“May that breathing never come from any room again!”
So our main character is dead again, hooray! Dark Shadows can fight its destiny as much as it likes — periodically sending Barnabas to rehab, distracting us with other monsters — but the fact is, this is a vampire show. It always has been, even before the vampire showed up, and it always will be, even after the vampire turns into a guy named Bramwell.
The novels say that Barnabas is a vampire, and so do the comics, the board games, the joke books and ABC’s marketing department. And now, thanks to the only worthwhile thing that the Leviathans ever accomplish, even the vampire show has to admit that their vampire is a vampire.
Thank goodness that’s over with; now we can get back to the business of biting people. Making Barnabas a vampire gives the character a whole bunch of interesting things to do — he can struggle to keep control over his bloodlust, he can hypnotize people, he can appear and disappear at will, and he can be exposed and hunted and finally destroyed.
These advantages are all provided free of charge with a vampire protagonist; “curing” Barnabas is like turning your superhero into a newspaper reporter with glasses. You can’t just retreat to your secret identity and stay there; that’s not what we pay you for. Do your job.
The story point that led up to this, if you’re interested, is that the demonic global Leviathan conspiracy has no message discipline and a terrible ground game. They hired Barnabas as a campaign manager, recruiting him using a spellbinding combination of sets, props and makeup that seemed to overwrite his existing programming. But their nominee for head of the formerly-free world is an impulsive, vengeful brat with historically bad favorables, and no interest in taking in any new information about how to be an effective leader.
Jeb isn’t really leading the Leviathan party as much as he’s diminishing it, sacrificing former allies when they dare to suggest that he might try a different approach. To Jeb, those people aren’t experienced operatives; they’re traitors and fools, and they must be destroyed.
So that’s how we got Barnabas back in the bat cave. He insulted Jeb, and Jeb counter-punched ten times harder — going, as always, for the jugular.
Of course, Barnabas isn’t on his own; he has his own team of surrogates and counter-counter-punchers. That includes Quentin, a popular former rival who’s now devoted to protecting his friend’s firewall. When Jeb comes home with the Naga box, Quentin is waiting at the door to tussle with the bully, whether he actually needs to or not.
This is interesting — if I can get out of soon-to-be-outdated election metaphor mode, and talk about Dark Shadows for a minute — because it suggests a role for Quentin in the present day. For the last few weeks, I’ve been tracking how Quentin fits into the current narrative, now that he’s left all of his original storylines behind. He’s definitely not the leading man anymore — he gets a romantic scene later this week, but it’s played solely as an obstacle for Barnabas to overcome. And he can’t really play best friend, either — Julia’s the one who gets to stick Barnabas with needles, and Quentin’s never going to get that close.
But while we weren’t looking, Quentin stumbled on a role that no one else can play, namely: the guy who punches people in the face. Two weeks ago, Quentin had a spectacular fistfight with Jeb in the middle of the antique shop, knocking Jeb out with a vase and generally wreaking havoc on the inventory. And here he is again, back at the scene of the last disturbance, wrestling with the front-runner over not very much at all.
“You’ve killed him!” Quentin observes, correctly, and then he says, “You’re not going anywhere until you tell me where he’s at!” and Jeb sneers, “I don’t have to tell you anything,” and Quentin says, “Oh, yes, you do!” and then they take off their earrings and it’s on.
So that’s a thing that Quentin can do. Barnabas uses warnings and threats to get his way, and Julia lies her way out of trouble, but Quentin can actually go and sock somebody on the kisser. This is the second time he’s just walked up to Jeb and punched him in the face. I like it.
He doesn’t win, unfortunately; Jeb pulls a knife, which means the system is rigged and we need to drain the swamp. But then Quentin goes back to the Old House with his adorably conflict-tousled hair, and he frets with Julia about what this could possibly mean.
She immediately guesses that Barnabas is a vampire again, which means it’s time for all the woodland creatures to rush to his defense.
“Now, listen,” Quentin says, “you stay here; there may be trouble. I’ll go and look.”
“No!” says Julia. “Whatever’s happened, Barnabas needs both of us.”
