The Dark Shadows Daybook: DECEMBER 14

By PATRICK McCRAY

Taped on this date in 1967: Episode 388

Can threatening the life of an innocent child land a girl the man of her dreams? Angelique is about to find out! Angleique: Lara Parker. (Repeat; 30 min.)

Angelique revels when she cajoles Barnabas into admitting that he hates Josette. His animosity is short-lived, however, and as Trask tries to exorcise Vicki, Barnabas admits that he still loves his former fiancée. Angelique reacts by threatening Sarah’s life.

Is it any wonder that Barnabas is so obsessed with Josette? Actually, I’m not sure that he is. If he’s obsessed with anything, it’s feeling like more than a dope. The one who’s obsessed with Josette is Angelique. It’s all some bizarre inversion of #MeToo as Barnabas is a vaguely powerless employer at his harassing employee’s beck and call. Not satisfied with destroying Barnabas’ engagement and landing his insincere kisses, Angelique won’t rest until he literally says he hates Josette. The only thing that would have satisfied her more would be if he’d crossed his arms and stamped his feet while he did it. Inevitably, this just makes him morbidly curious about why she hates Josette so much. Nothing drives someone into the arms of a rival like talking about them constantly.

It’s a painful episode for everyone. Angelique is uniquely relentless in her quiveringly ecstatic campaign to force Barnabas to curse his “new aunt” to the rafters. Frid’s native, on-camera jitteriness sells Barnabas’ uncertain commitment, at times looking like he’d rather kiss the Collinsport Afghan than plant one on Angelique. Nevertheless, he later shows more compassion than most when having, I kid you not, a “let’s be friends” treaty with Angelique. As unspeakably cruel as she is this this episode, extending her envious rage even to Barnabas’ kid sister, I can’t fault Angelique for not accepting the demotion. It’s the extent of the refusal that is appropriately appalling. Angelique’s strength lies in her audacity. She is emotion given life, and as such, an anti-Spock… and the Klingon that Martok only thought he was. The character is eventually one of the show’s most admirable. She just has to kill a child, first.

Her threat is so horrific that Barnabas wouldn’t fathom anyone, even Angelique, carrying it out. That’s evil’s secret. It’s shockingly honest. They got it wrong when they stuck Satan with the title, “Prince of Lies.” Lies are small-time and timid. Lies are products of fear. Real evil is fearless, perhaps out of ignorance. Perhaps out of audacity. It not only makes its plans known… it serves them up under glass. It’s anticipation and delivery. Angelique delivers both.

On her part, she learns the eventual decency to make up for it. It’s under strange circumstances… immortality, where the memory of your misdeeds is probably a worse punishment than the agnosticism that accompanies death. Atonement becomes a lifestyle by necessity. Barnabas exists on both sides of the spectrum. He would live -- and not live -- to take her seriously. The guilt, anger, and ongoing memory of powerlessness explains the spectrum of his behavior. Evil used him, so he might as well use it. In for a penny, in for a pound. All of that. And then, like Angelique, a cycle of constant reconciliation. It’s a ruthless contrition for both of them, but contrition anyway. In a story of many breaking points, is this not just a one, but THE one? It can be hard to respect Barnabas as the endlessly complex, troubled hero that he is when you see his actions upon first arriving in the 20th century. He’s become old companions with death. The acquaintance costs him everyone he loves. We know what he goes through to see Sarah again. To have even one of the others back -- Josette, in this case? Yes, murdering strangers to feed, kidnapping to court, and brainwashing to propose? That’s nothing compared to what he feels he condemned Sarah to suffer. This is moral madness, and Angelique is both architect and minotaur. Maybe, his eventual navigator. Unforgivable? Yes, she is. But what else are you going to do? In a life of mortal length, unforgiveness is a luxury. Immortals haven’t the time.

This episode was broadcast Dec. 20, 1967.

The Dark Shadows Daybook: DECEMBER 14

By PATRICK McCRAY

Taped on this date in 1970: Episode 1171

Gerard unmasks a hooded figure attempting to stab him. It’s Samantha. She reveals that she is leaving the “notes from Joanna” to torture Quentin and drive Daphne from the house. Quentin once had an affair with Joanna. When Samantha refused him a divorce, he went to sea. Much as with his namesake decades later, the woman left behind -- Joanna, in this case -- went mad. Confined to an asylum, she revealed the depth of her love for Quentin to Samantha. Shortly thereafter, Joanna escaped and died on the beach. After Quentin’s return, Samantha used Joanna’s unread letters to him as a means of torment. Once she learned that she could forge Joanna’s handwriting, the missives took their more sinister turn. Gerard and Samantha unite in their quest for Quentin’s downfall. Meanwhile, having been seen in the sun, Barnabas is seemingly innocent of charges of vampirism. This inflames Trask, who manipulates the course of a dinner party to convince Barnabas that Roxanne’s ghost is appearing in the basement of the Old House. Going there, Barnabas finds himself ambushed by Lamar, who forces him into the shackles in which his own father died.

Many parts of DARK SHADOWS are about having fun, but 1840 is not one of them. It’s not supposed to be, either. We’re down a King and a Kennedy since the show first went on the air, and Vietnam is not showing signs of improvement. There is a sense of quiet pain in the performances of James Storm, Virginia Vestoff, and Kate Jackson. 1897 had whimsy. 1795 had hopeless romance. They are the party; 1840 is the hangover. There is no redemption in sight for Gerard, the world’s worst best friend, and Samantha, the scorned wife from hell. Revenge and greed are their singular goals and motives. That makes them seem a bit one-note compared to introductions of other characters. Almost all of the other villains on the show were undone by ultimate and universal human traits. Not them. If you’re waiting for it, I’m sorry. Had the show continued, perhaps they would have been recycled in the present, and we would have seen more dimension to them. I think their presence is why 1840 can seem like a depressing storyline if taken in the wrong context. It’s important to remember that they are support characters, only. They just happen to be support characters given a lot of screen time. Cosmically, 1840 is a short storyline… certainly compared with 1897. Keep that in mind. There’s only so much change and redemption one storyline can hold, and although she’s been absent for a bit, this era belongs to Angelique. And Barnabas. That will be more than enough.

This is an episode of deep dish exposition with Traskian irony as a chaser. In fact, it’s one of two expository episodes. (Just wait until the doozy of 1177.) But sometimes those are necessary, and it’s a credit to the ambition of the writers that they would take it on.

It’s a few hundred years off, but on this day in 1640, Aphra Behn was born. Who was she? Just on the heels of Shakespeare’s age, she was one of the first noted female playwrights in history. (She wasn’t a very good one, but, hey, she was there first.) Her most famous play was THE ROVER and she was also -- like Christopher Marlowe before her -- a secret agent for His Majesty’s Secret Service.