Discuss - Ep #0228

[Watching Project]

Robservations - #228

[Gothick]

Another great episode.  It's very disturbing to see Liz begging Vicki to help her do damage control with Roger and Carolyn.  There's a frantic note that starts here with Liz that's much different from her enlisting Vicki's aid in dealing with Laura in the previous storyline.  We really start to learn more about what makes Liz tick at this point in the storyline.  I think back to that amazing scene when Jason arrives and he and Liz are alone in the drawing room and the camera has Liz's hands, clasping and unclasping with exquisitely understated nervousness, in the foreground.  Great foreshadowing then to the drama that's unfolding here.

G.

[Jackie]

This bantering back and forth between Liz and Jason gets tiresome.  Liz argues and then gives in to Jason's demands.  She's a strong woman but this constant giving-in makes her appear weak.  Yes it's a soap opera and everything tends to be drawn out "forever", it seems, but I just wish once, Liz would stick to her guns and say no and not change her mind on this subject. [spoiler]I'm very happy to see her do it right before the wedding to Jason.  If it were real life, I don't think this would have gone on for so long...Liz is much too smart and devoted to her daughter.  Yeah, she's doing this for Carolyn, keeping quiet and giving Jason everything he wants to keep him quiet. grrr[/spoiler] But the story must go on.

Liz tells Roger she "never makes a mistake."  YES you do and it was made 18 years ago.  [spoiler]Not just the supposed killing of her husband but the trust she placed on Jason to help her.  Because she didn't come clean with the law then is the reason she's in this fine mess now.[/spoiler]

After hearing Jason lie to Carolyn about the way he got the job at the cannery, I wanted to scream.  From Jason's pov, he's quite slick and savvy in how he manages to implant himself into Collinwood and Liz's life.  He is the sort of person you just want to hate.

My mind is sort of muddled at the exact sequence of events: [spoiler]Did Liz tell Vicki about Paul Stoddard before or after this episode?  I remember Liz sat down with Vicki and told her that she killed her husband and try to sway Carolyn away from asking questions or going to the basement but I can't remember if it was before this episode.[/spoiler] Vicki is acting as though she knows or strongly suspects foul play.  In this episode, Liz admits that Paul's things on in the basement but nothing more.[/color]

[Mysterious Benefactor]

My mind is sort of muddled at the exact sequence of events: [spoiler]Did Liz tell Vicki about Paul Stoddard before or after this episode?  I remember Liz sat down with Vicki and told her that she killed her husband and try to sway Carolyn away from asking questions or going to the basement but I can't remember if it was before this episode.[/spoiler] Vicki is acting as though she knows or strongly suspects foul play.  In this episode, Liz admits that Paul's things on in the basement but nothing more.

That hasn't happened yet and won't happen for quite some time. 

[Jackie]

Thanks MB!! 

[Alondra]

Episode #228

I expected to see what was happening with Maggie but that will probably be tomorrow's episode. I believe that from here on, there will be separate episodes to tell both stories, the Maggie/Barnabas/Willie/Old House story and the Jason/Liz/Collinwood story. I find both interesting, but sometimes it's hard to wait to get back to one when they leave it on a cliffhanger. Some books are written like that, the better ones. I've often read ahead in a book to find out what happens from one of the subplots and then gone back to read the other part. But I digress...

Liz and Jason are in the drawing room and he's sitting there with that disgusting smarmy smile you just wanna wipe off his face with a good hard slap! He wants a job in the company, and at first she thinks it will have to do with bookkeeping, since this would make it easy to embezzle company funds and she couldn't do anything about it. Instead he wants a job in the public relations department which it appears doesn't even exist. So he is plotting to create a job for himself. Of course she says nothing doing but he starts to insist. He's only doing it to save her reputation, after all, here he is a man staying at Collinwood for an indefinite period of time, and people will talk so he must serve some function. She says his stay will not be so long, but he says his stay is being extended because of her lack of cooperation. He is such a pig! When she says this is just another one of his blackmail schemes he says "Blackmail is such an ugly word, and I have told you not to use it!" You fiend, blackmail is a much uglier DEED than word, and it doesn't bother you to DO it, just hear the word! Stinking hypocrite...anyway...

He asks what reason she gave her banker for setting up a swiss bank account for him, and she says she doesn't give her banker explanations but orders. He says she is then leaving it up to their imaginations and he won't have that. They discuss again the length of his stay and he says she's the one forcing him to stay so long, if she would cooperate his stay would be shorter (oh, right!) She tells him he is making too many demands (you ain't seen nuthin' yet!) and he says if she would just give into him, all would be peaceful and they'd all live happily. He is off in some dreamworld somewhere! Too smooth, oily, and I think this is not his first blackmail scheme, he's just too good at it!

