We’re on the sunrise side of morning, people.
We’ve finally made it to the third on-screen day of Dark Shadows, and Victoria Winters’s second full day on a job she has not yet done at all, even in the slightest.
Vicky and Carolyn hover over a beautifully angular coffee percolator in brief silence, possibly hypnotized by the little coffee explosions you get to witness in the transparent cap nozzle thing.
Conversation abruptly turns, with no grace, to the topic on everyone’s minds: the meaning of life.
That too.
Carolyn mentions she hasn’t seen poor, benighted Unca Roger since the accident, at which point Vicky can’t hold in her soap character nature any longer:
Here’s the interesting thing. As per last episode, Victoria isn’t convinced that Burke is the one responsible for removing the suppository from Roger’s car and causing the crash. She is, however, intelligent enough to assess that somebody must have, because the evidence supports it.
Carolyn also wants to believe Burke is innocent, half because she has the juices flowing for him and half because on some level she realizes Burke wouldn’t have had a chance to sabotage the car if she hadn’t brought him to Collinwood in the first place.
But she also doesn’t believe it was a crash at all, probably because she can’t conceive of any other suspects whatever and it’s easier to just ignore the things you can’t explain.
After the teaser, Vicky concludes describing the whole sorry suppository to Carolyn.
I will continue determinedly calling the tiny tube a suppository, but if you need a refresher, its Christian name is “bleeder valve”, so I guess it corrects hemorrhoids, which probably explains how irate Roger’s been since it was removed.
I’m slightly more lenient on extensive recaps (which is all this Vicky/Carolyn scene is) on Monday episodes, because it’s important to debrief your audience after the weekend. But by now, we’ve heard everything about the suppository and the wrench and the garage so many times, I feel I’ll be restating it on my death bed.
Carolyn finally seems willing to admit that she may not be the best judge of character.
But we can’t even enjoy this, because Vicky subsequently brings up the fact that she doubts Burke’s guilt, proceeding to mention his warning to her to leave.
It’s funny given how the last breakfast episode went. Vicky and Carolyn were in this same room, discussing whether or not Victoria would leave Collinwood. At the time, Vicky’s choice to stay was entirely her own. Now, she finds herself a captive, just as much as every member of the Collins family is, one way or another. She can’t leave, only the thing keeping her has nothing to do with the mystery of her past, but the intrigues of the Collins family.
Won’t be the last time.
Elsewhere, Burke Devlin is enjoying a nice lie in with the morning paper and an empty cup of coffee.
He is visited by that rascal Bill Malloy, this time bypassing phone introductions to cut to the chase. This is the first time these guys have met face-to-face since the third episode, and this time Malloy has more reason to mistrust Burke’s intentions than ill-explained things that happened a long time ago.
For, as Burke now knows, he’s the No. 1 suspect in an attempted murder. But he’s not sweating it.
Malloy insists he wants to have a “talk”.
Mitch isn’t even trying to convince us there’s any coffee in that cup.
He seems intent on making Malloy wait while he finishes his coffee.
I guess if he’s a white investment banker, sure.
Burke caps off his morning coffee with a morning cigarette, ensuring Malloy that he is in no way involved with Roger’s crash.
Burke cannily wonders why Malloy is so interested.
To put it kindly, Malloy is the Collins family’s muscle. Solely concerned with their best interests, their watchdog against threats. And, like so much else on this show, threat emanates from only one man: Burke Devlin.
Malloy tells Burke he doesn’t buy his “all is forgiven” spiel one bit. In fact, he channels 2020 Presidential candidate Joe Biden by calling it all…
In his defense, that word was likely in common parlance among middle-aged men in the mid-60s. Far be it from me to assess the former Vice President’s excuse.
Malloy reminds Burke, and us, that Burke swore on the stand to come back and have his vengeance on the Collinses for the wrongs that had been done to him, something we learned from Elizabeth only a few episodes ago.
Malloy adds that Burke made more specific threats: to acquire all the Collins properties. Indeed, the very same thing Burke told Roger he wanted to meet with him about.
Burke attempts to get rid of Malloy, when he drops a bomb on him:
Malloy has been doing detective work of his own, learning that Strake stayed at the hotel for two weeks before Burke arrived and, as we know, leaving the night Burke did.
