Heroine’s Journey

Episode 91 of Dark Shadows aired on Halloween, but you wouldn’t know it from watching.

Those spooky occurrences were two weeks ago now, however. Victoria Winters has since been liberated from her prison in the East Wing, has told the other members of the household about the ghost she saw, and has even had enough time for one of her monthly discourses about whether or not it’s time to put in her six weeks’ notice.

Currently, the central action does rest on the East Wing, at least tangentially, via a mysterious piece of paper Vicky found when she brought Carolyn to the room she was trapped in last episode.

Carolyn has no idea, as usual, but we do, which is not nearly as usual around here.

Carolyn’s only assistance has been in identifying the law firm to whom the ledger belongs: Garner & Garner, the aforementioned Collins family attorneys. The rest of the paper describes payouts of money to various unidentified parties, of which only ‘B. Hanscom’ has any relevance to Victoria.

But why?

So, thankfully, they didn’t make Vicky inexplicably forgetting the only other clue she’s found to her origins a week long saga. She recalls Betty Hanscom as being the name of her doppelganger, whose likeness she saw painted in Sam’s studio when she went for dinner at the Evanses in Episode 60.

31 episodes and four in-universe days ago.

You can tell she’s as excited to resolve this as we are.

I’ve belabored the point for a while, but the pacing of what was supposed to be this show’s primary question is an atrocious mess. The discovery of Betty’s portrait occurred 60 episodes into the series run, and this is the first mention of Betty’s name since then.

It’s entirely possible things weren’t always meant to slog on this long. This isn’t the first time Francis Swann plucked something from his predecessor’s playbook. In fact, the idea of Vicky finding a legal document with a significant name on it in the East Wing comes from Art Wallace’s series bible. As we’ve discussed, there was no murder mystery storyline in the original outline, much less any ghosts. Even with those adjustments, Vicky finding that paper didn’t happen until after the second of the two primary storylines outlined by Wallace in his original outline, which means it probably still wouldn’t have happened, even if Wallace was still the only writer and Malloy had never been killed off 41 episodes ago.

Numerous times throughout this series, particularly in regard to the question of Vicky’s parentage, characters ranging from Elizabeth, to Roger, to Carolyn, to Burke, to Maggie have all pointed out the thinness of Vicky’s scant clues, the unlikelihood of her quest, etc. It increasingly feels more like these are winks from the writer that he knows this is taking a long time to resolve, and he knows his feeble attempts at advancing the plotline are facile and bad.

As I’ve mentioned before: this doesn’t make up for it being facile and bad.

There’s a protracted bit where Vicky calls Sam to confirm that the name of the girl in the painting was Betty Hanscom. Sam isn’t actually in this episode, as he rounds out more than a week offscreen. This, at the very least, confirms he isn’t dead, given we last saw him, very drunk, leaving a bar, and he never turned up at Maggie and Joe’s dinner date the way he was supposed to. I’d gotten worried.

Great. Now what?

Vicky has concluded that Betty Hanscom must be the “B. Hanscom” from the ledger sheet, providing an immediate connection between Vicky’s lookalike and the great house on Widows’ Hill.

A reminder, by the way, that any hopes of us ever meeting Betty Hanscom were dashed moments after they’d arisen, with Sam saying she died within a year of him painting her. Also, that was 25 years ago, making it impossible for the most obvious lead (that Betty is Vicky’s mother) to be true.

Vicky doesn’t tell Carolyn this, though, instead saying she doesn’t know, so maybe Francis Swann didn’t either. Which means maybe Betty is Vicky’s mother, because internal consistency no longer matters and everything Art Wallace ever wrote is now open for broad strokes interpretation because he’s never coming back and we’re only gonna get farther and farther from any of his scripts.

You see, again, why it’s hard to keep patience with this crap. Any faith in the show’s ability to resolve this mystery (much less the murder mystery) is dashed by the show’s inability to keep its own facts straight.

The girls’ futile theorizing is interrupted by the arrival of Joan Bennett is a fabulous kaftan.

At which point, Vicky does one of the most proactive and clever things she ever will, which is as inspiring as it is sad.

Vicky claims that the ordeal David put her through last night was very taxing, and she’d like some days away from Collinsport just to clear her head. Liz, overjoyed that Vicky isn’t planning to quit her job after all, doesn’t think twice before allowing it.

Vicky announces her intention to spend a couple of days in Bangor to do some “shopping”. We, however, understand this to be an undertaking of detective work, making Vicky an active participant in her search for answers for the first time, rather than just having her stumble across randomly laid clues.

It’s a big step, and will open a new dimension for the series as it enters the month of November, a month where various long-unresolved developments will finally begin moving toward resolution, and certain new aspects will come onto the scene.

If ‘persuaded’ is the word you want to use, sure.

So, Act II opens with some more location footage, which they’ve been getting sparer about using lately, this time of Vicky and Carolyn getting out of the latter’s bomb-ass car in front of the Collinsport Inn.

