“He was going to turn me into something inhuman!”
Friday’s cliffhanger was kind of a game changer — Maggie broke free from the hypnotic trance she’d been in, and tried to drive a stake into the vampire’s heart. But it was too late; he woke up.
Now Maggie’s standing there with a stake in her hand, and what are you going to say at that point? I think you might have dropped this, I was just giving it back? It’s not easy to pull that off.
“Every time something happens around here, there’s always a dog hanging around!”
Previously, on Dark Shadows: Huge awesome surprise cliffhanger, with the kidnapped and mostly-hypnotized Maggie sneaking out of the Old House, and showing up right outside her father’s window.
Today, the still-surprising but mostly-confusing resolution: All of a sudden, Maggie is wandering around in the Eagle Hill cemetery. Which means they’re really just making this up as they go along, just like Lost and The Hunger Games.
“Well, I’ve got some news for you. Either your mother has taken leave of her senses, or I have.”
Well, we should’ve seen it coming. On Friday, we had too much fun with the vampire, switching blood slides and generally getting up to mischief, so today we’re back in detention with Liz and Jason.
“How odd. Graveyards don’t fascinate most people.”
So here’s another totally normal thing that doctors do: show up at your door and ask for a blood sample. Yesterday, somebody broke into Dr. Woodard’s office and stole Maggie’s blood tests, so now he has nothing to do but go and see if anyone else has some spare blood lying around.
Woodard shows up at the Old House, and Willie recognizes him as the doctor who came to visit when he was sick last month. The doctor asks if he can examine Willie’s wounds again, and then casually drops, “Oh, and I’d also like to get a sample of your blood, for my records.”
For a doctor, Dave Woodard seems to have a lot of time on his hands; I can hardly get mine to call in a prescription refill.
“Now, look here. There is no such thing as a mystery in science.”
You think you’re having a hard day? Try being Dr. Woodard for a minute. He made several house calls, examined the patient, asked questions, ran tests, played with his glasses and organized an impromptu blood transfusion. Then his patient was kidnapped right out of the hospital, and he doesn’t even have a diagnosis.
And now Burke comes into the office — without an appointment, thank you — and demands answers. This is what health care used to be like, just everybody scolding each other.
“No, I didn’t see anybody. But that’s why it must be her.”
Two days ago, Vicki took herself on an unauthorized tour of the Old House, with stops at the drawing room, Josette’s bedroom, and points north. She tells young David that she saw Josette’s portrait, which she knows he’s been dying to see. Then she sends him out to play, saying, “I don’t want you to go near the Old House — you’re not to pester your cousin anymore!”
Like all ten-year-olds, David has an instinctive hypocrisy detector, so naturally he ignores her and makes a beeline for the Old House. He peers in the window, and sees Maggie wearing Josette’s dress, crossing the drawing room with the music box in her hand. Then the front door opens by itself, and he rushes inside to see Josette.
“You’re very fond of it, aren’t you? Do you know why? Because I gave it to you.”
So here’s the incredibly strange television show that we’re watching right now: An undead ghoul from the 18th century has risen from the grave, moved into his old house, and kidnapped a waitress from the local coffee shop. Now he’s dressing her up in his dead girlfriend’s wedding dress, and taking her out on make-believe dates.
And the only reason why the show is this weird is that Ron Sproat hasn’t had time yet to think up anything weirder.
Continue reading Episode 239: Local Girl Mysteriously Disappears
“You can’t just walk into a place!”
It’s shaping up to be a pretty dull evening at Collinwood. Liz is sitting at a desk fussing with business papers, and Carolyn is assembling a moody jigsaw puzzle. Things liven up a bit when Vicki gets the evening paper, with the headline “LOCAL GIRL MYSTEROUSLY DISAPPEARS”. It’s bad news, obviously, but at least it gives them something to talk about.
Liz tells Carolyn and Vicki that she doesn’t want them walking around alone at night, until they find out what happened to Maggie. Liz gets up and goes to another room, and literally fifteen seconds later, the girls decide to go out and get some fresh air. What can you do with people like that?
“Vicki thinks it might be her imagination. But somehow, she connects the two… and they add up to Willie.”
Maggie’s disappeared from the hospital! Last week, the nurse thought that Maggie had died, and ran to get the doctor. When they came back into the room a moment later, the window was open and Maggie was gone.
So there are a lot of mysteries going on, and we’ll get some answers by the end of the day. But at the moment, the most pressing questions are: Why is there a camera in the hallway, and why does everybody keep touching Sam?
“I had a dream. I can’t remember what it was.”
So basically Vicki is freaking the hell out, and who can blame her? Maggie’s bedroom is under siege, with a pack of vicious, snarling dogs battering at the French windows, howling for blood. Vicki and Burke are pounding on the door, desperate to save their friend.
Burke tries to break the door down with his shoulder. One! Two! Three! And they bust through the door — and find Maggie, drained, blood flowing from the bite marks on her throat. Outside, in the darkness, a triumphant dog howls with savage pleasure.
I mean, a lot of this is sound effects. But still, it’s pretty cool, yeah?
Dark Shadows Every Day 