Discuss - Ep #0979

Robservations #979

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

Re: Discuss - Ep #0979

FAREWELL, ROGER!

Louis Edmonds makes his final appearance as Roger Collins in this ep...

Nicholas is pleased that Jeb is terrified of the shadow. As he pours drinks, he offers to help Jeb turn it on Angelique. He pulls out the shiny gold cigarette case and starts to hypnotize the now human Jeb. Look at me, he orders Jeb. Jeb can’t resist. Did you think you would get a second chance? Nicholas asks contemptuously. You will see your death--and Carolyn’s--in my eyes. For I am not a man who forgives. You came here to kill me, but I will kill you. No! Jeb screams, tearing his gaze away with an almost superhuman effort. In one quick motion, he pulls the shadow cutout from his pocket and places it firmly on Nicholas’s heart. As Nicholas screams in agony, Jeb runs from the house. A moment later, Sky Rumson emerges from the back room and watches helplessly as the now full-grown shadow looms on the wall. Nicholas tries to back away, but it follows and overwhelms him. Nicholas collapses on the sofa; with a final scream, he dies. Sky calls to him but gets no reply.

At Collinwood, Carolyn worries about Jeb but refuses to tell Roger why.

Best special effect EVER: :Jeb returns to the house to make sure the cutout shadow worked. He finds Sky Rumson kneeling beside the sofa. You won’t get away with it! Sky shouts at him. Nicholas will be back! Jeb leaves again hastily. A moment later, Nicholas’s ghost rises from his body in a very convincing special effect. You are now alone, he tells Sky, but I will help you. You must revenge (he meant avenge) this--Jeb must die. I’ll do whatever you want, Sky promises. I will use what powers I have left to help you, Nicholas replies.

Jeb returns to Collinwood, looking everywhere for the shadow. But Angelique has kept her word, and he is free. He tells Carolyn that they have to leave pronto. Carolyn wonders if anyone else out there hates Jeb as much as Nicholas.

Alone in the drawing room, Jeb allows himself to relax in a chair. Suddenly he hears Nicholas’s voice: You will never leave here, Jeb. Never! The dead will not let you. He jumps up to look for the source of the voice. His broken leg now healed, David walks in on him a moment later. Jeb tells David that he and Carolyn are going on a trip--tonight. He leaves for the carriage house to get his cameras.

Like Barnabas, Roger has been drawn once more to the East Wing. As he opens the doors, he wonders if he will see parallel time. A boy who looks exactly like his own son, David, is there, gazing up at Angelique’s portrait. Why have you been gone so long? he asks it plaintively. You promised you would come back. Please come back. I miss you so much. Parallel Carolyn enters and addresses the boy as Daniel. With a cynical laugh she says, If I were Quentin, I would lock this place up. When _he_ comes back, Daniel says, _she_ (pointing to the portrait) will be here too. On, no, she won’t be, Carolyn says with a smile. She is never coming back, and that is the end of it. You are going to have a new mother now. Daniel flies into a perfect fury, declaring he won’t. Carolyn shuts the doors to keep (parallel) Amy from hearing Daniel’s tantrum. Roger opens them, but the room is empty once more. He steps in, thinking to himself, That child looks exactly like my son, yet they call him Daniel. He is the son of Angelique and Quentin. When will we know what this means? When? He gazes up at the empty spot above the mantel and thinks, When I saw myself in this room, what a strange life I must be leading in that time that is so close to our own but so different. I must know what that life is. I must.

Carolyn returns and David tells her what Jeb said. David is afraid he'll never see Carolyn again. As she hugs the boy she referred to so long ago as the "little monster," Carolyn assures him that Collinwood will always be her home. When I grow up, I’m leaving to go where the action is, David opines. Roger enters and says it’s time for bed. Do I have to go to bed now? David asks. Carolyn is going away. Roger is shocked at this announcement, but Carolyn assures him that everything is all right now. Roger tells her that if she wants to talk later, he’ll be in his room. [This marks Louis Edmonds’s final appearance on the show as RT Roger Collins.] David hugs Carolyn one more time, still worried that he’ll never see her again. Laughing, she tells him offhandedly, I’ll bet you that tomorrow morning I’m still here. Roger takes David upstairs. Carolyn checks the foyer clock, which reads 10:05.

While Carolyn is waiting for Jeb, she falls asleep in the drawing room. At 11:38, she is still asleep and has a dream. Nicholas calls her: Carolyn Hawkes, the former Carolyn Stoddard, Mrs. Jeb Hawkes. Widows Hill, he says in almost a whisper. That is where it will end. Would you like to see how it will happen? He shows her a vision of Jeb at Widows Hill, calling to her. Sky Rumson approaches. You killed Nicholas Blair, Sky says. Now you are as free of him as I am, Jeb tells him. You can go back to your old life. No, Jeb, no! Sky shouts. Jeb warns him not to try anything, but the next moment, the two men fight, and Sky throws Jeb off the cliff. Jeb screams as he falls to his death, but Sky seems pleased. Carolyn wakes up with a scream. As she’s scrambling into her coat in the foyer, David comes downstairs again and asks where she’s going. Widows Hill, she says, racing for the servants’ door. Why are you going the back way? he asks. Faster, she answers as she leaves at a dead run. A moment later, Jeb returns to Collinwood, carrying no luggage, just his cameras. He is horrified when David tells him where Carolyn has gone and runs out the front door after her.

