We made it. We’re here.
100 episodes of lies, evasions, sexual tension, age gaps, homoerotica, chain smoking, vehicular manslaughter, vehicular attempted homicide, ordinary homicide, suppositories, silver filigreed fountain pens, traumatized character actors, frenetic teleprompter glances, retroactive continuity, and the occasional ghost.
We made it.
Mind you, this is a bigger deal for you and I than it is for Dark Shadows. A daytime soap that doesn’t make it to 100 episodes is worse than a joke. The things air five days a week. If a weekly primetime show got canned after airing four months, nobody would raise any fanfare. But if it aired 100 episodes over about five years, that’s a different story.
Soaps measure time very differently, but in-universe and out. The Young and the Restless didn’t start airing until two years after Dark Shadows went off the air, and this month celebrated it’s 12,000 episode. Days of Our Lives was a year old in November 1966, and they’ve now celebrated their 55th anniversary.
What I’m saying is, it isn’t particularly impressive for a soap to have 100 episodes. Because of this, don’t expect much fanfare within Dark Shadows Episode 100. But pat yourself on the back for making it this far. I know I’m surprised I’ve written this many of these things.
And if my words won’t convince you of the inconsequential nature of a soap’s 100th episode, let’s have a look at what our heroine and her best friend open today talking about:
Also, Victoria’s blouse changed between episodes. It’s especially funny because this one begins right where the last one left off.
Victoria and Carolyn are still talking about the silver filigreed fountain pen as Vicky realizes, to her terror, that she was wrong to suspect Burke in Malloy’s death. And that she’s made a confidante of the man most likely to have actually done the murder in the first place.
I know Carolyn isn’t the brightest bauble in the bunch, but by now she should’ve figured out that Vicky’s questions have nothing to do with her admiration of bejeweled pens.
She buys Vicky’s tepid excuses, however, of course, because she isn’t accustomed to thinking hard about things that aren’t herself.
Victoria should tell her that a man giving you expensive gifts is a declaration of many things, love not being among them, but now that she’s realized Burke isn’t a murderer, she isn’t as invested in warning Carolyn away from him, so she just tells her she was overreacting and she should go have a wild time with him, I guess.
If David Lynch were directing this, there would be a low windy noise playing in the background, and it would get louder every time Carolyn spoke, all whole the camera closes inexorably on Vicky’s stricken face.
I understand Vicky’s desire not to tell Carolyn the truth about her pen anxiety. The girl can’t go five seconds without blurting all her business to one older man or other, so lying to Carolyn is practically a matter of Homeland Security.
David has gotten good at this. It used to be he’d lean right up against the door and risk falling forward into the room. Not that he would’ve been noticed or anything even then, it’s really all a matter of aesthetics.
Carolyn tries to convince Vicky not to tell Liz and Roger about her date with Burke tonight.
Sins of omission! Someone call St. Augustine!
Vicky, of course, can’t be bothered to give a damn about what Burke and Carolyn may or may not do to each other anymore (this is a real “Boy, was my face red!” moment for her), so she’s basically all “Yeah, sure, whatever” and everything seems to be settled…
Here comes the agent of chaos.
David has a moral objection to this, you see. Not because he doesn’t agree with Burke as a person, but because he thinks it’s unfair that he isn’t allowed to see Burke while a poop-nose like Carolyn gets to go to Denny’s with him whenever she likes.
He already told her: he’ll tell his father. And he tells her again and then Carolyn says it doesn’t matter because she won’t let a nine-year-old boy run her life, and I’m reminded again what a miracle it is that this show would run another 109 episodes before the vampire shows up.
Vicky has totally disassociated from all this stuff by now, though, and asks to borrow Carolyn’s car, which she does, which brings us to the next bit of location footage:
It shouldn’t be a surprise who Vicky is visiting.
There’s this perfect bit when Burke gets up to answer the door and he stumbles on his chair.