Here’s Susie, Maggie’s temp at the coffee counter. This is actually her very last episode. In future, either Maggie is at the desk or nobody is.

While Vicky goes to check the bus schedule, Carolyn makes a phone call to that guy she nearly lost her V-card to last night.

The implication is that Carolyn is going to use Vicky’s time away from Collinsport to get cozy with Burke. And yet she’s calling Burke before Vicky has left. Just…just keep a note of that, you’ll need it in a couple of minutes.

So Carolyn calls Burke who says he’ll come down to meet her. She makes no mention of being with anybody else. Vicky joins her at a table and they start talking about Fairy Godmothers.

Except that that ‘very wealthy Bangor family’ would’ve explicitly abandoned her as an infant, making the odds of a miraculous inheritance fairly slim.

Such things are, however, commonplace twists on soaps, with characters both new and established learning they are descended from money and getting inheritances that, more often than not, put them into conflict with the already known members of the dynasty.

However, as we learned through Dark Shadows’ handling of a rote soap opera business story last week, it’s probably best this show stay as far from established soap tropes as possible, for its own good.

Carolyn tells Vicky a little about the one half of Garner & Garner she’s met, the elderly Richard, whom she’s sure will be able to help in any way he can and oh, look, it’s Burke Devlin and his turtleneck.

Mitch has recovered himself somewhat from his last appearance. But only just. I have to assume his changing from a tie to the sweater, despite it being the same in-universe day, is that either character or actor ruined it with excessive perspiration.

For some reason, Burke acts as if Carolyn didn’t ask him to come down to meet her, I guess because he actively gets off on playing these two off each other.

Naturally, it’s Carolyn who, without any approval from her so-called best (er, only) friend, starts telling Burke all about Vicky’s business.

Love and support. That’s the name of the game.

Pretty sure Burke wasn’t supposed to start speaking before she finished, but it still seems like something he’d do.

Carolyn makes this face like she’s describing Vicky’s secret drinking problem, or her strange preoccupation with toenail clippings, like this is supposed to turn Burke off. That is to say, she’s acting jealous.

This, however, while she knows Burke is the only person left (except David I guess) actively invested in proving that Bill Malloy was murdered. And yet she acts surprised when Burke takes even more interest in Vicky than he already was. Just stellar maneuvering on Miss Stoddard’s part.

Vicky is visibly uncomfortable at having to go through this rigmarole right now and who the hell can blame her? She’s even more taken aback when Burke offers to give her a lift into Bangor, as he has business there himself.

But nobody is more surprised than Kitten.

As I’ve made clear before, Nancy Barrett is one of those talents born to be That Bitch. Look at that sourpuss! She looks like she wants to slap Burke’s jaw right off. It’s like she wants to speak to the manager of facing the consequences of her actions.

Let’s not acquit Burke, of course. We all know he gets off on this, and he came very close to having his way with Carolyn on his sofa last night. He gets right into talking down to her like she’s a kid.

Victoria seems too surprised and too taken aback (maybe even intimidated) to say no to a forceful presence like Burke, so let’s not have any delusions of her enjoying this either. Seems the only person having a good time is the Devlin.

As usual.

I need several cigarettes.

This is the stupidest damn thing Carolyn has done yet. It’s only on her that Burke knew Victoria was going anywhere in the first place. And now she wants to act like Vicky seduced Burke into giving her a lift. Especially contrasted with Carolyn’s attitude toward Vicky in the last few episodes, this is an absurd and frankly insulting pivot. The only redeeming quality is that Nancy Barrett seems to have finally decided the only way to justify the writing she’s getting is playing Carolyn like she has some sort of emotional disorder.

Vicky is, again, a saint for not giving Carolyn a hot coffee bath.

Well, good. That settles that.

Act III brings us to evening as yet another thunderstorm (heralded by occasionally misplaced thunder sound effects in the first half of the episode) appears to be brewing. Vicky and Burke are sitting in the former’s car, making its first appearance since the end of the suppository saga a very, very long time ago.

Continuing his mission to make every scene he has with a member of the opposite sex seem like a crime waiting to happen, Burke takes on a weirdly confrontational attitude with Vicky about her goal.

This whole thing is claustrophobic and vaguely threatening. I do think this is intentional this time, but it doesn’t help the outlook for these two as the primary romance, especially given the (however inappropriate) chemistry Burke and Carolyn had last week.

She’s saying it like she hopes that’ll keep him from stopping the car and kicking her into the path of oncoming traffic.

Now that Vicky has had a genuine encounter with the supernatural, assessed the evidence, and accepted that, unreal as it seemed, she knows it must’ve happened, she has graduated from her role as ‘the Skeptic’, meaning the mantel must now be taken by Burke. We’ve already seen him showing a certain dismissal to the idea of ghosts, such as when David told him his “ghost friends” knew that Roger was Malloy’s murderer.

Now, however, the ghost stories are coming from an adult and someone Burke (seems to, despite appearances) respects.

