Discuss - Ep #1206

[Watching Project]

Robservations #1206

And remember:

Tuesday, May 3: No Episode, originally preempted Tuesday, February 9, 1971 for the Apollo 14 Splashdown

[Lydia]

It's clear to me that parallel time Barnabas and Josette are not the same people as Barnabas and Josette in our time.  Our-time Barnabas, before Angelique started destroying his life, didn't have the dark moods that parallel time Josette mentions: he was a nice, ordinary young man.  And our-time Josette was much more rigid than parallel time Josette is.  Time might have softened her, but not to that extent, I think.

Anyway, how could they be the same?  The existence of the Room at Collinwood would have changed everything long before Barnabas was born.

On the rerun of the opening cliffhanger, I was more struck than before by Julia's question to Catherine: "Are you sure you want to do this?"  Julia was born to this family.  She never had the option of not being a part of it.  She was giving Catherine the choice that she herself had never had.  But if Julia were given this choice right now, I think she would choose to be part of the Collins family.  Otherwise she would not have expressed concern about the scandal that the duel could cause.

So now we've got Bramwell having been away for seven years and Quentin having been away for seven years.  But Quentin's return to Collinwood didn't stir things up the way Bramwell's return did.  What a pity!  Or maybe the writers were saving adventures with Quentin for the possibility that 1841 parallel time would be as popular with the viewers as 1897 was, and would be accordingly expanded beyond what had been originally planned, as 1897 was.

[DarkLady]

I've always liked parallel Josette. I especially love this scene with her and Melanie, and the one with the two women and Barnabas. I've always thought that the Locked Room, time and an apparently long widowhood have left their mark on her--not to mention being a single mother bringing up a son like Bramwell.

Great fun with a fistfight opener and a duel as the finale! But this time around (unlike with "our" Barnabas and Jeremiah), Barnabas, as the challenged party, should have chosen the weapons. I also enjoyed seeing Josette stand up to the formidable Julia.

True, Julia was born a Collins but if she looked anything like the young Grayson Hall she surely must have had at least one or two offers of marriage, and then she would have left Collinwood. Apparently preserving the family honor was more important to her.

[MagnusTrask]

I was surprised how early in the storyline PT middle-aged Josette appears.   I'd thought they materialized her out of nothing later on, to make things more interesting.   They sneak her into the story strangely.   But, do they name her as Josette?  Who cares I guess, since Barnabas was named as having been her husband, but I don't remember the name "Josette".   My memory is swiss-cheese-like however.

Bram belts Morgan leaving him on the floor, anti-climactic pause, no musical punctuation... then Morgan tries to get up and breaks stuff, THEN the dramatic music!   Breakables breaking are the real drama apparently...

Morgan to Cath about what shenanigans may have gone on in the Old House: "He's a very persuasive man."   Interesting, Morgan completely knows, and is semi-forgiving.   By the way, is the PT Old House referred to as "The Old House" ever?    I wonder since PT Collinwood is at least as old, as we find out later on.

What if RT Barnabas had found out that a PT Josette still lived?   Once having moved heaven and earth to get to her, how would he have reacted to her PT older matronliness?   Has anyone pondered that moment, when Barn confronts Josette as a non-SWT?

PT Josette is utterly unbuyable to me.   If she had been anything like our Josette (and maybe she wasn't), that impressive benign imperiousness (a sort of magnetism which misled badBarn into thinking Maggie was inferior) would have continued.   Mary Cooper projects generic American matronliness, rather than an air of an aging French beauty who expanded her resume to include mommying, but was still herself.

[Mysterious Benefactor]

We have no idea what PTJosette's background is, so we can't necessarily assume anything based on RTJosette's background. PTJosette is her own character - and an interesting one at that. Although, she does sort of have one thing in common with RTJosette (beyond the obvious) that will turn out to be a major plot point in this storyline...