We’re tripping across the story beats now.
Aren’t we all?
She had a perfect set-up until she pivoted to the policeman. We know he’s there. We can make an inference.
Anyway, Dark Shadows is easing into its new Thing: murder mystery with a dash of thriller and 1/8 ghost story. This choice was consciously made to expedite the flagging ratings as Dark Shadows approaches the end of its original 13-week order. The idea being that, if things didn’t pick up by Episode 65, Dan Curtis’s maybe sexual dream about the governess on the train and the great house on the crest of the lonely hill would meet an ignominious end.
So we’re now two weeks/10 episodes from that point and things have gotten…interesting. We have a dead man, although for almost three whole episodes, nobody was sure if it really was a dead man and, if it was, who it was. Then we learned there was a dead man and we learned who it was but now the body isn’t there, so we’re basically just waiting for it to turn up and that could be tomorrow, next week or a whole suppository (unit of time measuring approximately three weeks) from now.
So it’s progress, but is it enough? Well…
Our drama today centers around Sheriff Patterson, the earnest, well-intentioned and possibly less merrily corrupt answer to the Consteriff, who has come to Collinwood at Liz’s request to learn the fate of Bill Malloy, and to interview the inmates of the great house as to what they do and do not know about what happened to him.
And now it’s Roger’s turn.
He should. Roger threatened to ruin his life if he didn’t conspire to arrest his nemesis and he was later forced to watch in impotent rage at he was convinced not to take further action against his murderous son.
But that Sheriff was just a glitch in the matrix that is Collinsport. Let’s just pretend that Roger has never before met this man and his amazing shiny head.
Liz begins to tell Roger what this is all about and, the stresses of the last few days seeming to finally overwhelm her, breaks down.
And Roger is all “Bill…dead?” in this ridiculous faint little voice and it’s getting increasingly hard to believe he didn’t already know this and is doing a terrible job of pretending he doesn’t.
This is what is called Keeping it Cool. As we’ve repeatedly seen these last 11 weeks, Roger is very good at it.
Roger continues Keeping it Cool the only way he knows how.
Liz tells Roger all this business about Matthew…
Collinswood. You know, it’s that place Mrs. Hopewell was writing too back then.
Roger isn’t at all pleased at Matthew’s conduct.
It’s funny, because it was stupid, but it was also, apparently, a selfless act done to protect the family, something Roger is apparently physically incapable of comprehending.
In case you thought that the Collins siblings were using their inside voices, we are quickly disabused of this when Patterson interjects.
We could make some fetching gloves out of it, for example.
As with last episode, today’s flipside is composed of two characters with less information than the people at Collinwood speaking about things that they’ve already spoken of many times before.
Sam has dropped by the restaurant for a visit with his long-suffering daughter, Burke having cancelled his portrait sitting because A.) he had to have The Same Conversation with Roger and B.) the portrait is no longer important as a device for Burke to learn something about Sam and so is being quietly ushered out the backdoor as if it never existed, and all to the good, I say.
This was before it was considered gauche to smoke in restaurants/most public places. People are always smoking in Collinsport, and during this noir/thriller storyline, just about everybody gets a go with a cigarette or six at least once.
Not any of the young ladies, though. That would be too much.
And why does Sam need the proverbial Fucking Cigarette, you ask?
Maggie knowingly guesses her father’s got another hangover. It’s both endearing and depressing how used to this she is. But this time, as it happens, she’s wrong. Sam’s sleepless night is all down to the continued absence of Bill Malloy and all its dark implications.
Maggie notes that Malloy’s disappearance has become a fixture of local gossip from all those customers she never seems to have.
The Same Conversation/It fits almost any situation/Whether you’re here or there/It Comes up Everywhere/The Same Goddamn Conversation!
