WAGON TRAAAAAAAAAAAIN…
Or, you know, in spirit.
Sure, but what the hell does that have to do with the murderous nine-year-old?
If there’s one thing rich white dudes in the 19th century didn’t understand, it was unreasoning hatred.
Victoria and Liz are looking for David, who they foolishly left unattended while they look for the suppository that Vicky foolishly left behind when she told Liz the story of how she found it, foolishly leaving the most incriminating information for last.
As a matter of fact, it’s kind of strange we’ve had so much foolishness lately, and yet we haven’t been seeing much of…
Carolyn is back from her lunch date with Joe/weirdly sexual testimony before Burke and the Consteriff. Vicky asks Carolyn if she’s seen David.
Carolyn is frightfully blasé about the prospect of a missing child, announcing that the world is full of others like him, which is a delightfully casually sadistic comment from our favorite daytime serial.
Nancy Barrett really is the best at the soap reveal turn.
Vicky tells Carolyn the story, or really she doesn’t, telling her Liz should tell her because God knows why, and did Vicky change her top between episodes?
Fun aside: Carolyn wonders if David tried to set the house on fire and push somebody downstairs, and let me tell you, the last pre-Barnabas story is gonna be a hoot when we get to it in three years.
Since Liz is the one designated to recap to Carolyn, Carolyn decides to recap her experience with Burke to Vicky.
Carolyn assures Vicky that nothing untoward happened as the Sheriff acted as a “chaperone”, which is the exact same wording Maggie used when she described the business to Joe at the time, because there’s only so much original phrasing you can use when you’re writing five scripts a week.
Carolyn finally realizes that Vicky believes David is the real culprit.
But it would be good news for that complex she has about being responsible for what happened via Burke, I guess.
The best part of this scene is Victoria saying she can only be sure it was David because “for some reason [she’ll] never understand”, David held onto the suppository instead of immediately discarding it.
And, yeah…a reason we’ll never understand. Sure, it seemed he was gonna frame her by planting it in her room, but when that failed, he should’ve tossed that thing out the same window he tried jumping from not long after.
But, just like David leaving the wrench on the seat, and stealing Vicky’s letter, and approaching his half-asleep aunt with the incriminating evidence sloppily hidden behind his back, we must file it under “things we’ll never understand” because Art Wallace didn’t either.
What? Plot holes?
But she means eccentrics. Her shut-in mother, her murderous cousin. Lord knows why she doesn’t include her paranoid neurotic uncle on that list, but who are we to question matters of the heart?
Fine, Art. I’ll give you that one. Good job.
Just when you think these two are having a mature conversation, Carolyn finds a way to make it about herself, because of course she does.
Yep. Now that it turns out Burke wasn’t responsible, Carolyn has no reason to beat herself up for disobeying her mother, meeting with a strange man she knows has it out for her family, bringing him to her house and repeatedly letting him hijack private moments with her boyfriend. Everything is fine, now.
The two girls troop off to search for David.
Elsewhere: more cheap signage.
This is our first venture from Collinsport outside of Vicky’s New York-set flashbacks, and that one thing with Mrs. Hopewell. The city of Bangor (drink) has been mentioned so many times in these first 27 episodes, as the place Vicky’s childhood checks came from, as the site of Burke’s manslaughter trial, as a place nearby, that it felt inevitable we’d seen it eventually.
And by “it”, I of course mean a cheaply and hastily constructed hotel set framed by an establishing shot thirty years older than this show.
This is the “Bangor Pine Hotel”, where Burke’s New York contact Stuart Bronson is staying, following his miraculously speedy trip.
It would be, flying at warp speed. Burke called Bronson to fly up to Bangor this morning, after his meeting with Bill Malloy. Bronson called to confirm he’d arrived at Bangor earlier this afternoon, after Burke was questioned by Carter. This means he packed a bag, put aside whatever commitments he already had, booked a plane ticket, made it to the airport (in New York traffic), caught the plane, arrived at Bangor, and commuted from the most convenient airport to the hotel, all in what could not be more than 5 hours.
What have you done today?
One of these commitments apparently included canceling plans to go to the theater with his wife, but if you think Burke Devlin gives a damn about ruining his subordinates’ marriages, you haven’t been watching the same show.
Sure, sport.
Burke asks if Bronson has ‘brought the papers’, and maybe you’re getting exciting that his plan is going to start going somewhere. Please stop.
Burke reminds Bronson he doesn’t want him anywhere near Collinsport and…
So, Burke wants all his financial schemes (that is, his purchasing of the Collins properties) to be Top Secret, and for the wider world to believe Bronson is working independently. This, despite the fact that he has spoken to Roger about buying the cannery and fishing fleet, thereby shooting his own cover in the foot.
I dunno, maybe you loudly saying you’ll fire him if anyone learns he’s working for you, which surely won’t be so hard since you’ve made your agenda very clear from the second you showed up.
Burke suggests Bronson prepare to stay in Bangor at least a month, which given how the show has been moving so far, might be a year of real world time from now. Besides suggesting an enormously misplaced faith in the capacity of the audience to sit through this story, it also suggests a longevity to supporting characters like Bronson that this show has proven is highly unrealistic.
