Recap of Last Week's Episodes
EPISODE 43 (released 11/28/11)
Malloy comes into the Coffee Shoppe to pump Maggie for information, but, since she's on duty, he's unable to get her drunk to do it (that seems to be the method of choice for getting information these days). Unfortunately, Bill knows more about what's going on between Sam and Roger than she does, so the Hunter soon becomes the Hunted. Malloy warns Maggie that her father may have dangerous information. Maggie quickly deduces from this that it must have something to do with Roger, Burke Devlin, and that traffic accident 10 years ago. (In these early episodes, Maggie is still a pretty sharp cookie. Later on, she becomes as clueless as Vicki, which, as we've previously theorized, was probably the result of Vicki sneezing on her at some point).
Bill goes to the pay phone to call Roger, but doesn't have enough money for the call, as he just gave his last two cents worth to Maggie. Vicki comes in to tell Malloy that Liz is looking for him, which is a surprise to Bill, as he thought he was looking for Vicki. Vicki says that Liz found her and then sent her to look for him. (These episodes would be about 2 minutes long if they took place at a time after cell phones were invented).
Vicki and Maggie chat a bit about how Malloy has become such a gloomy old gus lately, just like Joe Btfsplk. They never mention that name though, they just refer to him as "that comic strip character who goes around with a dark cloud over his head". (We can't tell if they avoided mentioning the name because of copyright reasons, or because nobody knew how to pronounce it).
At the Blue Whale, Malloy is now getting himself drunk, since Sam isn't around. Joe comes in, saying that everyone was wondering why Bill didn't show up at the cannery today, so naturally they looked for him at the Blue Whale. (Hmmm...) Bill confesses he's got some bad news to tell Liz, and has decided to try Sam's method for coping with unpleasant facts, but unfortunately, it isn't working. Joe says that that's because with Sam around, there isn't enough booze left in town for anybody else to cope with so much as a hangnail.
At the Coffee Shoppe, Maggie is depressed about what might be going on between her Pop and Roger. She asks Vicki to try to cheer her up with some of her naive, dopey, unquestioning, chirpy-eyed optimism. Vicki says no, but ends up doing it anyway. Sam comes in and learns that Malloy was there looking very depressed, and went off to the Blue Whale to get drunk. Sam wonders if Bill might be upset about whatever he told Bill when Malloy got him drunk the other day, and, just to be on the safe side, Sam gets drunk again to forget. (These plot of these last few episodes could be condensed down to a single sentence: "Everybody looks for everybody else, and gets drunk".)
Sam shows up at the Whale to talk to Bill, but with a difficult task ahead of him. He wants to find out whether he told Bill anything he shouldn't have while he was drunk, but also, if the answer should turn out to be no, to make it look like he never asked anything about what he said, and wasn't the least bit concerned about it. (You've heard of beating around the bush? In this scene, Sam beats around the arboretum). Malloy doesn't want to blab it in public, but admits that Sam did tell him something about Burke, Roger, Laura, and that traffic accident 10 years ago, Sam tries to dismiss it saying that he was drunk and you can't believe anything he says when he's drunk. Since Sam is drunk NOW, Bill takes that as a reason to disbelieve Sam's denial. (Wow, Bill should have been a lawyer!).
Joe shows up at Collinwood, just as Carolyn is calling Vicki to say she's in Bangor with Burke Devlin. Unwilling to lie, Vicki tries to evade Joe's questions about who she was talking to on the phone, but she simply doesn't have Bill's Skills (Bill Skills? Is that like Blue's Clues?), and eventually sings like Tweety Pie.
At the Whale, Sam has just confessed the whole thing to Malloy, and said that he's wanted to come clean about it for these last 10 years, but just couldn't bring himself to do it. Unfortunately, since he confessed most of it offscreen, we the viewers don't know any more about it than we did before.
EPISODE 44 (released 11/28/11)
Vicki creates a metaphysical dichotomy, as she narrates about Malloy's recent revalations, even though she couldn't possibly know anything about them. Dan Curtis makes a note to anonymize the narrator some day, but that "My name is Victoria Winters..." introduction is just so catchy, that it takes him a long time to get around to it.
Carolyn comes in to the Blue Whale, and finds that Malloy is still there, waiting for Happy Episode (which is like Happy Hour, but only half as long). Malloy asks about her lunch with Burke. Carolyn assures him that their meeting wasn't intentional. She was going to Bangor to shop anyway, and only met Burke there accidentally, at a restaurant that she goes to all the time anyway (The Chez Whatchamacallit, or something like that). Malloy says he believes her, and says that a fine, upstanding, refined, elegant, young model of womanhood like Carolyn would never lower herself to chasing after a man who had absolutely no interest in her. Carolyn isn't sure whether to kiss Bill or slug him for this comment.
