Victoria Winters can still remember the words she heard when she arrived in Collinsport.
It wasn’t that long ago for her…just three nights ago, in fact. For us, though, it has been 47 episodes over more than two months. We have been reminded many times about the significance of the “end of the world” as it relates to Collinsport, Collinwood, and the lives and goals of the people who live there.
But there has been a lack of apocalyptic urgency of the kind one might expect. Only recently have things shown some indication of picking up, coming to a head. The torpid forces that ebbed and flowed these past nine weeks seem to be rapidly picking up speed, becoming a force of nature, torrentially bound on a destructive path from which nothing can stop them now.
It’s about damn time.
We open our scene a little after 11:00. Carolyn Stoddard is jarred from her sleep by the sound of piano playing.
But Jesus that’s a hell of a nightgown. At least the floofy smock looked like clothes.
It’s a pretty, tender scene we have here. A daughter, entreating her mother to play music for her. It’s surprisingly sweet given the high octane melodrama of recent episodes. A soothing moment and a peaceful one.
Carolyn, noting her mother’s reticence, points out it isn’t quite late.
Well, that moment of peace was too good to last anyway.
Liz admits she has this “awful feeling of impending disaster”, a doom looming not far off, a rising tide bent on carrying her away with it.
The clock strikes a quarter past.
And the unshakable Elizabeth Collins-Stoddard is afraid.
It’s moments like this, these flickers of true, gothic fear, that make the pre-Barnabas era of Dark Shadows so intoxicating. How the show so quickly can vacillate between run-of-the-mill domestic drama and theatrical, poetic flair.
I can’t buy Liz Stoddard as desperately needing a husband to fix all her problems. That’s no source of fear for her. But I can buy her gripped in the dead of night by a psychic feeling that something terrible is about to happen to her family and she is now helpless to do anything about it. Sometimes the intangible makes more sense than the “real”.
Perhaps to assuage her nerves, Liz runs over to the phone.
She had been trying to reach Malloy, but there is no answer.
Liz, naturally, won’t explain anything to her daughter, but Carolyn guesses Malloy is at the heart of Liz’s “premonition”.
Carolyn notes his behavior on his visit to Collinwood was certainly troublesome, but Liz brushes this off as being Work Things that Carolyn Shouldn’t Worry Her Pretty Head About.
However, such platitudes only work when they’re being delivered by Burke Devlin. Carolyn isn’t sated.
Carolyn tells her mother about the “row” (which is British English for “argument” and American English for that thing you do with a boat; yes, this was true in 1966 as well) she had with Roger about Burke about…
Joan Bennett has turned her face away from the camera, so we’ll never get to know the incredulous “Are You There, God? It’s Me, Elizabeth” expression on her face as she learns about her daughter’s devotion to the sterling silver filigreed fountain pen and all its manifold pleasures.
A lot of what Carolyn says doesn’t really line up with what she and Roger actually spoke about in Episode 45. For example, they did discuss the family history, but only as a footnote in a larger discussion (which was really dominated by the pen and Burke), and Roger didn’t so much as discuss “self-protection” (“self-preservation” is the better term) either.
So maybe Wallace didn’t study Swann’s script too intensely. What happens to one as well happens to the other.
Carolyn does accurately remember the money-line from that scene though.
Okay, so not exact words either. It was “his sacrificial lamb”, referring explicitly to Malloy, but I guess that would give too much away to Liz and we can’t have that.
Regardless, these words jar Liz to action. She hurries upstairs to get Unca Roger.
Back at Roger’s office, the Three Caballeros (Three gay caballeros/They say we are birds of a feather…) eagerly await the arrival of their fourth, the man who called them together.
In the intervening half hour since this meeting convened at the end of last episode, Burke has gone from smooth, assured and totally in control of the situation to antsy, agitated and impatient, while Roger’s manner has become the opposite. In Malloy’s continued elusiveness, Roger has the hope of extended security…the further delay of the terrible truth that threatens to ensnare him…while Burke has the hope of the truth, so recently dangled closer than it had ever been before, snatched away yet again.
