“Barnabas, Barnabas, please don’t go. Barnabas!”
Well, what’s the point of even having a Frankenstein monster, if he’s not going to go on a rampage every once in a while? You can’t keep him locked up in the basement forever. He’s a metaphor for the limits of human power, the unintended consequences of mankind’s sins made flesh and set loose upon the world. Now get out of the way, and let him do his goddamn job.
“The point is that I am in danger!”
It’s another relaxing evening at the Old House, and Julia tells Barnabas that she has another treatment ready for him. She’s trying to discover a cure for his vampirism, which would be hard enough even if she had a fully compliant patient. But Barnabas is feeling cranky, and when he’s cranky, he tends to get a little strangly.
Here’s his problem: young David is convinced that there’s something spooky hidden in the Old House, and a couple episodes ago, Julia caught the boy tugging on the locked basement door. She didn’t tell Barnabas about the encounter, because she knew he would freak out about it.
Yesterday, Roger mentioned the incident to Barnabas, and guess what? He’s freaking out about it.
“I’m all right. Just call me Miss Jitters of 1967.”
Okay, you’re not going to believe this, but today’s episode of Dark Shadows begins with Victoria Winters looking out the window. There’s a storm outside, and when the lightning flashes, she starts, as if she’s seen something upsetting. Then she walks over to her bedside table and opens that damn music box again. Then Carolyn comes in, and they talk about the music box, and the weather, and then we cut to Barnabas standing outside, staring up at Vicki’s window.
In other words: This is a mash-up of the beginning of every episode from the last five days. It’s like they realized during the dress rehearsal that they’d forgotten to write the first act, so they just tore a page out of all the other scripts this week and now we have to watch it.
“Why are you so frightened of me? It’s I who should be frightened of you.”
Well, Maggie’s still being held captive in her prison cell in the Old House basement, and she’s finally changed out of the wedding dress. Her new look is a lot more subdued, just some shapeless dark robe.
So that goes straight to the top of my list of Scenes I Wish We’d Gotten to See — Maggie changing her clothes in the cell. Do you think Willie brought her the robe, and asked her to return the wedding dress? Did he have to remind her to give back the diamond necklace? That must have been one of the Great Awkward Moments in History.
“Why do you say my name in such a curious fashion?”
Last week, David found Maggie, the Local Girl who has Mysteriously Disappeared, at his cousin Barnabas’ house, dressed up like the dead ancestor that he considers his closest friend. Yup, just the same old thing.
Maggie pauses on the stairs, and David runs up to the bannister, yelling, “Josette, it’s me! It’s me, David! David Collins!” Okay, kid, it’s you; why are you screaming at me? You’re like six inches away.
“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 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?
“Barnabas Collins knows how to handle a man like Willie.”
It’s a new day at Collinwood, and darn it if Vicki and Liz aren’t playing another round of Where’s Willie. They’ve got to get more organized about this, maybe put out a newsletter or something.
The fun new twist is that now it sounds like they’re saying that Barnabas and Willie are dating. Liz says, “Barnabas Collins knows how to handle a man like Willie.” And Vicki replies, “No, that’s just it! Willie is staying there — living there! He’s moved into the Old House with him!”
“My name is Victoria Winters. There are no limits to the things some men will do.”
The story so far: Don’t worry about it. Seriously. Yes, you’ve missed 209 episodes, but it’s 1967 and nobody has Hulu. As a genre, soap operas are perpetual-motion narrative engines designed for the continuous onboarding of new viewers, and Dark Shadows in this period is even slower than average. The interesting thing is still 20 minutes in the future; you’re just in time.
Dark Shadows Every Day 