Which is true, he does, and so do I. The theme of this week is that Barnabas is getting the band back together, gathering all of his friends for a climactic battle with the Big Bad. Now all they need to do is remind Quentin that he knows how to use weapons.
Meanwhile, it is super green outside; I can’t remember it ever being this green before. It must be global warming or something. I can’t really explain this shot in terms of theatrical realism; they’ve clearly decided that the show now takes place entirely on stage. Imagine a shot like this on All My Children. It can’t be done.
Anyway, what this scene is supposed to be about is that Barnabas — a bloodsucker once more — wants to slake his thirst using Maggie Evans, his former victim and current I’m-totally-over-Josette project. But as he reaches for the doorknob, there’s a musical crescendo, and he has a whole commercial break to reconsider.
When he comes back, he’s apparently used that time productively. “Can I do this to Maggie?” he wonders, in thinks. “One hour ago, I would have killed anyone who tried to harm her. Yes, harm her — that is what I would be doing!” So hooray for commercials; as always, the American advertising industry has our best interests at heart.
So he goes down to the Blue Whale, cruising for chicks, and he manages to snare one, first crack out of the box. This is what being a vampire can do for your efficiency. And it turns out she’s not just any girl; her name is Nelle Gunston, and she’s actually a Leviathan convert, which means Barnabas can kill her and his friends won’t even hardly mind.
Man, it really is green out tonight. Is it always this green, this time of year?
So the way that we find out that this dame is a Leviathan is as follows. She asks Barnabas if he knows where the antique shop is, and he starts to give her directions, because if you’re ever lost, you should immediately enter a bar and ask a patron for assistance. But then suddenly he stops — and there’s a dramatic music cue, as the camera kind of haphazardly pulls in on Nelle’s face.
“The Naga!” says Barnabas, his eyes popping. I have literally no idea what he’s referring to.
I mean, see if you can find the Naga in this shot. This is not a trick question — you are looking directly at it.
And here it is — it’s that green soapstone Naga locket that Megan wears, on a gold chain around Nelle’s neck, entirely obscured by her coat, her scarf and the general background green kryptonite glow of this enchanted evening. The only time that the audience has even a chance of seeing it is when Nelle talks about joining the Leviathans, and she instantly covers it with her hand, because she hates the audience.
So this is another in a series of Leviathan fashion fails, where we’re supposed to catch sight of a piece from the extensive line of Naga jewelry, but they’ve put something else in the way, and we’re expected to take it on faith. Also, by the way, if this is a secret conspiracy, then why do they wear identifying accessories? Seriously, this has got to be the dumbest apocalyptic death cult of all time.
Anyway, here’s the totally relatable hard-luck story that explains why Nelle cast her lot with a squad of tentacle-shipping world-enders.
“You don’t know what my life was like before,” she says. “Gettin’ up, and goin’ to work.” She takes a sip of wine, overcome with the recollection. “And listenin’ to Momma and Poppa, and wantin’ to get out so bad.”
That’s it, that’s the whole story. She got up and went to work, and somehow that qualifies as an explanation. I think it’s possible that the Dark Shadows writers have drifted so far from rational thought that they’ve forgotten what human lives are actually like. Listening to your parents is not, in and of itself, a reason to murder the world.
Then Julia and Quentin come in, and they’re happy to find Barnabas alive and socializing, but he says that he’s busy and doesn’t need to be fang-blocked right now.
And Julia registers shock, as she looks at Nelle and somehow divines that the stranger is wearing an invisible Leviathan necklace, somewhere under the eight layers of winter clothes.
“Quentin,” she asks as they approach the bartender, “did you see that locket around her neck?” He has not. Nobody has. It is mostly theoretical.
Anyway, everything turns out okay, in the sense that Barnabas has a nice fangs-out bite scene, which if they know how to shoot something properly, it’s this. How they ever thought they could get along with a monster point of view shot and a slime trail and zero vamp attacks is beyond me. This is why every television show has a vampire now. People don’t remember that it used to be optional.
Julia and Quentin arrive on the scene, and they find a dead girl on the floor which is now their problem to deal with. Barnabas is ashamed of himself, obviously; he’s never more self-aware than he is when he’s got blood on his face.
