Discuss - Ep #0318

[Watching Project]

Robservations - #318

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

Re: Discuss - Ep #0318

[DarkLady]

Wow, what a humdinger this episode is!

As Barnabas and Julia listen in on Sam and Dave's conversation in the outer room of the mausoleum, Dave says that whatever happened to Maggie is bound up in the supernatural. Barnabas's fury is all the more violent for being noiseless.

Julia argues, The best way to silence David is to find Sarah. This convinces Barnabas, but it also reminds him that Sarah seems to be appearing to everyone--except him. Why won’t she come to me? he mourns, so upset that for the moment he doesn’t care that Julia is watching and listening as he grieves. I’m her brother, he laments. She knows I love her. He starts to leave but turns back for a moment and runs his hand gently over Sarah’s graver marker.

Dave Woodard visits Collinwood and grills David, but he is a faithful friend and doesn't betray Sarah's trust. Then Dave more or less fires Julia by telling her that Maggie is no longer her patient.


At the Old House, Barnabas has just finished the sinister pronouncement, You will sleep, Cousin David. You will sleep for a long time. He is actually putting on his cape when Julia arrives, breathless with haste. I came because I heard the dogs howling, Julia says. I know what that means. I’m tired of your interference and your bungling! Barnabas snaps. I know what you’re about to do, Julia says, insisting yet again, David knows nothing! But Barnabas is determined: Nothing on this earth can stop me, he proclaims. She grabs his arms and is either about to struggle with him or get thrown to the ground when a sudden gust of wind rushes through the house. It blows the front doors open and rattles the chandelier. Julia drily observes, Nothing on this earth can stop you--except a little girl. Knowing it can only be Sarah, Barnabas pleads with her, Sarah! Please come to me! But Sarah’s only reply to her longing brother is to extinguish all the candles.

[Gothick]

Jon and Grayson were so hot together in this episode (hot meaning completely on target together dramatically in this case).  Excellent work from both of them.

I still think it's beyond bizarre that "little Sarah" left David inside that tomb for days before finally remembering to go let him out.  The writers leave it to us, the viewers, to try and explain this for ourselves. 

The best answer seems to be that she's not altogether aware of how time passes, or affects humans, on our plane.  Her ability to materialize may also be of limited duration... some sort of astral law of the conservation of ectoplasm.

In the absence of any attempt in the writing to fill in these holes, we are left to speculate.  Of course, some may think she's really a ditzy little harpy who derives some for of amusement from watching David squirm and cry for days on end...

G.

[DarkLady]

I like your explanation of Sarah's lack of a sense of time--that is, your first one. She's just a kid!

[alwaysdavid]

The problem isn't David. He could easily be neutralized by making his story if he has on a figment
Of his imagination. The problem is Sarah who could tell anyone. Naomi died in 1821' Joshua in 1830 and Sarah in 1796. David calls Dave Dr. Hoffman even though the only Hoffman he knows is Miss. The dogs howling seem to scare Julia which seems like the first time she's displayed that emotion.
The doors fly open and Chandelier sways as Barnabas prepares to kill David. He assumes its Sarah, but she doesn't seem to have that power. It seems more like Josette.

[onyx_treasure]

     "ditzy little harpy"  Oh, Gothic, you always come up with the most hilarious descriptions.  I never really cared for the character "Sarah". Her acting was always a little off putting.  Now, I will have "ditzy little harpy" in my head every time I see her.

[dom]

I too want to think it is Josette that's giving Barn a hard time, AD.

This episode is brought to us in glorious black and white, as many of us would have seen it originally. Frid looks great in B&W, at least in this episode. Love the thunder (right on cue) when Woodard says the word ghost.

Sam is the realist in this ep. insisting that Sarah being a ghost is a ridiculous notion. Woodard tells Sam that he spoke with Julia (Hall's reaction as Julia to this is priceless) and she was convinced that Maggie's experience had to somehow be bound up with the supernatural. Barn's reaction to this is to attack Julia right then and there, and she screams and Sam hears it but he and Woodard decide it couldn't be a human voice coming from behind a solid brick wall. Of course it couldn't. And of course there's no such things as ghosts.

Gothick is right, Hall & Frid are great together in this episode and they are both in great form. Whoever stole the original color print must have thought so too. Once more Julia has to convince Barnabas not to kill David. I would think he'd now be after Woodard too. He could have taken care of him and Sam, but, well, you know. If Julia's winging it at this point she's doing one helluva job. And though Barn pines for Sarah we know that she isn't avoiding him, she just can't find him.

