Cassandra and David hear Lang say that Barnabas will be free and healthy as long as Adam lives. If Adam dies, Barnabas will be as he was before. Cassandra realizes the connection between Adam and Barnabas is the answer. As the clock strikes 9pm, she sends David up to his room, and calls for Blair to appear. He does appear, and says it's time to say goodbye. She says she knows why her curse failed.
Cassandra plays the tape for Blair. He congratulates her. She says she just has to find Adam and kill him. Blair is more interested in Adam than her curse, and wonders if someone succeeded in creating a human being. He says he needs to find out how it was done, and tells her to figure out whose voice was on the tape.
He asks her who saw Adam last, and she says Joe Haskell. Blair assumes someone is hiding him. He says if Joe knows, his fiance Maggie might know. Cassandra asks if he has plans with her. He starts to leave to see Maggie, and Cassandra pleads with him to fix her skeletal hand. He removes the bandages and her hand is fine. He threatens to destroy her if she gets in his way or foils his plans. He leaves, and Cassandra listens to the tape one more time.
Blair stops by the Evans' cottage to see Maggie. She is surprised to see him. He asks her how Joe is doing, and she explains he'll have to be in the hospital for a long time. Blair points out how tragic it would have been for Joe to die so soon after her father. He asks to see her father's paintings, and as she shows them off, he offers $2000 for one.
She says her father never got that kind of money for his work. He tells her he feels it's worth the money, and tells her he'll pay her and ask her to keep the painting on permanent loan. She says that doesn't seem right. He asks her to consider the offer. He then picks up the painting that looks like Vicki. He puts it back and asks about the man who attacked his father and Joe. She mentions Joe thought Professor Stokes was hiding Adam. Blair is intrigued, and asks who she thinks might be hiding him. He excuses himself, and offers to return in a few days to see what she has decided regarding his offer.
Cassandra is enjoying her restored hand when David returns for his tape recorder. She tells him he can't take it to his room. She says he can have it in the morning, but not tonight. He asks why she's acting so strange. She apologizes for yelling at him earlier. He suggests she understands what's on the tape. He says she got excited when she heard it. She tells him it doesn't really mean anything at all. He asks her what happened to her hand, and she says the burn wasn't that serious. She sends him up to bed and closes the drawing room doors.
David sneaks back downstairs and leaves the house.
Cassandra listens to the tape again.
David arrives at the old house and tells Julia he snuck out to see her. He says there was something funny on the tape she gave him. It had music, but then a man's voice. He refers to Julia, and then says some strange things he doesn't understand. She realizes it might be Eric's message. David says it says if Adam lives, something would happen to Barnabas. And if Adam died, something else would happen to Barnabas. She asks him what, and he can't remember. She says she must hear the tape, and they leave for Collinwood.
Blair asks Cassandra how she let Stokes find out about her. She tries to explain how Stokes inserted himself into the dream curse. Blair wonders how powerful he is. They hear someone come in, and David's voice referring to the tape recorder.
Cassandra and Blair come into the foyer and she tells David it's past his bedtime. They excuse themselves to get fresh air. Julia and David play the tape, and notice the music is different. Julia asks if anyone else heard it, and David said that Cassandra did. He adds that she got very excited.
Julia tells him he must remember what was said. David says that maybe Cassandra took the tape so she could listen to something different. Julia realizes that Cassandra now knows about Adam and the experiment, including how to stop Barnabas.
Our thoughts
John: Why wouldn't Maggie be offended, or at least creeped out, when a relative stranger dropped by and reminded her how tragic it would have been for her fiance to die so soon after her father?
Christine: She may not be creeped out because Blair is using his supernatural power to charm her. It was interesting to see him pick up the portrait of Betty Hanscombe, which has mysteriously returned to the Evans' cottage after Sam gave it to Vicki in Episode 97. While she may have offered to give it back to Maggie after Sam's death, it seems out of character for Maggie to accept it and not insist Vicki keep it for herself. I wonder if it was intended to be a nod to the long time viewers who know the history of the portrait from early in the series. It's nice to see it in color, though I hope to get a better shot of it in the future for the Works of Sam Evans gallery.
John: What does Cassandra hope to gain by listening to the tape over and over? It's not like the late doctor Lang (who she's responsible for killing!) is suddenly going to introduce himself to her...
Christine: Nicholas directed her to listen to the tape repeatedly to jog her memory, and since she just narrowly escaped having him destroy her, she's probably not inclined to go against his wishes. Of course, it's difficult to believe that Cassandra wouldn't immediately recognize the distinctive voice of the late, great, Dr. Lang.
John: Forgetting how Blair and Cassandra managed to swap the content of the recording, it was a nice use of "Dies irae" on the replacement, years before it would turn up in The Exorcist and The Shining. But it's got a long history prior to Dark Shadows...
Christine: How very interesting. It sounds like stock music rather than a Cobert creation, though it's possible he's also used bits of this tune in some of his cues. I look forward to finding out if Barnabas will be back to bloodsucking soon, or if Blair's desire to learn how to create life will spare both Adam and Barnabas, as well as how Cassandralique might react to Blair denying her revenge.
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