Dark Shadows Episode 639 - 12/5/68

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Liz walks through the woods to the old house, and hears rustling. She asks if someone's there, but there's no answer. She hears a growl, sees something, and screams. Whatever it is runs away from her. She then sees a young girl. She asks her if she saw what it was, and the girl says it was an animal, and it ran away when it saw her. The girl says her name is Amy Jennings, and she's looking for her brother.

Julia sees Liz enter and recognizes Amy Jennings with her. Liz mentions that she was nearly attacked by a wolf, but it was dressed like a man. She goes upstairs to get Liz a sedative and tells Amy to stay put. After Julia goes upstairs, Amy tells Liz that she has to go now. Julia comes back downstairs with the sedative. Amy says she doesn't want to go back to Windcliff, but Julia tells her she shouldn't have run away from Windcliff. Amy begs her not to take her back. She assures Julia that her brother will take care of her. Liz suggests that Amy can stay at Collinwood tonight. Julia agrees. David comes downstairs and Liz introduces him to Amy. Liz sends David and Amy to get Mrs. Johnson. Julia asks if Liz can remember anything else about the animal, and Liz points out that the sight of Amy seemed to scare it away.

In a room prepared for her, Amy asks David to talk to her a while. She asks him to describe Collinwood to her. He starts to tell her about the closed off wing of the house, and then stops. She asks if it's haunted, and he says it may be. He tells her that he'd show her if she wasn't leaving tomorrow. Amy asks him to take her now. He agrees, and they set out to explore the house.

David takes Amy through the closed off wing of the house. They go into a storage room, and David mentions it's one of the rooms that's supposed to be haunted. Amy picks up an old telephone, and suggests they pretend they can use it to talk to someone from the past. She picks up the phone and introduces herself. She responds as if someone is talking to her. She turns to tell David that he was right—the West Wing is haunted.

She says that the person she's talking to is a ghost. David tells her she's making it up. He asks who she's talking to, and Amy says it's Quentin Collins. David says he's never heard of him and picks up the phone. He's about to tell her that there's no one there when he hears someone breathing on the other end of the line.

David brings a family album and the phone to Amy's room. He flips through it and finds a picture of Quentin Collins. Amy wonders why he would be haunting the West Wing.

Liz knocks on the door, so David hides the book and phone. She asks David what he's doing, and he explains he was telling her about the house. She tells him to go to bed. She asks his Aunt if she knows Quentin Collins, and she says he was her great uncle. He left Collinwood when he was young and died in France. David tells Amy goodnight and then leaves. Liz then leaves Amy. Amy takes the phone out from under the bed, and goes to sleep. In the middle of the night, Amy wakes up and picks up the phone. She asks why Quentin wouldn't talk to David, and then receives instructions to come to the West Wing alone. She does.

In the West Wing, Amy calls out to Quentin. She asks if he'll come out to see her.

Our thoughts

John: Talk about anti-climactic. We get the build up to a werewolf attack, and then aren't even offered the opportunity to see if from Liz' POV.

Christine: It's only Thursday. If we don't get a werewolf reveal by Friday, then you should be upset. It's been awhile since anyone's talked about portraits on the show, so it was great to have David introduce Amy to the portrait of Thaddeus Collins. It has been added to the Collinwood Portraits collection in the Gallery. I hope we'll get a better look at this ancestral portrait soon.

John: Julia asks if Liz can remember anything about the animal that attacked her. Because the fact that it was wearing clothes wasn't enough information to distinguish it...

Christine: She probably wrote it off as a hallucination, which is understandable with the way she freely dispenses sedatives to all the ladies in the house. What was interesting about Julia's question was that the animal didn't actually attack her.

John: There's no doubt that the actress playing Amy is a more accomplished than the other child actors on the show, but as a result, she comes across as older and more mature for her age. Of course it doesn't help that they have her inexplicably uncharacteristically unafraid for a child. I guess that's a side effect of being the sibling of a werewolf and a vampire. If she were a ghost, you'd have the makings of a sitcom. Wait—did someone already do that?

Christine: Amy is the perfect BFF for David! She's not only fearless, but totally cool with getting into mischief and playing creepy games. These two are sure to start all kinds of trouble and scare up more ghosts at Collinwood. I love the ghostly conversation on the antique telephone that makes me think of "Long Distance Call" from The Twilight Zone, and look forward to more talks with Quentin Collins.