Discuss - Ep #0827

[Watching Project]

Robservations #827

[alwaysdavid]

Magda is going over Widow's Hill.   Barnabas comes to the rescue out of night and uses his powers to send they gypsy with no tongue over the hill.  I wish Barnabas had consistant powers or they explained why they work sometimes and others they don't.   Sandor spilled the beans about Barnabas.  I didn't see that one coming.   Johnny agrees to help Quentin.  So why did Magda just not ask for help in the first place and not steal the hand?  The door to the Old House is actually bolted!    King Johnny's blade looks real.  I wonder why they gave Aristede a paper one?  Maybe they were afraid he's cut himself or someone else.   Ready set to cut off the hand again.

[Midnite]

Johnny agrees to help Quentin.  So why did Magda just not ask for help in the first place and not steal the hand?

She did, though without mentioning Quentin by name:

I didn't locate the daughter of the old gypsy, but that doesn't matter--I went to Boston and asked King Johnny Romana if he knew where she was--he said she was dead, like her mother--the one who cursed Count Petofi.  I was afraid of that says Barnabas--did you mention Quentin's name?I didn't, she assures him--I said there was a certain party who needed help, and two gypsy children--he knew a way, she says, a sure way of ending the curse--"You will see, Barnabas," she says--the end of Quentin's curse rests right here, in this box.

Of course, the old woman's backstory will be altered to include a generation or two.  But also, with the way the hand of Petofi was revered and protected by the tribe, I doubt Johnny would have handed it over to her.  (No pun intended, I swear.)

King Johnny's blade looks real.  I wonder why they gave Aristede a paper one?  Maybe they were afraid he's cut himself or someone else.

LOL  Because scimitar props were readily available, but a fake wavy blade-- not so much?

[EmeraldRose]

Major Milestones:
1. Barnabas saved Magda! He made Istvan jump off Widow's Hill and told King Johnny all about Count Petofi. Magda was finally able to say that Count Petofi used his powers on her to prevent her from saying his name.
2. King Johnny promised to help Quentin.
3. King Johnny confronted Count Petofi and was about to cut off his hand again with the Golden Scimitar!
4. King Johnny was the only gypsy with powers stronger than Count Petofi.

There was a skip when Barnabas told King Johnny where Count Petofi was. Some dialog was missed.

I love the look on King Johnny's face when Count Petofi was strangling him! The same look was on Count Petofi's face when King Johnny raised the scimitar to cut off his hand. Bug eyes!  

I like the word scimitar. It's a neat word. I also like King Johnny's elaborate robe. Quite impressive! Made him look very royal.

I actually felt sorry for Count Petofi in this episode, even though he was a horrible man. To be faced with the prospect of having his hand cut off again, and then killed! (Especially the cutting off of the hand part.) Horrible! No wonder he was so frightened of the gypsies!

Excellent episode! Well acted by all.

----- Sally -----

[IluvBarnabas]

I can't say I felt sorry for Petofi, seeing as he has inflicted as much damage on the Collins family as he can, and ready to destroy them if he doesn't get what he wants.

I was glad to see that King Johnny was made aware of the truth. He is a worthy adversary for Petofi, even more powerful than he. It's too bad though that Johnny didn't have Istvan with him when he confronted Petofi for [spoiler] in the next episode Aristede was able to put a knife in his back without any interference at all. [/spoiler]

I'm glad that Barnabas saved Magda too. He owed her after what happened to Sandor and after all the times he bossed her around.

[Midnite]

The voiceover tells us that Sandor's ghost was sent to destroy Magda, which was news to me.  I thought he sounded sincere when he appeared to her on Widow's Hill and offered to help her, saying that he missed her and wanted them to be together again.  Granted, hiding her from her pursuers meant she would have to die too, but how powerful would King Johnny have to be to turn a dead Sandor, whom he tortured and murdered, against his wife?  And if Johnny really did have the ghost of Sandor under his control, then the corruption of her sole witness means that Magda did not receive even a modicum of justice during her trial.  

Hmm, couldn't Johnny have realized just a few seconds earlier that the stranger who had Istvan under his control was none other than Barnabas Collins?  But nooo, Johnny didn't pull out the cross until after Istvan was over the cliff.  

Johnny to Barnabas:  "Alright, I forgive everything. Now tell me who has the hand."
Everything?  Really?  He said this before Petofi's name even came up.  Before he found out that Magda was under a spell.  Before he learned that Magda was innocent of Julianka's murder.  

Apparently, the spell on Magda prevented her from saying, writing, or talking about Petofi, but in this ep she openly admits to Johnny that she couldn't talk about Petofi because he put a spell on her.  Then while she was captive, why didn't she say, "I can't answer your questions about where the hand is or who killed Julianka because THERE IS A SPELL ON ME THAT PREVENTS ME FROM TELLING YOU??!!!"  

I loved her incantation for Sandor:  "Oh death, who makes the earth grow..."

I realized during the redo of that scene that she was not calling to death; it sounds like she was saying, "O Dell."  Not Terra or Tellus, but Dell.  She may as well have incanted "Oh Intel" because there is no god or goddess named Dell, at least not that I've ever heard of.  Why didn't the writer (VW) use the name of an actual pagan earth goddess?  

This ep was one big eye roll from start to finish.

[Lydia]

The scene in which Istvan jumps off Widows Hill is pretty cool - and pretty cold.  Barnabas knew nothing about Istvan.  He deliberately sent a perfect stranger to his death, for no other reason to make a point.  But Istvan wasn't a member of his own family, so I guess it was OK.  By the way, I'd like to have seen the proceedings when Istvan's body was discovered.

Why is King Johnny named Johnny?  We've had Sandor, Magda, and Julianka - all exotic names for gypsies.  We've heard of Miklos (if I remember correctly), Zarco, and Matteo - more foreign names.  We've had Jenny, which is not a foreign name.  It's reasonable, however, to suspect that Jenny's original name was more foreign-sounding but that at a very young age she insisted on being called Jenny.  And then we've got the current king of the gypsies, and he's called Johnny.  I imagine that in the beginning the idea of the writers was to emphasize that he was only a gypsy king, but right now the name is sticking out like a sore thumb.

I hate it when Barnabas says, "I have a feeling..."  It sounds so unlike him.

You can count me in among those who feel some slight sympathy for Petofi, because he made it sound as though the cutting off of his hand would be more painful that it would for an ordinary person with an ordinary hand.  But that may have been merely Petofi's own self-centeredness talking.  And, unless I'm mistaken, Petofi started out like an ordinary human being and it was by his own efforts that he acquired supernatural power.  So "some slight sympathy" is as far as I go.

[Midnite]

I imagine that in the beginning the idea of the writers was to emphasize that he was only a gypsy king, but right now the name is sticking out like a sore thumb.

His name doesn't bother me since the gypsy musical I mentioned a while back had King Johnny Dembo as its lead character... and Chita Rivera as "Anyanka," who was the daughter of another gypsy king and was to marry Johnny's son.  Surely that can't be a coincidence, right?  (Donna McKechnie's future hubby Michael Bennett danced in the chorus when it was on Broadway, btw.)  As for the title, aren't they only kings of their own tribe?