Barnabas stands over Joe Haskell's body. Julia arrives and he tells her to look at him. She asks if he's responsible, and he tells her they both are. He says he found the body, and then heard Adam laughing outside the window. He says Adam killed Joe, and left him in the old house to be found.
Julia says he isn't dead. Barnabas doesn't understand why Adam and Joe would have crossed paths. He says Adam will go on killing unless they can find him and stop him. Julia says that no one has seen Adam since Sam's death, so someone must be helping him. Barnabas says that person is probably dead, too.
He says he'll get Willie to help load Joe into the car so they can take him to the hospital. Julia offers to help, and he says she must help Vicki before she has the dream. Julia says Vicki hasn't been told the dream, and Barnabas shares that Sam's ghost appeared to Vicki, and told her the dream. He says if they don't stop her, he will have the dream, and Angelique will have won. And he'd rather die than have that happen.
Willie and Barnabas stand over Joe's body. Willie asks who did it, and Barnabas tells him it was Adam. Willie says he thought Adam was gone. Barnabas says he did this to Joe and then placed him in the house. Willie says Adam is trying to frame them. Barnabas sends Willie to get Julia's car so they can take him to the hospital. Willie says he's not going to help Joe, who always tried to hurt him. He says Joe tried to prevent him from seeing Maggie. Barnabas explains that Joe is Maggie's fiancee, and Willie points out that's only true if he's alive. He says Maggie is interested in him, too, which Barnabas finds insane. Willie says she's been out to the house to see him. Barnabas tells him he'll deal with Willie's mental aberrations later. He warns Willie that if he doesn't help him, he will tell the police that he is interested in Maggie, and had a motive for hurting Joe. Willie says he can't lie to the police, and Barnabas says that he can and will, because he's desperate.
Vicki is back at Maggie's, combing her hair before bed. She's tormented, and avoiding going to bed. Julia knocks on her door, and Vicki lets her in. She says Barnabas told her what happened, and she asks if she's been to sleep yet. Vicki says no, but says she's on the verge of collapsing. Julia says they can go to Windcliff tonight. Vicki says she has no choice but to submit to the dream.
Barnabas returns to the old house where Julia is waiting. He confirms they took Joe to the hospital, and they called the sheriff. He says they told him that he and Willie found Joe in the woods. He asks about Vicki, and she says she should be asleep soon, if not already. Barnabas accepts his fate, but Julia tells him that he can't have the dream unless Vicki tells it to him. She suggests that he can go far away, and she'd be willing to go with him. He dismisses the idea outright. He says he can't have Vicki tormented by the dream.
Vicki sleeps and has the dream. She tries not to get up when she hears the knocks at the door, but she can't control herself. She opens the door for Barnabas, and begs him to go away, but he enters and beckons her to follow. She reluctantly does. She begs for someone to wake her up. He opens a door, and once she goes inside, he locks it behind her. She hears his voice recite the poem. She then sees the series of doors, and hears Joestte's music box. Behind the first door she opens, she sees the wide-eyed skull. Behind the second door she opens, she sees the guillotine. She opens a third door, and sees the skeletal bride. She opens the door and sees a bright light, like the sun.
She goes in, hearing Barnabas' voice reciting the last portion of the poem. She goes towards the light. We see the exterior of the old house. And then the door to the old house from the inside. She calls to Barnabas, begging him to open the door. The doors to the old house open and Vicki enters. Inside, Barnabas lies on the floor with two bite marks on his neck.
Vicki wakes up, screaming.
Our thoughts
John: I love how Barnabas is quick to dismiss Joe as dead without even checking the body. And then sometime later, both he and Willie stand over the body, somewhat disinterested. It sure seems like they aren't too concerned about Joe, and might have been happier if they just had to worry about disposing of his dead body.
Christine: Are we about to lose another long time character? How did Adam learn to be so malicious as to stow Joe's body away in Barnabas' closet and then laugh about it as he watched him discover it from the window? Was that part of Stokes' instruction?
John: Barnabas says he'd rather die than let Angelique win. But Angelique winning is his dying of the dream curse. If what he said were true, wouldn't he have just offed himself by now? That would have shown Angelique!
Christine: I have a feeling that if he did that, she'd find a way to resurrect him so she could kill him herself. So, Vicki stays in town at Jeff Clark's insistence to be near him when she could have left and escaped the dream curse, and now the guy is nowhere in sight when she's having to experience the terror of the dream. What a louse!
John: Julia sees an opportunity and jumps at it. She and Barnabas can run away together, living happily ever after, and everyone is happy! Except poor Vicki, of course, who will be tormented up unto her death by the dream which she cannot pass on. Julia doesn't seem to be too concerned with that eventuality.
Christine: Given the choice between Vicki and Barnabas dying, she's made it clear who she prefers to keep alive.
Dark Shadows Before I Die Round Robin Nightmare tracker (bold appearing in this episode):
- Wide-eyed skull
- Guillotine
- Lang's Headless creation
- Skeletal bride
- Educational Bat-footage
- Giant spider-web
- Mounted wolf's head
- Carolyn's tombstone
- Maggie with Sam's coffin
- Blazing sunshine and a tour of the old house
3 comments:
Adam framing Barnabas for something he did almost had to be inspired by Frankenstein. It isn't in any film version that I know of, but in the novel, the Creature frames someone very close to Frankenstein for something he did.
I think the writers must have been scouring every gothic novel they could get their hands on for plot points!
Vicki doesn't scream as much as she just cries a lot!
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