Discuss - Ep #0002

[Watching Project]

Robservations #2

[MagnusTrask]

Petofi box!

[DarkLady]

Elizabeth to Vicki about taking care of the forty-room mansion: "We have one man to do the heavy work, Miss Winters. The rest we do ourselves." Somehow the Mistress of Collinwood looks all the more regal as she says so.

Petofi box indeed! And Carolyn doing the frug at the Blue Whale!

Elizabeth is playing Chopin's Prelude in C Minor.

[B.Collins]

you know it's funny that she would say that, when we NEVER really did see anyone BUT "Matthew" or "Mrs. Johnson" later do the work around the house.

[Lydia]

Elizabeth is distant and mysterious with Vicky, and I love it with the black evening get-up, and then she sets in to yell at Roger, and then she becomes all warm and maternal when she discovers it's Carolyn.  I liked Joan Bennett today, and am trying to figure out how Elizabeth's going to manage when she's is in the same room with all three of them - Vicky, Roger, and Carolyn - at once.

40 rooms in the house, and there's an east wing and a west wing.  So, maybe, a dozen rooms - six up, six down - per wing and 16 rooms - maybe nine up, seven down - for the main part of the house?  It doesn't seem like so much when you break it down that way. 

Vicky got the room that Elizabeth slept in until she got married.  Why doesn't Carolyn have it?

Roger, who in yesterday's episode was telling Elizabeth what a fool she was for bringing a stranger into the house, today turned on the charm for that very stranger - and his charm is indeed charming.  Too bad Vicky mentioned Burke Devlin's name.

[DarkLady]

40 rooms in the house, and there's an east wing and a west wing.  So, maybe, a dozen rooms - six up, six down - per wing and 16 rooms - maybe nine up, seven down - for the main part of the house?  It doesn't seem like so much when you break it down that way.

Honestly, Lydia, until this moment I never gave the actual layout of the Great House any thought! It certainly seems big enough, even with only the main part open and the East and West wings closed. Sixteen rooms would be plenty for Elizabeth, Carolyn and Matthew to keep clean.

Vicky got the room that Elizabeth slept in until she got married.  Why doesn't Carolyn have it?

Good question. Maybe it isn't on the sunnier side of the house, and I'm sure Carolyn would want lots of light so she could see every detail of her reflection in her mirror.   I love how already Elizabeth warns Vicki that the catch on the window doesn't hold very well. And how she says she slept here "until ... until I was married."

Roger, who in yesterday's episode was telling Elizabeth what a fool she was for bringing a stranger into the house, today turned on the charm for that very stranger - and his charm is indeed charming.

Yes, Roger is extremely charming--when he wants to be. And I'm sure he doesn't turn it on just to be nice.

[Lydia]

Honestly, Lydia, until this moment I never gave the actual layout of the Great House any thought! It certainly seems big enough, even with only the main part open and the East and West wings closed. Sixteen rooms would be plenty for Elizabeth, Carolyn and Matthew to keep clean.

I agree that 16 rooms would be a lot to keep clean.  But (jumping ahead, something I don't approve of, but here I go) – I'm trying to imagine secret passageways and the ability to lose track of rooms in the house as it was described today.

Also, are the attic and the basement included in the 40 rooms?

Yes, I'm nitpicking.  But I love that house.

[Midnite]

Elizabeth is playing Chopin's Prelude in C Minor.

Did it make anyone think of Barry Manilow?  No?  

It's weird seeing pearls around Liz's neck and, uh, nothing else.

40 rooms in the house, and there's an east wing and a west wing.  So, maybe, a dozen rooms - six up, six down - per wing and 16 rooms - maybe nine up, seven down - for the main part of the house?  It doesn't seem like so much when you break it down that way.

It really doesn't now that you've put it that way.  Maybe that's why the total will change?

Vicky got the room that Elizabeth slept in until she got married.  Why doesn't Carolyn have it?

I think because that room is small and filled with old furniture-- roomy and full of history by Vicki's standards, but likely cramped and gloomy by Carolyn's.  So, little Carolyn dreamed of being carried off by a white knight, and now an expensively-dressed man with super powers (can halt a nasty fight with one look) has appeared suddenly and taken charge of her.  Yikes!

Strake:  "I'm glad the fight's over, Mr. Devlin."
Burke:  "It's just beginning, Mr. Strake."
Great stuff!!

Will Vicki EVER take off that trench coat?

[Lydia]

Will Vicki EVER take off that trench coat?

Yeah, that's what I was wondering.

[Mysterious Benefactor]

Isn't it explained at some point that the entire West Wing of Collinwood is closed off but only part of the East Wing -  and the family lives in the part of the East Wing that isn't closed? And as for the basement, any rooms down there wouldn't be counted. But the rooms on the third floor would be.

Interestingly, the actual house is often described as having 65 rooms - though I can't say that I've ever counted them...

[Mysterious Benefactor]

Will Vicki EVER take off that trench coat?

Yeah, that's what I was wondering.

A better point for me is why will they allow Alexandra Moltke to wear the trench coat[spoiler]in Ep #12 with a top button missing and with the threads for it flapping in the breeze?[/spoiler]

[Lydia]

Isn't it explained at some point that the entire West Wing of Collinwood is closed off but only part of the East Wing -  and the family lives in the part of the East Wing that isn't closed?

No, I'm sure Elizabeth said in today's episode that the east wing is closed off and they use only part of the west wing.  I took that to mean that mostly they lived in the main part of the house, which is neither the east wing nor the west wing.

[Mysterious Benefactor]

No, I know what Liz said in this ep. But my point was, like almost everything else about these early eps, doesn't the explanation of what's closed and what's lived in change down the line?

[Lydia]

Ah.  Yes, it does.  Which is why I disapprove of jumping ahead.   I shouldn't have done it.

[Gothick]

I so wish there had been at least one scene of Liz, dressed to the nines, running one of those old style Hoover vacuum cleaners, perhaps while humming the melody of that Chopin Prelude.

Of course it would have been a trial if she had had to empty the bag while making sure not to get dust and particles all over her fabulous black cocktail gown.  But challenges such as these are daily fare for one with the steel backbone of the Mistress of Collinwood. (!)

G.