Dark Shadows: Episode 2 - Introduction of Carolyn & Joe

The second episode inserts Burke into Carolyn Stoddard’s tense relationship with fishing fleet employee, Joe Haskell. The Blue Whale had many such dramatic ongoing conversations and expository sequences. While Victoria arrives at Collinwood, Elizabeth is cold and careful, not revealing too much and holding back a hell of a lot. Roger is in a foul mood, leaving the estate when Elizabeth rubbed him the wrong way. Carolyn wants more than she currently has. She’s a free spirit longing for something beyond Collinwood (the show not allowing it, of course). Elizabeth has a hard time appeasing her. Liz is the typical cuckolded mother, worried about her daughter. Carolyn wants out, plain and simple. Liz wants her to stay. Poor Joe…Carolyn just doesn’t want to be with him while he feels much differently.And Roger reacts to news of Burke returning with Victoria left quite baffled at his anxious response.

I think essentially this is the "Carolyn Introduction" episode as Elizabeth Collins Stoddard's daughter, Carolyn, is introduced to the Dark Shadows audience and is immediately established as a teenager wanting to have fun anytime she can once away from the gloomy environs of Collinwood. Dancing to 60s beats from the jukebox of the Blue Whale, bip-bopping and jiggling those hips, with the local boys, smiling and wanting to get some action, all clamoring to groove with her, Carolyn draws your attention. Carolyn, when you first see her, seems to be the hot blonde with rebellious tendencies,  but ultimately she just wants to be free for just a little while before having to return to the mansion on Widow's Hill. Elizabeth has sort of fixed up Carolyn with a fisherman named Joe Haskell, a more mature but also boring to the young babe, who becomes bothered at how the other barflies are anxious to hone in on his girl, eventually a fight ignites.

In the previous review I didn't mention that Burke Devlin has hired a PI to dig up dirt on the Collins family, and Wilbur Strake is the one who might unearth some skeletons in the closet eventually. They are meeting in the Blue Whale when the scuffle over Carolyn breaks out, Devlin interfering on Joe's behalf, telling him to leave before police arrive.

Victoria meets Elizabeth who is elusive in why she wanted her to become governess. Elizabeth appears distraught and on the verge of breaking down, eventually hanging her head while playing a depressing melody on the piano. We see here that something is ripping her emotions apart; she is barely holding her resolve.

Carolyn's need for a bit of excitement doesn't necessarily make her a wild child, just a young woman who wants relief from the aura of despair within the mansion walls. Also included in this episode is Victoria's first conversation with a bit more relaxed Roger Collins, both overlooking the cliff into the water crashing into the rocks below. When informed of Devlin's return to Collins Port, Roger is livid and apparently shaken/upset. Why?