Date Night

In this very special episode of Dark Shadows, Victoria Winters tells us:

Oh, come on.

But the tiresome hackery of writer Francis Swann will earn some grudging respect from me this episode, as his uninspired wheel-spinning and desperate attempts to “speed things up” produce, either accidentally or on purpose, something extraordinary.

Don’t believe me? Well, I will have Roger’s smoking jacket speak for itself.

Roger is taking a call from Sam who, apparently, wants to talk about the coroner’s verdict, as if you’re not already sick of hearing those words. Roger refuses to talk on the phone, nor meet in the privacy of the Evans household (despite having gone there several times in the past to plot, cajole and threaten violence), instead picking up on Sam’s suggestion they meet in the Blue Whale, a public place frequently attended by numerous people who could bear witness to their conspiring.

It’s very contrived, but if you must know, none of that stuff matters this episode. This is one of those times when Dark Shadows‘ atmosphere trumps its occasional attempts to make internal sense, and I don’t mind in the slightest.

What I do mind, however, is Vicky’s mummu.

Vicky, apparently, was at the Collinwood library we just learned existed looking for a book to read. Roger seizes upon this as an excellent vehicle to ask her out to the Blue Whale with him to…make the fact he’s going there to meet with Sam less suspicious, I guess. Despite the fact that he has now met with Sam at the Blue Whale more than once, at both day and night, and required no chaperoning.

It gets more peculiar as it seems Francis Swann has forgotten this in-universe day actually began with Roger taking Vicky out on a date, back in last Monday’s episode.

Except they did go out. Just today. But Francis Swann didn’t write that episode, so how could he be expected to know?

There is, however, a serendipity that this day begins and ends with Roger taking Vicky on a date. In this case, it’s like she’s his beard for his meeting with Sam. To maintain all the weird subtext, when Roger mentions he intends to take her to the Blue Whale, Vicky mentions she’s been there before, with Burke. At first, Vicky avoids saying Burke’s name, and then Roger gets all coquettish and she admits what she was doing and why she went out with Burke in the first place and Roger basically laughs it off, which it’s hard to imagine him doing at the time the Burktoria date actually happened, a sign of his continued evolution as a character…and his renewed attempt to get on Vicky’s good side, for ill-explained reasons.

This girl has collected enough red flags since she moved into this place that she could organize a full decathlon. Still, Vicky is either sincerely flattered, or unwilling to be threatened with expulsion to the Florida commune again, because she agrees to get dressed so they can head off to where the magic happens.

And speaking of magic…

This marks the first appearance of an establishing shot for the Blue Whale, making this the last major location to get one. These shots are often followed up by one of this life preserver:

There’s even a change in the ambiance. The moment we fade away from the Collinwood foyer, we hear the blowing of ship’s horns and the cawing of gulls. The establishing shot suggests a pivot from late afternoon to evening.

Then we fade to the familiar jukebox, where a patron is just popping in a dime.

It’s the quiet swell of that music…music that is, immediately, recognizable as unlike Bob Cobert’s usual jukebox standards. We’ve heard unique tunes here before, notably during Roger and Sam’s last meet-up here in Episode 65. Here, though, the music seems a character in its own right, gently humming its way in.

The songs heard on the jukebox in this episode are actually licensed tunes all of which, according to our friends at the wiki, come from the same album: “The New Elgart Touch”, by big band figures Les and Larry Elgart. This song, in particular, is called “Green Eyes“. More on the Elgarts later.

It is with this musical accompaniment, accompanied by the finger-snapping of that lone Blue Whale patron as he walks off, that lulls us into a relaxed state unusual for this show. The music isn’t trying to startle or titillate or (as it often does) lend an undercurrent of the sinister to proceedings. We’re here, at the Blue Whale, out for a quiet, relaxing night.

As the camera loses pace with the patron, we settle on none other than the father and daughter duo of Sam and Maggie Evans, hearing as Kathryn Leigh Scott hums along with the music, tapping out the rhythm on the table with her hands. This was almost certainly improvised on the actress’s part (in those days, they played the soundtrack as the episode was filmed; but you would’ve gathered that from the number of times it plays late), and grounds us in reality. This isn’t just our music, the way most of the soundtrack is. When we’re in the Blue Whale, the music we hear, is what they here as well.

