Discuss - Ep #0414

[Watching Project]

Robservations #414

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

Re: Discuss - Ep #0414

[DarkLady]

Poor little Sarah spends most of this episode trapped in the mausoleum. I suppose that even in death, Angelique still has power enough to lock her in.

I know that some people don't like JC as Nathan, but I did enjoy his outrageous flirting with Millicent, especially when he moves toward her on the sofa, and she keeps backing away. Eventually he pops the question, and of course Millicent accepts. He's very good at disguising his real intention of spending all her money on himself. Finally he pulls her into a real embrace, telling her that it's proper now that they're engaged. This can only end badly.

Naomi returns and tells them that Sarah is missing. Nathan volunteers to join the search and leaves. He’s so masterful! Millicent squeaks (she actually bounces up and down with glee!), but all Naomi's attention is for Sarah. Now we see some of Millicent's strong points, as she is actually very gentle and concerned for her cousin and makes some shrewd--though incorrect--guesses as to Vicki's motivations.

We meet the first of Barnabas's on-screen victims, the unfortunate Ruby Tate. As he pauses by Jerimiah's grave on his way to the mausoleum, we get another nice JF soliloquy: I remember how we used to laugh at other people's idiocies, Barnabas murmurs. Now we have both died at the hands of the same woman, who used the most primitive means to destroy us. Even though your spirit roams the earth searching for rest, at least you have the hope of finding it. I will never find rest.

As Barnabas pleads with Sarah to promise not to say she saw him, he inadvertently turns to face her--and she sees Ruby's red blood trickling down from the corners of his mouth to stain his neckcloth (the cream-colored one). You're not Barnabas! she screams and runs from him in terror--just as the dawn begins to come up….

[MagnusTrask]

So who shut the mausoleum door on Sarah?

Bland wrote a whole sermon on Ruby, and she and Barnabas agree that he looks like a duck.   Barnabas gets across agony well, with that groan of realization, over how this is going to go on forever.   Barnabas is not at all bitter toward
Jerimiah, showing a major personal history change.   1967 Barnabas blamed his uncle totally and completely.

[DarkLady]

I say that Angelique shut the door on Sarah. A minor detail like death doesn't seem to have diminished her powers one whit. And Angelique will have to be very busy if she wants to fulfill the part of her curse that says everyone who loves Barnabas will die.

Good point about Barnabas's change in attitude toward Jerimiah, MT. The supposedly conscienceless vampire still has some remnants of human compassion. It would be interesting to track whether this change actually lasts.

Who looks like a duck?

[MagnusTrask]

I think it was Ang too.   She shouldn't have to *make* everyone who loves him die though, one by one, killing each person, or else it's not a curse, it's just something Ang intended to do by her own actions.   And she certainly didn't have make the first one happen, its being her....  Lydia had a lot to say on this subject as I remember.   

Ruby said Rev. Bland looks like a duck, then Barnabas laughed and agreed.

I can only see this as a changed timeline, changed by Vicki's presence, where Barnabas's need to help Vicki despite everything happening to him actually softened the vampire he was becoming.   Either that, or his 1967 malevolence was created by the trauma of being in the box all those years, plus distorted memories.  Has any of us ever tried holding onto memories intact for 170 or so years?

[dom]

My favorite singular moment in this episode is hearing Naomi say 'upstairs'. Very Bensinhoist -- I was on the floor!

Ruby Tate looks so familiar. I'll have to look her up to see what she's done. You know, I find her performance refreshing. I guess after watching the same four or five women over and over, all playing the same part over and over, seeing a new player with more than just one line and acting naturally makes her look like she's doing Oscar work, lol. I was so uninterested in watching the scene that I started to fast forward thru it with no intention of writing about it, but I went back because of Frid's look as Barnabas which is so spellbinding to me. I am glad I did. Had I not, I would have missed the delightfulness that is Ruby Tate. I can't get over the way Barnabas looks now; He's so creepy and it's like he is playing a different character - Harvey Schwartz: Vampire (I'm still in a Bensonhurst state of mind).  I am so impressed.

Sarah really should have been able to get out of the mausoleum by unlatching the gate -- she never even tried. Saying Ange is behind Sarah's being locked in the mausoleum is as good a guess as any but I didn't see any evidence to suggest that it is so. I'm nowhere near as convinced as you two are, MT & DL.

The scenes with Barrett and Crothers were cute and made me smile. Loved Barn's VO at Jerimiah's burial site as quoted by DarkLady. It was moving, reflective, intelligent and substantive. I wonder how ridiculous it would have looked/been to have Barn talking to Jeremiah's ghost instead of his stone. Probably very. I might have done it as a means of sending Jerimiah back to eternal rest. Anyway, I wish I were ambitious enough to copy and collect all of Barn's little 'moments' where he gets all 'Shakespeare' on us. It might make for a gravy web page. I find everything this Barnabas character does, well, almost hypnotic. So lovin' Barn right now. Well, I may be a little late to the party, but I've decided that there is no way that Daniel Collins is in Collinsport. If he were he'd be in that mausoleum with Sarah. I really thought he arrived with Millicent or a day or two after, but I guess not.

[dom]

Elaine Hyman/Ruby Tate is still working today. I didn't see anything in her credits glaringly obvious so I guess I just recognized her from my last DSOS viewing. She's done a few LAW & ORDER eps. and it's possible I saw those but I wouldn't have know that from memory.

[DarkLady]

Thanks for the update, dom! I'm always glad when an actor can continue to work--it can't be easy.

[alwaysdavid]

The door swinging shut on Sarah sadly seals her fate and then she sees the bloody Barnabas at dawn.

[MagnusTrask]

I find this picture of Elaine Hyman enjoyable.   I have never once successfully posted a picture here though, so here goes nuttin'...



I now know the dizzy heights of success.  It worked!

[Midnite]

Congrats, MT!

Dom, there are photos of her L&O characters here:  http://lawandorder.wikia.com/wiki/Elaine_Hyman