While there may not be much jubilee about this 100th episode, one thing that does feel rewarding is the show’s two leads coming together with a common goal for the first time. Think about it. While Vicky and Burke have developed something of a friendship, they haven’t really done anything together outside that one horrible date that ended in disappointment for everybody involved.
Their paths have always crossed either by accident or contrivance, their interactions, whether positive or negative, occurring as a result of other concerns, such as Burke barging in on her dinner with the Evanses, or Vicky being made to tell him Roger’s alibi for the night of Malloy’s death. Even their trip to Bangor together was, as we’ve gone over multiple times, incited by Carolyn rather than any decisive action on either of their parts.
Now, though, Vicky has realized she was wrong about Burke (just as Burke realized what she must’ve thought about him in the first place) and has come to him with information Burke has been seeking for long weeks but has never been able to get.
For the first time, they feel like a unit.
Easy mistake.
That’s a helluva way to end the first act. And the next one begins with the perfectly deadpan:
I can’t stay mad at Mitch.
Vicky and Burke begin putting the whole narrative together, Vicky supposing Roger’s motive was to take Malloy out before he could clear Burke of his manslaughter charge, something Burke reaffirms he is, in fact, innocent of.
We also get a complete oral history of the pen.
I love when things come together.
Burke realizes that Vicky avoided him in Bangor because she’d seen Blair’s pen and put (what she thought was) two and two together and…
He gets it.
I know this is the bare minimum, and I’m not saying this completely redeems these two as a couple but considering how he treated Victoria in the aftermath of the alibi stuff, this is surprisingly tender. He doesn’t feel betrayed or wronged and even expresses a certain sympathy to her plight.
It’s almost sweet.
The two run into a roadblock, however, when they realize neither of them actually has the pen.
I wonder if she’s gonna apologize to David for accusing him of theft? I mean, she’d be in her rights not to, considering how he responded to that…
This is my kind of dialogue.
Burke and Vicky are right to be dismayed. It makes certain sense that Roger, once he got his hands on the pen that could damn him, would destroy it.
However, we know that Roger didn’t destroy the pen, simply burying it in the woods somewhere. Why did he do this? Well, the Doylist reason is so it could eventually be found in some way, but the Watsonian is, as with so many things, because Roger is an idiot.
Burke wonders if, at the very least, Vicky is ready to change her testimony about the time in which Roger left Collinwood the night Malloy died.
Because, poor thing, she still can’t be sure Roger didn’t leave when he said he did.
I actually like what Vicky’s reticence tells us about her character. She isn’t about to go guns blazing for anything. She wants to have facts on her side, be they the physical evidence of the pen, or a concrete way of knowing whether or not Roger really left when he said he did. She is the kind of person who knows what it means to lose everything because one toe was put out of line. Burke, who got where he did in life by virtue of scrapping and scraping for it like the devil was on his tail, is the exact opposite.
And they do say something about opposites attracting, don’t they?
How is this the most romantic Burktoria scene yet? I mean…half of it is about a pen. Is Sproat really just that good? Forget good…competent?
Something-something-male-pride.
Speaking of male pride, here’s a palate cleanser:
He waits until after he’s taken his hat out to get to the “today” part, like he realized he’d forgotten the last piece of his line but didn’t want to abandon it completely.
While there are some character interactions I’d have preferred to see in Episode 100, I’ll take Roger and David sniping at each other any day.
Roger doesn’t even bat an eyelash at this. It’s like this is the most normal thing David has ever asked him. And maybe it is.
So David springs on Roger that Carolyn has “secret plans” with Burke Devlin, by which he means they’re gonna go to his hotel room and order Boston Market while Duke Ellington plays on the radio, but Roger doesn’t need to know pesky details like that.
Roger sashays off to deal with Carolyn personally. I hope she doesn’t make him cry.
Back in Burke’s room, Vicky has made them coffee so they can have some refreshment while they strategize.
He literally interrupts his line to clarify how he wants his coffee. And it is real coffee; you can see Vicky pouring it out when the scene begins. Mitch literally interrupted his line reading to clarify how he wanted his coffee. That made it into the episode.