At Widows Hill, Carolyn calls to Jeb but gets no reply. It was just a dream, she tells herself with relief. She turns around to leave, then hears someone approaching. Smiling at the thought that it’s Jeb, she turns to face him, but Sky Rumson is waiting for her. Nicholas didn't show you everything that was to happen, he tells her. He didn't want you to see. He didn't want you to witness your own death. Carolyn screams and tries to run, but Sky grabs her. She struggles quite uselessly to get free. Sky addresses his intended victim very formally, presumably because they've met only once, on Little Windward Island. As he wraps his hands around her throat, he tells her, I’m afraid, Mrs. Hawkes, there is no escape.......

Crosses and double crosses! Jeb takes out Nicholas with surprising ease. Humbert is such a fine performer and it seems a shame that Nicholas appeared in so few episodes this time. I wonder why [spoiler]Humbert was not cast as a character in parallel time.[/spoiler]

I absolutely love the scenes between Carolyn, Roger and David. The relationships are complex and the characters are full of emotional baggage. But they are unquestionably a family and the core of the show. Moments like this are why I still am drawn to the show after all these years.

The relationship between Carolyn and Daniel seems more strained than Carolyn and David at their worst. I don't think we get any scenes between the two after the story crosses into parallel time. Carolyn seems to have led a more difficult life and wears her cynicism as a defense mechanism. Daniel is like a spoiled version of Richie Rich.

I did find it interesting that Roger sees that his son's counterpart is the son of Quentin and Angelique. I take that to mean that he and Mrs. Rumson met off camera. If Angelique was concerned about Carolyn and Elizabeth recognizing her as Cassandra, would she have been more uneasy about her former husband making that connection? I would have loved to have seen this addressed on camera. But we [spoiler]never see Roger or this incarnation of Angelique again.[/spoiler]

"a spoiled version of Richie Rich"   

I always miss HAA when he isn't in the story. But [spoiler]luckily for us, he will be back in two more story lines![/spoiler]

Yes, it's lovely seeing the scenes with Carolyn, Roger and David. The actors have real connections here.

Uncle Roger, I had never noticed that Roger seemed to know Angelique. I wonder if he did meet Mrs. Rumson off camera. Or maybe it was just a big goof by the writers. Interesting to note that [spoiler]in the show at least, Roger is the only one of Angelique's various husbands who survives her.[/spoiler]

Interesting to note that...

I've never thought of things that way. But it's probably only because Angelique couldn't have given a, well, you know what, about him. If she had been emotionally invested, there would have been hell to pay.

I never thought of it that way either until I read Uncle Roger's thoughtful post.

But knowing Angelique, there LITERALLY would have been hell to pay!   

It seems to me that a lot of potentially provocative scenes don't take place on camera. As I stated earlier, there really needed to be some kind of confrontation between Maggie and Nicholas, especially since Barnabas makes such a point out of mentioning him to Maggie. She never mentions him again and Nicholas never brings her name up at all.
The presence of Nicholas on the estate should have provoked some kind of reaction from Roger and Elizabeth, especially because, as far as they know, he is Cassandra's brother. Yes, I know that he told Roger that Cassandra had broken contact with him as well but the idea that she might return would certainly have caused some interesting behavior from Elizabeth.
But this wasn't the kind of drama that Dan Curtis Productions seemed interested in providing. This is what we got and, once again, we leave the core Collins family for yet another group of entertainingly dysfunctional Collinses.

Apparently the Colin's men forget that they have discussed that PT  are different people and Roger is yelling for Carolyn to see him and Roger is also wanting to know what his other self is like
David has grown nearly as tall as his cousin.

Louis Edmonds makes his final appearance as Roger Collins in this ep...

Really?  Farewell, Our Roger.  I hope Blair dies in this one.  He's good at that.  Tooth just fell out!  Stuck back in.  Going on... Louis is using his Roger voice, but speaking in a concerned way we don't hear from Roger.  I've heard Louis speak that way as himself, but he's from Louisiana and it's not his childhood accent. 

So Ang's powers seem to be greater than Nick's this time, even though Ang isn't even working for Beelzebub anymore, and Nick has a whole world to ruin.  In the redo scene, Jeb's too transparently gloaty with Nick, which after the theme music Jeb must backpedal from, to avoid suspicion.  Great Nick death!  It happens fast, too.  I remember TV never seemed to want to show dead characters with their eyes open, except on DS.

Our Roger now sounds (in his audible thoughts) as if he's got a major hankering to cross over to PT himself.  Imagine that.  Back in RT, Roger announces that the action should be in David's bedroom.  What a broad minded and understanding parent.

Carolyn is really susceptible to dream-inducement.  Now Nick the ghost does it, showing her Jeb's death at Widow's Hill, just to be gloaty I guess.  Actually I guess he causes it to happen by doing this.  Jeb and Sky at Widows' Hill-- tense bongos!  Stock lightning bolt footage.  Sky felt for Sabrina and betrayed Bruno for her, but he now fully embraces any and all murder if it's for Nicholas, even without reward.  He becomes a cliche TV villain, taking a minute to explain that he's about to strangle her, before doing it.

Yes, great Nick death! I don't remember Jeb getting ahead of the theme music, but there you are.

Hope your teeth stay firmly where they belong....

Dentist consulted, matter in hand DL, thanks... it's in a little jar...

I feel your pain! I once had a crown come out in my hand. I stuck it back in but had a very suspenseful day or so, hardly daring to chew till I could get to the dentist.