Discuss - Ep #0861

Robservations #861

I'm not sure why the people at Collinwood are always sending folks off to the sanitarium when Collinwood itself is clearly the real mad house.  Everybody who walks down the stairs at this point is either possessed, suffering from identity conflict or just plain mad.

Joan Bennett is back in the voiceover and if one didn't already know who had come in during the seance, one should now.  I particuarly liked the line, " All that paint on your face."   I reminded me of when my grandmother came home from one of her functions that had inculded a "modern dance"  and how that was " shocking."   Then she says, "My Collinwood."  Then the reveal that she was in the sanitarium for four months and Greg never came once while he said he was visiting once a week and stayed overnight.  What can Greg have been doing?   Judith wants to save Pansy "from a cheap and tawdry life."  Things are picking up.
It is revealed that Judith bit her governess and that her parents were buried on the same day.  Judith didn't cry until afterwards and Quentin was the one who saw her.   

Judith is back, hurray! I loved her scene with Charity/Pansy.

Judith let Edward know that dear Gregory hasn't been to see her once at the sanitarium. Edward is rightly furious at this, and though Judith seems to want to withhold from passing judgment until she hears Trask's side of the story, I think she's even more appalled by her husband's lack of interest in her welfare, she's just not going to show it.

I wish that she and Edward hadn't assumed that it was Barnabas who turned Charity into Pansy Faye. What would Barnabas have to gain from doing that? And if Barnabas HAD done it, as Judith pointed out, why didn't the possession end once she staked him? [spoiler] Then again, the possession didn't end when Petofi perished in the fire at Tate's studio. Or did he? We never really saw him burn to death, did we? There is speculation that maybe Petofi didn't die, but we never got the whole story on what happened to him after the fire [/spoiler]

I'm not sure why the people at Collinwood are always sending folks off to the sanitarium when Collinwood itself is clearly the real mad house.  Everybody who walks down the stairs at this point is either possessed, suffering from identity conflict or just plain mad.

Yes, I was thinking that the four months at Rushmore must have been wonderfully peaceful for Judith, so why would she want to come back to Collinwood?  But, as alwaysdavid noted, she said, "My Collinwood," and that explains everything.  As I grow older, more and more things in Dark Shadow resonate with my experiences.  Somewhere towards the end of my life, I'll be watching Dark Shadows and feel that I'm actually there at Collinwood - sort of like [spoiler]Kitty being absorbed into Josette's portrait.[/spoiler]

Going on that theory, someday Charity's sudden emotion at the mention of her mother today will ring true, but I'm not there yet.

It must have been a novel experience for Quentin to have Judith smiling at him and hanging on his every word.  Does he have a plan of action with Judith, or is he just feeling his way?

Like everybody else, I'm very happy to see Joan Bennett back.  It felt good to see her name in the closing credits.