A new day has dawned at Collinwood, which is a good way of knowing a week and a half of episodes have passed.
But, yes, it’s a new morning, and the terrors of the night (and a very intense first half of the week) have abated, to be replaced with a litany of questions old and new.
What I’m saying is, while this episode isn’t filler, per se, it’s definitely not balls to the wall crazy. And that’s okay. Really, it’s…it’s been a lot. I know how that sounds, coming from me, but Dark Shadows has been delivering for an entire week, and it’s as good a time to stop and take inventory as any.
We begin with Victoria and Carolyn in their hideous nightgowns.
Nice, real sensitive, glad they’re treating this with the gravity it deserves.
Comforting, really, after the intense emotional ordeal that was the entire last half of the previous episode, to be reminded that Dark Shadows is still Dark Shadows, which means people are going to be cavalierly dismissive of the plights of others for ill-explained reasons.
It is possibly ill-done that this episode doesn’t take place at nighttime, still, with the rest of the household learning, at once, of what happened to Vicky. Placing it in the daylight creates a kind of distance, leaving a sizable question mark over what exactly did happen after Roger helped Vicky out of the East Wing? Did they wake Elizabeth and Carolyn? Was David immediately summoned? Has he been punished?
Those last two questions both seem to be a “no”, which is inexplicable but not entirely unexpected given this family.
As to the other thing…
Vicky has readily accepted as true that the apparition she saw last night was the ghost of Bill Malloy. She will accept no substitutes. No hysteria, sleep-deprivation, sexual frustration, or solar flares. She knows what she saw and heard and nobody’s changing her mind.
This might be jarring, because Vicky was established way back in the first week as the Skeptic, ready to scoff at all the stories of the ghosts of Collinwood, the Widows, Josette and whatever else. Of course, her skepticism hasn’t been challenged much. Sure, there were her two encounters with the Weeping Woman, the second of which even ending with Roger admitting he has heard the same ghost and has no explanation for it. While Vicky never seized on Elizabeth’s various mundane explanations (wind and old pipes) with much zeal, she seemed to quietly accept them in the end, and then go on with her day.
Now, however, in the face of actual (meta)physical evidence, she is decided: ghosts are real and she saw one.
I like this because it’s in keeping with Vicky’s position as the sensible one. Sure, she’s clever, intelligent, and practical (as long as there aren’t any bejeweled pens around to distract her), but that doesn’t mean she’s stubborn. If she sees evidence to support something, she’ll accept it as true. This marks her as the good, “redeemable” kind of Skeptic, rather than the sort who’ll willfully remain ignorant even in the face of incontrovertible proof. Vicky may not be able to explain why there are ghosts, but she knows she saw one.
At the same time, it also makes sense that the others won’t believe her. We haven’t yet reached the point where Dark Shadows is totally overrun by spooks, of course. Malloy’s ghost was the first time we ever saw the world of the supernatural touch that of the living. It would be silly if everybody believed Vicky’s story at once.
So…er…what I’m saying is, enjoy this balance while it’s there, because it’s gonna give them some real problems down the line.
Catch Joan Bennett serving peak Soap Reaction Face.
It quickly transpires that, no, Liz was not privy to this information before, and apparently hasn’t spoken to Vicky about any of this drama before. I guess Roger put her right to bed after he got her out which…okay, that was probably responsible of him, not gonna lie. He probably also had to stress vomit too, before researching exorcisms to purge the ghost of Bill Malloy from the house before he can start shit.
Prank? Actually, I don’t know why I’m surprised. This lady learned the kid tried to kill his father and she just swept it under the rug like nothing.
Okay, so my grace period with sole writer Francis Swann is over now. We are not about to do all this crap again. It is well established to everybody in the house and the writer, considering he referenced it last episode, that David has previously attempted to murder someone. This means he is capable of murder. This means when Vicky says David tried to kill her, everybody present should understand that this is the case.
But this isn’t the only thing they’re relitigating…
And here we go again.
For those of you keeping track at home, this is the third time Vicky has expressed a desire to leave Collinwood. The first time was Episode 5 and the second Episode 36. Each time, the central motivator has been David, in some way, and always in situations of escalating severity, to the point where you’d be forgiven for thinking there was some rhyme or reason to this, and it wasn’t just a plot point they trot out every now and again to manufacture drama.
This, of course, is the most valid Vicky’s argument has ever been: she was literally almost killed by the kid she came here to tutor. Not in the job description, not covered by the health insurance, totally not worth the trouble.
Roger thinks so too. But of course he does, that seems to have been the whole point of all this agida.
Liz is barely able to contain her fury, dismissing the girls so she can engage in the regular ritual of ripping Roger a new one.
Now, you know you’re in a bad place when Roger sounds more compassionate than you. Obviously, he has an ulterior motive and, in fact, is even partially responsible for the plight Vicky was in to begin with. Still, Liz’s constant and baseless attempts to prevent Victoria from leaving Collinwood seem hollow and selfish. They might seem less so if this program had decided to explore her purported connection to Vicky, but alas.