Next to Maggie, her father takes a drink and she remarks:

And he does, perhaps renewed in his sense of safety and security with the coroner’s verdict. But more than that, it is the way Maggie speaks, the way Sam puffs on his cigarette as the music plays that suggests we’ve been taken away, apart from the dreary halls of Collinwood, not to a grand, exotic local, but to someplace cozy and intimate, warm and welcoming, with just the softest lilt of romance in the air.

A lot of this, you’ll notice, has nothing to do with Swann’s script. It’s the set design, the music, the charisma of two actors with impeccable chemistry. Perhaps it is also the relief of finally being away from Collinwood after two episodes locked up inside with its increased agitated, paranoid inhabitants, watching as they argue about Burke Devlin and all his associated machinations.

Maggie’s talking about hypothetical people who may continue to insist Sam was involved in Malloy’s death. But in many ways, the line means more than that, doesn’t it? At least to me. There’s a hex being put on all of us here, hundreds of episodes before Dark Shadows will even think of having literal witches walking the streets of Collinsport.

With a little wrinkle of her nose and a furrow of her brow, a tiny coquettish smile, Maggie Evans just wins you over. You want whatever she wants. Usually, however, the things she wants aren’t even for her own benefit: her primary goal since we started has been seeing that her father is protected from manifold intrigues she cannot understand. Maggie doesn’t get to want things for herself the way Vicky and (very especially) Carolyn do.

Until now.

The song changes (indistinct, but presumably “Brasil“) and Maggie looks beyond her father:

The sad sack in question?

You’re probably wondering where this came from. And you’re right in wondering that. Maggie and Joe have only shared scenes a couple of times before, and only really had dialogue with each other once, during that interval when Bill Malloy was simply “missing” rather than dead. Each of those times, as well, Carolyn was also part of the scene. But now, for the first time, we get an indication of a life for these two, some kind of shared experience, away from the diner counter and the arm of the Collins-Stoddard heiress.

Maggie asks if Sam could invite Joe to join them, to which Sam gleefully acquiesces. We remember then, the pivotal moment in Dave Ford’s very first scenes as Sam, which were shared with Joe. In those scenes, it was Sam who warned Joe against remaining tethered to Collinsport and, by extension, the dark house on the crest of Widows’ Hill, urging him to take the girl he loves from there immediately, if he truly does care for her.

The scene seemed to come entirely out of nowhere then. And yet now, 48 episodes later, we appear to have come full circle.

This beautiful, organic, game-changing moment in the history of Dark Shadows is brought to you, not just by set, sound, and inter-cast chem-testing, but by the writer forgetting what day it is again. This won’t be the last pivotal Dark Shadows moment premised on a continuity error, but it’s certainly one of the weirder ones.

Joe claims to have been stood up by Carolyn tonight. He says they had a dinner date that he arranged after telling Carolyn he couldn’t take time off work to go for a drive together, pissing her off.

The thing is…something like this did happen on-screen, which is good, because that’s a bit of a lot to have play out where the audience can’t see. But it happened two weeks of episodes ago, during Carolyn’s tour of Collinsport in which she pressed Burke, Roger, then Burke again about Burke’s accusations against, well, Roger. In-universe, those scenes were yesterday. I know it’s jarring, because nighttime often takes many days on Dark Shadows, and Episode 70 brought and ended the darkness fairly quickly to facilitate it’s…particular twist, but the fact remains.

The wiki suggests this error is forgivable because the pivot to nighttime (and the Josette reveal) in Episode 70 was added abruptly and suddenly after certain subsequent scripts were already written, which might explain why, besides a cursory mention of the Old House in Episode 71, no reference has been made to the events of the episode since.

Still, that doesn’t change the fact that Art Wallace, in his writing of Week 15, firmly established a new day had begun, and there would surely have been enough time for some cross-correction in Swann’s scripts for Week 16, at least to adjust Joe’s motivation for drinking alone.

But I can’t be too upset because, again, these scenes are welcome in their novelty. I’m glad to have them. That they be premised on a credible in-universe foundation is besides the point.

Take the conversation’s pivot to the subject of “The Collins family of Collinsport”.

Joe grants that this is so, and Maggie raises her glass.

And they do.

There is something beautiful about this exchange, the solidarity these three people in each other’s company, comiserating abut the power others in their world have that they can never aspire to.

At which point Maggie gives the hew and cry and they all drink.