But he has a big exciting storyline-climax speech to make as the camera tracks in for a thrilling close-up.
There is one thing I must do tonight!
I must go to Jeb.
He is going into that room in the antique shop, and change into his other form!
That room is the only place he can change, and in that room,
he is the most dangerous form that ever existed.
Well, I will see that he will never change again!
And then he zips out the door, leaving Julia and Quentin behind on cleanup duty.
“We have to take her to the woods, and bury her,” Julia says, who’s been down this road before.
“I know what I’d like to do!” Quentin shouts. “I’d like to take this poor girl to the antique shop, and let them find her there, in the morning!”
So that’s where we are, at four twenty-two in the afternoon, watching our teen pop star talk about pranks he’d like to play with corpses.
So there’s only one thing left to do, and only one character who can do it: Barnabas Collins, who breaks into the antique shop and just burns the whole fucking place down, cleansing the earth with fire.
This is Monday, by the way. This is what we do on Mondays now.
Tomorrow: Something Evil People Are Afraid Of.
Dark Shadows bloopers to watch out for:
Act 1 in the Old House: When Julia sobs “Oh, Quentin!” there’s a glimpse of a studio light.
When Julia looks at Nelle and tells Quentin that they have to bury her, there’s yellow marking tape on the floor.
Behind the Scenes:
Bob O’Connell makes his last appearance today as the mostly-silent Blue Whale bartender. He played Collinsport bartenders in three time periods — 1795, 1897 and the present day — in 60 episodes spread over three years, starting with episode 1 in June 1966. Dark Shadows Wiki says that he had a speaking part in four episodes — 2, 156, 319 and 419. After this, O’Connell appears in a number of small roles in TV and movies, sometimes uncredited, including two years on ABC soap Ryan’s Hope as a bartender.
Elizabeth Eis plays Nelle Gunston in today’s episode, and she’ll be back as Buffie Harrington in a couple months. This is her first screen credit, but she was an understudy for Ophelia in the original Broadway cast of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, in 1967-68.
Tomorrow: Something Evil People Are Afraid Of.
— Danny Horn
Dark Shadows Every Day 
Frankly, I love the election analogy ..it’s perfect. Also, using your analogy you can explain the illogical rationale for the Leviathan devotees…devotion to a cult leader. Without a leader there is no cult.
I’ve always been fascinated with the make-up decisions for Vampire Barnabas round 3. In the 1967 storyline they were more subtle. When he was “turned” in 1795 they used heavier make-up to show the “change” When he was let out in 1897 they brought back the make-up as they did for 1970, But the 1970 change is heavy-handed and included the streaks of gray. Nice touch but strange that no character mentions this startling alteration
Frid’s “vampire look” in 1967 was my favorite because it was more subtle. The Universal Horror-esque black-and-white photography also helped. There were periods after 1795 when he started to look like a slightly more conservative Dr. Frank-N-Furter.
Also, to be blunt, Frid was much thinner in 1967 than he was by 1970. The “gaunt” look of his cheeks really sold “vampire” without the Max Factor.
I’ve never been able to come up with a satisfactory fanwank for Adam’s role in all of this.
Oh, right. This must have been one of those super Extra Strength bats.
And then Parallel Time Ms. Clairol’s it all away anyway.
Oh yes, I’d forgotten about Adam — and so, it would seem, have the writing staff, who at the time didn’t even bother with a proper story resolution for the character.
Dark Shadows bloopers to watch out for: Dark Shadows
Adam died at the exact instant the bat bit Barnabas.
In an amazing coincidence, a bat was also involved. An aluminum bat.
While we’re pointing up those nagging inconsistencies…
This is the second time I can remember that it is stated that Jebiathan
MUST BE IN HIS CHOSEN ROOM to do his shapeshifting gig.
So what about when he was at Collinwood, and changed into little Carolyn, and breathed at Paul?
When he locked Maggie in the secret passages and breathed at her?
When he killed Sheriff Davenport, then was suddenly there at the office as Jeb to say “AHA!” to Barnabas?
He left snail trails all over the rugs at the Rumson house, then was Jeb again?
