Discuss - Ep #0067

[Watching Project]

Robservations #67

[IluvBarnabas]

Our first glimpse of Mrs. Johnson...hurray! She almost reminded me of Abigail Collins the way she was implying that the Collins family were somehow responsible for what happened to her employer. If only Malloy had her with him that night of the meeting. Someone might have winded up on the rocks anyway, but it definitely wouldn't have been him, Mrs. Johnson would have seen to that! She was as devoted to Malloy as Matthew Morgan is to Elizabeth.

Maggie was actually willing to perjure herself for her father....good thing Burke had left the coffee shop by that time, or he would have gone off the handle with accusations that Sam put her up to it. Say what you will about Sam, I'm glad that he wasn't willing to let her lie for him to save his neck.

Burke has now come out in the open to Carolyn about his suspicions about her beloved Uncle Roger...now her romantic, idealistic view of Burke will certainly be seriously altered...or will it?

[MagnusTrask]

            WELCOME, SARA JOHNSON!   (Sarah?)

In the diner, Sam and Maggie go through a weird conversation to remind us of who Mr. Wells is, while perhaps "demoting" him, making him seem less important, so that we won't notice or think it's strange when we don't see him much in the future.  I'm reading all that into it of course, but it's more fun that way.   Maggie mentions Mr. Wells, last referred to just as "Hotel Clerk" in the credits awhile ago, Sam feigns (?) ignorance, then I think Maggie makes fun of Sam for it, and mock-reminds him, knowing Sam could not possibly have forgotten someone they see every day... aka "that jerk in the hotel!"   No longer her boss?   Just a joke?

That paragraph above lasted much longer than the exchange itself.

And considering Sam's constant, barely-under-control, almost blind panic, it's to his credit that he stopped Maggie from perjuring herself.   Compare and contrast...  Roger just has or soon will gave an opportunity to make that choice, though not with a family member [spoiler](that he's aware of).[/spoiler] (I'm usually an ep or two ahead so I don't remember if it was this one.)

 

[Janet the Wicked]

Sheriff: “Thank you for coming in, Sarah.”
Mrs. J: “Never mind that, George. I only want to know one thing from you--who killed Mr. Malloy?”

Ahhh… Our beloved Mrs. Johnson. Kind of gets you right there, doesn't she?

I love the loyalty that Maggie and Sam share and I always have. It may not be the healthiest relationship in the world, but you can see that these two really love each other.

[DarkLady]

This ep. confirms Magnus's idea that Burke has lost all respect for Vicki. He hopes that she won't suffer the fate of Ananias--being struck dead for lying. Not too vengeful, are we, Burke?

Mrs. Johnson is like a breath of fresh air with her plain speaking! Go, Sarah!

[alwaysdavid]

Here comes Mrs. Johnson and she seems to be quite off her rocker.  She claims she left the house at 10:45 so she doesn't live in, by the way she is carrying on one would think that she and BIll were more than friends.  If I were Patterson, I would wonder if she didn't kill Bill in a fit of jealously over his feelings for Elizabeth.

[IluvBarnabas]

This ep. confirms Magnus's idea that Burke has lost all respect for Vicki. He hopes that she won't suffer the fate of Ananias--being struck dead for lying. Not too vengeful, are we, Burke?

Right now, Burke is acting like a spoiled child who didn't get his own way. Vicki didn't say what he wanted to hear so he turns against her and labels her a liar and a traitor. I can't help but think that maybe she's better off without his friendship and his presence in her life, at least until he cools off, if he ever does.

The longer the mystery of Malloy's death is dragged out, the longer Burke is gonna go on his "Malloy was murdered by Roger and/or Sam" rampage. He's not really at his best during this period.

[MagnusTrask]

Well, if you were certain that a good man was just murdered for trying to help you, and you were certain the murderer could only be one man, and you'd exhausted the "reasonable" ways of resolving this, I'd like to think that you or any one of us would confront, rather than sit and let it all continue silently.   Burke must have a lot of guilt over, in a sense, having gotten Malloy killed.   He feels a responsibility to get justice for him.   If you knew, or were convinced you knew, that someone you liked and trusted had to be lying to cover for a murderer, that would make you bitter and angry.   

Burke has his flaws and excesses, but if we can put aside temporarily the fact that we side with the Collinses from years of watching later storylines where they're the good guys, we should be able to identify very much with Burke's point of view.   None of this is spoiled child behavior; on the contrary, he's being a man about it, acting, not shying away from conflict in a good cause.   This is about murder, not about just trying to get your way.

