Discuss - Ep #0811

[Watching Project]

Robservations #811

[alwaysdavid]

I kept wondering why the Afghan is around the bottom of the crib.  What was it hiding?  Are the prop people just trying to make sure it appears on everything that is a bed at least once?  Despite that distraction, I thought, that it was a well played and poignant scene.  Quentin too late realizes what he had and lost with Jenny.  Quentin still appears to not be mature enough to realize that the only way to keep Lenore safe is to give her up until he has his drunken dream in the drawing room.  I was not surprised to see in the credits that this was written by the dream lady. 

[EmeraldRose]

Major Milestones:
1. Jenny's ghost saved Lenore and told Quentin to look in his heart to know what to do to keep her safe.
2. Magda and Quentin took Lenore to Collinwood.
3. Trask tried to get Edward to sign a paper making Trask Jamison's guardian, but Edward refused to sign because he didn't remember having a son.
4. Quentin thought the best thing for Lenore was to bring her to Collinwood until he had the dream with Jenny. Jenny told him he had to give Lenore up to keep her safe.
5. Trask told Edward to kill Quentin, so Edward started to strangle him.

During the opening voiceover, Jerry Lacy said that if Lenore died, Chris would cease to exist. What about Amy? The writers forgot about her!

I don't like the background music when Jenny was singing to Lenore. It should have been just her singing. It was too much to hear at once. The background music made it hard for me to hear Jenny. It was like hearing two songs at the same time.  

That was pretty chilling when Edward was strangling Quentin with a tie in the dream, and then Quentin woke up to find Edward strangling him for real with his bare hands!

----- Sally -----

[Roland]

Frankly, I found Jenny's ghost to be fairly ridiculous.  When Quentin and Beth were ghosts, they couldn't even speak and had to communicate telepathically with the children.  Yet, Jenny sashays into the room as if she had just been invited over for afternoon tea, even going so far as to take the baby out of the crib and wander around the room with her (or at least with a bundle of swaddling clothes that LOOKS kind of like a baby).  I realize that ghosts who are summoned - as opposed to those who are just "hanging around" - may, for some reason, have an  ability to speak while the others do not, but at least Julianka had the decency to remain as a semi-transparent apparition hanging in midair when she appeared on the scene.  For me, Jenny is just way too corporeal for a ghost of any type.

On the positive side, I thought the scenes with Edward were absolutely brilliant, both in the writing and the acting by Louis Edmund.  He does a beautiful job making Edward into a truly poignant and sympathetic figure, yet one who is sadly funny at the same time.  

[MagnusTrask]

The butler is my favorite LE characterization.  He's touching and hilarious at the same time.

As for inconsistency amongst spirits, well, this is a world of magic.   When dealing with fiction involving the known real world or science fiction, I require consistency.   In a fictional world of magic, absolute predictable consistency would be a real disappointment.   Why wouldn't Jenny Collins appear to those important to her, at a crucial moment, as she needs to, and able to speak?   Perhaps she wouldn't have been able to do so at any other moment.   Maybe it was the special character of this moment that allowed her to communicate.

As for Beth, say, perhaps the nature of her afterlife determines her abilities and the nature of her presence.   People die in different ways, for different reasons, and their spirits linger therefore in different ways.   To say that all ghosts must have the same abilities is to deny what being a ghost is.   Ghosts haunt us or remain in the world because of how they died, and what went wrong in their lives.   All that is different for every person.   Beth is silenced for a long time, perhaps by Quentin, perhaps by the special characteristics of her haunting.

Jenny was, all things considered, an innocent, and when it came time for her to speak something important, she could.

[Midnite]

This was the last ep directed by DC.  I can't say I approve of some of Curtis' choices-- having Trask enter the house through the front doors although we had just seen him in the tower room, playing music that competed with Marie Wallace's singing (as EmeraldRose pointed out), and that seemingly endless glimpse of Quentin sleeping before his dream kicks in.  Okay, one can make the best of the last one.

Jenny to Quentin:  "Don't lock her behind prison walls. Gypsies die in prison."
They don't get last names in the credits either.

I think the logic of the Cain and Abel re-enactment was faulty, to say the least.  As Master of Collinwood, Gregory was able to order Edward to murder Quentin, yet Gregory says it's totally Quentin's decision to never let Edward out.  But if Gregory is in charge, then he could overrule Quentin by letting Edward out himself, and if he's not in charge, then he shouldn't be able to give an order to kill someone in the house.  You can't have it both ways.  Also, Edward refused to sign the paper because he knew he didn't have a son, yet he agreed to commit murder?  So in Edward's rigid mind, killing is just under the right circumstances but signing a paper under false pretenses is wrong?  Out of revenge or out of duty-- whatever Edward's motive was to kill Quentin, I'm not buying it.