There is a special thematic resonance here, whether intentional or otherwise. These three people have all been screwed over, to different degrees of effect, by the Collinses of Collinsport. Sam has pissed away a decade of his life due to a moment of weakness that has trapped him beneath the thumb of Roger Collins. Joe, despite being a hardworking young man whose labor benefits the Collinses, finds himself strung along like a pursedog by Carolyn, who is despite his best efforts constantly threatening to drift off toward greener pastures, through no fault of his own, and to his constant humiliation and disparagement.

Maggie is less effected by this dynamic, and has only been hurt by the Collinses to the extent that she worries for her father. Perhaps this is why she’s the one who starts the little drinking game. She’s enough out of the Collins web of influence that she can see and understand the toxic nature of their hold on the town and on the people she loves, enough to mount a rebellion, however light and levitious.

And, perhaps, she’s just the littlest bit resentful of one particular Collins, who has something she cannot appreciate, but that Maggie believes she can.

Something or, rather, someone.

Sam understands at once the implications of Maggie’s words and warns her against, er, thinking.

And she’s right. There isn’t. And, at this crucial juncture, a new thought is just what Dark Shadows needs. What I’m saying is, Francis Swann’s messy, frenetic style has given us something good.

Act II opens with Joe calling Collinwood just as Vicky prepares to leave. He asks about Carolyn, a subject Vicky readily admits she is unable to help him with, because she went out for a drive. Just…just go with it. This is the extent of the timeline-fudging today and, indeed, the absence of Carolyn is the entire point.

We’ve seen Joe without Carolyn before, of course, but she has still somehow always managed to be the focal point of his life. In his scenes with the newly recast Sam, the moments he spent with Malloy on the day of his death, even his encounter with Burke and Vicky at the former’s hotel. Here, the matter of Carolyn is edged out as an afterthought. Joe does his due diligence, checking to see if Carolyn is around , no doubt so he can again apologize to her for something he didn’t do. He’s told Carolyn’s not available and…that’s it.

Joe returns to the table, whereupon the topic of Carolyn is brought up, and then concluded, by both Evanses in different ways. Sam gives a lower-key version of his first warning to Joe, to get Carolyn out of Collinwood if he truly does care for her, while Maggie, not entirely without an agenda of her own, suggests he try something new.

The remark is innocent enough, but it is laden with subtext. Not just the obvious, surface level, soapy air of it all: that of a man declaring his partner can give him nothing more, and expressing his desire for someone new, right in front of a potential “someone new” herself. But there is also a change in tone. For the very first time since his introduction way back in the second episode, Joe is contemplating a life without Carolyn, a woman he has been fruitlessly attempting to marry since before the show even began.

Maggie gives a start at the comment, just as the next Elgar Bros tune starts up, a rousting Big Band number called “String of Pearls“. Sam wonders if Maggie would like to dance, seeming to drop a hint in his daughter’s favor, encouraging her bit of girlishness.

Here’s that aside about the music I promised you. Les and Larry Elgar were not contemporary musicians in 1966. While the album the pieces in this episode come from was released in 1963, their real heyday was during the Big Band era of the 1940s and early ’50s. While the compositions Bob Cobert drew up for the juke sound like the surf rock of the period, this music is dated by at least 15 years. Dated like so much of the world of Collinsport is dated. No televisions, conservative fashions, a considerable dearth of current slang. Here, however, the music choice seems almost deliberate.

Dark Shadows is a show obsessed with the past. It is the central motivator of Victoria Winters’s search, the animus of Burke Devlin’s revenge, and the underlying implication of every whispered word about the “ghosts of Collinwood”. The past is always something unreachable, mysterious and even threatening. In its aloof distance, it mocks people in the present who, for various reasons, want to reach back and reclaim it.

Here, dancing close and slow to an old Big Band tune of the kind their parents may once have enjoyed, Joe and Maggie are not imprisoned by, taunted with, or threatened by the past. Rather, they dance right into it, with complete agency. No baggage. No agenda. Nothing but two young people on a beautiful night, forgetting the troubles and darknesses of the present in favor of the warm, nostalgic embrace of the past.

It is necessary to discuss romance as it applies to the soap opera format. We’ve done this before, of course, but it gains new significance now that we’ve reached the first truly romantic episode of the series.

Romance has been the hallmark of the soap opera since the radio days. It is natural, of course, since the genre was marketed to housewives eager for an escape from the doldrums of their day-to-day duties. Regrettably, the fact that soaps are about women and the romantic and amorous entanglements they get into has contributed to their ghettoization in the mainstream view. This is a regular pitfall for women-oriented media, which is frequently scorned at by people for whom the media was not made.