For Maggie and Sam, the same conversation has persisted since their very first scene together when he had a completely different face and considerably more grotesque personality. Sam acts weird and evasive. Maggie wonders why. Sam dodges the point. Maggie assumes this has to do with Burke/Roger/both of them, Sam dodges the point. More recently, a new element has been added to this Same Conversation: the letter Sam wrote, confessing his part in the business of 10 years ago. He gave it to Maggie, telling her not to open it until and unless “something happened” to him. Maggie, concerned, put the letter in the hotel safe but, as of last night, Sam no longer likes the idea of the letter being where Maggie can look at it whenever and, having already threatened Roger by warning him of its existence and promising it will be produced should Roger take violent action against him, is trying to convince Maggie to give the letter back, which she is reluctant to do.
That was a run-on sentence but, guess what, I just saved you 75% of redundancy in these scenes.
Sam points out a lot of his nervousness is down to Malloy’s absence and, because Francis Swann can’t go one episode without making me scratch my scalp…
Oh indeed? Sam and Malloy, whose 20-year-friendship was remarked upon by both of them the day Malloy learned that Big Thing that seems to have expedited his trip to Hades? Naturally, of course, those episodes were written by Art Wallace, so why should this guy be expected to remember that, as far as the rest of the town knows, Sam and Malloy were, in fact, close friends.
Yes, that is the exact same trick that happened in the last one of these things Sam was a part of. Then it was Burke who caught Sam referring to Malloy in present tense. Interestingly, that was a Wallace episode, so at least they’re sharing clichés.
That does leave the question of, if Sam is indeed innocent, why does he keep referring to Malloy as if he knows he’s dead? Could it be at all connected to the “premonition” he told Maggie he’d had yesterday, mere hours before the body was spotted at the foot of Widows’ Hill? Or is David the only one allowed glimpses of things to come?
At Collinwood, Roger acts outraged that Liz didn’t call him the second she heard about Malloy. But she did, and Roger kept ignoring the calls. Roger eventually realizes this and hastily changes the subject, as we all do in similar situations.
Patterson informs Roger that he’s notified the Coast Guard to be on the lookout for buoyant bodies.
Try sounding a little less eager, eh, sport?
Roger gets even more flustered when Patterson points out they’ll have to have an autopsy to determine the cause of death. Patterson, apparently not as easily bent as his predecessor, points out that “it’s the law”, and we get this charming analogy…
He sounds honestly indignant. I love a sassy sheriff queen.
Yeah, okay, this is the better sheriff. End of story. I don’t care if he also ends up stupid and incompetent. At least he has zingers.
Okay, gang, time for Same Conversation Part Infinitus.
Sam tries again to convince Maggie to give the letter back to him. Maggie acts as though they didn’t already have this Conversation and attempts to find out who this person is Sam is so frightened of. She learns nothing more about it. Sam keeps pressing, wanting the letter back…
I love her.
Maggie refuses to relinquish the letter unless Sam gives her a damn explanation. He doesn’t do any such thing, insists she forget about it…
Sam doesn’t approve of the guilt-trip…
Maggie assures him she won’t pull the trigger on him.
So many sassy queens in this episode.
Back at Collinwood, Roger tells Patterson about his “business meeting” with Malloy the night he died. Patterson begins to note that this very well means Roger could be the last person to see Malloy alive, but Liz interjects, telling him what Mrs. Johnson the housekeeper told her about Malloy’s mysterious phone call at about 10:30.
Indeed. For the curious (that better be all of you), here’s the timeline of events as we currently understand them:
- 10:00: Malloy sees Roger at Collinwood to make him go to the meeting. It is apparently a 10 minute trip from Collinwood to the cannery, presumably by car.
- 10:30: Roger leaves Collinwood.
- At about this same time, Malloy is at home. Mrs. Johnson observes him taking a phone call. He departs within the half hour.
- 11:00: By now, Roger, Sam and Burke are all at the cannery for the meeting.
- 11:20: Elizabeth calls Malloy and gets no answer.
- 11:30: Burke goes in search of Malloy, to no avail.