Must be rigged. One…hundred…percent…RIGGED.
Unlike that other guy, Jeb with his bat-muppet succeeded in making something great again.
I sat down with a cup of coffee to enjoy this post and now it’s gone. Do I blame Obama or Clinton?
Argh, WordPress is being weird today. Thanks for the heads-up, I fixed it.
Since this election has left me feeling really MEAN 2-night (and we’re talking fangs again) I have to mention something I’ve silently noticed for awhile. Characters actual TEETH – Quentin and Chris had gorgeous pearly whites but not so much JF. Since he was supposed to be a vampire ‘sex symbol’ I would have thought Dan Curtis would have delicately recommended some dental ‘enhancements’ since he was on a visual medium. Go ahead and criticize me for saying this but being a detail oriented person I notice these things. I know this WAS the era of the ‘chain smoker’ so maybe I’m seeing this through the lens of todays perfect ZOOM enhanced smiles. HAPPY VOTING!
Actually Jonathan Frid did have extensive dental procedures done, I believe of a cosmetic type, just before joining the cast in 1967. I always thought it odd how when he would open his mouth wide — such as in the tower room in the 1795 story when Bathia Mapes is trying to cure him of his affliction — and you can see the tops of his teeth I would think it odd how he had not a single filling and his teeth, as perfect as they looked, would stop a bit short in back, which led me to think that he must have had false teeth, because the uppers look a bit too generic. In fact all those teeth look the same, no individual character, false. What he may have had done was had his teeth capped. Because I’ve read and heard interviews where some said that his real original teeth were just terrible.
But, yeah, I would think the same thing when watching these episodes, and the thought struck me looking at that shot above, about the staining on the lowers in front. John Karlen said he had an evening routine when the day was done — vodka. And when you sit around drinking steadily and you like to smoke, then you will tend to smoke a lot, so much so that not even regular teeth cleanings at the dentist will make much of a difference.
Don’t forget, lots of coffee. Does it more than anything!
Remember TOPOL – The Smokers’ Tooth Polish(tm)?
I noticed JF’s tooth stains, too, when I first started watching around ’95. As a twenty-something, I couldn’t see why the young things kept falling for him. As I get older he’s getting more attractive–but I still can’t stand the teeth!
You want mean?
Two words.
BATTLEGROUND STATE.
Livin’ the dream here in Michigan – afraid to turn on the TV, all these damn ads!
Just a few more hours, fer to tote de weary load…
North Carolina here – home of the meanest political ads ever. I can turn off the TV but, my phone rings non stop with insatiable pollsters trying to drive me to the top of Widow’s Hill.
I’m ready fer to throw down da weary load.
Michael Stroka’s teeth were especially distracting.
Barnabas couldn’t take Nelle’s carcass with him to the antique shop, and immolate her along with the Chosen Emporium? Kill two birds, AND not make Julia & Quentin accessories to get another murder? It isn’t like the Collinsport police are going to be able to figure it out, anyhow! (Say, did they get a new sheriff yet?)
Oops! YET another order.
How do I turn off this damn Spell Check? :-!
You need a Spell Check Spell. You have to make a voodoo doll of the little Microsoft paperclip man out of a mandrake root, dress it up in a handkerchief and cobwebs, and do unspeakable things to it, all while waiting on hold at an IT helpdesk. If, by some freakish chance of nature, you should actually reach a live technician before you’ve finished your incantations, you have to hang up and start all over again.
MURDER!
AAAAAAAAAAAAAUGH!!
Hey, love to everybody on this weird day after the election. It’s a sad day for me, and I know it is for other people too. Like the Collins family, we will endure.
On the bright side, it’s a great day out here in Massachusetts — “greenest” state in the East. 🙂
Oh, and just to add a Dark Shadows tie-in to my “greening of the East” comment, I’m presently reading the Craig Hamrick bio on Louis Edmonds, Big Lou: The Life & Career of Actor Louis Edmonds, in which mention is made of the marijuana plants Edmonds would grow on the property of his Long Island home (known to friends and associates as “the Rookery”):
“Louis used marijuana intermittently. In the ’60s, he grew his own stash in a hedge-shrouded ‘secret garden’ on the grounds of the Rookery. ‘One afternoon, I was sunbathing nude in the secret garden when a police helicopter flew overhead,’ he said. ‘I was afraid they’d catch sight of my marijuana plants, so I ran to the opposite edge of the garden and did a little naked dance, so they’d look at me instead of the plants. It must have worked, because nobody showed up at my door with a search warrant.”
