While hanging out in the Blue Whale, he comes across Carolyn Stoddard, daughter of Elizabeth Collins Stoddard, who by all accounts hasn't left Collinwood in 18 years. She's dancing with everyone in the place except her boyfriend Joe Haskell. After Joe gets in a fight with several of the locals, Devlin steps in, threatens to take Carolyn over his knee, and asks Joe to come back and see him after he deposits her at home.
Meanwhile, back at the house, Victoria gets a brief tour, and meets Roger while overlooking the ocean at Widows' Hill. He's as friendly as can be, and quite open about the strangeness of the family until Victoria happens to mention having met Burke Devlin, which sends Roger off in a rage.
My thoughts
We still don't know why Victoria was hired. Elizabeth makes up a story about Roger having received a recommendation, and he basically says if Elizabeth says so, it must be true. As I mentioned yesterday, I have watched a stretch of episodes that give me insight into more of what is going on with a number of these characters, but I can't help but think even if I didn't already know some of their secrets, the show is somewhat compelling in making me want to find out more about them.
I am particularly fond of Burke Devlin, portrayed by Mitchell Ryan. I'll always think of him as the particularly nasty bad guy General Peter McAllister from Lethal Weapon, but I also loved his performances as Charlie McCoy in Magnum Force, and Minnie Driver's dad in Gross Pointe Blank.
Robert Cobert not only consistently pumps out great spooky music, he does some wild rock and roll numbers for the scenes in the Blue Whale.
I've got a long, long way to go, but for now, I'm excited to continue!
4 comments:
Keep up the spirit! 2 down and 1223 more to go. I agree that these initial episodes do inspire viewers to want to know more about these characters.
We learn some Collinwood history today and find out that the mansion has an unimaginable 40 rooms with only one caretaker to manage the place. It was built by Elizabeth's great grandfather, Jeremiah Collins, whose portrait hangs over the fireplace. The east wing has been closed off for over 50 years. Imagine that. There are sure to be some dusty ghosts lurking about in a gothic place like that. The stage is set for misadventure.
A few more hints are dropped as to the character of the little monster, David Collins. Liz evasively tells Vicki that David is likely to be different than any boy she's ever met when Vicki presses her for information about the lad. Roger warns her to stay away from the edge of the cliff at Widows' Hill if she decides to take David picnicking there. All this serves to make us hope we'll meet the little whippersnapper soon.
I agree that Robert Cobert's spooky, suspenseful music is essential to establishing the right mood in this show, but I have to say that his earsplitting rock and roll tunes exclusively featured on the Blue Whale's juke box are quite obviously causing epileptic fits in Collinsport youth. Can those jerky movements be considered dancing?
I'd also like to point out that Liz seems to have received the best fashions courtesy of Ohrbach's. Despite not leaving the house for 18 years or having many visitors, she sure dresses to the nines in her flowing gown, sparkly jewels and carefully constructed hairdo.
What a challenge you have given yourself. I hope you get through all the episodes. Thanks for the beginning of a long haul.
There are plenty of things I'm either okay with or actually like that could be accused of being sexist, but I've always HATED that "Take you over my knee" cliche! So that's the one damper on this episode for me.
Poor Joe. And, Carolyn is too young for Elizabeth to try and Marry off. Spanking comment was very cringey. And Roger gives me the Heebie Jeebies up there on Widow's Hill freaking out over Burke.
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