A Cry in the Dark - Episodes 37 & 38
Fashion notes first . . .
Maggie has a gigantic bow on her head. It's part of her bathrobe/nightgown ensemble. A dubious part of the ensemble.
Vicki greets Day 4 in that dowdy skirt and blouse combo. Really really hate the Peter Pan collar and the Laura Ingalls print.
I love Mitchell Ryan in suits. Have I said that enough? He's got a very nice dark suit and a pale tie and he looks quite scrumptious.
Ugh. More with the Little House on the Prairie attire. Carolyn is sporting a long sleeved dress with embroidery around the cuffs and the neck. The collar is quite high, but the embroidery makes a squarish design around it. Like smocking almost.
I like to think that Joan Bennett put her feet down about her hair. It's back to looking normal. The wing things are gone. She has on a skirt and a vest over a long-sleeved blouse. It's kind of cute actually.
I continue to be the victim of the cold/flu virus. Went to the doctor and had the dubious pleasure of having the nurse practitioner drag in two other doctors who peered in my throat to admire my blisters, declare it viral, and tell me this thing will just have to run its course. So since every time I try to, oh, move, I start hacking like the chick in La BohĬme, I am reduced to sitting around watching TV. Hence the reason for another column so soon. Well, actually, it also has to do with the fact that I'm finished with my marathon viewing of the Lord of the Rings Extended DVDs and the first season of Wonder Woman. But I digress.
Victoria's voiceover informs us that it's 1 AM. Technically this means we're on Day 4, but since half the cast are still in the same damn clothes, I prefer to think about this as Day 3. Day 4 does dawn in Episode 38 so I suppose that is something. Enough with the real time, Art.
Roger doesn't like getting called at home by Sam, but has no qualms about calling Sam at his place of residence. He's not particularly nice about disturbing Sam at this late hour either. In fact, he outright sneers that he doesn't care how late it is, Sam had better get out of painting Burke's portrait, and he better do it now. He hangs up with a thinly veiled threat. Unfortunately, at least some of this is witnessed by Vicki who is resplendent in her practical bathrobe and PJs. "Innocence in a dressing gown" is how Roger terms it and he literally grabs her and drags her into the drawing room. They have a great little scene where he rails at her for snooping and she gets all indignant with him. They actually do have this weird chemistry together. Not necessarily romantic or anything, but their scenes do have a little extra zing. Vicki tells him off. He recovers slightly. It strikes me that it's a good thing nobody clued him in on Vicki's dinner with Burke.
For someone who wakes up with supposed insomnia at 1 AM, Maggie is unnecessarily chipper. I suffer from insomnia and let me just say that I'm never very happy about not being able to get to sleep. Granted I don't live with an alcoholic so I'm free of the need for enabling and all, but still. In my experience insomniacs wake up resigned and irritated. They may end up doing something productive like baking or watching weepy melodramas on late night TV, but they're rarely cheerful about it.
We're still in the weird phase of the Evans Cottage geography. The kitchen moves around like five times in the space of these episodes. Right now it's off where Maggie's bedroom eventually turns out to be. She goes there to make tea. Because the caffeine is just going to knock that old insomnia right out. Man, she really can be a twit sometimes. Sam is not doing the best job with all this positive attitude stuff, and for once, I'm starting to sympathize with the man. Eventually we get down to the drama. He's written a letter to her. It's the obligatory "don't open this unless something happens to me" letter. This is a long, slow, painful scene to watch. David Ford is not stepping up to the plate. KLS is just off. The dialogue is off. Plus, well, Maggie is just annoying here. I get the strong sense that neither the director nor the actress had the clearest idea of who Maggie is supposed to be. I know Wallace wrote up a bio for her in the bible, but it's not working. She's too divorced from the other players. The enabling/co-dependent thing might have saved the character if they'd played it up, but it just does not work. At least not here.
Who was the actress behind the ghost/sobbing in the dark? It doesn't sound like Bennett. It actually sounds like Clarice Blackburn, but that can't be right, can it? So yeah, someone is having a very realistic set of hysterics in the middle of the night at Collinwood. Vicki gets up and tries to find out who's crying. Eventually she ends up in the basement. Where Roger finds her. Sounds die down and he reams into her about snooping. She pulls a Rachel Drummond about the sobbing--although in her defense, it's a lot more understandable than any of the crap Rachel pulled. Roger doesn't care. He tells her to stay where she belongs and to do what she's supposed to do and nothing else. That bluntly. As the phone starts ringing, and also as the basement is not the most comfortable place to have a shouting match, they take off for upstairs. Man, I really love the creepiness of the crying. Because once they're off the set, we hear the crying again.
