Discuss - Ep #0804

[Watching Project]

Robservations #804

[alwaysdavid]

Edward Collins is the Earl of Hampshire's gentleman.   I think that this is the first time that anyone actually said that the servant's quarters are under the staircase.   
No!  He's back and he's Charles Delaware Tate.  I knew this happened but I must have blocked it from my mind or thought it happened much farther down the road.  He's persued by rich women and beautiful girls?   He calls Aristede.  Aristedee.  Apparently nobody on the set bothered to correct his pronunciation.  I can just see the actors and crew laughing behind his back on the set. 
Charity sure has some nerve and to say that he's going to see some slut.  I wonder how they managed to get that past the censors.
Barnabas' appearance in the shadows comes off well and there is Jenny's picture on the mantel.  Quentin explains it.
We learn that the boy is buried in the woods near Sandor.  Why?  No headstone?   That doesn't make sense  except that they are trying to make it unmarked as it was in the present.  The girl looks like Jenny.  Too bad they never got  to do a story involving that generation of the family.  It would have answered a lot of questions or maybe just gave us more to puzzle about.
Edith supposedly commissioned a painting of Quentin.   Barnabas takes Jamison through the secret door.   The credits list a new scenic designer.    A lot happened in this episode.

[EmeraldRose]

Major Milestones Not Mentioned Yet:
1. 1st appearance of Charles Delaware Tate - 2nd character that Roger Davis played in 1897.
2. 1st time Charity was "possessed" by the spirit of Pansy Faye.
3. We discovered that Judith was staying at Rushmore Sanitarium in Portland.
4. Barnabas tried to hypnotize Jamison/Petofi to make Petofi's spirit leave him, but it didn't work.

It was amusing when Charity judgementally accused Quentin of going off to see "some slut", and then, after the "kiss of truth", she became a slut! How ironic!

...Charles Delaware Tate... He calls Aristede.  Aristedee.  Apparently nobody on the set bothered to correct his pronunciation.  I can just see the actors and crew laughing behind his back on the set.

I laughed, too! That was really funny!

I love the green lighting on Barnabas when he appeared in Quentin's room. It looks really neat!

It was rather ominous when Jamison/Petofi looked at that book with the names in it. I am looking forward to some funny and enlightening scenes with those characters who he didn't "truth kiss" yet.

I bet part of Quentin relished locking Edward up in the tower room, knowing that he had ordered Jenny to be locked up in that same room. Poor Quentin! He was so sad when he told Barnabas that he visited his son's grave and met his daughter, who looked just like Jenny. It's a shame that he wasn't told about their existence when he first came back. Maybe he wouldn't have killed Jenny had he known.  

I enjoyed watching Quentin tell CDT that he wasn't interested in the portrait, and then throw him out. It was strange to watch Jamison answer the door and tell Tate that he was the same person that he knew well. Again I say... Henesy sure is a great actor! Selby is no slouch, either.  

Excellent episode again. Kudos to all for their great performances.

----- Sally -----

[IluvBarnabas]

Gosh, Charity is being judgemental when she threw a fit when she thought that he was going to see another woman...especially considering they're NOT married, NOT engaged, NOT even dating...though she would love to be doing all that. Until he pops the question and puts a wedding ring on her finger (like that's ever gonna happen) Quentin does NOT have to answer to Charity for who he goes to see or how he spends his time.

Besides, we all know how he faired at marriage once before. But he has matured quite a bit since then.

Did love seeing Charity's possession by Pansy. As I once said on another thread awhile back, Charity was more fun as the fun-loving, singing psychic Pansy than as the judgemental, self-righteous prune she was turning out to be.

It's also fun to see Edward thinking he's a servant. A much needed relief from the stuffy, pompous ass he usually was.

I don't know if Quentin relished locking Edward up, but Jamison/Petofi sure was having a ball turning the lives of so far, Beth, Edward, and Charity by a simple kiss on the cheek.