Dark Shadows, in fact, has an element of its fanbase guilty of this very view. There are people (men, mostly; this soap certainly has the biggest heterosexual male following of any sudser before or since) who see Dark Shadows as inherently superior to other soaps simply for (they believe) eschewing the trappings of other programs. Of course, such people are betraying their ignorance of the genre. As much as Dan Curtis drew from old horror movies and the thrillers of the previous decade, so to does Dark Shadows retain elements of other daytime dramas. And even its more fantastical elements do not necessarily change the program’s designation as a soap, nor make it inherently superior to the likes of Days of Our Lives and General Hospital.

Though these early episodes are often criticized for being “too soapy”, I think it ought to be noted that they are among the least soapy in the entire run. The hallmarks of the soap opera: business rivalry and romance, or either thoroughly underplayed (see Burke’s revenge) or completely absent (romance in general).

There is little romantic about Carolyn and Joe, nor much escapism to be found in her naive attraction to a dangerous older man who emotionally mistreats her and admits to stringing her along to suit his ends. And, while Burke’s feelings toward Victoria may be more honest, they are no less ugly, with Burke mistreating Victoria for the crime of telling the truth to the best of her ability, simply because it helped one of Burke’s many enemies.

If you’re looking for other romantic attachments, you’re shit outta luck. You’d have to imagine them, like reframing Burke and Roger’s rivalry as being unresolved homoerotic tension, as I have been doing all this time. ABC Daytime might’ve developed a reputation for serving “Love in the Afternoon”, but you won’t find any of that here.

And maybe that was the point. After all, the only romance you’ll find in a gothic work of the sort Dark Shadows is based on will end in tragedy. But, just as it gets difficult to serve a compelling mystery narrative five days a week for months, so too can it get very, er, depressing slogging through months of alcoholism and arguing and thinly veiled domestic violence. There needs to be some lightness because, as Joni Mitchell once said, “every picture has its shadows, but it has some source of light.” Balance is necessary, especially in a format as relentless as the daytime soap.

And maybe that’s why, for me, the image of Maggie smiling as she leans into Joe, rocking back and forth to that music, is so warm and inviting. To this point, acts of love have been given and withheld like bribes on the cruel whims of controlling egotists like Burke and (at least with Joe) Carolyn. This goes back to Joe and Carolyn’s first episode, in which Joe haplessly looked on as his “girl” Carolyn tore up the dance floor at this very bar with men who, well, weren’t him.

And now, finally, 76 episodes later, Joe has gotten his dance. And, in doing so, he’s rescued Maggie from the drudgery of her ten cent tips and allegedly awful coffee.

Anyway, here’s Roger wondering if Victoria is “gilding the lily”.

Roger’s just doing what he does best, remarking stuffily on things, in this case a kind of patrician condescension toward Vicky touching up her makeup before going out. When Vicky mentions she was on the phone with Joe, Roger trains this same douchebaggery toward the hapless fisherman, offering a rare insight on the character. When Vicky points out how dutiful Joe is toward Carolyn, Roger declares…

If Alexandra Moltke’s face hasn’t already sold you, Vicky is unamused by this classist insult, pointing out she is, indeed, “just a governess”. Louis Edmonds is always much better at playing Roger as a spineless snob than a calculating villain, and that really shines through in this episode. Usually his smug comments about class and station are directed at the new money Burke. Here, Swann intelligently (!!!) rationalizes Roger ought to have equal contempt for people who are, yanno, still poor. I don’t think I’ll ever compliment Swann this much again, by the way.

Still, because Roger is so “charming”, this trespass is quickly forgiven and Roger even helps Vicky put her coat on as he prepares her for:

We remember what happened the last time Roger declared he was done with worries. It wasn’t even a week ago. Anyway, back to people who don’t have to pretend to be happy.

It turns out that they still lost the game, but hey, Joe got the only score.

Ouch.

It’s interesting that this is the first bit of history we ever get on Joe. All we really learned about him prior to this was he’s worked at the cannery for a while, has a friend named Jerry who has a wife and newborn, and he’s dated Carolyn long enough that the entire town is essentially waiting for them to get married…this despite Carolyn being 17, which puts a major question mark next to how long they could possibly have been dating for.

