I read my post from the Watching Project's last round on this episode, and thought, "Hmm...not much different this time." Then I started thinking a little more. There's an exchange that's always sort of irked me before, but this time I found it more interesting. Barnabas has been talking on and on to Sam about what a nice girl Maggie is. Sam says something about how she can be temperamental on occasion, but women are more fun when they've got a little fire in them. Something like that. Barnabas is turned around in his chair, watching Maggie as she dances with Joe. He doesn't turn back to Sam, and says absently, "I'm sure." Previously I thought of this exchange as just more blather, but now I think: Barnabas is being told the truth, and he's just not interested in hearing it.
Another thing I thought about was that despite Joe's superabundant niceness to Maggie (taking her to the Blue Whale for a double brandy was an excellent idea), there are limits to his comprehension. He doesn't seem to be sufficiently equipped to handle a girlfriend who goes off the deep end, for whatever reason - be it Maggie or be it Carolyn.
I also thought about what Barnabas is doing. His "Sweet dreams" wish to Maggie indicates he knows about her nightmare, which suggests that he deliberately caused it, though I'm not sure why he would do that. Testing the waters, perhaps. But there he was, rigidly maintaining his pose for Sam at the Old House, while apparently he was sending the nightmare to Sam's daughter. Creepy.
