Hide-n-Seek -- Episodes 83 & 84

No fashion notes as no one wore anything worthy of commentary. Art and John are the folks responsible for writing and directing these two episodes.

Our first episode concerns the progression of the Maggie and Joe relationship and also how Roger deals with what appears to be highly damning evidence. Our second is chiefly about the deterioration of the Carolyn and Joe relationship and the extent of David's psychiatric condition. But first the pen.

Where's it going next? As Vicki realizes it's missing, we have a shot of Roger burying it on the blatantly fake set of Lookout Point.

Burke --> Carolyn --> Roger--> Lookout Point --> Vicki -->  Roger --> Lookout Point

At first, Vicki thinks the pen has just gotten misplaced. She and David look for the damned thing in his room to no avail. Her next and not illogical assumption is that young Master Collins stole it. However, I have to say that David's initial reaction when she tells him it's missing doesn't really warrant that. He's not that good a liar. It doesn't help though when he suggests that the ghosts took it, because blaming the ghosts is usually David's way of shifting responsibility away from him. When she doesn't go for that possibility (this would be way back in the days before she saw shadows at every turn and started insisting that weird hair-touching creeps were her boyfriend), he brings up Roger as a suspect. Again, not a great move because Roger is also David's other scapegoat. On the other hand, David didn't steal the pen and he does blame Roger for everything from burnt toast to global warming so . . . Then the yelling starts. David's gut instinct is to get Vicki into the west wing. Roger joins them there and promptly takes David's side in the argument.

Diner: Maggie is hard at work reading the paper when Joe stops by. They flirt. He is operating under the impression that he's been dumped. Maggie shrewdly expresses support and approval for his dream of owning his own boat. She's a lot more subtle here with him than in previous scenes. Joe isn't picking up on it, but that's natural. He's pretty bummed about the whole Carolyn situation.

Collinwood: I had forgotten how clever Roger's scheme really was. I still think he should have tossed the pen, but from his perspective that wouldn't work. His two obstacles are Vicki and David because they know that she found the pen at Lookout Point.    

Obstacle #1: Roger is all charm with Vicki He claims he took David's side to smooth things over. He suggests she's taking the wrong approach with David. He persuades her to forget about the whole thing. I can't say Vicki is enthusiastic with the idea, but she agrees. Looking at the situation, it's easy to see why Vicki is duped. She's a Nice Girl, and like most of us, generally assumes that the people around her are good, decent people who will do The Right Thing. She's too young and inexperienced to realize that he's incapable of that.

Diner: Maggie continues her campaign. I don't want to imply that she's pursuing Joe sans encouragement. It's more subconscious on his level, but he's interested. You can tell. They enjoy some requisite expository dialogue about the closed off wings of Collinwood and their isolation. And then Maggie invites Joe to take potluck with her and her father that night at Casa Evans.

Obstacle #2: One potential threat to his life and liberty down, Roger tackles his son. He's pretty buzzed and even offers David a brand new bike. David is still reeling from the shock that his father actually took his side so I doubt he really does have a new Schwinn in his future. Roger hands David a fountain pen of his very own. He says that Miss Winters was in the wrong. He asks David to keep quiet about the pen entirely. David's acquiescence is total. Roger then suggests that the ghosts took the pen. When David vows revenge, Roger informs him he doesn't want the details.

Later Joe stops by to see Carolyn, but it's evident his heart isn't in it. Vicki tries to persuade him to wait. She's alone in the house (it's unclear where recluse Elizabeth has got to) and David makes her nervous, but alas Joe heads out.

Once it's been established that Vicki is alone in the house with David, the fun begins.

David rather expertly baits Vicki, telling her he has the pen and that it's in the west wing. He just happens to have the key and gets her to follow him there. Bad, bad idea on her part.

I have always been shocked and amused at the resemblance the disused parts of Collinwood have to a fire sale. Seriously, there's always furniture all over the place with bits of odds and ends everywhere. Aside from total slobs, who the hell lives like this? Most people pack the books and knickknacks away. Furniture isn't in the middle of a hallway (usually). Not at Collinwood.

Although she's visibly nervous, Vicki allows David to coax her into his favorite hiding space. He tells her they took the long way so she couldn't find her way back (savvy viewers will probably realize he means that in a Hansel and Gretel sense). It's quite the little establishment too. He's got a can opener, canned goods, a candle, drawing paper and all sorts of other little goodies. There is a casement window, but it's got bars on it. Add in the creepy wind f/x and mood lighting and we have quite the atmosphere going.

He plays Vicki like a fiddle. He takes all of her well-meaning textbook social work overtures and uses them to keep her from leaving the room.

Downstairs Carolyn returns. Liz is there and they chat. As is usually the case with Carolyn, she's in her stable cycle. Elizabeth cops to offering Joe that promotion so that he could marry Carolyn. Carolyn admits that she thinks she loves Joe. Since she's come to that conclusion it therefore follows that nothing else matters but her instant gratification so she dismisses Liz's concern that she can't locate Vicki. I might add that Carolyn's notion of making it up to Joe consists of allowing him to take her out for a pricey meal and champagne. Gosh how generous of her! We get some expository dialogue from Liz about the grand ol' days that mostly serve to set up the fact that the family used to have more servants than the family in Gosford Park and that there was this butler, see?

