The Suppository Spat III- Final Crisis

Something’s coming to a head…

Which is why it’s been such an undoubtable relief that finally somebody has removed that little, er, coil from the deep, dark, shadowy confinements in which it was making so many people so uncomfortable.

We’ve reached the culmination of the “intrigue” (for lack of a less polite term) that has made up half Dark Shadows’s run. The little bleeder valve/MacGuffin/suppository has finally surfaced, produced by Burke Devlin…

After an extraordinarily slow start and an agonizing (as it was inexplicable) middle stretch, the last week (well, maybe half week) of the Suppository Saga has managed to up the ante. We’ve had unexpected and enjoyable character interactions (Maggie/David, Burke/David, Victoria with both Liz and Roger), surprising character developments (Carolyn defending her friend, David showing a conscience), and genuine moments of suspense, such as the Friday cliffhanger this Monday episode picks up with.

It may as well be said, if a soap opera can’t drum up a convincing, believable, or just enjoyable story and play it through for you, the least they can do is have it end well, with proper payoff. What kind of payoff do we expect from this slog of a saga? What can it possibly promise us to make it worth the agony of sitting through so many recaps on wrenches and brake pedals and pesky, pesky master brake cylinders?

Well…whatever you can think in answer to that, I’m…fairly certain it’s not what we get.

But still. At least it’s almost over.

If you’re surprised that Burke, who earlier defended David, covering his ass as to the unusual circumstances of their hotel room meeting, has now produced the most incriminating piece of evidence against David, this is quickly cleared up by Burke claiming he just found the suppository lying on the side of the road.

Naturally, the idea that a man driving in a rainstorm just happened to see a metal pellet just large enough to fit into the average anus proves difficult to swallow.

This may seem like a 180 from his previous (if newly-developed) conviction that David was responsible, but what other conclusion does one develop from a story like that?

And suffering mightily for it too, I might add.

It’s kind of odd that, in the face of somebody all-but throwing himself under the bus for him, David chooses now to make off like the crook at the end of a Mystery of the Week.

I’m not saying it’s an indictment of Vicky’s earlier tussles that Roger was able to apprehend David with next to no trouble, but maybe we should start considering that maybe Roger is simply hiding the true force of his power from the others.

Burke invites David to explain circumstances to Roger, which places an alarming faith in this demonstrably bad liar’s ability to…well, lie.

We’re spared what seems like Art Wallace’s latest attempt to fill up these 20 minutes as fast as possible when Roger demands Burke just get on with it, and Burke explains how he just happened to find the suppository lying on the road and he picked it up because, well, it’s not every day a thing like that happens, and maybe the Big Guy Upstairs was telling him to man up and get that prostate exam over with.

As Burke paints it, the suppository may as easily have just fallen naturally from the car as Roger was driving.

Ah, but if they had, we wouldn’t be sitting here having this lovely conversation, would we? The price we pay for a good story.

Now brought home to this, David catches on and agrees that Burke’s story is just so and he didn’t tell him when Roger confronted him last episode because…

Sure.

In what I’m sure seemed to him like a good idea at the time, Roger sends the two people most likely to be conspiring with each other into the next room so he can speak with his confidante.

Why should he give a damn? I guess it’s admirable that Roger has gone from wanting her out of the house to trusting her counsel over any of the others, but given it took the truth to literally manifest in front of her face for Vicky to realize something was up, I think her reputation as a super sleuth may be a little unearned.

See?

She could just as easily, and subsequently, does attest that the suppository looks much like what she found in David’s room, and yet, well, that Mr. Devlin sure is a trustworthy man with no reason at all to lie just to piss Roger off, so maybe both things can be true…

In the foyer, Burke is discussing the lie he just told in a voice much too loudly for us all to believe nobody in the next room can hear anything.

Burke and David proceed to sit side-by-side on the stairs like some weird mutation of the last act of a 90s family sitcom.

Yes, vaguely military language, like a leading man in a pulp thriller written about twenty years before this episode was filmed. Burke probably would make more sense as a ruthlessly mercenary soldier of fortune, but no, we had to make him a New York City investor whose entire plan in real estate foreclosure.

Burke claims the decision to save David’s neck was spur of the moment.