I love that line. See, I’m capable of being nice to Francis Swann.

We return to Collinwood, where Elizabeth is playing the drawing room piano for the first time in a long time. Not that we see her doing this, presumably because Joan Bennett wasn’t actually a pianist. Still.

As the clock strikes 6:30 (maybe, it’s hard to tell), Carolyn returns and proceeds to put on her Big Bitch pants for the flimsiest possible reasons.

And yet she’s always acting this way, from which we can infer…

Here we flipping go again. Mere hours after rejoicing about Vicky choosing to stay at Collinwood, she’s back to lying to her mother in an attempt to get rid of her, just as she did when she found out about Burke giving Vicky a lift back to Collinwood yesterday. This time, though, it involves even more bald-faced lying, and an explicit refusal to admit the only reason Burke and Vicky are together right now is because Carolyn wanted to see Burke herself.

This is really inexcusable from a writing standpoint. It’s like somewhere on Francis Swann’s desk is a sticky note for dry spells: ‘Carolyn acts bitchy to Victoria’, just waiting to be used whenever a script needs some padding out. This kind of writing makes it almost impossible to identify with or sympathize with Carolyn in any way. It could’ve been avoided too, if Swann had had Burke encounter the girls at the restaurant without being summoned by Carolyn. Carolyn’s tantrum may still seem stupid, but at least she wouldn’t have herself to blame for it.

Well, considering that’s absolutely nothing, I don’t know that there’s any reason to panic.

Wow, Burke’s asking for consent first. A momentous occasion.

Burke reminds her of one of his recent visits to Collinwood, the one when she told him she stood on her own two feet.

Damn straight.

The motivation for that question seems to be to determine whether Vicky has an inordinate supply of loyalty to the Collinses which, obviously, isn’t the kind of thing that’s just gonna come out in conversation, which makes Burke asking a complete waste of time.

They discuss the manner of Vicky seeing Malloy’s ghost, beginning with her telling him how David trapped her in the East Wing. I should tell you Burke doesn’t act nearly as concerned at the idea of the little boy he’s taken a liking to trying to kill the girl he likes, but whatever.

1. They got the name wrong again. It’s ‘What Do You Do With a Drunken Sailor?’
2. The song is a public domain sea shanty. I’m sure people knew it even before we had SpongeBob.

Burke, of course, recognizes it as Malloy’s favorite song and, just like when Vicky explained all this to Carolyn, it seems to go a ways toward convincing him.

And now, just as then, Vicky begins describing things that didn’t happen on screen.

So, accurate up to the last half. Again…Malloy never told Vicky he was killed. His message was, literally, just “Leave Collinwood before you’re killed.” He did not tell her he was killed himself.

Also, weirdly, the wiki entry for this episode (and the last) don’t mention this as a continuity error, but it very certainly is.

Killing them with FACTS and LOGIC, of course.

Forget about logic, I guess. It’s unclear why Burke thinks that’s a better explanation than ghosts. Who was it Vicky was meant to have seen, if not a ghost? Nobody else in Collinwood believes Malloy was murdered (or, if they did, would want that fact to be discovered), except David. Does Burke think David somehow convinced Vicky he was the ghost of Bill Malloy? How is that any more rational a conclusion than Vicky seeing the ghost in the first place?

But we’re not done yet.

I’m okay with the retcon of Malloy telling Vicky he was killed. It’s necessary and helps drive the plot along without being excessive, but this further addition that he specified the residence of the person who killed him (in a way that doesn’t narrow anything down at all), is just silly and totally unneeded.

And again and again and again again.

That’s a way to turn a phrase, I guess. So Burke starts raving about Roger and Sam and conspiracies and all the rest of it, and I think we’re actually supposed to be menaced by this behavior, but compared to some of the other things he’s said to Victoria, this is pretty tame.

Now, if Vicky were really from New York…

This Day in History- Monday, October 31, 1966

Halloween 1966 saw at least one spooky major news story, with the paroling of John Paul Chase, a mobster who had taken part in the criminal operations of such colorful criminals as John Dillinger and Baby Face Nelson in the ‘30s. He had been convicted for the murder of an FBI agent in 1935 and, following his parole, spent the rest of his years as a janitor. Terrifying.

Elsewhere, President Johnson makes his first visit to Malaysia, stopping at Kampung Labu Jaya village, which would be renamed Kampung L.B. Johnson in his honor.

A footlocker containing the materials from John F. Kennedy’s autopsy (approaching the three year anniversary of his assassination) was brought to the National Archives in Washington D.C. An inventory of the contents, performed by the U.S. Department of Justice and the Government Services Administration, found that only eight of the nine sets of items were available. Notably, the container that was supposed to hold Kennedy’s brain was empty. Conspiracies abound, with a 1978 testimony claiming Bobby Kennedy had kept the brain out of government hands so it would never end up in the Smithsonian, which sounds like something RFK would do, he was always cleaning up his brother’s messes.