Discuss - Ep #0546

[Watching Project]

Robservations #546

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

Re: Discuss - Ep #0546

[MagnusTrask]

Cass thinks Nick might believe an axe murderer (not her) is wandering Collinwood, and just happened to kill the guy she wanted to kill at that very same moment.  Cass to Adam later: "You're hurting me!"   Adam should have said, "Adam must hurt you to kill you.  It necessary preliminary step."

This ep ends with Cass about to kill with a gun, just as the last one had her about to kill with an axe.  I like this precedent.   This "final" scene with her and Barnabas is nicely done.

[DarkLady]

After disarming Cassangelique, Nicholas tells her, "I'm tired of your dream curse!" Hear, hear!

Later, Cassangelique stabs her little clay Barnabas doll with a pin. Upstairs, Nicholas watches in surprise as Adam collapses in pain.

Despite Cassangelique's pleas, Nicholas forces her to kneel and performs a brief but quite dramatic ritual that takes strips her of her powers and leaves her a mortal woman. With maximum cruelty, she tells Roger that she never loved him. Well, at least the scales finally fall from Roger's eyes.

Despite being cured of his “affliction,” Barnabas has kept to his old schedule. [We never learn whether he experienced any pain when Cassandra drove the pin into the clay doll’s heart.] Although it must be 3:00 a.m., he is still up and fully dressed when Cassandra arrives at the Old House, and a very strong scene ensues.  I have come to say goodbye, Cassandra says, then pleads, One word! After such a long history, one word can end two hundred years of pain! Oh, why could you never love me? she cries. Cassandra! Barnabas exclaims. Call me Angelique, she says almost in a whisper, and tell me why you never loved me. I loved Josette, he answers simply.

Cassangelique tells Barn, I’ve been told that I wasted my time on you, and I think that’s true. You’ve never known what I was thinking or feeling, she says, paraphrasing Roger, knowingly or not. Why did I love you so much? she bursts out. Nicholas says that I still do. Even dying, I love you. Dying? he echoes in surprise--and suspicion. What do you mean by that? She answers, I’ve been granted one of the few privileges of being human. I can only live until morning. For once you should understand; you could not die either for so long. We are both human tonight, Barnabas. You are a witch, he retorts. Not any more, she answers. I have only until morning to live. That is my punishment--and morning is coming so quickly. That is my punishment. But if I must die, so must you! So saying, she pulls out a .32 pearl-handled, snub-nosed revolver and aims it directly at her first husband’s now all-too-mortal chest. No! Barnabas exclaims in dismay. But she only repeats grimly, So must you....

[dom]

A lot of good stuff happening here in this 'transitional' episode. Out with the old in with the new? After a shaky start the episode picks up steam with each scene better than the previous culminating in Angelique's ultimate fate and final victory, well, we'll see. I should be cheering that Ange is getting her due but at this point in time I just don't give a f**k anymore. Perhaps her being human ruins everything on the comeuppance scale. Great way to have Ange pay the price though. Frid gets the acting award for this episode. It's weird to have Frid in an episode and not be in just about every scene. HAA & LP were just okay. Rodan & Edmonds were very good. I'm inclined to believe that Cass confirmed Roger's beliefs as opposed to knocking him for a loop. He came across as hoping for a better results from a showdown, but I don't think he was taken by surprise, not really. I am a big fan of these Angelique/Barnabas moments when they get real with each other as adversaries in a calm reflective matter-of-fact kind of way. Today's scene was kind of like that and I liked it very much. Anybody ever wonder what made Lang think or know that Barn's vampirism would be absorbed by Adam and yet not manifest it'self in Adam. I'd love to see that equation written out on the chalk board. And once again Nicholas predicts his own fate through his torment of Angelique.

My favorite moment: Adam asks, "Why, why do people hate me?!!"

[alwaysdavid]

When Nick catches her and says she will never try again, odds are she will. I don't know what Parker has done between her first portrayal of Angelique(which I hated) and this one where I see glimmers of awareness, but she seems a better actress despite all the unlearned lines. Maybe acting lessons or a play. And she decides to use voodoo and takes forever to stick the pin in the doll and Nick puts a stop to it.  He makes her Human and she goes to the Old House and attempts a third murder with a plain old gun. I would have liked to have seen Barnabas dodging the axe, but it was not meant to be.

[MagnusTrask]

Strange, Lara's acting has always stood out for me, especially in 1795, I think.   She seems totally invested in the character, unlike some actors, including Mr. Frid for long stretches (understandably, when it's a bad stretch of story with little for him to get his teeth into).   If she's acting even better as Cass, it would be hard for me to tell while the storyline is disappointing.  I don't believe there's any way to do great acting with bad lines.   These scenes happening now have plenty for actors to work with now though.   Louis, Jonathan, and Lara, perhaps Grayson too, all seem more vital and invested and "awake".

Anyway, I always believe Lara.  She IS Ang, as Selby IS Quentin, at least 1897 Quentin.