Let’s not make it weird, guy.

David continues to insist ad nauseum that he isn’t responsible for the crash at all but, at this point, Lord knows what he thinks he’s accomplishing. Burke continues speaking to him in a manner more appropriate for a dime store romance.

In the name of God, you almost expect him to cap that off with “babe”.

Burke tells him it’s no use to lie, not just because it’s a tremendous lot of white noise, but because he saw David hiding the suppository in the couch crack while he was off mixing the Burke Devlin Special.

Oh, that treacherous pilla, ruiner of men’s fortunes.

Burke continues that “next time you trya pulla stunt like dat, why DON’T you MAKE sure the DOH is closed?” and yanno Mitch Ryan is in his 90s and retired now, but I’d very much like to see him record an audio book.

Confronted with the inescapable truth at last, David has no choice but to admit his folly, and also that the smart thing to do would’ve been to throw it away, but then we’d have had no story, you see.

David adds that he regrets trying to frame Burke, and the Devlin quickly disarms this fretting…

I think so.

Consider, really, the remarkable altruism Burke displays. What pain and agony it would cause his enemy if he knew the truth of his son’s crime! At the same time, it would paint Burke as the falsely accused, and deter any future suspicions of his schemes that might rise against him. Burke would appear vindicated and the Collinses would be caught up in intrigues amongst each other, rather than rallied against him.

We can only conclude that Burke really does care about the kid.

David wonders if they’re still friends, and Burke puts in an early contender for line of the week:

He’s right, you know. The sensible thing for Vicky to do would’ve been to hold onto it. Just as it would’ve been sensible of her not to lock herself in her room and give David ample time to escape, and also as it would’ve been sensible of her to warn Roger about the suspicious happenings in the garage before he could ever drive away from Collinwood.

Yes. Very stupid, Miss Winters.

And in this instance, that’s fairly justified, isn’t it? There’s no sensible reason to believe Burke’s story, and every reason not to.

Vicky concludes that Burke isn’t lying, but rather that David discarded the suppository on the side of the road, and Burke simply found it there, which isn’t implausible, but it’s considerably more convoluted than the more ready assessment that Burke is, yanno, lying.

TELEPHONE CALL. In Liz’s absence, it becomes Roger’s responsibility to pretend to talk to somebody on the other end.

It’s Carolyn who, you recall, Liz sent into town to drive aimlessly around in a storm looking for David. She thankfully hasn’t driven off a cliff of her own and is no doubt deliberately biting back puke at being boredly informed by her precious uncle that David is, in fact, not given up for dead and came back half (not even a full three quarters) an hour ago. Still, she has it in her to spill some tea.

Because the enterprising Carolyn, not entirely through with being unexpectedly useful, asked around at the restaurant (presumably remembering that Maggie called to say she saw David) and learned that he and Burke left together, thus giving a lie to Burke’s story and preventing us from spending a whole week on this.

I imagine that’s a very broad category. On the surface of it, it seems fairly obvious that it was a lie, right? But at the same time, it makes sense Roger doesn’t get it. Why, after all, should Burke, who has everything to gain, lie to protect David? The readiest explanation of course is “friendship” and, indeed, the resulting conclusion that friendship is not something Roger comprehends, which pans out.

There’s also a moment when the music cue to end the act comes in during instead of after Louis Edmonds’s line and you can hear somebody yell to this effect as they fade to black. Add to the list of things TV has become too “good” to give us anymore.

Continuing the peculiarity, you might notice something strange in the foyer set. Namely, that the statue of the burly laborer has been moved from the telephone table to the sideboard beneath that portrait of the as-yet unnamed Collins ancestor.

It was quite visibly still on the phone table as recently as last episode, and it will return there in the next one. One wonders.

Since we’re talking about it, I might as well say that I have no direct proof of this, but in the face of further evidence, I think the Collinses have a bronze sculpture of a Black slave prominently displayed in the front room of their house.

Sure, it might be any big shirtless guy wielding a truncheon or plow or shovel. Someone with more knowledge of Dark Shadows prop-spotting will surely know. There’s no reason for a family who built their fortune on the sea to romanticize diggers, miners or farmers, though, nor for a bunch of countrified Mainers to have nostalgia for Dixie, but I can’t shake the feeling that one of the props Sy Tomashoff and team acquired for the show’s most prominent set is of a slave which, therefore, makes that statue the show’s only Black character, not counting the…er…

Well. Urm. Ahem.