The scene quickly devolves into meandering nonsense as Roger’s explanation of what he thinks happened (complete with creative lies) comes into conflict with Louis Edmonds forgetting his lines.
This is another of those times when this makes sense, because Roger is bullshitting as much as his portrayer is. He claims he believes David was just playing a prank, tells the truth about how he figured out where Vicky was from something David said and, when Liz wonders why he didn’t do anything right away, says he needed time to “put the pieces together”.
Which seems to confirm that Elizabeth doesn’t know about the secret passage in this room. This is significant as it’s the first fact connected to Collinwood that she isn’t privy to, poking a hole in the indomitable, seemingly omniscient façade she projects. It’s hard to imagine the Liz of the first month being ignorant about a thing like this. We were led to believe she had all the answers to the dusty old secrets of the house. What this does, in a subtle sort of way, is tell us there are other things she may be in the dark about too…
Like, for instance, ghosts.
Round of applause. At least he didn’t faint.
Which is fine, because this line of questioning is abruptly dropped. Everybody seems to agree that this was more than an accident or a prank on David’s part, but it’s not like anybody’s going to do anything. Again, once you let the kid off for attempted murder, you don’t really have a lot of ground to stand on.
Well, there’s no almost about it. He did try to kill him. But whatever.
But they both know it wasn’t. And all of this makes it very hard to sympathize totally with Elizabeth because…she brought this on herself. She had a chance to air this stuff out, and Vicky’s life never would’ve been in danger, but she chose to protect the “little monster” for the sake of the family, at the same time putting actual, living and breathing members of the family at risk.
And Vicky, whatever she is.
Upstairs, Carolyn goes to visit Vicky and provide the best medicine she can: talking endlessly about herself.
But first, she attempts to appeal to whatever remains of Vicky’s personal life:
This worked the first two times Vicky tried to leave, the reminder that her quest to learn about herself had not progressed. There have been 52 episodes since the last time Vicky was kept from leaving and, while there was one juicy clue 28 episodes ago, that’s been the only one, and it’s been paid absolutely no attention since then.
We’ve belabored this point to death, but every time the writer, whichever it may be, has Vicky point this out, it carries with it the implication of a false promise: “Don’t worry! It’s supposed to be taking this long! See, I’m even pointing out how long it’s taken in the script! I haven’t forgotten.”
But the writers may as well have, both of them. because the longer the thing drags on with absolutely no clues being presented, the more it feels like the mystery isn’t worth the impending solution. So the audience ends up feeling just as disenchanted with the whole thing as Vicky Winters herself.
Other important fact: Nobody around here seems to give enough of a shit about Victoria Winters for her to want to stay. She was trapped the whole night and only one person in the house was actively concerned for her well-being, and even then, she didn’t do much to search for her.
Carolyn tries to claim she was worried too, but we know she brushed off her mother’s concerns to go out and be messy with Burke. Something which she, of course, rushes to tell Vicky all about, because it’s her life and she expects people to be invested in it by default.
I guess Vicky must appreciate this on some level. Tacitly pointing out Carolyn is a destructive bitch is a good return to form for her.
Vicky points out that Joe did come to Collinwood looking for Carolyn last night, in the moments before David lured her into the East Wing.
Well shit.
See, this is peak Victoria Winters. Everything in this latter half of the Malloy arc (and, yes, we are in the latter half now; yes, it took a long time to get here; yes, it’s still a longer time till it’s over), from her plight in the East Wing, her witnessing Malloy’s ghost, to these character interactions where she finally tells Carolyn what she thinks of her…it’s just perfect. Finally, Vicky is somebody you want to root for, rather than just someone you’re obliged to.
Carolyn tells Vicky that Joe still had no right to go for dinner with Maggie…
Carolyn claims it wasn’t a date. Which it may not have been intended to be, but I think the definition changed when she accompanied him to his hotel room. And, of course, when they kissed each other goodbye.
Not that Carolyn gets around to telling Vicky that part of it.
Again, this doesn’t mean a thing. Burke didn’t even denounce his actions against the Collinses when it came up. He just told her to forget about it. Clearly, she has.
I like how even Vicky’s allies casually deploy textbook abusive partner tactics against her. “I care about you, but I’m not good at showing it” might work if your guy work a 9-to-5 and is never feeling up to Netflix and chill. It doesn’t apply when you’ve been locked in a dusty prison for an entire night and the only person who got off his ass to save you was only doing it to get you out of the house.
We then get to a…weird point in Vicky’s thought process.
Even after finally admitting, albeit in a…er…heightened emotional state that David was, in fact, a monster, Vicky still hasn’t given up on him. Which is both sweet and sad. Maybe she was cut out for this job. If only she stopped sugar-coating the Confederacy in History class.
Vicky, however, can leave whenever she wants. Carolyn tries to convince Vicky to stay by telling her that she needs her around to keep her from Burke.
That’s patently insane. It also flies in the face of Carolyn’s behavior from the last time Vicky was considering leaving, in which she told Vicky she oughta go because her horniness for Burke might cause her to do some violence to any other woman he spent time with. So Vicky’s forgiven for not taking this seriously.
