Discuss - Ep #0762

Robservations #762

How perfect for Trash....huhum....I mean Trask to show up in Satan's place.  LOL  I think this must have been a wink and nod to the audience.  However, they can evoke Satan all they want to I am not having any of that darkness in my life!!    Yes I know its a show. LOL  It still gives me the creepy shivers!  Love the thunder! NICE!!  I think that it was very ballsy move for daytime television of the 1960's!  I think out of the two Trasks, so far, Gregory is my favorite.  I of course love to hate him!  I have such respect for actors or actresses who can laugh (convincingly) on camera.  I read that Sarah Michelle Gellar (of Buffy fame) hated to laugh because it was a big challenge for her as an actress to laugh on cue. 

Humbert could truly play the Devil or Satan, as he looks so devilish!  Clarice I think did a good job of making Minerva (I had never heard that name till DS) different than Miss J and Abigail Collins.  Let him have it Minerva get him girl! OH SNAP! God what a bastard this man is, Reverend indeed!    I particularly love the way that HAA said "Reverend"  with a roll of the tongue!  HEH! 

Wonderful episode!
Clever with nice plotting but hey this is 1897, in my opinion one of Dark Shadows best sequences!!!

Greg catching Q and Evan was possibly the most fun moment of DS.   There's an entrance for you!   Besides Trask=Devil, Greg milks their discomfort for everything it's worth, watching Evan squirm as he tries to talk his way out of it when this is clearly impossible....with Trask implying for a moment here and there that he might actually believe Hanley's pathetic excuses, then lowering the boom on him, but gradually, so as to enjoy every second!

Agree totally with both you guys about Trask showing up, that was just SO Great.    And Quentin fainting out of terror. (Pay no attention to the cowardly drunk behind the curtain!)

HAA was just wonderful as Nicky in these scenes -- he and Jerry Lacy were having waay too much fun with their respective hypocrites.

And now for my two cents on this episode (probably magnified for inflation since you guys KNOW better by now to expect short posts from ME. 


Slightly different  take on yesterday’s  finale.  Guess  someone noticed the coat, Quentin's is gone this time, though Evan has what may be a ceremonial robe. Quentin is also drinking standing up rather than slumped in the chair.  He also sounds a bit more sober, and we see a shot of him sighing deeply as Evan begins.  Couple more shots of him chug a lugging from the bottle, which this time is NOT in his hand as he faints at the sight of TRASK.

LOL you do get the feeling Trask saw and heard enough to have a real good idea what they were doing. “Perhaps the person you SHOULD summon is a DOCTOR”.  Evan is tripping over himself trying to explain his way out of this so he doesn’t get ratted out to Judith and risk losing what is probably his best (if not his ONLY ) client.

Apparently terror sobered Q up pretty quick—he seemed pretty lucid and coordinated when he argued with Evan. Didn’t fall on his face when he lunged at him either.  Maybe the instant adrenalin of terror killed his buzz. But here he is in the next scene, downing the brandy again for all he’s worth.  And just to make tonight complete, now he has to deal with Mrs. Trask.  Once again someone with no rights in the house waltzes in and parks themselves like they own the place.

Interesting foreshadowing here when Minerva is so very concerned about whether Judith and Gregory have met up.  Looks to me like they were laying the groundwork  for a revelation in the later part of the storyline quite early down the road.  Quentin, being Quentin, is miserable and wants to share the wealth by  planting ideas in Minerva’s head – just because he can.  Don’t know that he was sober enough to have calculated it as the fastest way to get rid of her.

LOL the Trasks in their native habitat and marital bliss.  Oh, from the litany Minerva  recites, our Right Reverend Trask is quite a player.  Trask is quite good at the ‘big lie”, trying to convince Minerva that she’s hysterical and imagining things.  He’s also playing quite the fencing match with Evan.  Evan seems quite disappointed  when Trask doesn’t rise to the bait about women.  He knows he needs a way out, because Trask will have a very high price.

Cut to the school and the spiteful and suspicious Minerva second guessing Tim Shaw on the papers he’s grading.  Once the Reverend gets her to leave, we know something’s up.  He’s being NICE and he’s never nice without there being something in it for him.  Poor trusting Tim should have known that by now, but for some bizarre reason he’s taking Trask at face value, and goes over all unsuspecting to Evan’s house to be their pet patsy. 

Nifty looking effect on the potion Evan is brewing up  (but does the  vessel with the pestle have the brew that is true?).


Jeannie

Keep making them as long as you want Pansity.  I truly enjoy them.  It all depends on what mood I am in whether I have a long post or not. 

Thanks, Taeylor.  Glad you enjoy them.  How much I shoot my mouth off on a particular episode depends on what strikes me when I watch the ep, and what you guys have already said since I usually come in late. 