Never mind.

David and Burke are bonding, the former fetching a photo of his mother for Burke to admire. David, as we have often observed, has a fondness for his mother Roger can never hope to get from him. Indeed, his panic that Roger will “send him away” seems mostly derived from the fact that Roger has done the very same thing to Mrs. Collins.

It’s quite a nice thing seeing David brighten up as Burke takes a genuine interest in the woman. We’ve discussed that Burke may see David, the product of a woman he seems to have been fond of, as a vision of what may have been. Maybe David is wondering the same.

With a shocking and indeed heart-rending vulnerability, David confesses his love for his mother and that he only acted against his father to protect himself and, indeed, her, in the vain hope she might return. Sure, it doesn’t make it right, but it (compounded with David Henesy’s beautiful work) makes his motivations so much more fleshed out than the mindless little ghoul we were introduced to back in the first week.

Burke seems already to know of Mrs. Collins’s stay in the hospital, so that was either very publicized (unlikely, since Vicky had assumed she was dead) or Wilbur Strake actually earned his pay.

With a shocking and indeed heart-rending vulnerability, David confesses his love for his mother and that he only acted against his father to protect himself and, indeed, her, in the vain hope she might return. Sure, it doesn’t make it right, but it (compounded with David Henesy’s beautiful work) makes his motivations so much more fleshed out than the mindless little ghoul we were introduced to back in the first week.

As with his father, David is rapidly becoming more than Art Wallace had ever hoped to handle.

The one thing Burke doesn’t seem to understand is David’s vehement opposition to Vicky who, of course, he blames for finding the whole thing out, though again, she never would’ve if he hadn’t stolen that stupid letter of hers for no reason we’ll ever get.

Good patrician advice, and I can’t even say it’s hypocritical, given how Burke’s revenge plan is on the whole too dull to be considered an effort to blame his actions on other people.

We get the seeds for a potential future story as David vows to get even with Vicky and…

Deep down, Burke’s just itching for a tumble in the woodshed.

We play musical characters again, Roger sending Vicky up with David so he can have some alone time with Burke.

Beating Carole King’s Tapestry by half a decade, very nice.

Vicky notices, and remarks on, the photo David is looking at, perhaps hoping to earn some desperate good will points before she ends up next on the hit list (too late).

Roger is having a grand time throwing Burke’s lie in his face.

He literally purrs that last word, that’s how “on” our guy is today.

Burke’s response does nothing but raise eyebrows.

I don’t.

Vicky and David have gone up to the former’s room for some reason, where they engage in the ol ‘stand by the window and stare’ maneuver.

Understatement is a helluva thing.

Vicky points out that her coming here wouldn’t have stopped Roger from almost dying, which is both true and an effective illustration of just how little impact she’s had on this show in 30 episodes.

Back with the fellows, Burke’s new story is that he brought David to his room to wait out the rain, something he must know makes absolutely no sense because it was still raining when they drove up and may still be raining now.

He flies to that booze. In his defense, it’s been a while.

Burke, of course, is an expert at making Roger sore. He admits he felt sorry for David and Roger acts like the word is foreign to him.

Roger insists that if David went to all that trouble to see Burke he…

See, you can’t say damn on television, kids. It was okay for Sam Evans, remember him, to babble some bullshit about the “pit of hell” a while back, because hell is, in fact, a geographic location and nothing to shy away from, while “damn” is simply a local colloquialism for the hell-bound interstate. It’s all covered in the Bible.

Burke repeats David’s story that he wanted to “see what he looked like” out of curiosity for how very, very, very often Burke’s name gets bandied about around here.

Roger warns Burke to stay away from his son which, in any other medium, may be because he fears that Burke is a bad influence, but which we can safely conclude is because he doesn’t want them plotting against him.

Yes, he does say that like he’s yelling at an ex, did you even have to ask?

Burke, with good humor, suggests Roger is only upset because of the increasing prospect that Burke is innocent of trying to kill him which, given how hard Roger was riding Consteriff Carter against Burke, we know to be true.

