The Dark Shadows Daybook: January 16

 

Taped on this date in 1971: Episode 1196

By PATRICK McCRAY

“Head Alert!” Judah Zachery brings Valentine’s Day a month ahead of schedule when he robs Angelique of her powers just moments before Quentin’s planned execution. Angelique: Lara Parker. (Repeat; 30 min.)

Angelique’s plan to fight fire with voodoo fails when Judah Zachery removes the powers he gave her, 100 years prior. After persuading Charles Dawson to free her by gently beating him to death with a candlestick, she races to the site where Quentin and Desmond are about to go head-to-head in a laundry basket that will probably never be used as such again. 

Today, I may be on Judah Zachery‘s side. And I didn’t realize that until I sat down to write this. I will have to go back and look at what he did that was so terrible, but the 20th and 21st Centuries have made up their minds on the witchcraft issue. Those who don’t believe in it aren’t exactly going to be holding trials. Those who do believe are more than likely participating in it. 

Structurally, this episode falls in an awkward place. The most exciting part of this sequence of action was yesterday when Barnabas explained to Angelique that she’s just not a member of Club Corporeal, and so they can never really have a substantial love life.  As many times as I have watched that moment in 1195 where Barnabas denies her desires because of her occult nature, I have had a hard time understanding it. I have always operated under the assumption that the endowment of her powers has, by its very nature, robbed her of something crucial. I think it’s something that Barnabas senses more than he can fully intellectualize; his objection is not so much about her being “a witch,“ with the moral baggage that comes with it. Instead, it is about the detachment that comes with that much power. 

A relationship is an endeavor primarily driven by emotion. Emotion isn’t always pretty. The more power someone has to act on them, the more damage they can do. Angelique swings back-and-forth between benevolence and rampant awfulosity. The latter nogoodnikism that trails around her in the DS “timeline” is a bloody testament to my point. It’s all good and well to breathe and count to 10, but what does it mean for someone who can reverse time?

Barnabas reacts from the mindset of an abuse survivor, and as sad as that is, it’s about time he moved proactively on that. Because he does measure his response to her love by her capacity to do damage. And, okay. I fess up. (pause) Yes, it’s very convenient for this universe to then remove her powers shortly after this conversation with Barnabas. But let’s look the army medic in the eye; writing fiction means dusting for the fingerprints of coincidence. Dark Shadows simply doesn’t have the time left to disguise that obvious fact with a finesse we’ve all outgrown.  

Writers of fiction are very quick to have characters reject godhood. A little conveniently so. Frankly, I find the person who rejects power without at least browsing the catalog to be a little suspect. Yes, Uncle Stan told us that, “with great power comes great responsibility,“ and far be it for me to question him. But at the same time, there are a lot of corollaries. 

For one thing, maybe it’s not as much responsibility as it seems. Or maybe the exercise of that responsibility isn’t really that difficult. Ultimately, I think most writers are taking the lazy, easy way out when they have characters make these antitheistic pronouncements. This is pertinent to Angelique because she doesn’t voluntarily give up her powers. Judah Zachery giveth. Judah Zachery taketh away. 

And Angelique is no idiot. She’s going to hold onto these abilities because, as a mortal from the 1690s, she knows exactly how miserable life can be. So, where does that leave Barnabas?

By curing him of his vampirism, she has made a more profound sacrifice than we might initially think. Okay, Barnabas might believe it’s a stretch for a mortal to love a witch, but it’s an even greater leap to expect any immortal, nearly-omnipotent being to love a creature who is going to age and wither astonishingly quickly, all things considered. Although the vampire’s curse was meant as a punishment, perhaps subconsciously, she also realized that it was the only way they could be together. How else was he supposed to accompany her through time, given that the power to make or break a witch seems to be unique to Magus Zachery? By the 1790s, she has been like this for 100 years. And even in that time, who knows how often she has ping-ponged throughout the centuries? For her to stifle her abilities and risk everything to travel to the American wilderness for this man is perhaps more admirable than anything done by her rival. Josette agrees to an arranged marriage to a guy she loves, picks up a free mansion Maine, and calls it a day. That’s about as brave as picking out a value meal at Subway. 

