Discuss - Ep #0480

Robservations #480

It seems uncharacteristic of Cassandra to be so friendly to Julia.  It must be that she sees Julia as a serious threat.  I suppose that when Cassandra learned how Julia had aided Barnabas in saving Dr. Lang from Roger, she decided that Julia was a problem.  Cassandra may now be hoping to distract Julia by getting her romantically interested in Professor Stokes, or she may just figure she'll be able to keep better track of Julia if she and Julia are friends.  I'm not sure, though, why she didn't do the easy thing and put Julia under a spell.  Two possibilities occur to me: first, she tried and failed, due to Julia's genetic structure, which is mentioned later on in the series as being something out of the ordinary.  Or else, being Cassandra and not Angelique, she is not interested in simple solutions, and figures that she'll be able to inflict more pain by using non-spell-related methods.

In any case, Julia is having some fun of her own with Cassandra.  Saying that she admires honesty in people!  For all I know, she does, but she's never bothered to cultivate honesty in herself.

Jeff was astoundingly easy to hypnotize.  Weird.

I must admit that all those Julia impersonations that I've seen over the last few years have made me have a hard time taking the real Julia seriously. When Julia was calling the police, and her voice cracked, I laughed! I couldn't help it!

I'm relieved that Barnabas was able to talk Dr. Lang into calling Julia to come and hypnotize Jeff. Yes indeed, Jeff sure was easy to hypnotize!

I agree with Robin that Julia's reaction was extreme. She was a doctor, after all, and should have been used to seeing cadavers. Although, maybe, since she was a woman, she could only stand so much; and, seeing that arm, realizing that a whole body was put together from dead parts, was too much for her to bear.

----- Sally -----

I agree with Robin that Julia's reaction was extreme. She was a doctor, after all, and should have been used to seeing cadavers. Although, maybe, since she was a woman, she could only stand so much; and, seeing that arm, realizing that a whole body was put together from dead parts, was too much for her to bear.

Julia was also realizing that Jeff wasn't hallucinating when he said that Lang was planning to decapitate him - and as you yourself have so helpfully noted, Sally, that might be sort of tough on Jeff.  Although Julia was familiar with cadavers, she was also, as a doctor, committed to keeping people alive.  Most of the time.

I have to admit, I'm still not thrilled with the scene.  But the writers had to bring Julia into the Experiment somehow, instead of having her lie to Lang and Barnabas (smiling all the way) that she hadn't believed a word that Jeff had said, and then go back to Collinwood and call the police from there.  Another possibility would be for her to waltz downstairs and tell Lang that his stitching was thoroughly unprofessional and they were going to have to start over from scratch, and she knew just where they could find some really top-notch body parts - but by this time Julia was apparently supposed to be a Good Person, so that was not an option.

Good point about how Julia could have pretended to go along with Lang and Barnabas and then just make the phone call from Collinwood. However, I don't think Lang would have believed her....I think he still thought that she was going to ruin his precious experiment when she left....he only backed off because harming Julia would not have thrilled Barnabas, and Lang wanted to do anything and everything to keep his guinea pig happy (the situation with Jeff notwithstanding).

Poor Julia....she's still harboring too much guilt over Dave Woodard's murder, and the pain of it and the memory of her own part in his death came rushing back when Barnabas mentioned his name. Barnabas certainly does know how to push her buttons (though in this instance, while in principal it was cruel, he did it more out of necessity than out of cruelty).

Rats! Wrong episode. I realized too late that I did the wrong episode.

Rats! Wrong episode. I realized too late that I did the wrong episode.

ILB, you're welcome to repost the second half of your comments under #481, if that's what you meant.