As this is going on Carolyn enters the room and immediately can sense the tension, so she asks her mother if all is ok, Liz says yes but Carolyn can see that she's upset. Jason tells her that he sees Liz works too hard and he wants to lighten her load. Carolyn looks at him like she REALLY believes that! and glares at him as she leaves.

Jason tells Liz he meant that, he does want to help. She doesn't want his help so he must impose it on her, she's to call the cannery right now and set up the job, he wants his office all prepared by the time he gets there, as he will be the new director of public relations, and now he must leave, since he doesn't want to be late on his first day on the job. He goes to kiss her hand and she pulls it away roughly. Viper! Poor Liz, she slowly gets up and goes to the phone looking like she's going to the guillotine.

Later Roger tells Liz he was appalled when Whittaker came in and told him about there being a new Director of Public Relations and it turns out to be McGuire. Why do they need a DPR? Liz says Jason is a capable man (real capable!), claims that she has been thinking about this and when Roger says she never mentioned it she reminds him that she doesn't tell him everything. She claims the whole thing was her idea but Roger knows it was not, it was McGuire's idea. He's disrupted their home life and now he will disrupt his time at the cannery. He knows Jason is forcing Liz in this but she denies it, claims she asked Jason to help her and he agreed. He tells her she's making a mistake and she says she never makes mistakes.  

I really hate Jason, it's bad enough to force her to do these things, but now she has to lie about it too!

Vicki is with Carolyn in the drawing room and Carolyn tells her how much she loathes Jason. She felt so wretched seeing him with her mother, he's so sticky sweet and insinuating, but shows contempt in his manner. Jason stands at the door and interrupts and you wonder how much he overheard. He asks for Liz and Carolyn says neither she nor Vicki have seen her. She wants to ask him a question, addressing him as Mr. McGuire, he says "Call me Jason" but she repeats "Mr. McGuire!" (LOL) how long is his stay to be? He says that depends on her mother. She asked him to stay and he will stay as long as Liz wants him to. Supposedly that morning he had told Liz he was fixing to leave but she asked him to stay, as she wanted to give him a job. He felt he had no choice but to accept. He and Liz are so close now, almost as much as before she met Paul Stoddard, and getting closer all the time, implying there is a romance going on, both then and now!! Carolyn doesn't believe it!

Later Carolyn, Roger and Vicki are in the study discussing things (this will happen a few times as this storyline progresses) and Carolyn asks Roger what he knows of Jason, and he says nothing since he was away at school while Paul was here, and he knew nothing of Paul's friends. Carolyn says that she wants to know more about her father but it troubles her that he had friends like Jason. Roger mentions that Paul has some things left behind in that locked room in the basement. Carolyn decides she wants to get into that room and see them. There may be pictures and letters as well as clothing and she feels she has a right to see them. Vicki says she shouldn't bother her mother about this and Liz comes in, sees all of them there and wonders if they are having some kind of meeting. Carolyn directly asks for the key to that room. Liz says she has lost the key and Carolyn wants to break the lock. Liz flat forbids this and tells Carolyn to never ask about this again. Carolyn claims she has a right to see her father's things.

After this Liz and Vicki talk in the drawing room, Liz asks Vicki to help her try to convince Carolyn not to insist on seeing that room. Vicki tries to see both sides (I admire this in her) and promises to try to help if she can. Liz says it is painful for both of them.

Carolyn is in the study looking for the key when Vicki comes in and tries to talk her out of looking for it. Carolyn wants her to help. Vicki suggests that maybe what's in the room are not Paul Stoddard's things but something worse. She begs Carolyn to stop her search but Carolyn goes on with it anyway.

A painful episode for Liz Stoddard and my heart really goes out to her. She must feel like everyone's ganging up on her, rotten Jason with his blackmail crap, then having to lie to Roger and the others about whose idea it was to give him a job, then Carolyn's insistance on getting into that room where her darkest secret lies. Poor Liz.

Alondra

[IluvBarnabas]

God, I really hate Jason in this episode! It's bad enough he's bleeding Elizabeth dry of money, forced his way into the house, now he's intimated her into giving him some phony baloney job as a public relations expert! 

Sheesh, and to think a few episodes ago he implied SHE was the bad one! Look who's calling who bad!

Kudos though to Dennis Patrick for his very believable and excellent portrayal of the man you loved to hate! He was IMO the J.R. Ewing of Dark Shadows.

