“I’m accusing you of painting a portrait of a wolf!”
“Things don’t always have to have explanations,” says Mr. Tate, and that might as well be Dark Shadows’ mission statement. “You don’t have to know about everything in the universe. Things just happen, it could be one of those things that –”
And then he’s cut off, by someone threatening to kill him. That happens a lot in 1969, when people start babbling about the universe.
“This is no time to try to understand anything.”
This is a world of magical foxes, who approach young children and try to convince them to jump into a well. It’s a world where recipe books appear in the strangest places, filled with the most dangerous ideas. A world where stopwatches run backwards, where ancient stones murmur secrets in lost languages, where the walls are smeared with tears and blood and substances no one can explain.
This is a world where anybody — literally anybody — can address any god they can imagine, and get a fair hearing. In this world, “magic” is just another word for interior design, the careful placement of mirrors and candles and arcane symbols scratched into the carpet. Magic is so close to the surface here, it crackles and hums on the back of your hand. It will kill you. It will definitely one hundred percent kill you.
And the only rule that keeps this world turning is: Leave the mundanes alone.
“I’m not going to be inside any pentagrams. I’m going to be doing something that makes sense!”
In the morning, Beth finds Quentin stumbling into the house, exhausted and dirty, his clothes ripped to pieces, and with no memory of what happened to him.
“Quentin!” she cries. “Where have you been? How did you get like this?” Yeah, and how do we get you to do it again?
Continue reading Episode 752: The One Where Evan Ruins the Carpet
“I understand a great many things, including her desire to kill you!”
Quentin says, “A lot has happened while you were away, dear brother,” and isn’t that the truth. Dark Shadows has been sprinting through plot points for weeks now, and if you need to catch up on current events, this is all the help you’re going to get.
“One night, my dear wife escaped from wherever you had her locked up. She found me in the cottage. Well, you can imagine how surprised I was at seeing her. But that was nothing, compared to how I felt when she put the knife in my chest.”
Edward cries, “Good heavens!” and Quentin just smiles, because Quentin is magical and lives entirely on surprise. “Rather shocking, isn’t it?” he says. “You know, at one point I was actually declared dead?”
“Dead?” gasps Edward, horrified. “Yes,” Quentin says, “but let’s spare the grisly details,” and then he just starts talking about something else.
“For a variety of reasons. All of them, I think, quite valid.”
Barnabas Collins is standing around helplessly in the Old House drawing room, constitutionally unable to take a step that will advance the storyline in any meaningful way.
Then there’s a knock at the door, and who should walk in but Leona Eltridge and a Large Teen Idol.
“You keep talking about secret rooms, and guns. It bothers me for some reason.”
And now, another tableau from our pageant of Great Moments in Fictional Health Care.
Victoria Winters was in a car accident the other day, and escaped entirely unharmed. But she’s been cooped up in a hospital bed for episode after episode, and she doesn’t even have a magazine.
She says to her doctor, “You are going to release me today, aren’t you?” The doctor smirks, and says, “Now, why be in such a hurry?”
So apparently this hospital encourages able-bodied patients to stay longer. Even for a vampire soap opera, that requires more suspension of disbelief than anything else on the show. I thought we were back in the 20th century.
“Unless they are hiding him. They hide people here, you know.”
Daniel comes in through the window. That’s the thing I don’t understand.
Victoria Winters, time-displaced girl governess, is currently on the run after shooting herself in the shoulder, breaking out of prison and killing a guy, in that order. Fleeing the scene of her latest felony, she’s teamed up with ten-year-old Daniel Collins, who’s brought her back to Collinwood to hide.
Daniel enters the house by climbing in through the drawing room window. He looks around in the foyer, makes sure that nobody’s there, and then he opens the front door and motions for Vicki to come in.
Now, there are lots of reasons why this sequence has baffled the finest minds of our generation. For one thing, hiding Vicki in Collinwood is a ridiculous plan. The one person that they’re all afraid of right now is Lt. Nathan Forbes, who lives there. On top of that, Daniel stows Vicki in the study, which is a place that Nathan knows where it is. They have an enormous mansion full of rooms to choose from, and Daniel stashes Vicki behind one of the four doors that you can see from the foyer.
But the thing that gets me is: why doesn’t Daniel just walk in through the front door? All he’s doing is checking that the coast is clear. The only thing that climbing in the window accomplishes is taking the risk that someone will ask him why he’s climbing in the window.
So that’s where we are, as we begin our final week in 1795. We’ve moved beyond characters being stupid, into a whole new realm of nonsensical behavior. There’s got to be an illogical explanation for all of this.
“We were just having a little family argument.”
This hasn’t been an easy week so far, either for the Collins family or for the Dark Shadows audience. They’re wrapping up this phase of the Barnabas/Josette storyline, and after all of the build-up, it doesn’t really feel like anything.
This week, we’re seeing two of Dark Shadows‘ less successful attempts at creating a soap opera supercouple — a pairing that endures for years and offers unlimited story potential, as they overcome obstacles and always find their way back to each oher. On Monday, the show officially unveiled Vicki and Peter as the brand new star-crossed, century-hopping romance, and now we’re heading straight for a pivotal moment in the epic story of Barnabas and Josette.
Now, I don’t know how you feel about the situation, but personally I couldn’t care less about those couples. They could jump off a cliff for all I care, and lucky me, guess what happens next.
“I’ve got a feeling about this doll.”
It’s the next morning, and Joe’s been out all night searching for young David, who’s trapped in the secret room in the mausoleum.
Joe walks over to Maggie’s house, and he slumps down into a chair to grab a few moments of rest. He’s exhausted, and dirty, and he hasn’t shaved. And you remember how yesterday I noticed that Joe is really handsome? Cause, damn.
But there’s no time for romance; we’ve got serious business today. Worn out from weeks of baffling mysteries, Joe finally says what everyone’s been thinking.
“We all know there’s something very strange going on in this town,” he says, “but I’m beginning to think that it’s something so strange that…”
That what, Joe?
“That it borders on the supernatural.”
BOOM! And the world explodes.
Dark Shadows Every Day 