Back at Collinwood, Liz still can't get in touch with Ned Calder (Ned really needs to invest in an answering machine). In the meantime, her banker, John Harris drops in and reiterates how much Liz needs Ned back running the Cannery again. We learn here that Ned used to run both the fishing fleet and marketing side of the business, but since he left, the duties have been split between Malloy and Roger, with middling success. Malloy understands the fleet, but not the marketing, while Roger doesn't understand either. And even Bill has proven a bit too naive for the job. Once, when a Federal Investigator came by looking into unethical business practices at the Collins Cannery, Malloy simply handed the man a folder marked "Unethical Business Practices".
The conversation gets a bit personal, when Harris tells Liz that she not only needs Ned to help run her business, she needs him to help get her life back in shape. Liz rankles a bit at this, and asks Harris since when he has the right to opine about her personal life. (He replies, ever since he saw the contents of her safe deposit box).
Ned finally calls, but says he won't return to Collinsco unless Liz gives him a wedding ring as a signing bonus. Liz turns him down, but Harris insists that it would have been a great business move. With luck, it might even have been romantic. Liz points out that she's still married to Paul Stoddard. And even though Paul deserted her 18 years ago, she wants to stay married to him in order to have the legal right to make his life a living hell should he ever return.
With the small talk out of the way, Harris produces the paperwork for David's Trust Fund. The fund will guarantee David a lifelong income. Enough at least to keep him out of the "Will Work For Food" tax bracket, but he will be unable to touch (i.e. piddle away) the principal which keeps the fund going. Harris assures Liz that the fund will operate as long as the United States has a solvent monetary system. Liz says that if that's the best he can do, so be it.
Harris warns Liz that she had to borrow heavily to set this fund up, and that the notes she signed are Demand Notes, which means they could theoretically be called in for payment at any time. Of course, as long as she pays the interest, there's no reason anybody would do that unless they wanted to destroy her family or something. The Sound Effects man, not known for his subtlety, tosses in a little "Boing!" sound at this point. Harris continues, saying that luckily there's nobody who would want to destroy her family. At least not anybody with enough money to do anything about it. Liz says he can stop now, as even the most dimwitted viewer has seen where this is going by now.
When Carolyn returns from her lunch with Burke, Liz asks Mr. Harris to entertain himself while she kills her. Harris says that getting to watch that would have been more entertaining than anything he can think of, but he agrees to stay in the Drawing Room, while Liz chews out Carolyn in the Foyer. Before she can really get going, Malloy comes in, demanding to talk to Liz, so it's off to the Drawing Room with Carolyn too.
Malloy says he's got bad news about Roger. Liz assumes it's about the awful way he's been managing the cannery, and says she asked get Ned Calder to return. Malloy is fine with this,and has no objections to Ned taking his job. He says he'd rather be out on the boats again doing what he loves best, instead of having to sit in a stuffy office in that monkey suit all day. Liz tells him that the term "monkey suit" is supposed to be metaphorical, and that he can feel free to wear a regular business suit to work if he prefers.
Malloy warns Liz that Burke intends to prove himself innocent of that DWI manslaughter charge and that he (Bill) has stumbled across evidence that might prove that Burke wasn't the one driving the car that night. Liz asks if Bill is insuating that Laura was driving, but Bill says no, it couldn't have been Laura. She was drunker than either Burke or Roger that night, and didn't even regain consciousness until halfway through Burke's trial.
Meanwhile, in the Drawing Room, Carolyn is plying Mr. Harris with stupid banking questions. What would happen if all the depositers withdrew their money at once? What would happen if someone tried to open a $10,000 savings account with pennies? If a depositor closes their account, do they have to give the free calendar back? In answer to the first question, Harris tries to explain how banks are now insured against bankruptcy by the F.D.I.C. Which means, in layman's terms, that if all the depositors did withdraw their money, the government would tax it away from them, and give it back to the bank.
Carolyn mentions that she knows Burke Devlin. Harris is envious, and wistfully opines that if he could manage Burke's accounts, he'd be living at the corner of Easy Street and Disgustingly Rich Boulevard. No such luck, Carolyn explains, because Burke travels with his own personal banker. A man named Nicholas James Blair. As Harris realizes that this is the same guy who was trying to buy up Liz's Demand Notes earlier, the Special Effects Man (who is no more subtle than the Sound Effects Man) actually animates a dollar bill with wings flying offscreen.
Back out in the Foyer, Liz demands to know what horrible secrets Bill has uncovered about Roger, but Bill doesn't want to divulge any of them until his case is complete. Longtime soap opera fans realize that he's setting himself up to be bumped off without revealing any of them, but Bill never watched much TV.
While Liz and Bill are arguing, Harris rushes out to warn her that the man trying to buy her Demand Notes and Burke Devlin's banker are one and the same man, but Liz says yes, yes, she'd figured that out three scenes ago. Even with Burke's attempt thwarted, Bill is horrified to learn that Burke has started moving against the family, and rushes out saying that for the first time since he's known Liz, he's going to have to do something without her approval that she knew about. Bill storms out, leaving Liz to wonder what that "that she knew about" part meant.
