Discuss - Ep #1195

[Watching Project]

Robservations #1195

[MagnusTrask]

Good episode.   They're powering up for the end of 1840.    One scene after another, each has a compelling situation that inspires the writers.  

Q1 to Gejuradardh:   "This was all a set-up, wasn't it?"  Good for Q, with his futuristic hipster lingo.   This will make for a good caption "set-up" at some point.  The actual wedding had xylophone background music.   After it hits Daphne what Gerard has done, and after Gerdudahrard has ordered her up to their special honeymoon place, Quentin says to her "You'd better go upstairs."   What?!

Barnabas hits exposition paydirt at the PT room.   Lottery explained, PTQ1 explains self, scares PT Daphne, then chats her up.   He's very good at those 180 degree turns.

Great Barn/Ang scene.  DS "resonates" again.   It makes me wish I could believe what I'm seeing in 1840.   Why would the Devil side with Ang against his own "son", Judah?

[DarkLady]

This is the kind of episode that made me love DS!

Q1: You'd better go upstairs. WTF?? The only reason I can think of that he'd say this is that he was afraid of how Gerard would punish Daphne if she didn't obey. Still, WTF?? However, a nice little shivery bit when Gerard throws the covers off the bed and announces (unnecessarily for us) that he's a very patient man. I guess that's why instead of forcing himself on Daphne, he is calmly sitting in the drawing room when Valerie arrives so that he can gloat to her about Q1's recapture.

Barnabas gets to see more of PT than everyone else put together! Nice work by PT Quentin--who is surely the most mercurial of all the Quentins--and PT Daphne.

Fabulous, fabulous scene with Barn and Valerie--and very nice little soliloquy by V. later on. But she should really expand her bag of tricks.....

[Lydia]

Strange, Magnus and DarkLady think this was a really good episode, and I don't.  I don't think it was a noticeably bad one, but it was just a run-of-the-mill episode for me.

Angelique still doesn't get it.  Barnabas chews her out because she has no compassion for Quentin, and her response inside herself is, "Nope, no compassion for Quentin, but I love Barnabas, and if I do something for Quentin it will make Barnabas think I'm a nice person."  Once upon a time back in 1968 I decided that Barnabas's first real feelings of friendship for Julia came about because he rescued her from...well, you-know-who, and that made him feel kindly toward her.  Likewise, if Angelique rescues Quentin from his current perilous situation, that ought to generate feelings of warmth inside her towards him - but this is Angelique we're talking about, so it won't happen.

Why didn't Daphne pull that wedding ring off her finger?  I saw it gleaming when Gerard came back to her after she had been locked up a while.  And why didn't she spend her prison time looking for a weapon?  Daphne's no fool, but the writers had to turn her into silly ingenue for this.

Lamar Trask is squirm-inducingly unpleasant.  That smile of his makes my skin crawl.  1795 Trask really believed in the whole witchcraft thing.  1897 Trask knew what he wanted, and what he wanted was repulsive, but at least he had an interest in life.  This Trask is pure meanness.

Barnabas, like the others, just has to go see what's going on in the parallel time room.  Yeah, I know, there's no TV or internet in 1840, but hey, if he's looking for something to do, he could check local paper to see if there are any barnraisings in the area today.  At least that would be constructive.

I'm with the rest of the crowd in liking parallel time Quentin.  David Selby did a fine job of making the 180 degree turn that Magnus mentioned seem believable.  What are 1841 parallel time prisons like?

Parallel time Daphne's costume is the first I've seen of the many 1841 parallel time outfits that make me say, "Oh, I like it!" and "Oh, I don't like it!" in practically the same breath.

[Janet the Wicked]

My lord, how many entrances are there to the PT parlor room anyway??

A lot going on with Catherine’s dress there. Looked like the upper sleeves were made of that bubble shirt material. Remember bubble shirts? I had one that I loved and wore all the time. Well, with much wear and tear and laundering, sadly, the bubbles… popped.

[MagnusTrask]

Alas and alack and whatnot, I missed the heady halcyon days of the Bubble Shirts!   I don't know how I managed to miss out on so many trends...  maybe it was 'cause the '80s made me so afeared that I figuratively stuck my head under the desk and waited for it all to end....!

See, I'm a big fan of sarcasm, but don't want anyone to be hurt by it, and never, ever want to get people mad at me for it.   Honestly, and I don't use the word lightly, I never ever want to be a jerk.   So, I'm making fun (not very well) of the phenom of "bubble shirts" which I haven't even ever seen, but not making fun of the conveyor of the info, highly prized Wicked Janet.

What the f is a bubble shirt, anyway?   It can't possibly have been made of bubble wrap, which is what I'm picturing right now....

[DarkLady]

I think that smocking is the actual technical term for what Janet refers to as "bubbles." It's created by gathering teeny little pinches of material and sewing them together, like so:

http://sanctimommy.wordpress.com/2009/09/27/the-a-z-of-smocking-and-the-a-z-of-sewing-for-smockers/
Scroll down halfway to image

Once upon a time, smocking was a prominent feature of little girls' dresses. I remember it well. It still turns up from time to time, though rarely in women's clothes now.

(edited by admin)

[MagnusTrask]

Ah.  So it allows for variations in width of the wearer, in the same garment.   Thanks DL.   

[Janet the Wicked]

Nope. Not smocking. The shirts really did look like bubble wrap.

[DarkLady]

You're welcome, MT. Smocking can also be done by hand or by machine. Catherine must have had an amazing seamstress!

Wow, Janet, if your shirts really did look like bubble wrap I have trouble bringing an image to mind. I don't remember having any myself--but I'm afraid I'm not really a slave to fashion.