[Roland]

I love the voiceover of Jamison/Petofi as he goes through the list of his present and future victims.  There's something almost creepily poetic about it.

[Midnite]

Yay, the sexually repressed Charity has finally let her hair down!  DS fans have debated if Charity was possessed by the spirit of Pansy, or if it Petofi merely made her think that she was.  But what convinces me of the former are Charity's new psychic abilities; even if Petofi gave them to her, how could he know about Carl's death?  And haven't we seen ghost possessions before on DS in which the person who is being controlled oscillates between normal and possessed?  (Can you Amy and David?)

In order for the real Edward to be suffering, he must somehow be aware of his new status as a domestic who is willing to do anything.  Ouch.

But what's unsatisfying to me about the truth spells are the constant promises that the revelations they will bring will be shattering and oh-so destructive.  Yet, for its first 3 victims, are their exposures to truth all that tragic?

I think that this is the first time that anyone actually said that the servant's quarters are under the staircase.

Though we've consistently seen Beth (and others) heading in and out of there on the way to or from her room.

While Quentin was haunting Collinwood, however, we were told that the West Wing had its own servant's quarters during his lifetime (abandoned in the present) and were shown Beth's tiny room in there.  Even when Liz was offering the WW as a wedding gift, she described it as a self-contained part of the house.  But nothing we see in 1897 supports any of this.

No!  He's back and he's Charles Delaware Tate.

I feel your pain, alwaysdavid!

He calls Aristede.  Aristedee.  Apparently nobody on the set bothered to correct his pronunciation.  I can just see the actors and crew laughing behind his back on the set.

LOL

Edith supposedly commissioned a painting of Quentin.

I thought that was a big lie designed to cover up Petofi's commissioning of the painting.  Why else would Tate come to the door asking for Jamison, who was expecting him?

The credits list a new scenic designer.

John Dapper has been in the credits since #791.  So any blame for the pendulum set is his.

3. We discovered that Judith was staying at Rushmore Sanitarium in Portland.

From #793:

Beth exits the servants' quarters.  Edward calls to her as he's heading downstairs--Beth, are you going out now?  For a little while, she says.  Get your rest,he advises--you are to be up and ready to leave with me at sunrise.  Leave? She asks.  You are to accompany Judith and me to Portland, he says--her condition has gotten worse, and I'm placing her in Rushmore Sanitarium

[EmeraldRose]

Oops! I made another mistake! I meant to say:

3. We discovered that Judith was going to be taken to Rushmore Sanitarium first thing in the morning.

Sorry for my blooper!

----- Sally -----

[MagnusTrask]

Midnite, do you see some dead butler as inhabiting our Ed?  Petofi can call up ghosts from everyplace, or everyplace he's been?   I'm being naive I guess... but it raises the question of what the hell happened to the
Earl's butler!    There's a huge chunk of backstory involving Andreas and the Earl of Hampshire... and staff...  we're supposed to be confused by it all I guess.

[Midnite]

I don't think so, Magnus.  Edward answers to his own name, and unlike the possessed Charity, he stays firmly in the mindset of a servant.  Maybe Petofi chose the identity of the Earl's gentleman to make it even worse for Edward, since he knew the Edward and the Earl were close friends?

EmeraldRose, I think you misunderstood my response; the quote is from an earlier ep.  In other words, we learned Judith's destination in #793, so it wasn't a milestone in this episode.  Judith has been at Rushmore since the day Julianka died.  Though considering how much can occur at Collinwood in a single day, that could have been yesterday. 

[EmeraldRose]

Oops! I did it again! I'm so sorry!  I didn't notice that your quote was from a previous episode. I had forgotten that scene from Episode #794. I assumed that when Roger mentioned it on the phone, it was the first time we heard the name Rushmore Sanitarium. That's what I get when I assume! (I made an ass out of you and me.) My assumptions get me in so much trouble!

