Dark Shadows - Suspicion falls on Willie as Maggie's missing

Jason McGuire gets nervous as Sheriff Patterson looks to find Maggie, missing from her hospital room, after appearing dead according to the nurse. Patterson and Burke arrive at Collinwood, hoping Victoria might have some answers to Maggie's possible whereabouts. Willie comes up as he was worried about Maggie and the phone call to Vicky was only ten minutes after he left when Barnabas had previously attempted to kidnap her before. McGuire is there as the conversation happens, realizing Willie's involvement could bring the police into his own life, possibly ruining his own blackmailing scheme of Elizabeth. So Patterson questions Willie at the Old House, making him nervous but failing to get any pertinent information. After Patterson leaves, McGuire arrives, telling him to get out of town or else. While Burke and Vicky discuss Maggie's condition prior to her disappearance with Dr. Woodard, McGuire assaults Willie, warning him to get out or suffer worse, encountering sinister wolf barking and snarling in the woods outside the Old House.

In episode 237, this more or less positions the storyline of Barnabas and his capture of Maggie as characters of Dark Shadows hope to uncover what happened. Soap operas often had a big storyline and alternate sub stories that might intermingle. Like McGuire being pulled into the main story because Willie is involved through his involuntary alignment to Barnabas. Willie gets tough a moment with a hammer in his hand but McGuire easily subdues and pummels him...Willie is always positioned as a weakling who fairs none too well against those even remotely stronger than him or of greater aggression. He's just so spineless. He avoids Patterson's interrogative onslaught, but when the sheriff really applies pressure, Willie shivers and quivers, but his fear of Barnabas was much more pronounced. McGuire is even worse, capable of vice-grip turn-of-the-screw pressure nearly as vicious and threatening as Barnabas. So McGuire is the secondary B-villain to Barnabas, providing the show another option when one or the other is absent. Meanwhile, Woodard isn't confident Maggie is alive, pondering the mystery of the neck bite mark. Vicky close to the situation and Burke trying to help find Maggie. Willie knows something McGuire doesn't: Barnabas is able to do far worse than he ever could. 3/5