363 - (Grayson Hall) - Collinwood is a dark and lonely place this night, and there are those among us who live in fear within the walls of the great house-for the nights there have become a time of deceit and intrigue. Nearby, in a lawyer's office, in the town of Collinsport, young Carolyn Stoddard will attempt to serve the force of evil that has been in our midst for so long.
Tony has a hat on at the beginning of this ep, but wasn't wearing one at the end of the last. He REALLY looks like Bogey with the hat!
Carolyn tries to run, but Tony grabs her arm and swings her around, demanding answers. She says she would lie to the cops, but not to Tony, and comes up with a fascinating little tale about a man with whom Liz had an affair and who, apparently, fathered Carolyn! One has to wonder if this might not be the truth as far as Vicki is concerned. Carolyn explains, with all sincerity and a catch in her voice, that this mysterious man, Liz' former lover, was planning to blackmail Mrs. Stoddard, but died before putting his plan into action. Julia got hold of the notebook, which was this man's diary, and was going to blackmail Elizabeth with it's contents. It would be a huge scandal for the Collins family, explains Carolyn, and she has to stop Julia no matter what! Tony likes the idea that the Collinses are as human and mistake-prone as anyone else--why don't they just pay Hoffman off?
Perhaps alluding to the problems with McGuire, Carolyn reminds Tony that most blackmailers are never satisfied. She tells him to take her to the cops if he doesn't believe her, and home if he does. He chooses the latter option, and Julia walks into the foyer while Carolyn is kissing Tony's cheek before he sends her off to bed.
Julia comments what a pretty child Carolyn is, and Tony accuses Julia of blackmailing the Collins family. He relates Carolyn's story to her, but she assures him the notebook contains only a record of something. . .unusual. She's not blackmailing anyone! He wants to give the notebook back to Julia, but she begs him to hang onto it--this is far more dangerous than an ordinary scandal. Julia's life is at stake, and she'll write a letter authorizing Tony to read the notebook's contents if anything happens to her.
Tony must be on her side to keep her safe. He agrees to hang onto the notebook, to her intense relief.
David, back from Boston, greets Julia, but she is too distracted to pay much attention to him. He observes that she seems far away, near tears, which she denies. Seeming defeated, she gets up wearily, telling David she's going to the Old House, and leaves. Sarah welcomes David back. He pretends he went to China, and she brags that her father's friends used to go there by ship all the time. She's much more impressed that he visited Boston, and they both agree it was a really cool city--even though it took David 5 hours to get there and Sarah, two days. Sarah suddenly becomes distracted, too, annoying David;
she tells him someone is in trouble at the Old House and needs her, she has to go! She fades away before his very eyes.
Barnabas opens the door to Julia, who talks with exhausted spirit about her sense of fair play, which he doesn't have, her decision not to spare him anything, since he won't spare her anything, either. She informs him that his "little helper" failed to get back her notebook, Tony still has it, and he wryly comments that Carolyn's not the experienced criminal he hoped she would be. He cruelly calls Julia an experienced murderer, but she denies it--the circumstances! Barnabas' kind kills for the sake of killing, she throws back at him. Then she drops the big one on him--she saw Sarah at the mausoleum! He refuses to believe her, and is all set to go there himself, but she tells him his lonely little sister will talk to ANYONE BUT YOU!
This infuriates Barnabas to the point that he chases her, grabs her throat, begins to ferociously strangle her. . .then, the chandelier begins to sway as if in a wind, the front doors bang open, and, as Julia collapses to the floor, Barnabas is, at last, face to face with his little sister, Sarah--and she looks very upset indeed.
NOTES: That last scene was so powerful, so marvelous, I watched it 3 times. Next episode, when Sarah tells Barnabas how she feels about him, I'm going to need a box of tissues; it's that sad.
Julia seemed to have given up, did you notice? She wanted to bait Barnabas, see how far she could go, since she knows that Tony will read her notebook if she dies and turn it over to the authorities, perhaps, ending Barnabas' existence forever. However, she hit him in his most sensitive spot, the same place Dave Woodard struck--at his pain, and the fact that his little sister won't appear to him. But Sarah sensed Julia was in trouble, and even though she's angry with her for Woodard's death, she still fled from David to save her.
What will happen next?