Here, however, we learn something concrete about him that isn’t directly in reference to his relationship to the Collinses and, particularly, Carolyn. He was a football ace in high school! Also, unlike his girlfriend, he went to high school!

Swann continues surprising me by deftly using this anecdote to demonstrate to the audience that Joe and Maggie do have a history and, given the brevity of their interactions to this point, it isn’t disturbing anything to reveal it now. We learn Maggie and Joe were contemporaries in high school, which seems perfectly natural. Maggie is 23 according to the series bible, and Joe is around 21 or 22. They’re closer in age, and able to have shared experiences. Carolyn didn’t go to high school with Joe. Technically, she should still be there.

Compared to the botched “speeding up” of Burke’s arc this week, this (which could easily have been much more abrupt) feels effortless and, more than that, welcome. We needed this.

The magic of the moment is interrupted by the arrival of one of the very Collinses of Collinsport himself.

Notably, Roger’s “best seat in the house” is different from the one Vicky and Burke dined at together. Make of that what you will.

It’s odd that everybody is reacting to the notion of Roger going on a date with his son’s babysitter as if it’s a nice piece of gossip and not five steps from a sex crime.

Sam, presumably remembering that he’s the reason Roger is here, suggests they ask Roger and Vicky to join them. Maggie begins to object, but stops, as though embarrassed, her little flicker of fantasy wiped away just as soon as it had appeared.

Sam approaches Roger and Vicky’s table just as Roger is urging her to try the “semens”. I mean..I assume he said something else, but the audio is a little wonky this episode. Unless this was another fish tube thing, which is evidenced by the way Vicky greets Sam with ill-disguised relief.

Roger, for whatever reason, is acting like he doesn’t want to see Sam, despite this being the only reason he came here in the first place.

The best part of this thing is the sound of Maggie and Joe laughing in the background, an extra flourish that illustrates something the two characters (as well as their actors) have that Joel Crothers simply doesn’t with his (still quite talented) original scene partner: chemistry.

So Vicky joins Maggie and Joe so that the venerable old duffers can have another of their little spats.

The premise of this conversation is that Sam wants to know if Roger has heard from Burke since the coroner’s decision came out this morning. We know he more than heard from him. Roger now knows the extent of Burke’s dramatic plans to destroy him, his family, and all they own. For whatever reason, though (I guess Roger’s embarrassed, which is fair) this never comes up once in the conversation.

In fact, the strange romantic air of the night seems to have permeated Sam and Roger’s dynamic too. Their banter is easy and light and, while it can never entirely be void of the kind of acidic bite that has always characterized it, it seems more like they’re joking with each other. There is even a moment where each admits they suspected the other of having something to do with Malloy’s death but, since the coroner’s findings came out, they both admit they were wrong (though, Roger with some reluctance). The whole thing seems almost friendly! Until, that is, Roger has to do what he does with all the relationships in his life and spoil everything.

So I was wrong a couple of weeks ago, they do mention that plot point letter again. It’s probably very Harold Camping of me to shift my prediction and declare this is the last time they mention it, but even if it isn’t, it’s close. The regrettable “last will and testament” Sam told Maggie to hide remains hidden indefinitely, with the last concerted effort to retrieve it (Sam’s interactions with Mr. Wells in Episode 61), being the final time it effects the plot in a significant way.

Leave it to Roger to oppose the delivery of the mails.

At the other table, Vicky comes perilously close to admitting her employer Mrs. Stoddard is an emotionally manipulative tyrant.

Maggie is surprised to learn that Vicky and Carolyn fight sometimes, whereupon she diagnoses Carolyn swiftly, effortlessly, and in a brutally efficient manner that cements her as the heroine this show needs.

Vicky and Joe both protest, with Vicky indicating she knows first hand of Carolyn’s disillusionment toward Burke since his visit to Collinwood today. But the thing is, Maggie’s right. Whatever Carolyn says about Burke or Victoria, it’s been clear since the beginning that she resented Vicky for the attention (and, at least slightly more than her: respect) Burke shows her. It does nobody any good to ignore this fact…Vicky herself was accused by Carolyn of whoring herself out to Burke just this morning. Maggie is the only person willing to look the situation right on and call a spade a spade…with a smile, of course.

And that’s just it. Maggie doesn’t like seeing a guy she cares about being strung along by a girl who has no use for him. And it’s not like she’s the only one who can see it. It’s established fact that almost every character realizes this by now. Elizabeth, with disappointed exasperation; Roger, with rude condescension; Vicky, with sad pity. Maggie is just the only one willing to call it out.