Sam is gonna be a nervous wreck about it either way.
I hope he had his brakes checked.
Sam, naturally, proves just as eager as Roger to get the hell away from here in double-time, but Burke isn’t having it.
But Sam is so eager to be away before Malloy shows up…
Sam claims not to know what Malloy wants and he clearly is counting on Roger to play the same line.
I’d go so far as to say this is a great trio. I would watch a spin-off that was just them sitting around, smoking, drinking and saying vaguely threatening homoerotic things to each other.
Roger claims he knows nothing about any of this with the air of that one cousin who really wishes you would not bring up the children in cages at Zia Providenza’s birthday dinner.
WHY DIDN’T I GET TO SEE THIS? I DEMAND TO KNOW.
Well…it was a manslaughter trial, Burke, murder requires too much effort for a Dark Shadows protagonist.
Roger denies providing false testimony and Sam denies… Well, he can’t deny much besides knowing anything about the whole business because Burke himself doesn’t yet know what Malloy knows Sam knows.
Still, he does deny this.
Roger says that with such charming confidence, as if Sam could only have been a part of the trial part and not, yanno, the crime that led to that trial. If this gets far enough, Roger better not try to represent himself in court.
This is fun, fellas, but I hope we don’t spent the rest of the episode having this same conversation.
Now it’s Burke’s turn to seize the phone and furiously dial Malloy’s number.
Burke reluctantly sees the wisdom of this and decides a more practical approach: seeking Malloy out himself.
A statement so forceful I can forgive the tense confusion.
And so Burke exits and Roger and Sam are left to talk about the price of sardines.
Back at Collinwood, Liz has just discovered that Unca Roger is violating curfew.
Carolyn assures Liz there’s nothing at all suspicious about Roger being out of the house in the middle of the night, a bare 48 hours after he was almost killed and 24 hours after he was forced to watch the child who tried to kill him be entirely let off the hook.
As said by someone who’s never had a premonition. I’ve been getting one every hour these days, you really can’t do much about them.
Liz has no answer for this.
There must be some widows in the atmosphere!
Liz very quickly gets tired of Carolyn’s bullshit, however well-intentioned for once, and urges her to go upstairs.
Liz mentions having felt a paralyzing fear like this only once before “a long, long time ago”. Carolyn is infuriatingly incurious about this, however, so Liz isn’t even prompted to explain it. Is it about the manslaughter thing? The disappearance of her husband? Baby Victoria Winters? Who gives a hot damn?
This isn’t her telling her daughter to fuck off, by the way. It’s supposed to be helpful advice. But, as we’ve heard over and over again, Carolyn doesn’t want to leave Collinwood. At least they aren’t arguing about her getting married or anything again.
This is weirdly reminiscent of David’s anxiety in the immediate wake of Roger’s “accident”. Then, however, it was quite obvious why David was freaking out so badly. Liz only has feverish worries which, oddly enough, comes off as more compelling.
I don’t know, honey, but there’s never been a better time to change the locks.
Sam suggests to Roger that they could always just, you know, leave, but Roger astutely points out that if they do, Burke will track them down anyway. He knows where they live and could very certainly kick their asses.
Uh…how does Sam know that?
Oh indeed?
It is with an entirely unearned air of superiority that Roger points out:
Wouldn’t Roger also feel safer? I mean, really?
Roger wonders what Sam will say when he’s prompted and Sam puts on a brave face.
Fair point. Sam can only posture so much. It’s his life on the line here too and he’s certainly aware of that.
But before Sam can meekly accept or boldly refuse, the Devlin returns. Empty-handed.
Burke describes ringing Malloy’s bell and hammering on his door and, I’m sure, making quite a scene for the neighbors in general, to no avail. Queerly enough, though, Malloy’s car remained parked outside. He couldn’t have gone far…
Could he?
Are you getting excited? Maybe…seeing where this is going? Yeah? Yeah? Oh yeah.
One of many Louis Edmonds line flubs that can be forgiven as Roger simply struggling mightily not to lose his shit.