I do believe though that despite Elizabeth's insistances, Roger, Carolyn, even Vicki knows Elizabeth would never let a freeloader like Jason in the house or a golddigger like him into the family business if he wasn't doing a lot of arm-twisting on her.

[dom]

A painful episode for Liz Stoddard and my heart really goes out to her. She must feel like everyone's ganging up on her, rotten Jason with his blackmail crap, then having to lie to Roger and the others about whose idea it was to give him a job, then Carolyn's insistance on getting into that room where her darkest secret lies. Poor Liz.

No kidding. After holding it together for 18 years (mostly for Carolyn's sake) to have it all start to unravel just as she would hope Carolyn was on the verge of a better life, etc. I don't know how the character holds it all together!? She's got the weight of Vicki not knowing she's her daughter, trying to keep David sane enough to grow up and inherit, Carolyn turning down her choice of spouse for her, Killings on the estate, a long lost cousin 'moving in' and keeping Willie around, and of course Jason - too much (and not a gray hair!)

Girlfriend must drink a lot of Geritol...

[loril54]

.  I think back to that amazing scene when Jason arrives and he and Liz are alone in the drawing room and the camera has Liz's hands, clasping and unclasping with exquisitely understated nervousness, in the foreground.  Great foreshadowing then to the drama that's unfolding here.

There is one person that we love the rings his hands a lot  All good comments by the way I know there is another post on this  But they rearranged the study again. Moved the book shelf   

[Lydia]

OK, Maggie's in mortal peril, and we've got a Jason Plot day.  If I were Dr. Woodard, I'd recommend that Dark Shadows be sent to Windcliff for treatment of its multiple personality disorder.

The episode was enjoyable I didn't find it gripping.  I like seeing Dennis Patrick make Jason's lines flow like whisky at an Irish wedding.  I like seeing Joan Bennett's Elizabeth trying to maintain her dignity in very undignified circumstances.  I've never been a big fan of either Carolyn or Vicky, but any Louis Edmonds character is always a pleasure to watch.  Still...not gripping.

I wish we could have seen Jason's debut at the cannery.  Roger fuming, Jason broguing, secretaries swooning, Burke dropping in to set his official seal of disapproval on Jason's new career - has anybody out there written a fan fiction about Jason at the cannery?

[Mysterious Benefactor]

I like seeing Dennis Patrick make Jason's lines flow like whisky at an Irish wedding.

What a great analogy! 

[Jackie]

I wish we could have seen Jason's debut at the cannery.  Roger fuming, Jason broguing, secretaries swooning, Burke dropping in to set his official seal of disapproval on Jason's new career - has anybody out there written a fan fiction about Jason at the cannery?

I would like to see that sort of interaction too!!  Very interesting... fans come up with some very interesting ideas.  I haven't seen one like this though.  I have read some smut fanfic with Jason in it.

[CT!_CTP/FITBs]

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[EmeraldRose]

Yes, indeed, Dennis Patrick DID do a good job with Jason, the man you loved to hate.  He was SO manipulative, and Elizabeth felt compelled to follow his wishes.  It's too bad [spoiler]she never dug up that room in the basement to discover NO body was there a long time ago![/spoiler] 18 years is a long time to be stuck at Collinwood.

I also was disappointed to NOT find out what happened to Maggie.  This going back and forth in storylines went on for a while, though, until [spoiler]Barnabas killed Jason.[/spoiler]

I also felt sorry for Elizabeth during this episode.  She had so much to worry about, but she still managed to be elegantly dressed with nary a hair out of place.  She was a beautiful woman.

----- Sally -----

[Alondra]

Yes, indeed, Dennis Patrick DID do a good job with Jason, the man you loved to hate.  He was SO manipulative, and Elizabeth felt compelled to follow his wishes.  It's too bad [spoiler]she never dug up that room in the basement to discover NO body was there a long time ago![/spoiler] 18 years is a long time to be stuck at Collinwood.

Jason Patrick was a wonderful actor and as I've said on other groups if an actor causes me to despise his character, he must be some great actor. I feel the same way about Jerry Lacy and Jonathan Frid who caused me to despise the early Barnabas.

I wish Elizabeth had [spoiler]dug up that trunk in the basement, but she would have had a hard time doing it herself and had no one to take into her confidence about this. Didn't she ever question that maybe Jason had lied? Seems that thought would cross her mind but she was trying so hard to put this out of her mind and failing miserably. She kept that door locked and never left the house for 18 years to protect her secret yet later on when Carolyn and the others go into that room you can't see a thing wrong with that floor that would indicate that it had been dug up. I feel sorry for her for holing herself up like that, but at least she had a big beautiful house to live in. I love Collinwood.[/spoiler]

Alondra