Bronson has brought financial statements, presumably estimates on the state of the various Collins properties. The revealing thing here is that both he and Burke planned to have “a few more weeks” to work on them before Burke was forced to speed things up thanks to the crah.
And yet…if that’s so, why did Burke keep saying he would be “off to Venezuela” in a few days? He only ever told that story to Carolyn hoping she would tell it to others, but if it really was gonna take a “few weeks” for Bronson to finish putting those reports together, why make it only a “few days”? The real answer is it doesn’t matter and Art Wallace is writing by the seat of his pants to extend what was a very short snippet of his series Bible into a month-long storyline, but the in-universe explanation might just be that Burke isn’t as good at this evil plan thing as he thinks.
Bronson wonders why Burke is worried about the sheriff “nosing around”, given (and this bears significant repeating) THERE IS NOTHING ILLEGAL ABOUT ANY OF THIS.
Emphasis his.
Screwed up line his.
So the secrecy isn’t because Burke is planning a ruthless Young and the Restless (or, for primetime soap enthusiasts Dynasty) style corporate takeover. He isn’t going to embezzle or fraud anybody or any of that. He’s only being secretive about his plans because he likes to be a messy bitch.
Revenge: It’s not worth it, Ma.
It’s almost a reprieve when we go back to Collinwood and Victoria is asking about drawers.
The dresser drawer, you see. Vicky locked the suppository inside, and it was unlocked when she came back, so David found a key and yes we are supposed to be in suspense.
Not for a while yet.
You’re lips to God’s ear.
It’s kind of quaint hearing about ghosts now. Sure, in the very earliest episodes we would get regular reminders that Collinwood is supposed to be “haunted”. Sam told the story about Josette Collins, Roger about the widows, David claimed to hear the Widows talking to him, Victoria heard ghostly weeping on her first night…
But we’re waist-deep in this suppository slime, and the entire gothic nature of the show has been supplanted by a story about a kid who tried to kill his Dad. And yeah, that is creepy, and it should be unsettling and strange, but every beat has been played wrong. The lackadaisical attitude, the obliviousness of every character when confronted with the evidence, the very fact that David occasionally seems to have to act stupid on purpose because these people are just so dense…
And now here we are, at what feels to be the climax of the whole thing, and Carolyn is lightly joking about the haunted house instead of her cousin who tried to kill the uncle she’s kind of horny for.
Carolyn leaves to “get something” from her room, which doesn’t have a set yet…
And then something rattles at the mystery door. You know, the one David actually walked out of at the beginning of last episode.
The locked wing of the house hasn’t really been mentioned much since the first week. We know it’s been closed off for a very long time, and nobody ever goes there. Like the locked room in the basement, it is a quintessential “mystery box” common in Old Dark House stories. The locked door that guards dark secrets that generally pale in comparison to the hubbub made over the lock itself.
Victoria tells Carolyn about the first time she saw that door opening. Again, this is never outright confirmed, but it seems clear that the weird thing that happened to Vicky during the first week were all David stalking her through the house. This is borne out by us seeing David leave the closed off wing last time.
How does he have a key? Who the hell cares.
So, either way, this is almost suspenseful. Might’ve been moreso if we hadn’t seen David walking through that door last time, but it’s still making something out of the whole spooky house concept. I’d worried they forgotten.
Oh. Well. So much for that.
As with the mystery door in the basement, Liz has the key to this wing too, and has already taken it upon herself to search the entire second half of the house for David in the time it took Vicky and Carolyn to recap their respective adventures.
Over the break, Liz explains she wondered if David might have found “some other way in” to the sealed off wing. And, yeah, he must’ve because he was in there before, but I’m not kidding when I tell you we’re never gonna find out.
Or…well, at one point we’ll find a way, but I can’t possibly imagine David would’ve used it.
Joan Bennett mentions “the caretaker sometimes checks it, he probably forgot to sh-sh-shut it tightly”.
And someone forgot to re-re-remember her line. Ah, well. It’s shocking enough they remembered to namecheck Matthew, or at least his job title.
This time, it actually makes sense when Liz dismisses all this ghost shit.
She wonders if the suppository might be something David…
Innocent days, when little boys could stockpile rocks for unknown purposes and everybody believed this was entirely ordinary and, in fact, model behavior for all children.
It turns out Carolyn’s dresser is of the same make as Vicky’s, and so the key for hers will open this one as well. I’d argue about how contrived this all is, and how they might’ve foreshadowed it earlier so it seems less out of nowhere, but honestly, why would we want to discuss this anymore than we already are?
Carolyn discovers the automotive magazines David gave her and if you think it’s too late to play this beat, you are wrong.
Vicky realizes the significance of the magazines, even though it seemed she already did, back in Episode 25 when she brought up the magazines to David in a mildly accusatory fashion. Maybe they just wanted it spelled out in so many words for any house pets who may be watching.