We know from the good Mrs. Hopewell that Strake wasn’t very good about keeping his detective identity quiet, though he apparently was keen enough to fool the local idiots as it’s only after the fact that Malloy was able to conclude who Strake was and what he wanted.
Note that this is the most proactive measure yet taken by anybody in town to figure out Burke’s intentions, and it all happened offscreen. Naturally, of course. There were no suppositories, and therefore no story.
Strake returns to the story in more ways than one, ushered in in the form of a letter in Liz’s hands.
It’s jarring seeing everybody wear new clothes after spending so long on the same day. It’s difficult to tell what color anyone’s outfits are supposed to be, of course, but this is the first time Liz has worn a predominately ‘light’ costume, not counting her fabulous kaftan-esque nightgown. Vicky has also changed into a lighter blouse/skirt combo. Carolyn is the most consistent of the lot, her outfits are always uninspiring light colored frocks.
It turns out the letter Mrs. Hopewell dictated at the end of her last episode made it to Collinwood in record time. While it might’ve been a while ago for us, it was only mailed the previous afternoon. This is handwaved as being a ‘special delivery’, which still seems to be stretching it, but who cares about mundane things like the postal service. How about insurance?
That’s just swell.
Liz mentions Roger did tell her about his ill-advised meeting with Burke. On hearing Vicky isn’t sure Burke was responsible:
This is what we call ‘forward thinking’.
Vicky arrives for the letter and Carolyn won’t get off her goddamn back. She finally admits her greatest fear is that if Burke is guilty, so is she.
Miraculous, really, that she’s devised a way of being selfish and self-aware at the same time.
Vicky decides to deploy a counter strategy…
Boring her to death.
In the story, one of the ‘attendants’ at the foundling home lies to Victoria for no other reason besides being a bitch, I guess, telling her her parents are coming for her. Victoria knows deep down it isn’t true, but believes anyway, because it’s a nice thing to believe. She waited for two whole damn weeks for them to show up and they never did, no doubt kicking off a lifetime of disappointments.
And the moral?
Ignore your gut impulse to be a dumbass. Seriously, Victoria compares Carolyn’s belief that Burke is innocent to her futile hope that the attendant’s story was right.
The incessant shrieking of the Collinwood telephone brings us to the next scene.
The “Mr. Carter” Liz is speaking to is the local ‘Constable’, who will be arriving at Collinwood a little later to conduct inquiries into Roger’s ‘accident’.
I’ll have plenty of time to make a scene about Constable Carter later. What matters is Carolyn spending the majority of this episode being an irritable brat.
Liz comes very close to calling her daughter a dickmatized moron, but this is daytime television in 1966, so she settles for speaking to her like an impaired child: very slowly and very deliberately while everybody in the immediate vicinity feels uncomfortable.
Liz’s one failing is suggested nobody but Burke has a motive for killing Roger, but I get the impression the list is at least slightly longer than she thinks.
Actually, in the short list Liz sarcastically composed (“You, me, David, Matthew, or maybe Miss Winters”), the actual culprit is specifically named, and quickly written off, even though Liz was the first person to see David after the fact, covered in motor oil and hiding the suppository behind his back.
But oh well.
The phone rings. Another nosy reporter. It seems like the media angle is going to be a thing in this story, given the earlier phone calls Liz had to dodge right after the accident, but this is the last time it happens. The only noteworthy thing is Liz lying about involving the police.
Speaking of Malloy this episode, Liz tries to revive his earlier plan to send Carolyn out of town for a while, but Carolyn is as resistant as ever.
Carolyn correctly diagnoses that Liz is worried about more than this accident, something which Liz vehemently denies. She only wants to keep Carolyn from the media pressure associated with living in a discount gothic novel.
Fuck. Epic burn, 1950s school bully. I guess it isn’t surprising. The weird lady who never lives in her house is a stock character from countless kiddie ghost stories, but Liz is a largely benign woman who wears pearls and blazers and runs a mundane sardine processing business, which has got to dilute some of the menace.
