Julia's a trouper. She is half strangled out in the woods, and manages to pull herself together and get back to Collinwood so that Carolyn can find her, see nothing wrong, and ask her to doctor Vicky. Of course, the doctoring probably consisted of simply giving Vicky a sedative, but I'm still impressed. I suppose it helps that Julia smokes, so that Carolyn wouldn't have thought any hoarseness in her voice was unusual.
On second thought, though - why am I so impressed? For Julia, getting half-strangled is as ordinary an occurrence as sneezing.
I like the suggestion that it was Jeff who attacked Vicky. It makes the Jeff-Vicky relationship much more interesting to me. What a pity that it isn't true!
What are we supposed to be thinking about why Nicholas vetoed Maggie as the life force? If I didn't know better, I'd say that she was the centerpiece of some particularly nefarious plan that he has yet to unveil. I'm not seeing any trace of smittenness in his face. I'm not faulting Humbert Allen Astredo here, however. On the contrary, in fact.