Episode 4: Accusations, Paranoia, and "HATE"

Well, Roger is scared. He discovers that Victoria met Burke Devlin and so Roger is going to question her..perhaps, interrogate is a more apt term. Elizabeth is fed up with Roger. You can tell, she just has been full to the belly with his attitude and ill mood swings. Now, you have the paranoia of Devlin's return and Roger just has to know what his intentions are. So Victoria gets the third degree and is not too fond of all the accusations, because eventually Roger unveils his belief that she is in cahoots with him, which is preposterous, of course. Roger loves the brandy, and is always taking shots probably to deaden the pain he feels. Carolyn just momentarily mentions under her breath Roger's wife and it's like bait to not only Victoria, but us, because I am the first to tell you that this has been on my mind. Roger's hard to tolerate, Elizabeth is an example of this, and the missing wife, his inability to get Burke off his mind, and a boy that is mentioned but never seen, his story has interestingly taken center stage. This episode just gets weirder and weirder. In the previous episode, Victoria has experienced doors opening and a letter of hers moved to her bed while she was away. In this episode she hears the continual sound of agonizing moans, but where is it coming from, and, more importantly, who is making them? And, to cap it all off, David, one really odd kid, makes his first appearance and, from his dark place, hisses that he hates her!?!? He has never even met her until this point and so that statement (which closes the episode) is certainly bizarre, to say the least.

 I tell you, these fourteen days of shooting, you can see why the cast struggle with their lines and shadows of equipment often appear...it is a lot to ask of cast and crew to get it right under such a tight schedule. Long scenes of dialogue, the actors have quite the daunting task of remembering lines and hitting their marks, with heavy emphasis on staging. I commend them for what they are able to accomplish and cannot fault them when a flub happens hear or there. Poor Joan Bennett has a problem with her living room double door knobs and you just feel for her, all the dialogue she still must recite, hitting the dramatic heights, and all of that. The show sure establishes the animosity between brother and sister, that's for sure, as Elizabeth and Roger are seemingly always at odds.