Speaking of set up, may I say that young Master Collins is quite the expert at it? Hell, he should be writing this show. He screams for help in order to demonstrate to Vicki just how isolated this room is. He talks about dead people stopping by for a visit. He even treats her to a version of The Mistletoe Bough. Not sure how familiar any of you are with it, but it's a charming little tale of a game of hide-and-seek gone horribly wrong. Basically [spoiler]a young bride determines that a chest in the attic is a just ducky place to hide, but since the chest locks on her when she closes the lid and also since nobody finds her, she's trapped. And years later, they find her moldering corpse.[/spoiler] It really sets the mood.

In the foyer, another doomed person, poor Joe, comes on by. There's some smooching, but it's quite evident that Joe's heart isn't in it. He tells her he already made plans. Liz meanwhile is wondering where David and Vicki have got to, but Carolyn "All About Me" Stoddard is more concerned with her own love life.

Alexandra Moltke really does a nice job with her scenes. Her unease and eventually her terror are well done. You can practically see her abandoning any concern for David as she realizes just how mentally ill he is, and just how screwed she is by this turn of events. She tries to leave, but David's locked the door. She demands the key and he finally unlocks it. But he tricks her into turning her back and then she's good and trapped. He takes off and Vicki starts screaming her lungs out.

In the foyer, Carolyn is busy apologizing to Joe. It's clearly too little too late. I have to say that there's a nice realism to this SL. Barrett and Crothers play it very naturally. There's Joe and he's listening to her, but at the same time, he's already emotionally distancing himself from her. He reiterates that he's got a prior commitment. I think you can all imagine the fireworks when she weasels it out of him that it involves dinner with Maggie. There's a lot of yelling (mostly from Carolyn) and it really seems pretty final by the time they're done.

Elizabeth comes in at the tale end of it. She's still a little more concerned with locating David and Vicki. I get the sense that being Carolyn's mother is pretty exhausting work. David resurfaces and he's hungry. He lies like a rug about Vicki.

Upstairs in the little room, we see Vicki. It's going to storm. She's got one candle. And it's clearly going to be a long haul for her.

I would be remiss if I didn't say that David Henesy delivers a standout performance. The aplomb with which he handles a complex role and some pretty heavy material is to his credit.

Had a great time reliving these episodes while reading your wonderful recap, Luciaphil!  As I recall, this was early Dark Shadows at it's gothic best.

You really feel for Vicki when David traps her in that room, a real sense of claustrophobia is invoked.  And it's hard to square this deeply disturbed David with the more conventional little lad we see in the later episodes.

The core Collins family just seems so much more unsavory early in the series, don't they?

Luciaphil darling,

as always, reading you is a highlight of the day, the week, the month, the year...

I love your description of the "closed off wing" and its resemblance to a "fire sale."  You're right, of course; it is beyond strange that a woman with Liz's character would let the house go to pot like this.  I think it is meant to be "read" symbolically as a physical expression of the moral, financial, and familial decay of the Collins family.  Behind the impressive facade of Collinwood, there are rooms full of broken-down, useless furniture and the junked remains of cartloads of heirlooms.  Reminds me of one of my favorite lines in Hush, Hush Sweet Charlotte (which I am informed is about to be released on DVD)--Mary Astor's character is given the line, "all I have left is ruined finery."

Just have to add that I think KLS was really quite marvelous in those scenes with Joe.  Crothers was his usual stellar self, of course.  Gave me rather a pang to read the phrase, "the doomed Joe Haskell"--made me think of how he ended up.

best, Steve

The core Collins family just seems so much more unsavory early in the series, don't they?

What a perfect term..."unsavory".....!  Isn't it a shame that after the "supernatural" element became the driving force of the show, the family went from "unsavory" to "loony" in too many aspects.  The family members were just so much more intricate and nuanced in the early episodes, and were given much less depth in the later years.

Somehow I can't see the steely-jawed Mrs. Stoddard of the early days succumbing to the buried-alive hocus-pocus that overcame the later Liz.

i agree that the "steely-jawed" mrs.stoddard of these episodes bears scant resemblance to the elizabeth of the buried alive storyline.

when i think about that story i really can't believe just how bad it was.i'm sort of surprised that joan bennett didn't put her foot down with that one and demand something better.even though the show was clearly mr.frid's by that point ms.bennett must have still had some "clout" with the producers.maybe an actress of her age was just glad to have steady employment which is kind of sad.

it's nice that she got to play more interesting characters in other time-periods.

Well, Miss Bennett did have a clause in her contract that guaranteed her a six week"vacation" (during which she often did theatre or other projects--when you think about it, she was a pretty hard-working dame).  The first "Liz freaks out and goes catatonic" storyline happened early in 1967.  It would have been nice if DC and his merry band of writers could have come up with another way of having her character disappear for a month and a half other than having her periodically crack up and exit feet first.

I guess my reaction to the Liz-fears-burial-alive storyline is colored to how I saw it as a child (I was ten that year).  I found it genuinely creepy.  I had cut my eye teeth on 1930s and 40s movies (what can I say, I was an unusual child) and I found Liz's speeches about her fears very plausible within the weird world of Collinwood.  I really love the show where Liz returns from having been "away," too--I realize it's totally unreal that she comes back flawlessly made up and with her hair immaculately styled, which would not have been the case with an individual who had been "away" that long, but again, within the strange setting of 1968 Collinwood, I can coax myself into a suspension of disbelief.

At moments like this, DS is truly the equivalent of comfort food...

G.

At moments like this, DS is truly the equivalent of comfort food...

Couldn't agree more! Luciaphil, you rock da house with your witty synapses...sorry I don't get around to comment more, but I just had to say that your articles are always a JOY to read. Makes me wanna pop in a tape and replay some of those great 'DSBB' moments {Dark Shadows Before Barnabas... yeah, I crack myself up.