After concluding that there is No Possible Way Roger can find out that Vicky knows about the pen, the two begin debating the best course of action they can take with what little material evidence they actually possess.
Vicky points out, sensibly, that they can tell the Sheriff all they want, but without the missing pen, there’s nothing compelling enough for an arrest to be made. All they’d succeed in doing is tipping off Roger that they’re onto him.
On top of this, Vicky reluctantly admits she isn’t completely sure Roger is the murderer. Maybe all their fun times together have made her sentimental.
You might think that’s enough, but it’s a testament to Vicky’s caution. She isn’t about to make a bold accusation, to Burke’s frustration. Though, in a sign he may finally be moderating somewhat, Burke concedes Vicky has a point about their odds of success with the police.
So Roger could, hypothetically, shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and…?
Their dilemma can be viewed as more wheel spinning in an attempt to run out the clock on the episode, the way so many wordy exchanges on Dark Shadows are. But I choose to see a deeper thematic resonance here, whether it was intended or not.
Ron Sproat, the newest writer, has inherited a mess. The current “A” story, the murder of Bill Malloy has dragged from late August to mid-November. The show only has one viable romantic coupling. Every attempt to advance the two primary arcs: Burke’s revenge and Vicky’s quest for her past ends up either forgotten or waylaid.
There are six weeks left in Dark Shadows’ second 13 week order. He has until the end of the year to save the show or go down with it.
There aren’t many pieces on the board, so he’ll have to play around with what he has. Burke, Victoria, the murder mystery, the pen, the ghosts, the crystal ball, Carolyn’s love trouble, and the various quirks of actors such as Dave Ford, Thayer David, Mitch Ryan, Clarice Blackburn and others.
From this disparate, kudzu mess, Sproat will have to weave together a compelling drama that not only ties up the mire he was left but lays the way for promising new opportunities in the future. This, innovation borne from desperation is endemic to the soap opera. It’s the lifeblood of Dark Shadows.
And it’s exactly what Vicky and Burke find themselves faced with now.
Victoria promises to do what she can to find the pen, though she doesn’t have high hopes.
See, this is all very romantic and nice before I remember he’s planning to go on a date with Carolyn after this so he can use her to further his revenge scheme.
Speaking of which…
As much as things change…
This is our first look at Carolyn’s room. She’s only the third person in the house to get a bedroom, after Vicky and David. In fact, this set is just Vicky’s with all the nice pieces taken out. The main illusion that it is a different place is achieved by placing the bed where the carved mantelpiece usually is.
But, hey, check the record player on the dresser. It’s the only modern convenience in the whole house, unless you count David’s robots.
Carolyn remains belligerent in the face of Roger’s protestations and I honestly feel bad for him, murderer or not. This girl knows Burke was accusing him of murder a few days ago and here she is planning to get wined and dined by him.
Essentially, “Burke can destroy you, but I’m different.”
Remember how Vicky and Burke kept assuring each other that there was no way Carolyn would ever tell Roger about the pen?
Well, Carolyn gets right about fucking shit up without even realizing it, boasting about how Vicky was also telling her Burke was dangerous before randomly changing her mind after Carolyn told her about…
Here we go.
Roger’s life is a roller coaster. Every hour or so somebody comes along and wrecks his shit in a new and innovative way.
Carolyn casually tells Roger how she told Vicky he “lost” the pen. Yet again, she doesn’t seem to see anything suspicious here.
Look, if it’s any consolation, they won’t be talking about this pen 100 episodes from now.
This Day in History- Friday, November 11, 1966
Spanish dictator Francisco Franco pardons all convicted of political crimes during the Spanish Civil War 30 years previously. I guess once you, yanno, become a dictator, the point gets moot.
Gemini 12, the last manned space mission of its kind, is launched from Cape Kennedy. On board are James A. Lovell Jr. and Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin, Jr. who would go on to kick rocks on the Moon or something in a few years.
Kooks of Collinwood 