Carolyn leads Adam into the West Wing of Collinwood. She lights a candle for him, and tells him she'll be back later with food. She starts to leave him alone and he grabs her. She begs him to let her go, as he's choking her. He sits her down in a chair, and she tries to explain that she has to leave. He yells, "No!" She says he's in danger; that they want to find and hurt him. She says that's why she needs to hide him. She reiterates that she's his friend. Adam tells her he doesn't want to be alone.
Cassandra stands by the fire, saying whoever interfered with her plans will pay. She says the words aloud, and David asks who will pay. She tells him he shouldn't sneak up on her. He asks her to show him how to work the tape recorder that Carolyn had fixed for him. Cassandra sends him away. She wonders what went wrong, knowing she has to find out before Nicholas realizes she has failed. She thinks to herself that she will ultimately win, and that Barnabas will die.
David sees Carolyn sneak out of the West Wing. He tells her he was trying to get help with his tape recorder. She says she's too tired to help him with it. He asks her what she was doing in the West Wing.
She takes David to his room, and says she was looking for family pictures for Vicki. He asks why she locked the door, and she tells him it was to keep him out, since his Aunt doesn't want him going there.
She tries to distract him by asking about the recorder. She turns it on, and shows him the button marked play. She starts to play the music on the recorder. She leaves him to listen to Mozart. Once she leaves, David hears Lang's message to Julia about Barnabas being free and healthy as long as Adam lives.
Vicki gets a call from Maggie telling her that Barnabas is dead. She cries as Blair comes into the drawing room. He offers her a drink and asks her what's wrong. Vicki tells him that Barnabas is dead. Blair is surprised by the news, and asks for more detail.
He says he didn't really know him, but his sister spoke highly of him. Vicki finds that hard to believe. She says Cassandra is the greatest enemy the family has had. She tells him that he knows what she is. Vicki asks him what his interest is in the family.
Carolyn interrupts them and asks Vicki what's wrong. She tells her that Barnabas is dead. Carolyn says it's not possible, and refuses to believe it. Blair offers Carolyn a brandy, but she ignores him, too. Vicki says that Willie told Maggie the news.
Carolyn says she's going to the old house when Cassandra arrives. Blair tells her that Barnabas is dead, and she says that it's not true—that he's alive. Nicholas expresses relief for all. Cassandra says Willie told her the same thing, but she's since seen Barnabas herself. Blair asks the girls if they'll excuse he and Cassandra.
In the drawing room, Blair describes the flames in the fireplace. Cassandra says she doesn't know what went wrong, and Blair tells her that she failed. She says the dream curse should have worked, and Willie told her that it had. And then she saw Barnabas, taunting her. Blair tells her she's an amateur, and that cannot be tolerated. He says it's time to take things out of her hands. Cassandra begs him to let her find the key that has kept Barnabas alive. He asks her how she really feels about her victim. He suggests she still loves him. She says that's absurd, and he says it might explain her failure.
He tells her to find the intervening force by midnight. If he doesn't hear from her, their pact is off and he will dispense with her services. He gives her a taste of what failure will bring, telling her to look at her hand. She screams as she sees rotting bones where her fleshy hand once was.
Our thoughts
John: While I get that they wouldn't maintain the West Wing—Mrs. Johnson is only human—you wouldn't think they'd dress it like a haunted house - frames hanging at canted angles, etc. It looks worse than the old house did before Barnabas moved in!
Christine: It may be a reasonable state of disrepair for rooms that have been closed off for 50 years, with the exception of the empty frame dangling from the ceiling. Who hangs picture frames from the ceiling? This is what happens when your groundskeeper turns out to be a murderer and is frightened to death by ghosts, leaving you with one housekeeper on staff to care for a 40 room mansion.
John: Boy the writers really invested in that tape recorder. David tries to get Cassandra to hear the information she longs for, and she spurns him. I also think it's funny that they made up a story about the tape recorder having to be fixed, and yet it came back with the same tape in the exact same spot? I can only assume the problem the experts fixed was replacing dead batteries.
Christine: I'm having a hard time believing that the kid who was able to figure out how to remove a bleeder valve from his dad's car to make the brakes fail when he was two years younger is now having difficulty working a tape recorder. Or that he would go to his evil stepmother for help with it. Where's his governess and why isn't she doing her job?
John: Great fun with Blair and Cassandra today! And he threatens her with a bony hand! Do you think that's the single resident skeleton in Collinwood, that we've seen behind the brick wall or in a wedding dress? I can't wait to find out more about their deal, and with Blair's countdown to midnight tonight, it sets things up for a confrontation between Cassandra, David, the tape recorder and Adam before the week is out!
Christine: I love Blair's range of exasperated expressions and the way he leans in behind Cassandra to taunt her. I wonder if his threatening her with the bony hand indicates that he was responsible for restoring her youth after Sam Evans altered her portrait to age her 200 years. If that is our regularly featured skeleton, I imagine the rest of it is hidden behind the chair, which would explain why she's waving that appendage around so awkwardly.
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