That's not going to end any time soon, either.  Work has still been insane, but given all the funding cuts child welfare not for profits like the one I work for are getting whammed with, at least an insane work load means job security as long as this keeps up. (The main  reason for my work life being nuts lately is funders are now constantly auditing and examining programs, looking for any excuse to cut funding or eliminate grants, fundings, or entire programs.  All these case record pre audits led me to a  scary discovery -- at least I thought it was scary. It seems that even at the Master's level Social Workers have really poor writing skills!)  <rant over>

Jeannie

Society is devolving.  We'll all have forgotten how to run all the machines in a generation or two!   Sorry about the job strife Jeannie.

Thanks for the sympathy, Magnus.  My mind has been boggled on a regular basis lately by people who have masters degrees (and presumably had to write theses to get same) and can't write sensible, beginning middle and end sentences which answer who what where when why how.

Best I remember, I learned that stuff in grade school....

Jeannie

Sorry, I'll get off this tangent, but I've noticed that lately government forms are being rewritten so that they're unclear and make a lot less sense.   The logic in them is flawed and seems a bit childish sometimes.  I have to guess at what they must really mean.   Tangent over...

Should Quentin be such a scardy cat when he's been involved in the black arts for some time?  And growing up at Collinwood with his family.  Of course it would be Trask instead of Satan at the door.  I'd forgotten how the particular plot that is coming up started so now I know
Are Quentin and Evan such good friends?  Quentin probably doesn't know what a good friend is.  And then another threat to kill from Quentin. 
I noticed in the credits that is said Mrs. Minerva Trask.  How does's Clarice Blackburn rate when most of the rest don't even get their last name.

It seems we all got a good laugh over the timing of Gregory's appearance.
"You called the devil and you got me.  That was our Lord's will."
No, that was irony.

The incantation's "charred and blackened star" has become rain clouds, but I like the distinctiveness of the original.  And it sounded like the rash of wind became a rasp.  The prerogative of the different writer, maybe.  (The credits got rudely cut after the actors' names.)  Pansity, Evan did have his ceremonial robe in the previous ep; what's a Satanist without his black robes?    But Nicholas wouldn't have needed the candle snuffer, sigh.

(but does the  vessel with the pestle have the brew that is true?).

LOL!  What about the chalice from the palace? 

The hat on Minerva (Mee-NURV-a according to her hubby) looks bigger than it did the last time.  Of course, for Henry Kaplan, more is always better.

What a perfect ep, with flawless performances by Lacy, HAA, Selby, Blackburn and Briscoe.

It seems we all got a good laugh over the timing of Gregory's appearance.
"You called the devil and you got me.  That was our Lord's will."
No, that was irony.

Not to mention the Lord having a sense of humor.

LOL!  What about the chalice from the palace?
 

The vessel with the pestle scanned better? 

Jeannie

Major Milestones:
1. The figure in the doorway was Trask!
2. Trask blackmailed Evan into drugging Tim.
3. Minerva knew that Trask went out with rich women.

It was great when Trask interrupted the ceremony! By the way, there was a blooper in this episode. I could see Trask standing there before his cue. The effect was much better in the last episode, when we didn't see him until we saw the darkened figure.

It really made me angry when Evan wimped out on performing another ceremony for Quentin. Poor Quentin! Trask really let Evan have it, and Evan's knowledge of Trask's philandering ways didn't work. That made me angry, too!

It was fun to watch Quentin taunting Minerva. When Minerva showed up with the preserves for Judith, I was wondering if she had poisoned them! It struck me as strange that Minerva would be nice to Judith, when she knew that Trask was interested in her. (Unless Quentin's taunting alerted Minerva to that fact, and she didn't know it before.)

I found it rather bizarre that Tim Shaw was licking his finger before turning the pages. It seemed to me to be an obsessive-compulsive thing. I bet Trask knew of Tim's habit and told Evan to drug the pages. I agree with Robin, Tim sure was a speed reader! He was even able to read when Evan was talking to him!

Excellent episode, kudos to all for their wonderful performances!

----- Sally -----

Sally, I have known lots of people who lick their fingers to turn pages.  I never did myself because I am a little Obsessive Compulsive about germs.  I don't think one can be too safe when it comes to being germ cautious!  I am not OCD or anything but I tend to wash my hands a LOT.  It's a good habit for anyone though!

Well, I must admit, Taeylor, I used to lick my fingers to turn the pages, too, when I was younger!  I think watching Tim do it gave me the idea. (So I guess I was strangely bizarre, too!)    I wouldn't think of doing that now, though. I didn't worry about germs as much when I was a kid. I know what you mean about excessively washing your hands - my husband is like that, too. ...And taking a long time to brush your teeth... Don't even get me started! He's way more worried about cleanliness than I am. Not that I'm a slob. I'm clean, too, just not obsessed about it. I get obsessed about other things!

----- Sally -----