Judah Zachery is doing her a favor. Think of the size of Angelique‘s sacrifice when she turns Barnabas back into a human. She is condemning him to die the death of an ordinary man, and she is serving herself the punishment of having to watch it, anticipating nothing but a nearly-eternal life without him once he passes away.  

It’s a perspective the changes things just a tad. And before you stop me from crying too athletically into my Gibson, that degree of love could explain the degree of wrath that she’s shown so many times. One hundred years of immortality might be enough to detach anyone from the experience of being human, and perhaps that’s why Barabas rejects her. Judah Zachery is not exactly Santa Claus, but by turning her back into a mortal, he has (even if accidentally) given Angelique the gift of human relatability. The gift of her powers helped her find Barnabas. Rescinding them is the one thing that could help her keep him. 

This episode was broadcast Jan. 25, 1971.

The Dark Shadows Daybook: JANUARY 16

By PATRICK McCRAY

Taped on this date in 1968: Episode 411

As Barnabas returns from death, he learns that his resurrection comes at a price he can never repay. Barnabas: Jonathan Frid. (Repeat; 30 min.)

Barnabas awakens to find Angelique hovering over him with a stake. When he discovers that her curse rendered him neither alive nor dead, he kills her. As Barnabas discovers what he has become, Ben Stokes volunteers to help him, and while hiding Angelique’s body, must bluff Barnabas’ curious father. Barnabas returns, having found that his new life demands that he live off the blood of others.

This is it. I mean, IT.

There are those episodes that wind up in top ten lists. Huge turning points. But because of the strange structure of soap operas, the episodes of action sometimes differ from the more interesting moments of actual consequence. So, which do you pick? When looking at the whole reason we go to 1795, which is a front row seat for Barnabas Begins, when is “the moment”? It’s usually pegged as 405, the episode in which Barnabas shoots Angelique, she lays the curse, and he answers the door when the bat knocks. Yes, vital, crucial. All of that is true. However, it comes at the end of the episode, ripping the plate from us just as we’re reaching for the spork. Then we have five whole episodes as he tries to escape his curse and finally dies, distancing itch and scratch to a point that the dramatic impact is muffled. Are they necessary? Yes, for the development of Angelique’s rather Byzantine conscience. Arguably, the time gap heightens tension and creates more and more incentive to keep watching. Any more and they might have lost me, but 411 is so deeply satisfying to arrive at because the non-stop action and development make quintessential viewing. This episode, for me, is 1795 at its very best and one of the reasons that the flashback is so fondly remembered. Fewer things are better than good Dark Shadows, but this is so tight and intense that it ventures into the same realm as “City on the Edge of Forever,” coloring outside the lines of its own show’s standards to become not just an example of the program at its best, but of the medium at its best, as well.



Not to say that an episode has to be something beyond Dark Shadows to do that; it just has to be Dark Shadows at its best -- a core sample of why we care. This is it. And we care because we care about Barnabas, and we care about Barnabas because we care about what Jonathan Frid brings to the writing, and how that alchemizes with the work of Lara Parker. Maggie and Josette create frustration for Barnabas, and we feel for them both. Angelique brings threat, conflict, and desire on metaphysical, moral, mortal, and immortal levels. Maggie and Josette test greatness, but it is the transformation brought on by Angelique that makes him great. In 411, he realizes what he has become. Frid musters his full Shakespearean experience here, finding truth in the moment’s size. Barnabas surges with the panic and awe and woe that come with standing outside of life and outside of death. It’s so appropriate that they avoid the word “vampire” at this point, because the moment of his realization feels bigger than just becoming a folk tale-turned-penny dreadful baddie. By not using the v-word, we and he are focused on the more cosmic status of Barnabas and his alienation from both of the sides of existence. Not alive, not dead, but indifferent to both. Imbued with a passionate indifference to everything sacred in the natural order, he even overcomes -- if only for a moment -- all of Angelique’s powers. She’s not only a witch, she’s Dr. Frankenstein, desperately trying to undo her own creation and the only thing that can undo her. Angelique’s powers stem from nature… even the nature of the dark afterlife. By creating someone who stands outside of both life and what dark destiny lies beyond its gateway, she has an Oppenheimer moment. Barnabas demands to know why she was trying to destroy him before he rose. Yes, good question, and the answers are so myriad that the most powerful dramatic choice resides in not addressing them all. Because how can she?