- 12:00: Roger returns to Collinwood. Liz is waiting up for him.
We also note the marked change in Roger’s temperament between seeing Malloy at 10:00 and arriving for the meeting at 11:00. Likewise, Patterson concludes the likeliest time for Malloy to have died is between 10:30 (when the phone call occurred) and 11:00, when he failed to show for the meeting.
As to that meeting, Roger claims to was to be a continuation of the “business discussion” they had at Collinwood but, to Patterson, he admits there are two men who can give him an alibi: Burke and Sam.
GIF: That’s a strange combination.
Escandalo.
This is, of course, news to Liz, who knew nothing of this, but she doesn’t say as much to Roger.
Here’s another thing Swann must’ve pulled out of his ass. Malloy hated Burke. He only was helping him because he thought that was the best way to get him out of the family’s hair. In every interaction he had with him before that episode, he was badgering, arguing and accusing.
Nevertheless. Roger insists nobody at the meeting knew anything about why they were supposed to be there, notes that Burke went to Malloy’s to see where he was and found nothing, and then they all went to bed for the night. So the truth, but heavily neutered.
Liz confides in her seeing Malloy that same afternoon. Sadly, she doesn’t mention that Patterson can verify this with her faithful banker John Harris. Malloy, she notes, was upset, grappling with a big decision of some kind.
Patterson sails to a new conclusion.
Nah, the only thing that killed itself that night was Frank Schofield’s career.
The suicide theory is roundly dismissed by the serious people present, so naturally Roger seizes on it. And what does Roger think would have shaken gruff, stoic Bill Malloy so much that he’d have taken his own life.
That son of a bitch Ned Calder.
Roger postulates that Malloy was so hurt that Liz would bring Ned back to do his job that he killed himself. That isn’t quite so bad as suggesting he jumped because he thought Liz would have Ned over him. Even so. The hell?
Liz dismantles this nonsense theory, noting that Malloy didn’t at all object to the idea of her bringing Ned back and, anyway, was also present when Ned told her he wouldn’t be back. What was even the point of Ned Calder again? Because this silly false-lead is as good a payoff as we’re gonna get.
Serious Queen has spoken. Let’s never talk about that bullshit again.
Back at the restaurant, Maggie is taking a lunch order from Burke.
Her call concluded, Maggie wonders if Burke is connected to the letter and get this? Same Conversation.
Oh, he’s got a girlfriend, alright. Pretty thing, about your age, I would like to see the expose on it…
Ahem.
Maggie wonders that, since the letter was written before Malloy disappeared, if the contents of the letter involved Malloy and may be the motivating reason he’s staying away from town.
That’s not at all the case, of course, but it’s a good guess, and LET ME TELL you SOMETHING.
So we have here the case of Sam Evans, right? He’s a dithering drunk. He’s connected to the Collins family in only an ancillary way. Every one of his pre-recast conversations (which were all confrontations) with Roger included not-so-subtle threats of violence from Roger to him if he stepped a toe out of line with regard to Burke. That was the whole reason Roger didn’t want him doing the portrait.
Over and over again, Sam seemed like a man who felt he noose tightening around him. Half his dialog was about the slow march of death and doom and destruction. Hell, at one point Roger literally told him…
My point is, for people watching from home in 1966, it would not be out of nowhere to assume that Sam was the likeliest member of the cast to be the “who” in “whodunit”. The suspect pool would be much the same, with Roger as the most likely and Burke supplanting Sam as secondary, along with people like Liz and Matthew and even Malloy to be considered for wanting to protect the Collins name.
Even I thought that’s what was going on when I first watched. And let me tell you…I wouldn’t have minded.
Until the recast. All of a sudden Sam was fun, engaging, sympathetic, riveting. Dave Ford saved the character and, suddenly, it seemed like a waste of time to kill him off when he clearly had so much more to give.