Victoria returns, having read her letter and concluding that she ought to tell her boss what she read, a healthy change from her withholding details about her encounter with Burke at the garage for no real reason.
So Liz reads the letter and makes like Scarlet O’Hara.
We already know the contents of the letter, thanks to Mrs. Hopewell’s animated facial expressions. Conveniently, we have been reminded of Strake’s existence in this episode by Bill Malloy, and given how little of this episode those scenes actually got, we can safely say that’s the main reason for those scenes in the first place.
The women of Collinwood, however, have no idea who Wilbur Strake is or why he would be so interested in how Vicky came to be working there.
In a heretofore unprecedented display of Using Her Noggin, Carolyn suggests Burke hired Strake to find out things.
But Vicky has the scent and decides to use this opportunity to resume her search which, of course, has been postponed on account of all the actual things that were happening.
Vicky wonders, again, if Burke might be responsible for hiring Strake. We know Malloy already figured this out, so it can only be a matter of time before Liz learns this too, but for now, enjoy this blocking.
Victoria astutely concludes that the only reason Burke would give a damn about a connection between Victoria and the Collinses would be if that connection included damaging information for the Collinses.
She’d better be, or else why are we even here?
The height of irony would be if there truly was no great secret, that it was just a coincidence that Victoria came to be hired at Collinwood, but we already know Elizabeth is lying about that stupid “random person recommended etc.” story, and the lie needs a motive. So, yes, Liz is hiding something about why she hired Victoria and it stands to reason, given the Bangor thing, that it’s connected to her past.
Right?
Oh, well. Might as well ignore this thread for another two weeks.
Burke has forced Malloy to wait while he changes into a jacket that’s probably even more offensive in color.
Malloy, it turns out, learned about Strake from a chambermaid (and here you thought that job title had been retired around the time Queen Victoria died) at the hotel whose brother works at the cannery and was questioned by Strake on the job.
Malloy demands, in the face of all the overwhelming evidence to the contrary, whether Burke still maintains he didn’t come back to get revenge.
Ah. Glad that’s settled.
Burke claims he hired Strake for “business reasons”, which is a paper thin nonsense excuse that Malloy doesn’t buy for a minute, so it’s good that he never has to bring it up again.
The business Burke claims to be interested in is the defunct cannery in the neighboring town of Logansport.
No, it’s not where the werewolves live.
You might recall Logansport is also where Joe and Carolyn were going to go for their movie date, as there apparently isn’t a theater in Collinsport. Why two neighboring fishing villages even have rival canneries in the first place is kind of strange. It’s not like Genoa City having two rival cosmetics companies. There’s a lot of Maine coastline where you can build a cannery far enough away from the water your rival is fishing. No wonder they went out of business.
Strake’s job, Burke insists, was to feel the local temperature so that Burke could make a judgment as to whether to buy the place.
The matter seems to rest there, but Malloy is clear that he has not been sold.
NO SOONER IS MALLOY GONE than Burke snatches up his phone and calls New York.
Whoever Bronson is, Burke wants him to catch a plane to Bangor (drink!) first thing.
Your lips to God’s ear.
Shake-Ups Behind the Scenes
Episode 21 is the first Dark Shadows entry not to be directed by Lela Swift. Instead, the director today and for the next few episode will be associate director John Sedwick.
Evidence has surfaced, courtesy of our friends at Dark Shadows From the Beginning, that Sedwick only directed these first few episodes with his name on it in-name only, and Lela Swift remained director for a time after this.
There are indicators here that point to Swift’s style, most pointedly the sophisticated “three faces of Eve” blocking with Liz, Carolyn and Vicky I singled out up there.
Regardless, we will soon definitely see Sedwick’s first episodes, though we won’t be saying goodbye to our girl Miss Lela either.
This Day in History- Monday, July 25, 1966
Speaking of British politics, the House of Commons voted overwhelmingly to nationalize the steel industry.
More relevant to today’s news: the Thames barge Favourite, one of the oldest vessels in the UK, sinks at Chiswick, London.
Frano O’Hara, curator of New York City’s Museum of Modern Art, succumbs to injuries sustained in a dune buggy accident the day before. Makes you think.
Kooks of Collinwood 