Opening with the same scene with the scarf and the poppet. Is it me, or are they reusing the doll with the tricorn hat that she used for Barnabas? I really like Angie’s dress. I don’t think we ever see it again, either.
Ah, we haven’t seen Beth in a long while. Apparently she’s been there (though not on screen) and is in the loop, since Edward refers to Judith being “worse”. This infers Beth’s witnessed Judith’s decline from the beginning. She seems to be back on the payroll again, too, as he wants her to go with him to take Judith to Portland to Rushmore Sanitarium. She seems really shocked by the mention of a sanitarium (I’d think so, since they were so careful NOT to take Jenny to one to hide their deep dark secret of insanity in the family – now after a short time they’re carting Judith off). Considering the reputation of mental hospitals at the time (which has been pretty well covered in various topics about Jenny), I can’t say I blame her.
At least she’s back to being Beth with a backbone
(and she actually used the servants staircase for a change). She stands her ground politely but very firmly when Edward wants her to NOT go Quentin hunting. (Note that it was a request “may I ask” not the order that one would usually give an employee.) Apparently there’s an unspoken understanding that there’s something between Quentin and Beth, else Edward would have dug in his heels and made it an order. Or questioned why she was taking it on herself to see to the well being of a grown man with no ties to her. Both Edward and Judith, no matter what they know or guess, treat her with respect, so apparently Beth is not thought of as another one of Quentin's doxies (poxie doxies?
) He’s also straight to the point about it just being Quentin’s niormal carousing, “one of his sprees” and he’ll come back when he’s done. “Unfortunately, he always does.” LOL nice line there for LE, reminds me of the wonderfully dry, snarky GOOD lines he used to get as Roger.
The undone Aristede, lying on the ground where Angie left him is now roused by a mysterious pair of feet. Said feet are attached to a nasty, domineering character, connected somehow to the mysterious hand – our first introduction to Victor Fenn-Gibbons.
Quentin in the canopy chair, and Beth comes in the unlocked as normal door, looking for Barnabas. Quentin gets up and she screams. She still has a brain, she recognizes the voice! FINALLY , SOMEONE WITH A BRAIN!!!
Ego, thy name is Quentin. “I’d rather die than look like this the rest of my life.” Life is tough, get over it. Though, on the flip side, he wants Beth to leave and forget about him, for her own good.
He’s done some growing up. He’s thinking of someone besides himself here, as he needs every bit of help he can get from everyone. It’s against his best interests to try and convince someone who helps him so much to leave. Yet he’s trying to get her away, because there’s no future for her with him.
Bless her, she stands her ground and tells him she won’t, and they can find a way out. There’s very mixed emotions here. She holds him like she’d like nothing more than to protect him from all this. It’s like he doesn’t understand how she can accept him, when he can’t accept himself, and doesn’t feel he’s worth her putting herself in danger for. Even the hesitation before he hugs her fits into this. He wants the comfort and caring, but doesn’t feel he’s worth it.
Edward picks the WORST time to distrust someone. The audience knows Ang is trying to help, but all Edward sees is that as Barn’s fiancé Ang -- by his calculation – HAD to know everything about him, including where he is now. VERY nice performance -- actually a performance within a performance -- that LP gives as she relates to Edward her version of what happened with Barnabas. VERY nicely played; bits of business, gestures. Perfect.
Ang has brought Edward around, but now we have the arrival of Victor Fenn-Gibbons, with a letter of introduction from Edward’s friend the Earl of Hampshire. Oopsie – Angie walks out of the room with the hand in hand (so to speak). As soon as Angie makes for the door with the box, we see the kindly mask drop, and the look of pure fury cross Fenn-Gibbons face.
We get some information here that Fenn-Gibbons claims to have served with Kitchener in the Sudan, his rasping voice a souvenir of a wound he received. History buff that I am, I only have the vaguest memory of Kitchener and Africa. So I got nosy. Here's a wikipedia entry about him.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbert_Kitchener,_1st_Earl_KitchenerLooking at this, my guess is that FG is claiming to have served with him in the early 1880s.
Cut to The Old House, with Angie and the hand joining Quentin and Beth. Beth is skeptical, apparently no one filled her in on the hand. Angie for some reason doesn’t even want him to open the box and show it to Beth. Is her explanation of being afraid of what it will do her real reason? Or is something else going on? Most of the characters have opened the box and looked at the thing with no ill effects – or maybe Ang is afraid it will go at Q again. Beth keeps asking questions, intelligent ones. Ang makes her leave because the ceremony must be only between her and Quentin. Wonder if that’s true, or whether she just doesn’t like Beth’s questioning -- and the fact that Beth feels she has the right to question this on Quentin's behalf. Beth doesn’t want to go, but Quentin finally talks her into it. She gives Ang quite a look before she leaves, I don’t think she trusts her. Hmm, does she have any idea about Ang’s real origins? Maybe the audience is supposed to assume Quentin filled her in way back when?
Hmm, Edward was shooing Beth off to bed at 9PM because they were to leave with Judith at sunup, yet here he is with Fenn-Gibbons as the clock strikes 11.
Oh, now we have it: why Ang. wants Beth out and away. Her price. She wants Quentin to marry her. This girl just doesn’t learn – blackmailing men into marrying her is NOT going to make them love her. Slime – his immediate reaction is why would you want to marry me, knowing what I am. (Didn't stop Beth, did it, dingdong? Speaking of whom, note that he mentions NOTHING about that as a reason he can't marry Ang. Double slime.
Question arises of which one of them he thinks he’s going to be BSing – maybe both of them (and as we find later, this little promise has BIG repercussions down the road.)
The ceremony begins. Oh dear, think she’s over her head with this one. The hand is getting out of her control – and it wen’t straight for Quentin. Oh, this is bad, she doesn’t know what to do to stop it, and is as close to panic as we’ve ever seen her. His transformation pains are starting, without the full moon. And he transforms. Angie seems rather calm considering she has no special protection to keep the wolf from ripping her up. Now we see that this little debacle has a witness: Fenn-Gibbons staring through the window.
Jeannie