Maggie Evans brings David from the lobby into the diner. She makes him a sundae and goes to the payphone, claiming she's calling her father.
Burke is still in the sheriff's office when a call comes in from New York. Burke assumes the call is about him, and the sheriff asks him why he behaves like a guilty man if he's innocent.
David says he's going to leave, and Maggie asks him if he wants to make his own sundae. Roger arrives, and when Maggie greets him, David slips out. Maggie tells Roger that David tried to get into Burke Devlin's room. She then asks Roger about her father. He's upset and she thinks Roger would know why. Burke walks in as Maggie explains that he hired her father to paint his portrait.
Maggie tells Burke that David Collins was the kid who snuck into Burke's room. Burke asked if her father and Roger saw each other while he was away. She said Roger came looking for her dad the night Burke got back into town.
Roger returns to the sheriff's office. The sheriff wants to know what Roger is trying to hide.
Burke finishes his food, and asks Maggie to tell David if she sees him, that he's had enough of the Collins family for one day. After everyone leaves, David exits the telephone booth.
Our thoughts
John: Mitchell Ryan gets pretty amped up this episode. He's losing his cool rapidly.
Christine: Well now that he's a big success with a three room suite at the top of the Collinsport Inn, I guess he's entitled to throw his weight around. It's no surprise Sheriff Carter couldn't find anything in Burke's room when he's having trouble finding the search warrant on his messy desk. He's pretty good at handling Roger and Burke, but could use some help with his organizational skills.
John: Watch for Roger bouncing outside the hotel front door before Maggie lets David make his own sundae.
Christine: Also watch for David bumping the camera as he beat feet (in the parlance of the time) when his dear old dad shows up. Roger delivers a mystic statement about his son's disappearance saying, "Spells and incantations, Maggie. If he does re-materialize, do me a favor, don't call me again." Once she tells him that sweet little David tried to get into Burke's room, he decides she should call him right away if she sees him, after all.
John: We're left wondering if David still has the valve, or if it has been planted in Burke's room since the sheriff served the warrant. We'll see what tomorrow holds...
Christine: Burke is sure to be on to Sam regarding his involvement with Roger, since Maggie told him the last time the two had contact with each other, prior to Burke's arrival, was at the time of Burke's trial. Sam better stock up on the hooch.
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| Sheriff Carter searches for a search warrant. |
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| Roger warms up and prematurely waits for his cue outside the diner door. |
The many faces of Burke Devlin losing his cool.
"Idiot Plot" is a term for a story that can go on only if the characters in it are dumber than the average member of the audience. When Vicki left the valve where David could steal it in episode 26, Dark Shadows had its first Idiot Plot.
ReplyDeleteNow, just two days later, we have our second. The restaurant is open for business, and Maggie says in so many words that Roger is a frequent customer there. So he should walk right in and lay hold of David. But unaccountably, he waits for Maggie to let him in. She turns her back on David, calls Roger by name, and declares that she's been tricking David into staying, all while David is a few feet away. Even worse, we have a number of scenes suggesting that Maggie had searched the hotel extensively for David and failed to find him, when he was simply hiding in the very telephone booth she herself had used a few minutes before.
Art Wallace is the only credited writer for the first eight weeks of the show. I'm sure he had some help, but not enough, apparently- these two episodes not only disappoint viewers who expect a well-constructed drama, but also do serious harm to the characters of Vicki and Maggie. Vicki has to be so sweet and innocent that unless she's also as smart as she's seemed in the first five weeks, she'll get pretty cloying pretty fast. And Maggie, whether it's the original wised-up dame who's everybody's pal but nobody's friend or her successor, the nicest girl in town, has to produce witty dialogue and see through people's attempts to deceive her if she's to contribute to the story. Casting either of them as Designated Idiot is a sure way to put her on an ice floe to oblivion.
Two other things:
Interesting to see the first scene between Maggie and David. Especially so knowing that these characters will become important to each other later on, but already so as confirmation that the hostility Maggie had expressed towards the Collinses in general in Episode 1 isn't going to define her character.
The picture of Lyndon Johnson in the sheriff's office is apparently there to promote ABC's coverage of the Luci Johnson's wedding that weekend, but it's a very odd choice of image. You'd expect the president's photograph in a government office to show him from the chest up, showing his full face, with his eyes looking at the viewer and a calm or cheerful expression. But this picture is an extreme closeup of his face in profile, and he appears to be wincing. On a wall otherwise decorated with wanted posters, it communicates something less than unqualified admiration for President Johnson. If, as Roger implied in episode 26, the sheriff owes his office to the support of the Collins family, the picture would suggest that the Collinses were not LBJ fans.