Well, more like hopping.

Elsewhere, Vicky is reading a magazine.

She’s all over apologizing for this, which is either gamesome or pathetic given the wringer his bullshit has put her through. Regardless, David isn’t here for it.

This, naturally, is just a pretext so he can declaim that, ergo, he wishes Vicky were dead. Now, you see, it’s justified.

Just when David is yelling about how he wants “1,000 ghosts to strangle” her (I’m tempted to call this foreshadowing, but that isn’t strictly a thing that ends up happening, and either way, it isn’t to her), Roger comes in.

He dismisses Victoria and takes charge (ha) of the situation.

Meanwhile: Burke is playing Chopsticks because they’re valiantly committed to reminding us of that piano all of a sudden. Burke invites Vicky to play “four hands” with him, by which he means to join him at playing. It’s not a sex thing. Or, rather, it isn’t just one.

The interplay between Vicky and Burke has by and large fallen by the wayside, as many things did in the midst of the suppository mire. They last properly interacted at the confrontation between Burke and Roger at the hotel room, and then she was mostly set dressing so the boys could duke it out.

Now that things are winding down, though, the show’s leads must needs establish new ground for whatever it is that comes next.

Vicky confesses she worries what Roger will do to David and Burke gallantly declares the kid can take care of himself which, yanno, it’s not wrong.

Because Burke can’t ever talk to a woman without making her uncomfortable, Burke adds that it’s she that ought to be uncomfortable, because…

And since Burke knows by now exactly what David is capable of, you’d think he could stand to be less cavalier about things. Indeed, it’s only another routine reminder that she’d probably be better off going.

Vicky wonders why Burke cares so much about her and…

Here we go.

That coat is probably hiding a fairly sizable impulse right now.

We’ll have more time to discuss this later, but…yes. Burke genuinely likes Victoria. We already know he’s just been playing Carolyn to see what he can get out of her, but now this is augmented with the humanizing (?!?!) addition of a great fondness for a girl who, at least, is legally an adult.

But Vicky can’t! Her excuse for remaining these past 11 episodes (this entire in-universe day) was that Roger might need her for formal inquiries into the crash. But even with that passed, Victoria can’t give up her search for the truth about her past.

You know. That. That thing that hasn’t progressed once since this whole thing started, and barely progressed at all before that anyway.

Vicky confirms she knows now that Burke hired a detective to look into her, something she has known since that aforementioned stupid letter came this morning/10 episodes ago. Rather than feeling caught, ashamed, or abashed that his scheme has been discovered, Burke thinks the whole thing very funny.

Indeed, the opportunistic little bastard seeks to turn his probing into a near stranger’s private life into a chance for a date! He offers to show Vicky Strake’s report on her, containing anything he may have learned…

Rather than laugh in the face of this transparent entreaty, Vicky maintains enough restraint to merely politely decline. Elsewhere, Roger lacks all restraint as he loses his whole shit.

Between “rotten” and “darn”, Roger is coming off as exceedingly wholesome for a perverted alcoholic.

Roger vows that he will “send David away where he can’t do damage to anybody else”, like he’s frigging martyring himself for the sake of humanity and not just trying to keep this kid from smothering him as he sleeps and, naturally, David goes a-running.

It becomes a whole damn scene, David running into Burke’s arms and moaning his name while Roger fumes and Vicky looks confused.

Roger demands Burke leave while Vicky, frantic, worries what will happen to David now. The whole thing is actually quite upsetting until you remember that this is a show where we have to say “darn” to keep from being cited by the network.

David is marched up to his room to be locked away. Burke resolves to leave as if nothing has happened.

Has he made a secret of it?

He ruins this rather decisive statement by adding “in a way” and reminding Vicky that if she reconsiders his offer for Applebee’s and chill that she knows where to find him.

Words to live by.

This Day in History- Monday, August 8, 1966

China’s Communist Party approves the Sixteen Articles, offering an intended guideline for the “Cultural Revolution” that instead spiraled into mass violence against people deemed “capitalist roaders”.

The wrestler who innovated the “sleeper hold” passed away, ironically coinciding perfectly with the climax of this sleepy storyline.

Ahem.