As Barnabas sinks into the sad and terrified realization that his unwanted and Nietzschean state will require the loss of lives, he experiences the unique sadness of wanting the impossible end to an existence beyond what we can imagine. Fear drove Barnabas in life and fear drives him after. His dance with fear is as intense as his pursuit of love, and leads him into the paradox that drives him and the series. Just as love pushes him to do the hateful, fear will push him to be brave. We see this in his reflector, Ben Stokes, who recognizes his humanity as Barnabas loses his… and who quietly and hopelessly finds an impossible hope. As his master drifts from what it means to be human, Ben instinctively musters newfound will and compassion to help him, and by helping him create essential humanity for both of them. He stands at the opposite pole of Angelique, and somehow also shares a love for him that makes no sense, yet never rings as false. If Barnabas has to have his humanity ripped from him to eventually find it, Ben Stokes is his unwitting guide for that journey as he, himself, goes from murderer to conservator of life. As a final paradox, Ben can only take on the role of guardian of life by allowing the master in his charge to subsist by taking the life of others.
Does Ben do this because of social forces that define proletariat and working class? Put your pants on, Spartacus. He does it because of the Faustian spawn we call friendship. Impossible friendship.

But what friendship worth its grit isn’t?

Lives will be lost. There is no accounting for that. Literally. But the ultimate story of the show is how Barnabas pays a debt he can never afford. That’s a kind of pursuit with which everyone can identify, but might never admit. What is life, why do we love, and how to we justify being here? Through the best and worst of exploring both life and death, Barnabas searches alongside us.

This episode was broadcast Feb. 22, 1968.

The Dark Shadows Daybook: JANUARY 16

By PATRICK McCRAY

Taped on this date in 1971: Episode 1197

Angelique interrupts the execution to deliver Judah’s head as evidence that Dawson and Stiles were behind the witchcraft at Collinwood. Afraid that he might escape, Desmond shoots an incensed Gerard, causing the possession to end. The head dissolves to an empty skull and Quentin is freed. Later, as Quentin reunites with Daphne, Barnabas sees Bramwell, on fire with jealousy over Catherine’s engagement, in the Parallel Time room. Going to the courthouse to free Angelique, he learns that she has been released. At Collinwood, he finds her, but Barnabas is unable to tell Angelique that he loves her before Lamar Trask shoots her.

On DARK SHADOWS, you can turn back the clock, but you can never stop time. And that’s one of the great tragedies of the show. There is a singularly unique, heartbreaking energy to those moments in the foyer when Quentin just knows that Barnabas wants Angelique. It’s clear. And he points him toward the drawing room. And Barnabas goes. And the only words that demand to be said are the only words that aren’t. There is some occult energy between the frames in that endless second. A five-year ritual working is at last delivering.

There is more irony here than in the entire TWILIGHT ZONE canon. Certainly more poignant. Angelique, felled by the one part of her curse that she forgot to lift. Killed at last by a Trask in the manner that Barnabas tried to do employ in 1795… the act that brought on the curse in the first place. She’s killed for an association with sorcery that is now a part the past she can never escape… after having been part of the past that Barnabas could never escape. This is the kind of irony that you slice into chunks and keep in the basement for the winter. But it’s not forced. As I said before, it’s inevitable. It is, as James Whale might have said, “part of the ritual.”

After watching the near-entirety of the series, this sequence is eviscerating. Especially after meeting his own son in Parallel Time and seeing how furiously tormented and shrill he is at being denied love. Very few DARK SHADOWS episodes are such freight trains of joy, and this one was too good to last. The shot heard ‘round Collinsport and my childhood more than drown out the laughter and gaiety of Quentin and Daphne and Desmond. In this episode and the next, DARK SHADOWS at last earns the mantle of horror show. But not one where fear and anguish are delivered by ambassadors of the supernatural. This comes from real horror. Real cruelty. The weapon is the human heart. The ammunition? The sickening knowledge that ego delayed happiness and salvation until neither could be seized and enjoyed. What use is being a hero if the peace you create is the last thing you’ll be allowed to share?

The message? Prize your passion without ego and without delay because nothing is permanent. How long did it take Angelique to do the right thing? How long did it take Barnabas to look past his parents’ expectations and follow his heart?

How long?

One gunshot too long.