Discuss - Ep #0701

[Midnite]

Or... The Taking-All-The-Fun-Out-Of-The-Menage-a-Trois-Seat.

 

[Midnite]

I'm curious as to what that crazy turn-of-the-century piece of furniture is called, the one where three people can sit facing different directions and still talk to each other.

It sounds like you already had the answer in your head-- I think it's called a conversation chair.

[sheenasma]

Yep, conversation chair, sometimes called a tete-a-tete chair. There is one very similar in one of the historical homes here that now operates as a museum.

[EmeraldRose]

With his first word being, "Hello!" - Quentin speaks! Other milestones: The first appearances of Beth, Magda, Sandor, and Edith - in the year 1897. Also, the first time we heard the names of Jenny, Judith, and Carl.

Quentin was such a lovable, roguish, and greedy ladies man! He really knew how to charm  women of all ages. You certainly could tell that Quentin took after his "Grandmama". When he lived in 1897, he was very different from the ghost in 1969 - much more animated, charming, handsome, and not the least bit menacing. I love his eyes and his smile the best!

Edith was one smart cookie. I suspect that Vampire Barnabas being in the chained coffin was the "family secret" that Edith desperately wanted to tell Edward. One question that comes to mind is: Did Edith originally die before she was able to tell the secret to Edward? I ask that because the 1969 Collins family had no knowledge of the secret.

I love the relationship between Sandor and Magda. They certainly were a realistic married couple. I also love how Magda ordered Sandor around. It's clear that she "wore the pants" in the family, even though she always wore dresses!

It was great to watch Sandor go into the mausoleum. There was a blooper when the secret door opened before he pulled the ring. I had a wonderful feeling of deja vu when Sandor deftly took off the chains and Barnabas reached out for his neck as the coffin was being opened. 

----- Sally -----

[Midnite]

Lydia, I hope you'll get to see MB's capture (for today's new quote) of the arrangement of the I Ching wands on the table.  It does look like we're seeing the broken sides, and not the tops, of a couple of the wands.

[Pansity]

I don't remember ever seeing this ep on first run.  First time I saw it was back on the last Sci fi run, what was it, 2002 or so?  Had the same reaction every time since then.,  He comes through the door with the riding boots, planter's hat, and sarcastic wisecracks and all I could think was -- they're setting him up to be Rhett Butler! A lot of the interchange with Beth in that scene in the foyer definitely had the tone of the Scarlett/Rhett verbal fencing matches. And, like Rhett, there's a lot more to him than the wisecracking, care for nothing and no one surface, as we find out as things progress.  Defintely one of the most complicated and interesting characters to come out of the series.

The scenes with Quentin and Edith are a HOOT.  He is playing penitant little boy, butter wouldn't melt in his mouth and she SOO completely has his number.  He's a practiced BS artist -- and she's not buying it. For someone they keep describing as crazy and addled, she's sharp as a tack when it comes to  seeing right through her "favorite grandson" and cutting him down to size.

And Magda and Sandor.. what can I say that someone didn't already say?  Magda is my absolute favorite Grayson character, bar none. (Sorry, Julia fans.  ).  She's funny, wisecracking, and smart.  And beneath the wisecracks she and Sandor clearly adore each other.  Excellent period touch too, about him wanting to go out on the road selling his cure all patent medicine (that cures nothing).  Another nice period touch was Edith's throwaway line about kissing and germs.  Still on Edith, who hasn't had a parent or grandparent call them by a sibling's name once in a while --or run through a list of siblings and pets names till they hit on the right one.

I too noticed a little difference in the appearance of the wands on the table originally, but the flipping around to make them match the door made sense to me.

As to the three seated piece of furniture, I have NO idea where I remember this from, but I think I've also heard them referred to as chaperone chairs (or maybe they had different names/nicknames in different parts of the country as well?)

Good point, too IluvBarnabas, about how this is the only time he seems to be able to summon someone to let hijm out of the coffin.  Deux ex machinas R us, but they did need some way to get him out and about....  At least its not as mindbending as some of the gaping plotholes and contradictions they hand us at the end of every storyline.