Yeah, they’re actually playing the beat where Liz thinks the magazines are Victoria’s. This despite her supposedly being intelligent and Victoria having no motive in any case.
It is asinine for us to even entertain the fact Liz would think Vicky was responsible, but we have to leave it dangling to create cheap suspense as we move to the next scene.
I wouldn’t get too excited.
Burke insists Bronson to go “deeper” in his work, whatever the hell that means. Bronson who, if nothing else, seems quite practical, points out he has all the information on the Collins debts outstanding and that all they have to do is buy those debts and call them in to…
No, but I guess the audience does, which is the only reason this is happening. What the audience wants, however…
By which he means some “houses down by the waterfront”, among other things. He wants them all appraised, presumably to follow through on his “every piece of property” thing. You’d think since they’ve been mentioned that these “houses” will be significant in some way, that they may make or break Burke’s plan, that maybe something might happen at those houses…
I am not kidding when I say these houses will not be mentioned again.
Certainly too much for the writer to remember.
By…very slowly acquiring properties they don’t much care about, building up to the ones that they do over an extended period of time in which you’re betting they never figure out you’re involved.
Slick customer, that Burke Devlin.
We return for the last act. Burke is preparing to go when he asks Bronson about a report on the defunct Logansport cannery, if you remember.
Like something out of a farce, it transpires Bronson forgot to bring that statement in his hurry to come up to Bangor. I am not exaggerating when I say this character only exists to be brutally humiliated by Mitch Ryan, like something out of niche fetish film.
Bronson considers his secretary may have mailed it, which sends Burke into a terror because…
Ugh.
Because the letter may arrive at the hotel and somebody might see it and realize that Burke is planning something and then I guess the world will end.
Like, this is the thing that rattles Burke. Not being accused of murder, no, nothing like that. The thing that shakes his Ironsides composure is the thought of somebody reading his mail.
You’re lips to God’s… Well, you know.
I swear to God, I am about to have a stroke.
Liz doesn’t tell Roger any of the things that know (er…suspect, I guess we’re expected to still stay) about David, but urges him to hurry home.
Liz sends Carolyn off to search the grounds and it really is something how casually she’s taking all this.
We then switch promptly back to the hotel room where it’s Burke’s turn to act pissy on the other end of the phone.
But there is another piece of news that startles him. He learns that Carter has conducted the search of his room, as Roger urged him to last episode.
And that’s not all…
Huh. Well, that’s something.
This Day in History- Tuesday, August 2, 1966
Alexei Kosygin wins an unopposed four-year term as Prime Minister of the Soviet Union, and if you think that’s fishy, get out and vote in November, huh?
The Nigerian political coup settles, with Lieutenant Yakubu Gowon assuing the presidency. He releases political prisoners taken by his predecessor. Pointedly.
A radio station in Birmingham, Alabama, which really didn’t win itself any accolades during this period when you think about it, urges listeners to boycott the Beatles ahead of the band’s big American tour. The reason? Lennon joked that they were “bigger than Jesus” back in March and, well, maybe if Jesus hadn’t shut girls out of his entourage, he never would’ve had to worry about getting sidelined by a boy band.
This Guy Was in That Thing!
Barnard Hughes is the latest in a long train of distinguished character actors Dark Shadows has trotted out to be roundly debased by its main cast.
Hughes came up in the New York theater circuit and, like many such actors, found television work in the daytime soaps that were filmed in the city. Prior to Dark Shadows, he played the second Bruce Banning on CBS’s prestige The Guiding Light, a radio-to-TV transplant which would go on to become the longest running recorded narrative in human history until The Simpsons inevitably overtakes it.
Other soaps Hughes worked on were The Secret Storm, As the World Turns, and the much less remembered The Young Doctors.
He also scored bit parts on crime and punishment shows like The Defenders, Car 54, Where Are You?, and the seemingly omnipresent The Naked City.
Following Dark Shadows, Hughes appeared in a plethora of fondly remembered series of the 70s, including All in the Family, Hawaii Five-O, and The Bob Newhart Show.
He co-starred in the critically acclaimed, if poisonously saccharine TV movie Homeward Bound in 1980, and in the following year was a regular on Mr. Merlin, where he played the titular wizard as he engaged in wacky hi-jinks with his teenage apprentice in San Francisco.
Shockingly, the show wasn’t renewed.
By the early 80s, Hughes’s resume had enough clout that he was cast in Disney’s TRON, their weird inexplicably popular movie about computers and video games, sort of.
This guy really does have a lot of credits. He even had second-billing in a TV movie adaptation of Agatha Christie’s A Caribbean Mystery, starring her spinster sleuth Miss Marple. No, she wasn’t played by one of the well-known Marples, but even so.
I don’t want to exhaust you all, but it probably behooves me to point out that he is the only Dark Shadows cast member to end up in Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit, but there’s still time for Kathryn Leigh Scott to land the third one they’re making for Disney+.
The prolific, talented and much beloved Hughes passed away in 2006, at 90. You end up wondering how different Dark Shadows may have been if he’d been allowed to stick around more than one episode.
Kooks of Collinwood 