Carolyn has been shopping, and stops in the diner for lunch. She orders for two, and Maggie asks if she's meeting Burke Devlin. She tells Carolyn the constable is looking for Burke. Maggie also asks if her Dad's name came up in the conversations about Roger and Burke.
Burke arrives at the hotel and greets the constable in the lobby. He offers to buy the constable lunch, but they agree to meet upstairs in his room.
Carolyn and Joe are having lunch when Burke pops in. He orders lunch to go. He says hello to Joe and Carolyn, and Joe makes it's clear he's not invited to join them.
Maggie lets Joe and Carolyn know he'd like to have Carolyn come up to his room. To speak to him AND the constable.
Burke asks Carolyn how he came to visit Collinwood. Carolyn tells the constable that she was responsible. The constable leaves, and Carolyn yells at Burke for playing her like an idiot. She mentions that Maggie said her Dad was going to paint his portrait, which means he's not leaving in a few days. Before leaving, she asks him if he tried to kill her uncle and he denies it.
After she's gone, Bronson calls. Burke arranges to meet him in Bangor. He mentions that they have less time than he thought.
Our thoughts
John: I love how Devlin all but says he'll be back down to see Carolyn after Joe goes back to work. Of course we find that like Roger with Vicki, he was planning for his surprise witness in his discussion with the constable.
Christine: Joe is pressing Carolyn for marriage again after telling her he might get "a honey of a boat" in a few months if he pools his money with his buddy, Jerry. He promises to punch Burke in the mouth some day. I can't wait to see that.
John: The least convincing line you can tell a peace officer: "I've been thinking about buying a car. I knew Roger Collins had a car and I wanted to look at it."
Christine: Not only that, but he even got behind the wheel to see how it felt. I'd just like to note Burke's 1960s lunch for pure sociological purposes: ham and cheese with butter and mustard, no lettuce, and he has coffee with lunch, as do Carolyn and Joe with their burgers. Interesting. People must have been really hyped up in the 1960s.
John: Who is this Bronson, and what's he bringing to Burke? Maybe we'll find out tomorrow.
Christine: Constable Carter warns Burke not to take any sudden long trips. I wonder if his trip to Bangor to meet with the mysterious Bronson will qualify as a long trip or not. Quotable quotes from Burke Devlin in today's episode:
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| "One thing I never did was place a bet on a dead horse." |
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| "Well do you think I would jump into a river if I knew I couldn't swim?" |
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| The expressive Burke Devlin trying to think of more metaphors. |
Some ambitious videography in this episode- the camera moves around the hotel set during the opening narration, shoots the constable at a low angle to make him look impressive, focuses on characters in the background to separate them from the ones in the foreground, etc.
ReplyDeleteAll that camera work is a bit too ambitious for Michael Currie- when he gets up from Burke couch, he walks directly into one camera and then the other one hits him in the head. He then stands there with his back to Burke and his arms bent in front of him as if he's urinating on the floor of the hotel room.
We liked this episode, but Currie's performance did give us our first moments of laugh-out-loud unintentional humor. Even before he stumbles around and pees on Burke's floor, he's made one of the truly hilarious line flubs. Burke tells him he has a fine memory, he says "That's what I'm paid for," then blows his next line. Even when he gets his lines right, Currie is stiff and monotonous, a dead spot on the screen. Bring on the Pattersons!
The hotel setting does cast our minds back to episode 1. It's startling to see how much has already changed since then. Maggie and Carolyn chat cozily on the same set where Maggie had told Victoria that anyone living at Collinwood, even as staff, was a "jerk." And Burke gives a warm greeting to one of the policemen who sent him up the river on the same set where he'd refused even to use the name of Mr Wells, whose only offense was living in the town from which he'd been taken away. Not a hard development to explain- if you have two and a half hours a week of airtime to fill and little but dialogue to fill it with, you can't afford to have many characters who refuse to speak to one another. But still, it's a jolt to see.
Why do so many people misinterpret Maggie's "jerk" line? She wasn't implying Vicki was a bad person. In the 1960s, "jerk" meant "fool." She was saying that Vicki was foolish for going to Collinwood. Huge difference there, but a lot of people seem to confuse her meaning.
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