Oh and a few throwaway lines make me wonder what parts of the storylines they had worked out and what tentative, not to mention which were  simply red herrings.  Like the implication that Jenny Collins was someone that Edward would have fired Beth because of, since he would be pained by reminders of her.

And snickers of foreshadowing about how Edith tells Quentin about dissipation aging him.

Jeannie

[MagnusTrask]

Re Deux-Ex-Machinas-R-Us...

All this is fresh in my mind since I've been watching this period for the last couple of days.  Isn't it true that Barnabas can influence someone to help him only when someone is already in the vicinity of the coffin, for other reasons?   With Willie and Sandor, I believe they both happened to go there for jewels (the same jewels!).

As for why Magda sent him there at that convenient hour, I think we can thank the I Ching for that.  Thank you, I Ching.   The wands sent him to the exact day that Quentin arrived back in Collinsport, that part's easy.   It would also be easy to imagine the wands choosing the exact day that Magda sends Sandor to the mausoleum.  The difficult part is accepting that those two moments just happened to come during the same night.   

Or did they?   After Barnabas popped back into 1897 Barnabas, I found that a surprising amount of activity goes on before he's actually let out.  The longer the elapsed time is between the rehabitation and the Sandor-strangling, the more believable it is.    Did these happen on different nights?

Failing all else, I suppose we can choose to say that the wands somehow arranged for Magda to get it into her head that the distant crypt at the Eagle Hill Cemetary had jewels in it (in an unnecessarily large wooden display case).   I don't want to strain fate (or my imagination) that badly, though.

[Midnite]

Quentin showed up at Collinwood, Barnabas' consciousness entered the coffin, and the vampire was released all in the same night.

The method that Barnabas used to show someone the location of his coffin was Magda's crystal ball.  The super fortunate coincidence in timing was that Sandor just happened to be searching for the Collins jewels that very night.

[MagnusTrask]

Where were the jewels, anyway?   Barnabas lived off of them in multiple time periods, so were they actually in the coffin?   Could that be why they showed up in the crystal ball, rather than through Barnabas's powers?   I can't think why they'd be in a coffin, but I also can't think why they'd be stashed in some other place where he and no one in the rest of the family knows where they are, someplace outside of the Big House itself.

[Midnite]

The jewels Magda knew about were the ones Edith wore, and can't you just picture Judith snatching them off of her body before the old woman was buried?

But didn't the jewels that Barnabas sold off belong to Naomi?

Could that be why they showed up in the crystal ball, rather than through Barnabas's powers?

Magda had different jewels in mind at the time, and her predictions about them were inaccurate before, but it's an interesting theory nonetheless.  Divination sometimes works in unexpected ways.

[Pansity]

Where were the jewels, anyway?   Barnabas lived off of them in multiple time periods, so were they actually in the coffin?   Could that be why they showed up in the crystal ball, rather than through Barnabas's powers?   I can't think why they'd be in a coffin, but I also can't think why they'd be stashed in some other place where he and no one in the rest of the family knows where they are, someplace outside of the Big House itself.

Hmm, thought just struck me that maybe it wasn't in the coffin, but possibly a secret compartment in the mausoleum?  We DO know that the existing secret room was originally built to hide guns.  Perhaps the room itself had several secret hiding spots, in which jewels were hidden.  It would make sense, being the area was so close to Canada, and troops passing through would probably be interested in lifting anything small and portable like jewels.  Maybe all the valuables were stashed in hiding places like that during the Revolution  -- and were reused for whatever reason in the 1790s.

Jeannie

[MagnusTrask]

Interesting...

[Mysterious Benefactor]

Lydia, I hope you'll get to see MB's capture (for today's new quote) of the arrangement of the I Ching wands on the table.  It does look like we're seeing the broken sides, and not the tops, of a couple of the wands.

As that particular capture/quote is gone, here's a copy:

1969: Ep #700 - Stokes: 'It's the 49th, or Ko, Hexagram.'

[Midnite]

Thanks!

[dom]

  I wonder who on the DS payroll came up with the idea of using the I Ching for the purpose of time travel? Does anyone know?