ProfStokes' pet peeve rears its ugly head in Quentin saying "you're choking me" while he's being choked.

I kept wondering why the Afghan is around the bottom of the crib.

Did you notice that in the dream, the afghan was swapped for the other, earth-toned afghan? 

During the opening voiceover, Jerry Lacy said that if Lenore died, Chris would cease to exist. What about Amy? The writers forgot about her!

I'm guessing that we're so far into 1897 that anyone who has tuned in since then might have been confused by the mention of Amy's name.  But that's me.

Frankly, I found Jenny's ghost to be fairly ridiculous.  When Quentin and Beth were ghosts, they couldn't even speak and had to communicate telepathically with the children.  Yet, Jenny sashays into the room as if she had just been invited over for afternoon tea, even going so far as to take the baby out of the crib and wander around the room with her (or at least with a bundle of swaddling clothes that LOOKS kind of like a baby).  I realize that ghosts who are summoned - as opposed to those who are just "hanging around" - may, for some reason, have an  ability to speak while the others do not, but at least Julianka had the decency to remain as a semi-transparent apparition hanging in midair when she appeared on the scene.  For me, Jenny is just way too corporeal for a ghost of any type.

Yes, up until this point, Quentin and Beth only spoke in dreams, but we'll see that the rules will change for at least one of them.  Could it also be that Quentin refused to speak and wouldn't allow Beth to either?  I see your point that Julianka was summoned too, but she was pretty unhappy about it, and Jenny seems to have appeared in her place this time out of choice.

Perhaps she wouldn't have been able to do so at any other moment.   Maybe it was the special character of this moment that allowed her to communicate.

I have to agree with this.  Jenny let us know her time was very limited.  Maybe her abilities stemmed from maternal instinct and sheer force of will?  In order to communicate any further she had to appear in Quentin's dream (or was that Quentin looking into his heart? ).

I was bugged, however, by Jenny's behavior.  In death, she's sane, focused, calm, well-coiffed and confident.  And she now has self esteem-- she agreed when Quentin said that Lenore was as beautiful as she, but remember Jenny's "Wasn't I pretty enough?"  WTH?!

[IluvBarnabas]

Hearing the ghost of Jenny sing to baby Lenore is IMO one of the most heartbreaking scenes of the series. I still get choked up watching this scene.

I have no problems with Jenny's spirit being sane after death. I think it's a sign that she found peace, despite her violent and tragic end.

I loved watching Edward thinking he's a servant. Watching Trask manipulate him into trying to strangle Quentin really ticks me off though.

Me thinks Trask led Edward to believe that as long as Quentin was alive, Trask couldn't take his place as Master of the house and Edward had to stay locked up. Perhaps Edward the servant is so desperate for his freedom, he'd do ANYTHING to get out of there. From the looks of it, he's probably bored to death up there.

[Lydia]

Perhaps Edward the servant is so desperate for his freedom, he'd do ANYTHING to get out of there. From the looks of it, he's probably bored to death up there.

I don't think Manservant Edward would ever be bored.  His sole preoccupation is to serve, and when he's not serving, he isn't bored; he's just waiting to resume serving, without thought of anything else.  The talk of his service with the Earl of Hampshire is quite detailed, to the point where I wonder if, as Magnus suggested when Edward first was Kissed, there was indeed was a Hampshire servant named Edward.

Did you notice that in the dream, the afghan was swapped for the other, earth-toned afghan?

Yup.

I'm guessing that we're so far into 1897 that anyone who has tuned in since then might have been confused by the mention of Amy's name.  But that's me.

The Jennings who leapt to my mind was Tom.  If he ceased to exist, Julia would never have been bitten - although, given the way Dark Shadows does things, 1968 would not have been changed.  Chris and Amy would have gone POOF in 1969 and everybody would have wondered what happened to them.  If that were not the case, then Barnabas could have solved the 1969 problem very neatly by strangling Lenore in her cradle so that Amy, being non-existent, wouldn't have come to Collinwood so that Quentin's ghost would never have been activated.  But Barnabas may not realize that Amy was the initial cause of Quentin's haunting of Collinwood.

It was nice of Quentin to tell Jenny that if he had to do it all over again, things would be different - but I think he's just kidding himself.