Lucky John Karlen. He must have had a ball doing today's episode - being sweet and pathetic first, and the injured innocent later on, and finally crazy and dangerous.
Knowing what one knows about Barnabas's motive for getting Willie released, it's hard to believe that Julia fell for the sob story. But Barnabas has made the occasional morally correct decision recently, and Julia knows it. And she knows that Willie was not guilty of trying to kill Maggie. Still, she should know that the Old House is the last place to send a mentally fragile person. It's out of one loony bin and into another.
Incidentally, I've raised the following point before this, and it now seems appropriate to raise it again: When was Willie transferred from some random institution for the criminally insane to Windcliff? It seems like an extraordinary thing to do within a year of his being sent to the random institution. He was understood to have committed a serious and scary crime, and Windcliff was not exactly a high-security institution. Even if he had lost his memory (which was the case immediately after he was caught), why was it assumed that the basic potential for murder and mayhem was not still present in his mind? I would like to have seen the scene: Julia smiling and lying, and telling the authorities...telling them what??? Apparently Julia was able dream up a convincing lie. I am not.
I am impressed with Kathryn Leigh Scott. She hit the picture frame solidly with the hammer two or three times, and didn't miss even once. Under pressure, in the first take, too - and she knew she could do it, or they would have set the scene up some other way. In her position I would have banged my thumb and said "Ouch!" right on camera.