Roger gets the phone and it's Ned Calder. Roger is abrupt with Ned, and despite the fact that Vicki is practically semaphoring to him that he shouldn't hang up, he does. They go at it again. I have to say that I rather like Vicki when she's angry. This is what I mean by chemistry. There is something to these two when they're in mutually bad moods. He finally suggests that if she wasn't snooping, she go and tell Liz. She calls him on his bluff. Hehe. To put it vulgarly, she's pissed. He's upset. He realizes that he needs to back down so he opts for the false charm. To her credit, it takes awhile before it has any effect on Vicki whatsoever. And then at the very end, she agrees to forgive and forget if he'll answer just one question: what's the truth about the crying woman?
I love this bit. It's brilliant. They lost all this with Barnabas, but before they brought his character on, every once in awhile, we were treated to this. Family totally denies there are ghosts. No such thing as the supernatural. Blah, blah, blah. Stop imagining things. Yes, you're right, we heard it too. Just stay in your room and don't think about it. Family totally denies there are ghosts. No such thing as the supernatural. Blah, blah, blah. Stop imagining things. And that teeny admission that you just skipped over because you don't read every word of my column might never well have existed. These people have survived because they learned to deny in order to stay sane. Anyhow, Roger admits that he's heard the crying on and off over the years and conjectures that it's one of the ghosts.
Another recast. Thayer David is now playing Matthew Morgan. I'm not a fan. He looks crazed from the get-go. Victoria either had it really bad at the Foundling Home not realizing that the family can afford alternative reading material for David, or she's never actually read one of the Rover Boys books. She's poking around in the cellar looking for them. Matthew does his best to steer her away from the locked room. She asks him about the sobbing. Matthew straight out conjectures that she heard Josette Collins. He's a big believer in ghosts.
So instead of The Scarlet Letter school kids read The Count of Monte Cristo in the 1960s? Carolyn has found Burke reading this in lieu of a paper with his utterly stupid breakfast of doughnuts and coffee. It's a diner, Art. At least have the guy eating toast. How hard is it for the prop guy to make a piece of toast? I suppose we should be glad that Carolyn has the intellect to make the jump between the book's subject matter and Burke's probable motive for returning to Collinsport. Hints openly about Vicki. If she was wearing a sign proclaiming, "I am totally available. Take me now!" she couldn't be more obvious.
Elizabeth glibly informs Matthew that he was remiss in not having Roger's car fixed and that it was his fault the bleeder valve fell off. It takes Matthew awhile to realize this, as of course, he did no such thing. She finally spells it out to him that since this was what she told the police, he'll have to back her up. She gives him that wide-eyed look and he agrees. She's less happy when he reveals that Vicki is still in the basement.
Not having the sense to realize she should shut up about the crying (she has two people who admit to hearing it now and her employer is giving her that vicious glare again, shut up already), Vicki goes on about it. Elizabeth doesn't care. She talks about pipes and the wind. She finds the Rover Boys books for her. (I like to think there was a missing scene where she sweetly orders Vicki to have to read this aloud to David. That would have been revenge).
Love's Young Dream opts for the brilliant and never-used-before-ever strategy of leaving a great big honking ring on the table in the diner so that she'll have an excuse to see Burke again. The fact that she's assuming that he'll find the ring and that it won't get swept off into Lost-and-Found until Suzy or Maggie get permission to take it for their own never enters her pretty little head. She also invites herself along for the day. He's really not interested. He's really not. She can't see it though and won't shut up about it. He tells her he has to go to Bangor and still she wants to come along with. He turns her down.
Elizabeth is back to being extremely irritated. She finds out about Roger hanging up on Ned Calder and then tries to reach him again.
Back at the coffee shop, Matthew turns up. Burke makes conversation and Matthew point blank threatens the man. It's a direct "I like to make lamps out of the people who make trouble for Mrs. Stoddard" sort of threat too. Burke isn't impressed. Probably because Matthew now looks more like someone out of Central Casting and less like someone who seriously does like to make lamps out of people who inconvenience the object of his affections.
Carolyn is the least subtle scheming soap opera blonde I have ever seen. And that includes Anne Heche's Vicky Hudson and Kate Collins' Natalie. I think she's treating this all like some big game, which is kind of cute in a way. Our Vicki asks her about the sobbing and Carolyn cheerfully admits that she heard it too. She can do that because Vicki is now "one of us." As she skips off to get dressed for her big date, Elizabeth pops up and grimly offers Vicki the key to the locked room. You can practically see the challenge in Bennett's eyes. Vicki hesitates and then caves.
