We pick up with a new scene in which we find out that Barn is moving his digs back to the mausoleum. He is so very confident that everything is going exactly the way he wants, and NO ONE could possibly find him in the mausoleum. Every time I see that self satisfied smirk, I just KNOW that whatever he’s so confident about will come back and bite him.
![[ghost_wub]](http://www.dsboards.com/SMF/Smileys/classic/ghost_wub.gif "Wub")
At least Magda has more sense, the way she bits her lip and shakes her head no. And of course to confirm that Magda is waay smarter than Barnabas, here comes Carl, slinking terrified into the mausoleum because Pansy told him that’s where the vampire is.
Barn at Rachel’s graveside. Reasonable looking gravestone for a governess, and we find out that Rachel was born in 1876 and died at 21.
The more Angie keeps trying to warn Barn of what will go wrong, the more I think we’re dealing with both of them being time travelers. He is bumbling around trying to piece it together and fix things, but she seems to KNOW exactly what will go wrong and keeps trying to give him warnings – which, being Barnabas, he promptly discounts/ignores.
I really like this scene between them. You can really see Angie’s pov – and why she’s so upset, even hurt. Apparently she’s been trying to be helpful, but every time it gets thrown in her face. He’s not even willing to TRY and trust her, not once – even the times when he has nothing to lose by doing so. So, she's hit the point of the heck with him, I give up, make a mess without my help then try and get OUT of it without my help.
Barn is just NOT the most observant guy around. He goes to the mausoleum as himself as opposed to a bat or a puff of smoke, and apparently doesn’t have a CLUE someone is outside watching him. Carl is right there, not too many places to hide in the graveyard, not a lot of man sized gravestones that we’ve seen out there. So much for his preternaturally heightened senses. AND he’s probably pissed off Angie, who might have tried to warn him.
Now we see the recently missing Quentin and Magda – but of all the stupid places for a conversation that desperately needs to stay private, the Drawing Room would be on the top of my list. Not to mention that the miraculously wandering gramophone has to be there too. LMAO Quentin has the conversation in such a public place, tells her to speak softly because the walls have ears (and what’s wrong with going up to his room? Even using the never used or referred to since the spook killed Braithwaite secret passage from the Drawing room to the west wing, perhaps?) Then to top it all off, instead of keeping the gramophone running to muffle voices, he shuts it OFF. Even drunk he’s usually smarter than that.
But he does show some brains later, when he keeps wondering about why Magda is suddenly so willing to help him. She almost blows it, and seems to come very close to telling him the real reason. Good thing he was drunk, that story she substituted is about as thin as one of Barnabas’ alibi’s .
Now in bursts Carl, scared to death of Magda, and dealing with Quentin’s wisecracks. This is an absolutely wonderful scene. Carl all panicky and trying to convince the drunk Quentin to take him seriously. Quentin is humoring Carl, but then picks up on the sense of what he’s saying. “Our Cousin who never appears in the day. Our Cousin who always appears at dusk”. Once the pieces slip together, Quentin sobers up real quick, and his brain kicks into action. OK something just hit me. If he knows enough of the basic Vampire lore that he repeats in this scene, HOW did he NOT recognize the bite marks on Beth’s neck?
Selby shows Quentin’s conflict very nicely. The script only has him indecisive about what to do. The little bits of business show the deeper conflict, of where does it leave him if he destroys Barnabas, and perhaps the deeper question of how does he judge the victim of another curse when he’s done such terrible things under the influence of his own.
And here we come, up to one of the two scenes which permanently hooked me on the show back in 2002. I’d caught the last ep by a pure fluke, and decided to start time shifting the next day so I could see the show from the beginning, as I’d not done on the original run. I think Scifi did this around the summer of 2001. So, here I was happily time shifting watching and recording over the eps, enjoying the show but not enough to keep anything. Then came 1897 – I recognized why I went so ga ga for Quentin when I was a kid, but still wasn’t saving anything.
Then we come to this episode, and this incident. A desperate Quentin, who by his own admission, doesn’t know WHAT he’s feeling, opens the secret room with Carl, takes the gun – and locks his brother in with the vampire to be killed.
That’s right folks, its all Karlen and Selby’s fault I got hooked. That’s my story and Im sticking to it. The scene and its conflicts are absolutely marvelous, and Quentin’s action isn’t really predictable in any way, it just COMES on the spur of the moment. “I only ever do what I must. The last seat in the lifeboat desperation of the scene and the playing to perfection by two excellent actors , may remind the Blake’s 7 fans of the climax of an episode called Orbit.
Karlen’s playing of Carl's rising panic and horror, Quentin’s question about whether Carl knows how to get out (is he giving him an out, trying to relieve his conscience or just playing with Carl is very wide open). Carl apparently believes implicity that Quentin WILL shoot him, else he would have made a break for it. Now that could be an interesting alternative – them in a fistfight as the door is closing. Quentin doesn’t seem to know what he wants to do, except keep Barnabas from being found out so he can still get help. Carl’s screams as the door closes, and the look of horror and guilt on Quentin’s face as the door closes. Yet he stays and listens to Carl’s screams, even as guilt stricken as he is, rather than following his usual pattern of running like hell and drowning the horror in booze. There’s so many levels of character development there for both characters, with both actors having the skill and ability to make the most of their character’s reactions.
Our next scene is Quentin cornering Magda in the Old House. NOW he knows enough to recognize vampire marks – or a lack thereof. Magda ends up playing a wild card and asking Angelique for help. Amusing thing is she asks Ang to do what Barn himself should have been able to do – make Carl forget what he saw. But Ang has has enough of hauling Barn’s bacon out of the fire and says no. He has to learn that he DOES need her. (And she’s got an excellent point – a lot of Barn’s troubles come from ignoring her and he’s only escaped unscathed cause she saved him).
Carl in the mausoleum marking time, and panicking. LOL love the part where he bangs on the coffin in frustratin, then is terrified he woke the vamp. Then a little voice tells him to think logically and try to reason out how the door works, like one of his Chinese puzzles. And he finds the latch (If I remember he’s the only one discovered on his own how to do that). He escapes and flips out in hysterics and darn near pulls over the Styrofoam gravestone in the process.
Jeannie