— Big Lou, p. 58
So, it should have been Louis & Chong.
Or Cheech & Big Lou.
Not that I’d want to see Cheech or Chong’s naked dance.
Louis’ would be okay.
Many thanks, POTN. First smile I have had today.
Glad to help out. 🙂
It’s true what they say about how a show like Dark Shadows provides the ideal escape from the troubling issues of the times, what with it being such a world unto itself, and I prefer to remain untouched by whatever is ailing the collective psyche at any given present time, whenever possible.
As a very astute writer on an online music forum stated earlier this year, in response to how the world now seems so grim with many of his favorite musical icons from younger years passing on with such disheartening frequency:
“2016 can blow me.”
Love to you, Danny.
Wish I could find words, clever, sincere or in between –
just know we care about you (virtual hug)
and we can endure together.
We survived Reagan and came back. We WILL survive Trump.
But that’s just it. A lot of us didn’t survive Reagan. All the men I knew when I came out are dead from AIDS, all wiped out during his reign of neglect and ignorance. I am terrified for the next generation.
Alas, you are right. I wish I could give you words of comfort, but I need them myself
Right with you in the trenches, Adriana.
And it turned out that it was the same generation that suffered most from AIDS in Reagantime that COVID would hit hardest in Trumptime.
It’s been interesting to read your 2016 election references in this post-2020 election and 2021 inauguration time period. Times, they are a’changin’ and not a minute too soon. We did indeed endure. Btw, you’ve dramatically enriched my viewing experience of this entertaining and addictive show. I’ve become a huge fan of your blog which I discovered about halfway through the episodes. I was one of those grade-schoolers who raced home to watch Dark Shadows. Binge-watching the entire series has been a fantastic journey for the past few months. Frankly, I’ll be sad to reach the end. Thank you for your always-delightful take on each episode. It’s such a treat!
So sorry you guys. I really didn’t think this could possibly happen.
I don’t think any of us did.
I know. I keep waking up in the wrong parallel universe. Must have taken a wrong turn at that portrait of Albuquerque.
Didn’t you know, Danny? Nelle was Paul McCartney’s inspiration for “She’s Leaving Home.” It was the Leviathans who brought Paul back from the dead!
Louis Edmonds and his garden – one more little “gesture” at the NEA.
(I always love to hear about those, and I don’t even use the stuff.)
I meant of course the DEA.
I wondered if they made Nelle a bitch, as memory serves, so we wouldn’t mind her getting killed by Barnabus.
From the perspective now of 2019, and with all the election talk in this post, Danny’s description of Jeb as leader was especially (and unwittingly, most likely) prescient: “Jeb isn’t really leading the Leviathan party as much as he’s diminishing it, sacrificing former allies when they dare to suggest that he might try a different approach. To Jeb, those people aren’t experienced operatives; they’re traitors and fools, and they must be destroyed.”
I can see why they brought Elizabeth Eis back, she jumps off the screen in her two scenes here. I’d say she’s easily the best short-timer we’ve seen since Gail Strickland played Dorcas Trilling in 751 and 766.
I’m so glad we’re past those four horrible years which turned out and ended much worse than we could’ve possibly imagined. But we did survive. And it’s watching shows like DS that helped do it.
I really like the darker makeup and, is that a gray streak in his hair, on Barnabas. So glad he’s a vampire like he should be.
Julia is so annoying in this episode! I simply have no use for her!
When Barnabas was last a vampire in 1897 Petofi removed his power to disappear. Since being rebitten does this spell no longer matter?
Walt Panrama, at the time, the Count explained it would prevent Barnabas disappearing ONLY UNTIL the mark of it wore off, which probably happened before he was even cured for the doppelganger spiel.