Discuss - Ep #0271

[Lydia]

Robservations - #271

And if you'd care to look back, the first WP discussion topic for this ep:

Re: Discuss - Ep #0271

[Lydia]

As was noted five years ago by EmeraldRose, we don't see Paul Stoddard's face.  I can think of two possible reasons for this.  One is that, at this point, who Paul was doesn't matter.  All that matters is what happened to him.  But that doesn't struck me as a Dark Shadows way of thinking.  (Except, maybe, in 1970 parallel time, but that's a few years ahead of us.)  The other possible reason is that Joan Bennett and Dennis Patrick are both, in the flashback, playing characters who are 20 years younger than they themselves are, and it would be painful to have to choose between a Paul Stoddard who looks his youthful age and a Paul Stoddard who looks just as old as Bennett and Patrick.

I couldn't see either Elizabeth or Jason as being the ages they were supposed to be in the flashback.  It isn't just about having older faces.  Jonathan Frid always strikes me as very youthful when he plays pre-vampire Barnabas.  The lines in his face don't matter; the feeling of callow youth is there.  Maybe it's too much to ask that Bennett and Patrick convey younger but still recognizable versions of their characters in under twenty minutes of acting.  What could be different?  Could Jason be project a little more unpolished violence?  Elizabeth seems, as noted five years ago, uncharacteristically wimpy after she hits Paul.  Could that wimpiness be portrayed as being the result of inexperience?  If so, then how would it be done?  I don't know.  I'm not an actor.

[DarkLady]

A more violent, younger Jason is an intriguing idea. I'm not sure he ever was, though. I think he's probably always done only the threatening part and had somebody else (like Willie) around to do his "wet work," so to speak.

Carolyn admits that she was going to shoot Jason after the wedding. Roger--who seems to approve thoroughly of this plan--tells Jason he's lucky the wedding didn't happen.

I don't think Elizabeth was wimpy after she hit Paul, either. Just think--she was certain beyond a doubt that she's just murdered her husband. I for one would be totally freaked out. BTW, Jason is wearing the world's oldest Band-Aid--the same one as he wears in the present day!

Jason locks the door of the basement room but doesn't turn out the light first.

Elizabeth's last words in this ep. are heartbreaking: I looked at the key I held in my hand, and I knew that from that moment on, I was a prisoner of Collinwood forever....

IluvBarnabas might be interested in this SPOILER: [spoiler]In Shadows on the Wall, the series bible, it was originally planned that at this point Victoria Winters would have learned the truth of her heritage. During the 1949 flashback, Paul Stoddard would have cruelly informed Elizabeth Collins Stoddard of his affair with Betty Hanscomb, which produced Victoria. However, these plans had been shelved (despite the references to Betty in earlier episodes) when the production team decided that Victoria would be Elizabeth's illegitimate daughter instead. And in fact, in a interview late in her life, JB confirmed it:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hzdndt8OwIU[/spoiler]

[IluvBarnabas]

Thanks for the link, DarkLady! I will certainly check it out.

Jason never struck me as the type who would resort to violence either....I agree blackmail and extortion were more his style. Suddenly it's struck me that that's how he and Willie became best buddies...one did the extortion and the other the rough stuff. Though I think Jason underestimated just how much of a loose canon Willie could be at the time.

How bold of Carolyn to admit she was going to kill Jason....I think everyone in that room would have approved, with the exception of the judge who doesn't know the situation as it has been.

I always believed that Elizabeth was too hard on herself...she certainly hadn't intended to kill Paul. If Jason hadn't come along, I wonder how she would have handled the situation....of course [spoiler] that is if indeed Paul really HAD been dead at the time, which we will find out in a couple more episodes. [/spoiler]

[alwaysdavid]

Jason made a lot of work for himself digging up the basement. Bury him in the woods, throw him off Widows Hill, down the stairs. Jason just does not seem to be the type to make all this extra work for himself when he could dispose of the body in an easy manner.

[Lydia]

But Jason needed the gravesite to be memorable for the purpose of blackmailing Liz.