John Yeager...what can I say.

As wretched as Yeager's behavior is, I'm pretty shocked at Cyrus.  The repressed scientist is losing his grip even when he's not changing.  Yeager is meant to be evil, so I expect nastiness from him, but watching Cyrus get friendly with Maggie's gloves was even creepier than the scene by the docks, IMO

I think the key here is that Cyrus and John are more the same person than either realizes. John is the person that Cyrus secretly wants to be. I mean, I look at him and you can practically visualize the newsfootage of police digging up his backyard and finding multiple body parts while the next door neighbor is saying "He always seemed like such a nice man..."

Yeager was the only "human" antagonist in DS that ever particularly scared me as a young 'un... Bad nose and all. Thank God they got over that lil phase quickly. 

it's funny i don't even remember him as a kid but i did watch
1975-end of show must have "blocked"him out!He is GROSS!
jennifer

I think the key here is that Cyrus and John are more the same person than either realizes. John is the person that Cyrus secretly wants to be. I mean, I look at him and you can practically visualize the newsfootage of police digging up his backyard and finding multiple body parts while the next door neighbor is saying "He always seemed like such a nice man..."

Even though I wasn't a fan of this particular storyline I do have an opinion on it and I have to agree that deep down Cyrus WANTED to be a naughty boy but he wanted to be a naughty boy as someone else. I mean Cyrus would never dare go to, let's say a strip-joint or a nudie bar as himself, but he wouldn't hesitate to go as John Yaeger. And the fact that Cyrus went on taking the potion even after he hears about Yaeger's destructive behavior pretty much tells me he was yearning to break away from his repressive "good" nature.

It wasn't until [spoiler]after he started turning into Yaeger without the potion, not to mention Yaeger's abducting Maggie and killing Sabrina did Cyrus finally realize he went too far into indulging into his evil nature. And by then it was too little too late because in the end it ultimately cost him his life.[/spoiler]

Yeager is perplexing to me. I mean, he's easily the most repulsive character on the show, in any time band, hands down. And there's no doubt in my mind that, like ILB said, Cyrus truly wanted to do those things deep down but was too scared to do them as himself for fear of ruining his good name. Unfortunately for him, he ended up doing that anyway once people started to realize that Yeager and Longworth had a closer connection than either would have anyone believe.

My problem with the storyline is that I think it was underdeveloped. Personally, I would've like to seen more drama with Cyrus wanting to stop what he was doing but doing it anyway. IIRC it was only shown in like one, maybe two episodes. I don't know. It probably would've gotten old after a while anyway, but it's just something that kind of bothers me when I watch it.

That, and the fact that Sabrina basically is useless.

I'd like to ask anyone reading this if there is anything in the DS version that is different from Jeckyl and Hyde, especially in terms of any point that was being made.    Did Jeckyl also want to be Hyde?    I'm hoping for something that sets the DS version apart.

Actually, I'd say the DS version was, in several respects, closer to the book than many of the film versions in that Yaeger looked like a relatively normal, if somewhat scary/slimy human as opposed to looking like a monstrous character.  Also, like Hyde, Yaeger gives off a palpable sense of evil to those he encounters.

 I believe Jekyll secretly wants to be Hyde in most versions of the story, at least until Hyde starts to take control of him and his actions become worse and worse. Of course DS also borrowed quite a bit from the films with the whole Buffie Harrington angle.     

I've been rewatching this segment of the show...my feelings about 1970 PT have changed somewhat, including the Jekyll/Hyde storyline. The more I watch these episodes, the more disgusted I get with Cyrus.

[spoiler] I mean, even as himself, he develops a strong attraction to Maggie, his best friend's wife. Does he have sense enough to stop drinking the potion? No, he doesn't. For a moment he does hesitate, but he all too quickly says the hell with it and takes the potion anyway so he can pursue Maggie, his best friend's wife, as Yaeger. Then, as Yaeger, he kidnaps Maggie, holds her against her will, forces her to write to Quentin that she's leaving him for good, then tries to kill her when she tried to escape.

With "friends" like Cyrus, Quentin and Maggie certainly didn't need any more enemies (although Angelique would certainly disagree).

I really find it hard to believe it never occured to Cyrus that as Yaeger he could do to Maggie what he did to Buffie...and worse. I think Cyrus just didn't care. [/spoiler]


Luciaphil hit it on the nail....Cyrus and Yaeger ultimately were cut from the same cloth.

I haven't read Jeckyl and Hyde and haven't seen a film of it since childhood.  I do think, though, that the point of the whole exercise was probably to show that people, we, have Hydes inside ourselves, and that if responsibility for our actions were seemingly taken out of the picture, what we choose to do to other people might very well change in ways we would never expect.    The choice for him was to take the drug or not take it.  He knew what would happen if he did, because he had heard about Yeager's actions, and knew the impulses inside of him which were expressed through Yeager.

He was still able to pretend that none of this was his responsibility, because Yeager was so different, and he could not remember anything Yeager did.   This left him free to up-end the bottle, and go on a psychotic binge, absolving himself of responsibility.   He was a very repressed person who had been keeping temptations at arm's-length rather than dealing with them. 

We all have the possibility for things like this inside us.

I imagine that Cyrus was so repressed that he had no idea what he really wanted until he heard about Yaeger’s misdeeds.  Then suddenly he had an exact image of what he wanted, and he had to have it.

If Sabrina had drunk Cyrus’s potion, what would she have been like?

If Sabrina had drunk Cyrus’s potion, what would she have been like?

Whoa! Now there's a fascinating question. 

I imagine that Cyrus was so repressed that he had no idea what he really wanted until he heard about Yaeger’s misdeeds.  Then suddenly he had an exact image of what he wanted, and he had to have it.

Okay, that adds the extra element the discussion needed.  Very, very good point.

 

If Sabrina had drunk Cyrus’s potion, what would she have been like?

Maybe she would actually have been interesting.

Another brilliant anaylzis, Magnus. You rule.

I've been watching the PT episodes lately, and I think the Cyrus/Yeager plot is probably the most interesting plot in PT. Cyrus's guilt (early on at least) and him making excuses for Yeager, combined with Yeager's repulsive behavior was compelling. I definately think Yeager was meant to be a sexually creepy guy, and this is consistent with even the very old movie versions of the Jekyll and Hyde story.

In the 1940 (41?) version of the movie starring Spencer Tracy, he kidnapped Ingrid Bergman and held her prisoner for an extended period of time where frequent beatings and implied rape took place. I figured this was analogous to what was happening with Maggie on DS. Mag sure seems to have coped with the experience fairly well, as she seems pretty stable later on in the plot...

The book implies it (given the times Stevenson was writing in). Major Spencer Tracy fan here, so I've seen that version a number of times.  It went quite far (under Hays code restrictions) in showing the psychological and sexual implications with Hyde. I remember a scene/dream sequence where Hyde is driving a carriage and the horses are the "good girl" and the not good girl.

Jeannie

Wow, Spencer Tracy, hard to imagine in those roles.