Tag Archives: strangling

Episode 997: Fifty Shaves

April 1970, Sam Hall, , ,

“He hasn’t kidnapped anybody, otherwise he wouldn’t be bothering me like he does!”

Carolyn and Maggie are away from home, filming House of Dark Shadows. Josette and Rachel and Kitty are dead, Millicent and Pansy are mad, and Vicki is long gone. Beth jumped off a cliff, Amanda never existed, Phyllis is trapped in the Stopping-Off Place with Schrödinger’s cat, and Sabrina is Sabrina.

Instead, we present the continuing adventures of Buffie Harrington, our temp soap opera heroine, who’s here on contract while we’re waiting for the more appealing, Ohrbach’s-approved heroines to come back from vacation.

She doesn’t get benefits, and she needs somebody to sign her timecard, but she’s here. If we need a girl to get groped on camera, then Buffie is the next available representative.

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Episode 993: All I Know Is Danger

April 1970, Joe Caldwell, , , , , , ,

“You must try to expect nothing from me!”

Angelique Collins was murdered. We all agree on that, right? Stroke, no; murder, yes.

It’s not our Angelique, of course. I’m talking about the Parallel Time alt-universe Angelique, who was murdered six months ago, at a midnight seance in the drawing room. We know that she was murdered, because last week, they re-enacted the seance, and a ghost-possessed dental hygienist pointed at Angelique’s identical twin and shouted, She’s dying, she’s dying, murder, murder, murder. Apparently the spirit speaking through her was re-enacting too.

The other reason that we know Angelique was murdered is because of course she was murdered, this is a television show and they’ve been talking incessantly about her death for weeks. ABC Television isn’t funding this daily blastoff into the uncharted regions of tormented space just to tell the story of a woman who happened to die of a stroke.

After the seance, everybody did what people do in Collinwood after an accusation of murder; they went about their normal activities. If the Collins family stopped to investigate every single mysterious death that happens on their property, life as we know it would grind to a halt. When somebody dies, that means there’s one fewer person in the cast to have conversations with, and the survivors have even more on their plates.

So Quentin and Alexis have been going on as usual, grooming houseplants and making up excuses for things. In this version of reality, Quentin used to be Angelique’s husband, until she was murdered, and Alexis used to be her twin sister, until ditto, unless it turns out that Alexis actually is Angelique, back from the dead to reclaim her rightful place at Collinwood, which would mean that everybody needs to update their entries on Dark Shadows Wiki.

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Episode 988: The Staggering Weirdness of Bruno

April 1970, Gordon Russell, , ,

“Your world is the one that’s small and narrow, Bruno, because there’s no one in it, except you.”

Operator, could you get me the number of a travel agency in New York? Almost anyone will do — anyone that would have information about ships docking in New York from Genoa in the past week. That’s right, from Genoa.

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Episode 959: Do No Harm

February 1970, Gordon Russell, , , , ,

“Only the spirits of those that we’ve killed would dare to harm us this way!”

They all lay in stone houses in their great city of R’lyeh, preserved by the spells of mighty Cthulhu for a glorious resurrection when the stars and the earth might once more be ready for them.

The time would be easy to know, for then mankind would have become as the Great Old Ones; free and wild and beyond good and evil, with laws and morals thrown aside and all men shouting and killing and revelling in joy. Then the liberated Old Ones would teach them new ways to shout and kill and revel and enjoy themselves, and all the earth would flame with a holocaust of ecstasy and freedom.

But not today, obviously. They’re busy today.

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Episode 898: Executive Child

December 1969, Gordon Russell, , , , ,

“I am the keeper of the book, and the protector of the baby.”

Sitting alone in his hotel room, waiting for his daughter to call, itinerant sperm donor and faux-father Paul Stoddard finds his attention drawn to a calendar hanging on the wall. Then he finds his hand drawn to a pen lying on the desk. Then a circle finds itself drawn around December the 4th.

As the pen falls from his nerveless hand, Paul says to himself, “What made me do that? December 4th! What does it mean?”

What it means, I’m sorry to say, is that the pen is yet another convert of the bewildering demonic cross-time conspiracy that’s currently wreaking havoc in the Collinsport small business community. We knew about the antique shop, of course, and I’ve long had my suspicions of the local Orbach’s, but I thought at least they’d have the decency to leave the school supplies out of this. Those monsters!

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Episode 897: You’re the Worst

December 1969, Gordon Russell, , , , , , , , ,

“I’m a monster! I have no choice but to kill!”

Megan is alone, on the display floor of her antique shop. Her husband left to buy cigarettes a few moments ago. The room is dim, and cluttered with scattered relics.

Megan is worried. Earlier today, she was suddenly overcome with the unshakeable feeling that someone is coming to kill her. She’s correct; somebody is actually coming to kill her. It’s been a weird day.

What follows is a five-minute solo spaz attack of epic proportions. When I was younger and less discerning, I thought of this as The Worst Scene In Dark Shadows. I’m not sure what I think about it now. I’m still trying to work that out.

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Episode 878: Flight of the Conquered

Gordon Russell, November 1969, , ,

“I’d advise you to start running. Don’t stop, because those sounds will always be close behind you.”

Aristede has displeased his employer, the mad Count Petofi, for reasons that I don’t feel like discussing right now. Intent on tormenting Aristede to the grave, Petofi has summoned a demonic prison guard, Garth Blackwood — a man that Aristede murdered, years ago. Now Aristede’s on the run, with the implacable Blackwood following close behind, stomping and growling and rattling a chain.

This doesn’t help Count Petofi achieve any of his goals, but he does it anyway. I don’t really know why.

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Episode 852: Who’s Afraid of Violet Welles?

September 1969, Violet Welles, , ,

“We have both faltered, Edward, and a mad child has finally done our work for us.”

Kitty:  Ah! Good evening, Edward.

Edward:  Good evening, Kitty.

Kitty:  What a dump!

(Edward ignores her.)

Kitty:  Hey, what’s that from? “What a dump!”

Edward:  How would I know?

Kitty:  Oh, come on, what’s it from? You know. What’s it from, for Chrissake!

Edward:  What’s what from?

Kitty:  I just told you. I just did it. “What a dump!” Huh? What’s that from?

Edward:  I haven’t the faintest idea.

Kitty:  Dumbbell. It’s from some damn Bette Davis picture, some goddamn Warner Brothers epic.

Edward:  Kitty, I can’t remember all the pictures that came out of Warner Brothers.

Kitty:  I’m not asking you to remember every goddamn Warner Brothers epic. Just one. Just one single little epic, that’s all.

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Episode 748: The Misunderstanding

Gordon Russell, May 1969, , , ,

“I’m not going to jail for anything I didn’t mean to do!”

Well, it’s all fun and games until you throttle someone to death, isn’t it?

Poor little rich boy Quentin Collins has been all wound up lately, because he learned that the wife he’d thought he discarded was still living in his house, jilted and angry and mad as a moonfly. So he did what any high-spirited guy would do, namely carry a garrote around in his pocket and tell absolutely everyone that he sees that he’s planning to murder Jenny the first chance he gets.

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Episode 711: Let’s Twist Again

March 1969, Violet Welles, , , , , ,

“We’re all on the same side, aren’t we? My side.”

I address myself and those here with me to the powers of darkness, he said.

I call upon the flame to summon you, he said.

I call upon the raven and the viper and all the dark creatures of nature to draw you like a rising mist from out of the darkness of the earth, he said.

And he said it over an active hellmouth that spews out vengeance-vowing fire demons on the regular. What could possibly go wrong?

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