----- Sally -----

[Lydia]

Yay, the sexually repressed Charity has finally let her hair down!  DS fans have debated if Charity was possessed by the spirit of Pansy, or if it Petofi merely made her think that she was.  But what convinces me of the former are Charity's new psychic abilities; even if Petofi gave them to her, how could he know about Carl's death?  And haven't we seen ghost possessions before on DS in which the person who is being controlled oscillates between normal and possessed?

I'm not so sure, at this point.  We saw psychic abilities before, when Charity had the dream about Quentin that you, Midnite, dislike so much.  Maybe Charity had ESP all along, but repressed it because she knew from her father that such things were the devil's work - but she didn't really want to repress it, especially when Carl started talking rhapsodically to her about his Pansy.  (I can't imagine when he would have done that, but we didn't see Victor Fenn-Gibbons befriending Jamison, either.)  The oscillation is odd, but maybe Trask's training is so strong that it can even put up a good fight against The Kiss of Truth.

Gosh, how strange to see Quentin as the only responsible inhabitant of Collinwood!  I imagine Quentin feels the strangeness of it, too.

Edward answers to his own name, and unlike the possessed Charity, he stays firmly in the mindset of a servant.  Maybe Petofi chose the identity of the Earl's gentleman to make it even worse for Edward, since he knew the Edward and the Earl were close friends?

Or maybe the Earl's gentleman identity harks back to the Earl teasing Edward about something of the sort.

I think Manservant Edward's comment about liking to have children in the house was sort of sweet - in fact, very sweet.  Many episodes ago I cast doubt on Edward's affection for Nora, and now I see that I was wrong.

I hope we won't hear anything more from Barnabas about endeavoring not to change the past.  Grabbing a kid and whisking him behind a secret panel are not the actions of one who is there simply to observe.

[Midnite]

We saw psychic abilities before, when Charity had the dream about Quentin that you, Midnite, dislike so much.  Maybe Charity had ESP all along, but repressed it because she knew from her father that such things were the devil's work - but she didn't really want to repress it, especially when Carl started talking rhapsodically to her about his Pansy.

Well, I can't say I found the dream all that precognitive.  Charity had just been chased back to Collinwood by the werewolf, where she hysterically proclaims that no one is safe while it's on the loose.  And then, before Charity turns in, Magda reads her cards and interprets the Moon in the spread as a bad card that's associated with deception, and she warns her to avoid a dangerous man who will soon be in her life, all the while knowing (as do we) that Charity has the hots for Quentin.  As she dreams, her subconscious seems to connect the dots from there-- there's a passionate rendezvous with Quentin (accompanied by, of course, his one and only song), some talk about the power of the moon, and then Quentin remains passive while the werewolf menaces her.

Oh wait, there IS something that doesn't fit-- the writers added a recitation of "Shadows of the Night" to the dream.  Unless we're supposed to believe that it's a popular song in that era, how could Charity know the lyrics for Quentin's music?  But I suspect the goal was to titillate young fans (and sell more records) rather than to convey the message that Charity could, at this point, foresee the future.

[Lydia]

Midnite, you make good points, as usual, but I think maybe a few too many dots are being connected.  If Charity were going to believe that somebody was so evil as to be a werewolf, I'm betting she would choose Tim Shaw to be that person.

I agree with you about the real purpose of the dream, but we're stuck with it in the Dark Shadows universe.  Right now I'm thinking about the topic about the end of Guiding Light, and the laments that too much attention was paid to the bottom line.  I've never been a soap opera fan outside of Dark Shadows, so my thought has been, "Well, in the end, that's what they're there for, isn't it?"  Maybe I'll have to rethink my views, or maybe it's the difference between the short-term bottom line and the long-term bottom line.  Then again, we know that, forty years later, lots of people still love that dream.

[Midnite]

If Charity were going to believe that somebody was so evil as to be a werewolf, I'm betting she would choose Tim Shaw to be that person.

True that-- had Tim been in it, he probably would have become the werewolf.  But in that dream, the wolf merely shows up to interrupt her tryst with Quentin, who stays human.