Dark Shadows - The Imprisonment

 

So as Barnabas decides whether or not to destroy Maggie for trying to stake him, Willie works his ass off to convince his master to put away those thoughts and look at her beauty and realize that she can still be Josette. So while Willie actually stands up for Maggie and puts himself in front of her to die first, he has to work that brain power against a superior mind and evil in Barnabas. Because Maggie looks like Josette and Willie uses whatever leverage is available to him (the authorities are still out there looking for Maggie and if Willie went missing it would stir up suspicion) to halt Barnabas from immediately killing them both, there is a brief stall...and a matter of convenience arrives in Victoria, who visits the Old House to talk with Barnabas about a curfew in place by the police due to recent events. This episode, number 251, introduces an interesting wrinkle in the Maggie-kidnapping storyline with Victoria's interest in the music box (and later a handkerchief supposedly given to Josette by the Queen of France) as Barnabas is stricken by her romantic interest in it. She doesn't know her family--something that was quite important during Dark Shadows - The Beginning--and was raised in an orphanage, details Barnabas didn't know, and he's very interested in her. I like when a series introduces extra threads into a patchwork, because it includes more characters and allows for extending subplots that attach to a big story arc. Really, at this point, you have Jason and Elizabeth's wedding consuming the attention of Caroline and Roger, with Victoria actually involved loosely. And you have Maggie's kidnapping which has kept Sam and Burke sort of out of the Collins loop and somewhat tied to Barnabas' big angle. I do understand the need for writers to have separate stories as it allows for the acting talent to branch off, have days off, with the viewers back and forth (sometimes shuffled) between alternating stories. Soap Operas have always been like that and Dark Shadows is no different. I do laugh a bit because the Jason and Elizabeth story arc is so obviously less important as Barnabas, but still it gives Caroline and Roger something to do while Maggie, Willie, and Barnabas are very established as the A plot of the show. I have been waiting for Victoria to have a bit more importance on the show as she's sort of been presented as some cursory side character who lives at Collinwood as the teacher of the absent David (who is at this point a special guest star) and is background mostly. With Barnabas inviting her back to his home and taking an interest in Victoria, there is that newest threat to someone we care about while Maggie is imprisoned by the vampire for almost staking him.

The imprisonment angle is as much a Soap Opera trope (in fact, there was a kidnap plot during Dark Shadows- The Beginning where Vicky was held captive by the caretaker), it is as depended on as the blackmail plot. This time Barnabas leaves Maggie, who at this point just wants to die she's so fed up, in a cell while determining what he wants to do with her. Yes, the writers sort of have to keep figuring out ways to extend the A plot and the ole reliable prison is one such avenue, as Willie's conscience is further embattled as Barnabas continues to consider a wedding and turning Maggie into a vampire bride. At the end he calls her Josette (there was a trick he used in the previous episode, calling out Maggie to see if she would respond), while upstairs with Victoria he puts on a performance about how bad he feels she's missing, that she couldn't possibly still be alive at this point and that the search was futile. I LOVED the reaction of Barnabas when Victoria refers to the kidnapper of Maggie as a madman. That popped me big-time. I love that shit. I love how he "stays in character" and maintains his gentlemanly facade (there is a good man there that the vampire has buried away) despite that. Later when Maggie begs and pleads with Barnabas not to keep her in the prison, that she would go mad, Barnabas hopes she will eventually come to him as Josette. I think the visual of Maggie's tortured face looking through the square with bars of the door as Barnabas coldly leaves her is a big hook for viewers to return the next day. 4/5

***I'm not the biggest fan of Willie, obviously, but he does stick his neck out to save Maggie. That was a big moment for the character who is so often rendered impotent due to the hold Barnabas has on him. He uses the leverage of Vicky's visit, the current search, and how his being missing would bring suspicion, even as Barnabas still nearly kills both of them***