Some of DARK SHADOWS' finest moments today, and even more coming.
364 - (Alexandra Moltke) - There has been a homecoming in the great house of Collinwood, and those who have returned have found that very little has changed. We still live within a ring of fear, a fear that is generated by the one who lives in the Old house where, on this night, a kind of madness prevails, a madness that will lead to the threat of murder.
"Sarah, my little Sarah," croons Barnabas, "you have come back to me!" He asks he why she didn't come to him sooner. Julia, recuperating from Barnabas' throttling, lifts herself painfully from the floor and into a chair by the fireplace. "You're back with me now, and you're going to stay with me, aren't you?" Barnabas hopefully asks his little sister--"we're going to be all right, and everything will be just fine, won't it?" He approaches his sister, who takes a step away from him. What's wrong? Asks Barnabas. Sarah informs him that she's very, very angry with him for hurting people. "Only when it was necessary," Barnabas responds. That isn't true, says Sarah, and both of them know it. It's over and done with, Barnabas assures her, and everything will be fine as long as you're with me. "No," replies Sarah, "you're not through doing bad things. She reminds him of a rhyme he taught her: "That wicked is wicked is well understood, the wicked are punished, so you must be good."
You must be good, she tells him, or you will be punished. Barnabas implores her to stay, but she firmly tells him that she is going and will never come back--that will be his punishment! As she begins to fade from his sight, she says, "I know there is good and there is evil because I learned it from you--but you've forgotten it, Barnabas, and you have to learn is all over again--I'll never come back until you do. . .goodbye, Barnabas." "Please don't leave me!" begs Barnabas, covering his face with his hands--"I forbid you to leave--I beg you to stay, Sarah!" He begins to cry behind his hands. Julia slowly walks up behind him, trying to offer him solace. Don't touch me, he commands. The important thing is, says Julia, Sarah appeared to you--she won't always be angry if you listen to her and "if you don't want what you shouldn't." She assures him she isn't jealous of Vicki. (lie)
Barnabas insists that he wants to be alone and harshly adds that at times it is necessary to kill when there is no other way. You mean very little to me, he says, and bids her a curt good night.
Drawing room, Collinwood - Vicki tells Liz she feels the Boston trip was good for David. Liz sadly informs Vicki that Burke's plane turned up--and all 16 passengers were found dead.
Vicki refuses to accept the worst, even though all the bodies were burned beyond recognition (on any other soap, this would have left the door open for Burke's eventual return), and says that while she will have to accept Burke's loss someday, she won't do it now, and will hope for a miracle. Liz is concerned about this attitude of denial.
Barnabas stops by Collinwood to welcome Vicki home. Liz tells him about Burke's death and says she can't allow Vicki to continue to love a man who's dead. Barnabas graciously offers to distract Vicki from her loss.
Sarah appears in David's room, where he sits on his bed, playing with his toys. He asks her what happened at the Old House. Nothing, she says, but something COULD happen if everyone isn't paying attention. Those who were here before have come back, she says enigmatically. David begs Sarah for more information, but all she'll reveal is,
"The dead, they're angry and they want to destroy someone in this house." She disappears, David screaming for her to come back. Hearing his screams, Liz and Vicki dash into his room. He explains what Sarah told him about the dead wanting to destroy someone at Collinwood, prompting Liz to reassure him that no one is trying to hurt him. Believe me, begs David. A weary Julia enters the room. "There's nothing wrong with the boy, she says--everything he's told you is true." Liz and Vicki's faces show shock, and David's, hope.
NOTES: Has Julia finally acknowledged that there's no hope for her and Barnabas? He treats her more terribly in this episode than in many others, basically pulling her heart from her hopeful breast and stomping on it right before her eyes. He was working his charming wiles on her in the previous episode, and in this one, his hope of seeing his sister dashed because of his own misdeeds (and I always cry for him when he cries), he finally told her how he really feels about her, much as his sister did to him, in no uncertain terms. Now that Julia has told them everything David said is true, does that mean she's fully betraying Barnabas, no matter what the consequences? She's so beaten here, so sad, that's exactly how it seems--she no longer cares what happens to him--or to her.
One of DS' finest episodes, and kudos to all performances, especially Frid and Hall.
Love, Robin