I appreciate how everyone tries to manipulate David; the kid is smarter than most of them. Interrogations of him usually come off as a bit hokey because we know that try as they might, David's inquisitors are usually not successful at manipulating him at all.

Why do you suppose Woodard expressly told David that someone else knows about the secret place and that, that someone is very dangerous. Do you suppose Woodard thinks David may know who it is or do you think he is trying to get David to reveal the secret place because he must in reveal it in order to help stop the danger?

Woodard comes at Hoffman with both barrels blazing- nice work by Gerringer. Julia ignores him in favor of the howling dogs and a frustrated Woodard takes Maggie out of Hoffman's care, but Julia's got much bigger fish to fry.

Standing at the drawing room windows listening to the howling dogs Julia shows fear and worry one moment and resolve the next and then marches chin up out the front doors of Collinwood. I love that little scene. And while confronting Barn at the Old House I also love how Hall has Julia breathing heavy as if she had run all the way from Collinwood, to stop him from killing David. Also got a kick out of the head scarf to protect her hair from the storm. If it had been clear plastic I would have fallen to the floor.

Had it not been for the recorder blowing up "London Bridge" I'd have insisted that it was Josette stopping Barn from leaving the Old House in the closing scene. Julia sure knows the power of using Sarah's name to control him.

Might have been a near perfect episode had it not been for Frid messing up his lines in the last scene. It was an intense one regardless.

[Gothick]

Hey dom, I'm pretty sure the DVD has the episode in color, unless I'm hallucinating (I guess it's been a few weeks, and they've been rough weeks--I lost my beloved kitty last Thurs.).  It might have been a case where the color print was recovered after the work on the VHS release.  I remember Grayson looked really fabulous in it.

That's a cool idea that it was Josette's ghost intervening, but the tiresome flute cue leaves little doubt that the writers, at least, intended us to agree with Barn that it was Sarah.

Glad my little witticisms help keep you smiling, Onyx.

G.

[dom]

I didn't know (or remember) that more color prints had been discovered since the VHS releases. That's wonderful news.

[IluvBarnabas]

Much happens in this episode....Dr. Woodard has decided that Sarah is a ghost, thanks to Julia's conversations with him about the supernatural he has remembered, Barnabas nearly strangles her to death from behind the wall with Woodard and Sam just a few feet away on the other side. 

Sam is another character who only believes in the supernatural when he's confronted with it head on and then when it's over refuses  to believe it's the answer when more mysterious mischief happens at the time. He's seems to have forgotten how Josette's ghost had made him paint the pictures of Laura in the flames. Still under the circumstances I probably would have been skeptical too. There could still be other explanations why Sarah comes and goes under the radar without being found.

I don't think Woodard believes that David knows who the kidnapper is but I do think he suspects Sarah knows. I think he just wants David to give up the secret location so he can go there and try to find Sarah.

Dr. Woodard demands Julia start giving him some straight-forward answers....she's too distracted by the howling dogs because she knows what it means....Barnabas has decided to kill David. It barely registers with her when Woodard angrily declares that Maggie is no longer her patient starting right then and now and leaves.

I think Jonathan was excellent in this episode regardless of messing up a bit. He demonstrated Barnabas' anguish and vulnerability as he laments his longing to see Sarah and her unwillingness (at least to him) to come to him. But he also brilliantly chains gears to explore Barnabas' sinister and chilling side to his personality when he decides to send David for a long sleep. Julia comes and tries to reason with him but Barnabas very defiantely declares that nothing will stop him from killing the boy....until the wind come bursting the doors open and rattling the chandelier. Barnabas loses his resolve to go and kill David and pleads with Sarah to appear to him but she does not. Very sad.

I knew it was Sarah's presence in there, not Josette's. When Barnabas first returned to the Old House after introducing himself at Collinwood he [spoiler] looked up at the picture of Josette and told her that whatever power she may have had there was over now that he has returned. [/spoiler]

Another brilliant episode.

[Roland]

Hey dom, I'm pretty sure the DVD has the episode in color, unless I'm hallucinating

Actually, it is in b&w on the DVD as well.

The only part that struck me as phony in this episode was Barnabas attacking Julia while Sam and Dr. Woodard were only a few feet away on the other side of the wall. Her resultant shriek almost got them discovered. I would think even a hothead like Barnabas could restrain himself till there was a more convenient time to take care of Dr. Hoffman.