I’m sure there’s another world out there where they didn’t recast Sam in time and, in the face of the bad ratings, Dan Curtis decided to cut two birds with one stone…and have Victoria and Carolyn find Sam’s body at the foot of Widow’s Hill, the same place where he’d once encountered Vicky on her first morning at Collinwood.
Sure, you’d lose out on the build-up of Malloy running around and doing things for that last week before he vanished, but you wouldn’t need it as much because, unlike Malloy, Sam had done things and been involved in things that would make him turning up as a murder victim less jarring.
Then you have Maggie involved as amateur sleuth. Malloy sticks around Collinwood, seeking vengeance for his killed friend, butting heads with Burke (who, after all, Sam had agreed to paint just before he vanished…) and gradually discovering the truth of Sam’s connection to Roger…
And so on.
But that’s Another World (wrong network…). We’re in this one.
Patterson promises to inform Liz and Roger when he hears from the Coast Guard. Before he goes, he tells them about Malloy being seen drinking at the Blue Whale that last day, suggesting he may have gotten wasted and fallen into the sea.
Not sure if that’s stupider than the suicide theory or not, but Roger’s willing to consider it.
Oh to be a teetotaling housekeeper telling the police my gruff old bear of a boss never touched a drop of the Devil’s Nectar a day in his life.
And just like that, Patterson’s gone.
Liz confronts Roger about lying to her about the meeting, Burke and Sam being there and all that. Roger dithers and wastes time, insisting he doesn’t want to speak where he can be overheard. Liz notes they’re alone: just her, Roger and the ghosts of his past.
Same.
Roger plays the grade school gag of claiming that, since he never said Burke and Sam weren’t at the meeting, he never lied. I swear, it’s a wonder this guy didn’t get up on that stand and flat-out admit he was guilty.
Roger then claims he lied to protect Liz, to keep from upsetting her, until he found out what Malloy wanted. This is even more absurd simply because it presupposes Roger gives a shit about his sister’s emotional health.
Roger does get close to the truth…
No comment.
Roger says Burke “pretended” (really, guy?) to believe the meeting was supposed to be about his manslaughter charge, which I guess is gonna be his defense when Burke tells the cops that. Good luck.
Liz notes, though, that that wouldn’t be entirely ridiculous, since Malloy had been vehement about dealing with Burke despite her objections. This turns things inevitably back to the subject of the trial and whether Roger lied on the stand, but this is a variety of the Same Conversation I can live with.
Pretty sure it was supposed to be the second thing, but cool Freudian slip, Rog.
Roger insists that Liz must believe him. After all, she was willing to look away from her nephew’s attempted murder of the man she’s talking to right now. And if she can do that…
This is what happens when you invite deadbeats into your house. Covering for attempted murders and manslaughters and real murders. The whole gamut of violent crimes.
Patterson stops at the restaurant for his second cp of coffee in less than an hour.
Patterson mentions the grapevine has it that Sam was to do a portrait of Burke and, thankfully, further discussion of this is put aside by the ringing of the phone. Maggie hurries to get it…
Is it?
Patterson takes the call and, without further ago, rushes out…
Why was the Coast Guard looking for him at the hotel restaurant? Is that just where all local calls gets redirected?
See you next week!
Behind the Scenes Shenanigans
Episode 55 was the last filmed at Dark Shadows’ original studio. 56 will mark the first episode at the new one, not that you’d notice this if I didn’t tell you. The rest of the series run commences in that studio.
Huzzah.
This Day in History- Friday, September 9, 1966
Two American jets stray from North Vietnam into Chinese airspace, leading to a tense interception from Chinese Air Force planes. The U.S. State Department claims not to know what this is about, to which students of history say “Sure, Jan.”
In other fun things China was doing, the Chinese detonate their third nuclear weapon over the Lop Nor desert. They would go on to detonate an H-bomb in June of the next year.
Very Serious Actor Adam Sandler is born today. I guess Uncut Gems is okay.
Kooks of Collinwood 