Liz and Roger have moved on to the inexplicably more coherent subject of the ghost Vicky saw, and suddenly this episode seems to be going somewhere.
This is the first time we’ve ever seen Liz treating the subject of ghosts with anything resembling seriousness. Roger had his own moment with Vicky back in Episode 37, but Liz has always treated all of that with disregard. Just like her ignorance of the secret passage, it begins to become clear that she doesn’t have all the answers. The scope of secrecy is steadily widening, as Dark Shadows begins to introduce mysteries well outside its usual roster of mortal secret keepers.
Okay, let’s jot it down that Roger was touched by a ghost as a child. I’m sure this doesn’t explain anything about him at all.
Liz is less eager to tell Roger about any vague spiritual encounters she may or may not have, instead deciding that the best thing to do is go to the scene of the crime herself.
I don’t know why she wants Vicky’s advice about this stuff if she’s just gonna lie to her. Unless Carolyn was so drunk that she honestly can’t remember the kiss, in which case oomph.
Carolyn tells her that Burke wasn’t drunk, so either she’s lying again, or she honestly believes that whole display she walked in on with Sam was something he’d be doing sober. In either case, she’s way out of her depth here and there’s nothing Victoria Winters can do about it, so she should probably just get out while she can.
Liz and Roger head into the East Wing to have a look at Vicky’s prison.
I like the ‘as you see’. He’s really worried she’s gonna see through his bullshit but, then, who would believe him if he admitted that, right before opening the door, he pretended to be a ghost for a solid two minutes? Just doesn’t hold up.
I’d be willing to think that was hyperbolic if last episode’s monologue hadn’t claimed this house has 80 rooms.
Roger points out that Vicky’s terror may have caused her to imagine she saw Malloy’s ghost. Of course, there’s also the fact that Roger, pretending to be a ghost, said something very similar to what Malloy’s ghost told her, so Roger might think the two incidents are one in the same. It’s really the only reason I can conceive for that bit of nonsense cosplay he was engaging in, and even then it was somewhat lazy since he rescued her right afterward, making it frankly insulting Vicky didn’t figure it out right away, or at least shortly after within the course of this episode.
What I’m saying is Francis Swann still isn’t a very good writer, and he created a nonsensical plot device that we could’ve as easily done without.
Liz notes various belongings of David’s in the room.
Liz comes to the accurate conclusion that David trapped Vicky on purpose, which is a relief, I really wasn’t ready for another four weeks of suppository-esque guesswork leading to a conclusion the audience knew from the beginning.
This is still a very charitable assessment. I think if Roger admitted David did this with intent to kill, he’s afraid David would reveal Roger had wind of this whole thing ahead of time and did nothing to stop it, even encouraged it.
I love that line so much, more so for the casual way Louis Edmonds delivers it, as if the phrase “incipient psychopath” was right there ready to be used at the first opportunity.
As Roger again dismisses the Malloy apparition as nothing more than a frightened fantasy, Liz points out there’s one fairly obvious clue that there’s truth to what Vicky said:
Act IV begins with some lively debate on the nature of the undead, as we do.
Liz is leaning toward believing Vicky’s story. Why shouldn’t she? Malloy was, after all, her dearest friend, and she was the most emotionally affected by his death, with the token exception of Mrs. Johnson.
This is a thin and difficult line to straddle, the boundary between the supernatural and the physical. Especially for a show that has for so long stubbornly ignored its otherworldly trappings. This first merging is certainly awkward, and Liz’s ready acceptance of the possibility that her house is haunted might seem jarring.
But it’s a long time coming, so I’ll take it. Also, it gets Roger sweating, which is always fun.
So the episode somehow ends, not with Liz showing Vicky the evidence that proves she was right, but with Carolyn begging her mother to convince Victoria not to leave.
Well, that’s a nice change of pace. Liz deciding when not to meddle with other people’s business.
Liz does, however, make a pitch of sorts.
Liz also tells Vicky that Mrs. Johnson couldn’t begin to take her place, which I’m sure Mrs. Johnson appreciates, given she isn’t even after the same job as Vicky.
Then I’d hate to see what he does to the people he disrespects.
In what must be the most inexplicable part of this 20-minute saga, Vicky ends the episode by declaring it isn’t really her decision whether to stay or not…in fact, she claims, the choice is up to David.
Because David is clearly someone who has rational, explainable reasons for behaving the way he does. Sure. Glad we’re spending time on this.
This Day in History- Wednesday, October 25 1966
On the way back from the Manila summit, President Johnson stops at the Cam Ranh military base for an unannounced visit. He addresses troops and presents medals, including 24 Purple Hearts to wounded men.
A fire kills 44 crewmen on an American aircraft carrier in the Gulf of Tonkin. The blaze began when two sailors mishandled an emergency flare and, after it went off, panickily threw it into a locker with 700 more flares which, you must admit, is an extraordinarily impressive variety of fuck up.
Kooks of Collinwood 