Elsewhere, Roger and Sam’s argument about the letter escalates to the point that their former good will is forgotten and Roger goes back to accusing Sam of having something to do with Malloy’s death. They’re like an old married couple, but with slightly more accusations of violence.

Roger declares he’s tired of talking with Sam, basically proving this whole pointless conversation was just a vehicle to justify the birth of the new Dark Shadows super couple and hurries to ruin Vicky’s good time.

When in doubt, just fall for the ol’ My Immortal. He doesn’t even order a doggie bag of semens for the road. Vicky got all dressed up to play the third wheel at a super-casual first date.

Louis Edmonds’s deliciously dickish performance for this episode comes to a head when he turns to Vicky’s dinner companions.

Perhaps realizing this type of gross “Ha, ha, people who do jobs suck” humor is a little over-bar for the local equivalent of an Applebee’s, Roger tries to back down by blaming his prejudices on that headache of his he totally has.

This, however, isn’t enough to satisfy one Joe Haskell.

Machismo is no stranger to Dark Shadows but it’s usually the, er, toxic kind. When Burke threatens to paddle Carolyn at their first meeting, or when Burke suggests Liz demur to her tea and biscuits while he talks business with Roger, or when Burke suggests Maggie is too stupid to understand that her father is a lying crook, or when Burke…

The point is, “manliness” as we know it is a fixture on this show, but it isn’t the kind that would be considered productive in society, or attractive to the kind of woman that hasn’t been socially conditioned to hate herself for existing.

But when Joe defends Maggie, not bothering to react to the insults against himself, we see a different kind of manliness: someone selflessly sticking up for someone he cares about. You’d think a show in the “woman’s genre” would’ve gotten to this by now.

An irate Roger accuses Joe of “forgetting himself”, at which point Joe tells him:

And there it is. Joe “remembers”. Can he now be realizing what a stooge he has been to the Collinses, Carolyn and otherwise? How much he has taken, how much he has let slide out of the vain hope he may one day have one particular Collins’s hand in marriage? Might he now, finally, understand how much he’s let himself be walked on…and is it possible he’s had enough?

Sam comes over at the sound of raised voices (basically, Roger declares he “doesn’t like gutter brawling” and Joe tells him he should get out of the gutter, then; it’s classic). Maggie tries to say it’s nothing and doesn’t concern him, at which point Joe says something else very poignant.

The implications of that are varied. I personally think this is the logical conclusion of Joe and the Evanses toasting ironically at the mention of “the Collins family of Collinsport”. Because all of those three (arguably, everyone in the Blue Whale but Roger, including Vicky) have had their lives dominated by the whims and intrigues of the Collinses. How much more, exactly, are they willing to take?

Vicky is finally able to convince Roger to back off (she probably had to drive him back), at which point Maggie lightens the mood by proposing another toast, to that most sainted family, as Sam finally appears to understand the implications of his daughter’s feelings on this night of nights.

God, I love this episode.

We wind down with Vicky and Roger returning to Collinwood, and Vicky wisely turning down Roger’s offer of a nightcap because she’s learned from the first night. It’s called character development.

He owes her semens, and also dancing.

The episode ends with an aside comment from Vicky that unnerves Roger more than she could have suspected. Vicky mentions she’ll have more time for other nights out if Liz really does hire Mrs. Johnson a woman who, apparently, Roger has never heard of in his life, despite working shoulder-to-shoulder with her employer for at least a couple of months.

Seems like a cheap way to end an episode like this, but the overall product was so good that I’ll take it.

This Day in History- Wednesday, October 12, 1966

Brazilian President General Humberto Castel Branco causes a constitutional crisis by removing six legislators from office, just over a week after the national congress had elected his successor. The attempt is blocked, and the six congressmen are afforded a chance to defend themselves in course. The two parties unite against the corrupt president, who would respond by closing the Congress for an entire month, citing “counterrevolutionary elements”. Not that any of this has any bearing on the news of the today, of course.

Five months after gaining its independence from the United Kingdom, Guyana finds itself in the midst of a territorial dispute with the neighboring nation of Venezuela, Burke Devlin’s old haunt. Ankoko Island in the Cuyuni River had been divided between the two nations in February, but on this day, Venezuelan troops move onto the Guyanese half of the island.