The writers are now starting to call Burke's judgment into question though, when they reveal that he was (almost?) so drunk that he couldn't remember clearly what had happened in the crash... and that he maintains his certainty anyway.   His righteous anger may rest on quicksand.   I wonder if this shows a shifting of gears by the writers, regarding where this storyline will end up, and who will be guilty.

[IluvBarnabas]

You make a persuasive argument, Magnus. But I still feel Burke was unreasonable as far as Vicki was concerned. He couldn't see that Roger, and to a lesser extent, Elizabeth was putting her on the spot? I'm sorry but I still say he's behaving like a spoiled brat who was told no when things didn't go his way.

I know Burke really liked Malloy, but is it really justice he's seeking for Malloy's death, or is he just angry that the man who could have helped clear him of the manslaughter charge got killed and is anxious to put the blame on the two people he holds responsible for his going to prison?

I like to think I wouldn't take the law into my own hands if all the 'reasonable' ways failed to produce justice. I hate to see a murder go unpunished as much as anyone but if the unorthadox methods to produce justice end up harming others then I say it's not worth it.

And that's the whole problem with Burke's vendetta against the Collinses. He has reason to hate Roger, but he doesn't know for an iron-clad fact that Elizabeth knows what Roger did to him. And he really has no right to use Carolyn or David as weapons for his vengeance.

[IluvBarnabas]

I don't know, I suppose I'm being too harsh on Burke, at least as far as his motives for wanting to nail Malloy's supposed killer. He did like Bill Malloy and I did sense a lot of concern coming from him when Malloy went missing.

I still wish he hadn't jumped the gun where Vicki was concerned though. No matter how anxious Burke is to get to the truth to what happened to Malloy, jumping to conclusions like he did over Vicki's supposed betrayal isn't the way to go about it.

[IluvBarnabas]

I guess I feel like Carolyn and Maggie at this point....I feel like wanting to hate Burke, but I just can't, really.

It's a real tribute to Mitchell Ryan that he's able to make such a lasting impression as Burke...at times you like him and can root for him, and other times not so much...but you can't really hate the man because he's so complex.

[MagnusTrask]

I would add that hearing Vicki say what she did in a rapid-fire, tense argument about a murder that looks like it may go unpunished... it affects a person IN the argument differently than someone observing it in a detached way through a TV.   We can listen placidly and without tension or anxiety, and say that Vicki wasn't really lying for Roger, but that's something that may have hit Burke a few minutes or an hour later, as he thought more about it, or possibly never.  He may be too close to it all.   It's possible that adrenaline itself interferes with patience and listening.

[Lydia]

I can understand Burke's point of view.  I can understand him feeling that Collins money bought an injustice ten years ago, and that with Bill Malloy's death, the injustice is expanding until it will cover the earth like Sherwin-Williams paint.  I just wish I enjoyed Burke's carryings-on a little bit more.  After all, this is supposed to be entertainment.

I just loved Maggie's bold-as-brass lie to Sheriff Patterson.  She's flaunting the fact that she's lying, and he can't do a thing about it.  Whatever Sam says, she'd still lie in court about it, and wild horses couldn't drag the truth out of her.  And that's what Patterson gets for telling the world what time Bill Malloy died.

I also like the way they keep Maggie busy.  Filling sugar dispensers, changing the menu, I can't remember what else - somebody has noticed that Kathryn Leigh Scott has a good memory for her lines and that she doesn't get rattled when she has to be doing something with her hands.

And yes, isn't it good to see Mrs. Johnson!  Sarah, not Sara, I think, because Sarah is Biblical.

[DarkLady]

To his credit, Burke is surprised when Carolyn tells him that Vicki didn't immediately go back to Collinwood and retail his insistent accusation that Roger killed Bill. He does have the grace to concede that he might have been wrong about Vicki.

I do admit to feeling a guilty pleasure when Maggie lied so boldly to the sheriff. She certainly knows her father's faults, but she'll defend him to her last breath.

[IluvBarnabas]

To his credit, Burke is surprised when Carolyn tells him that Vicki didn't immediately go back to Collinwood and retail his insistent accusation that Roger killed Bill. He does have the grace to concede that he might have been wrong about Vicki.

As Homer Simpson would say...d'oh! I should have remembered that before I went on my rant.   Ah well.