been.  That's a mixed blessing but it was the transformed series that so deeply attracted me to the show as a child.

G.

"Joe, I need you, come right away?" Maggie cries into the phone after waking from her nightmare.  Joe wants to know what's wrong.  She just said, "I need you!"  Joe, that should be enough for you to be driving like hell to the cottage.  Yes, my mind heard the sexual overtones that were probably not meant to be there, but what the heck. 

I think it's nice that Joe took Maggie out to help her relax but I don't understand why it took this long for him to find out what happened.  Why not discuss it at the cottage as soon as he arrived, talk about the dream and then decide to go to the Blue Whale if they still need a drink.

In this episode we see some tension in Maggie's posture towards Barnabas.  She doesn't understand why she feels this way but I just wonder if she'll listen to her instincts.  Barnabas watches Maggie and Joe dance, describing Maggie as though he knew her... I believe he's describing Josette as he remembered 'her' but the audience would not know this.  Why doesn't Maggie explain her reluctance towards Barnabas?  If she did, maybe that would stick in Joe's mind later when she disappears!

I think there was a little confusion at the table with Sam, Burke and Barnabas.  Someone didn't know when to start with his lines and then both men started to talk.  LOL  Always love how they recover from those mishaps.  It's strange to hear Barnabas refer to Willie as "my man".  Is that the way their talked in the 18th century?

"And please don't worry about Willie.  I'm a man that can't even stand the thought of violence," Barnabas say. [yeah RIGHT!]  He's setting the stage for people to think of him one way while he acts totally the opposite beyond their backs.  As Maggie leaves the bar, Barnabas says, "Sweet dreams"... and she looks at him with suspicious eyes.  [shaking head]  I don't understand why she didn't tell Joe how she felt in Barnabas' presence.

Maggie, constantly in denial of her fears, not telling anyone about it.  Now Barnabas senses Maggie going to bad and abruptly excusing himself from Burke's company and the bar.  Oh my where's HE going?  Wage a bet?

Maggie restlessly sleeps as Barnabas stealthy enters her room.  I believe JF told a story about how he didn't have time to get his fangs in place properly and accomplish all the cues he had to perform in that one scene.  Holding the cane in front of the camera while focusing on the girl in bed and slipping his fangs in.  I don't remember if he forgot to get them or if they were slipping around in his mouth and had to withdraw them.  At first it looked like he had them in his mouth since his cheeks were puckered but I don't remember the details of his story.

The locution "my man" survived at least into mid-to-late 20th century upper-crust British parlance.  It was used by squire-types to refer to their trusted manservant(s).

"Don't worry about a taxi from the station--I will send my man over in the car to collect you" is a typical example of this kind of usage.

For all I know, nobs in the UK (and maybe some wannabes in the US, but I soooo *don't* have a home in the Hamptons) still use this expression.

G.

The sweet dreams coment made me think Barn did the previous dream. But hard to say.   :-   In this show Barn didn't bite Maggie on screen. But is was implied.  I always wondered if the did the end at the start and the repeat this was a llittle bit different. This was a Friday show the cliff hanger.

The tension was great, It seems that Maggie could have picked up that it was Barn that she didn't want to be around. The evil was just pouring out of Barn  Why didn't anyone pick it up. 

The locution "my man" survived at least into mid-to-late 20th century upper-crust British parlance.  It was used by squire-types to refer to their trusted manservant(s).

"Don't worry about a taxi from the station--I will send my man over in the car to collect you" is a typical example of this kind of usage.

For all I know, nobs in the UK (and maybe some wannabes in the US, but I soooo *don't* have a home in the Hamptons) still use this expression.

If this is a British expression, it would give credence to Barn's assertion that he was from England. So well done on his part.

I still would rather Willie were MY man than his lol!

Alondra

I always wondered if the did the end at the start and the repeat this was a llittle bit different. This was a Friday show the cliff hanger.

Ep #225_226 was a Monday show (Ep #224 was the Friday show.  ). It originally ran on Monday, May 8, 1967. And the reason it's double-numbered is so that the numbering system could catch up due to an unexpected preemption back on April 10th. 

This was a cool episode. Not much I can say that hasn't already been said but I will say this:

Maggie was clearly uncomfortable around Barnabas yet she didn't understand why. Perhaps she had an unknown premonition about him.

In regards to Willie, I think he DID need to be tamed.....he was an absolute beast around the womenfolk (ask Vicki and Carolyn) during his first days at Collinwood. For all of Jason's campaigning to parade Willie as "the poor misunderstood guy" no one was buying it, not Elizabeth, not Burke.

Which is not to say I don't feel any sympathy for Willie, of course I do......certainly now that he is under Barnabas' "employ" he has made us viewers feel a lot more empathy for him which was non-existant when he was still a vicious thug.

It's too bad Dan fired Mitchell Ryan, because I can't help but wonder how much more amazing it would have been to have seen him and Jonathan during the [spoiler]Burke/Barnabas rivalry over Vicki's affections story.[/spoiler] As I mentioned I always had a preferrence to MR's Burke.

I agree with you on Mitchell Ryan.....even though I think [spoiler]the "duel" scene between Burke (with George playing him) and Barnabas at the Blue Whale while competing for Victoria was one of the best exchanges on the show, I wonder what it would've been like if Ryan had been in that scene.[/spoiler] More intense, I imagine.

Be sure to check out these (hopefully  ) humorous topics related to this episode:

From "Caption This!":

From "Complete This Phrase / Fill In The Blank(s)":
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I also prefer Mitch Ryan as Burke Devlin.  I didn't come to know this until I finally saw the pre-Barnabas episodes a couple of years ago.  By the time Barnabas came along, MR's days were numbered as Burke.

 I'm not sure if Barnabas caused Maggie's dreams or not - maybe it was Josette, but his comment about "sweet dreams" sure makes it SEEM like he was causing them.  It's too bad Maggie didn't tell Joe about her being uncomfortable around Barnabas.

That last scene, when Barnabas bared his fangs - I could tell he was fiddling with them off-camera.  He was unsuccessful with the fangs - he only bared  his TEETH at the end.  It seemed strange to me, like, "What's the big deal?"  It was more effective in the next episode, when we DID see his fangs!

Joe was SO caring and understanding in this episode!  I've never known a man like that in real life.  And he was so handsome, too, with that curly brown hair!

I agree that Barnabas referring to Willie as "my man" sounded strange.  I'm glad it's a British expression, though - it lends credence to Barnabas saying he's from England.

Ep #225_226... originally ran on Monday, May 8, 1967. And the reason it's double-numbered is so that the numbering system could catch up due to an unexpected preemption back on April 10th.

Thanks for the info, MB!  I was wondering about that.

----- Sally -----

After Maggie's dream, she and Joe go to the Blue Whale  and she recounts her dream to Joe. Barnabas and Sam enter, maggie asks Joe not to tell her father of the dream, and the four of them sit down together. Nervous and tense, Maggie spills a drink and Sam scolds her, telling her he thought he taught her better than to waste good drink. LOL!

When Joe and Maggie begin dancing, Magggie asks Joe what she would do without him, and he responds that she would look a little silly dancing all by herself. He's trying to lighten her spirits, really cool!

Burke and Barnabas's discussion of Barnabas's cane is quite interesting.