Sam wonders what Burke intends to do know.
The clock strikes 11:40.
Act 3 begins 15 minutes later.
Roger and Sam again unite to insist that it is very late and some of us have work in the morning.
Roger suggests that Malloy isn’t showing because he’s realized that there’s no reason to have a meeting at all and, I guess, he was so embarrassed that he decided not to address thing in a phone call or something.
Well, maybe Malloy shouldn’t care so much about what two consenting adults do in the privacy of their bathroom.
Roger and Sam then take turns claiming they Don’t Know What He’s Talking About and that’s that, I guess.
Just when you think he’s going to tell Burke to stop stalking his underage niece, no, he just wants to return the sterling silver filigreed fountain pen.
Burke seems to have already forgotten giving it to her, which tells you a lot about how often he does shit like this.
In point of fact, you had a heart attack that she had whored herself out via fountain pen and insisted she give it to you so it could be returned to Burke without Carolyn getting too close to Roger’s ex.
Not that I’m implying anything.
Please.
It turns out that Roger doesn’t have the pen on him. Perhaps he forgot it. What a strange thing to bring up, all the same. I’m sure it won’t be important later.
That’s as good as it’s gonna get, I guess.
Roger offers to carpool with Sam back home, which is another thing I wish I could see, but oh well.
If nothing else, it’s nice seeing Burke at the disadvantage for once. He took the whole “framed for attempted murder” thing a little too coolly for my taste.
I swear, the show could be nothing but these three bitching at each other, and I would eat up every second.
I’ll give it to Art Wallace. This is one of the better of his silly scene connectors.
Carolyn and Liz are yakking it up about some time these kids crank called for “the ghost of Collinwood” at Halloween.
So there was at least one point where Carolyn had friends. I wonder what happened to them.
SHE SAID IT! I’M VALIDATED
I can’t get over how nice these scenes are, especially in contrast to the high tension and drama of the office meeting. Seeing this positive, agenda-free mother/daughter meeting as Carolyn’s only goal is to make her mother feel better. It’s a beautifully human moment and very welcome.
Liz eventually convinces Carolyn to go to sleep. She intends to wait up for Unca Roger.
Into this heartwarming scene, the clock chimes midnight.
Roger returns to Collinwood with the start of Act 4. Naturally, he is whistling.
If this episode was missing anything, it was these two acting like naggy in-laws.
Roger claims he was in a “business meeting”, at which point Liz should’ve challenged him to tell her what his job is.
She tells him about Malloy’s stormy visit to the house earlier in the day.
Imagine.
Liz gets even franker than that.
Roger lies, claiming he hasn’t seen Malloy since this afternoon, entirely wiping out his visit to Collinwood this evening, even though Victoria knows about it too and could very easily tell Liz this when prompted, but oh well.
Liz wonders if Roger denies Malloy’s accusation.
Maybe he’ll try it out in some more inflections, see how many he can manage.
This seems to shed light on Liz’s complicity. While we’ve occasionally been shown she has some doubts about this, the extent of what she explicitly knows about Roger’s guilt has been hazy. Since she’s confronting him about this to his face suggests she really doesn’t know for a fact, however much she may have suspected over the last decade.
!!!
Oh, wait, he’s being fancy again.
Roger claims he was responsible because it was his evidence that sent Burke to prison, but it was correct evidence and therefore nothing he did was wrong, so stop asking.
Quite breezily, especially considering everything Roger knows Malloy does know, Roger suggests they call Malloy in the morning and straighten out the whole thing with him.
What an easygoing manner, really, as if there’s no longer anything to worry about. As if Roger no longer has anything to lose from Malloy…
Hm.
And to you as well. See you on the flipside.
This Day in History- Tuesday, August 30, 1966
The Senate approves the confirmation of NYC’s Constance Baker Motley as a U.S. District Judge. She is the first Black woman to be named to the federal bench. She would serve for a whopping 39 years until her death in 2005.
The Knesset, current home of the Israeli Parliament, is dedicated in Jerusalem.
Kooks of Collinwood 