Two episodes today; Devlin and Elizabeth Chat; Sam Becomes Unglued; Roger and Victoria on Widows Hill

(1)Delicious intrigue, I feel, is present in this episode of Dark Shadows as Carolyn “brings together” Elizabeth and Burke Devlin, hoping the dissension and anxiousness will cease and everyone involved can get along. Burke claims he does not hold a grudge and is simply in Collins Port on business. He seems by his ongoing dialogue with Elizabeth to be sincere, but I think viewers can see (and Liz admits she “would like to believe” he means what he says) this is a ruse to get at Roger, underhanded and calculatingly so. I think this episode really establishes *10 years* effectively well, primarily in the tortured behavior and words of drunk and rattled Sam Evans, talking with Collins Port Inn’s Mr. Welles (played by Different Strokes’ Mr. Drummand Conraid Bain!) about what the last decade has done to him psychologically. The script talks about prisons, how man often lives in them, Burke reliving his past regarding his struggling fisherman father making ends meet barely to Elizabeth, Sam trying to come to terms with his part in (what I’m guessing) is the wrongful conviction of Burke (I think it’s obvious that this is what is ultimately eating Sam alive from the inside and wholly contributing to his misery), and how Elizabeth just wishes for him to leave (she herself “confined” voluntarily to Collinwood) so the family can relax a little with Burke once again out of their lives.

(2)One step closer. One step closer to the confrontation of Burke Devlin and Roger Collins. The show has been building and building and building to their face-to-face. I have to imagine there’s no way to really rocket this to the moon because the story has built this confrontation incredibly and at great length for over a dozen episodes. But I am certainly glad that we are about to see them in the same room together, even if fireworks of a certain magnitude cannot possibly equal the aggressive build-up of the show, the great strides taken to establish how crucial and important their confrontation hinges on the Burke Devlin storyline going forward. Sam plans to run away, try to flee whatever it is that places him in the grand scheme of things regarding Burke’s prison term. Finally, in an exhausting conversation between concerned daughter Maggie and the unnerved, unraveling Sam, the crime of record is a murder. So this is a tantalizing tidbit that certainly changes the dynamic of the Burke Devlin storyline because both Sam and Roger could be involved in a murder cover-up. The mystery of why Devlin’s presence causes principles in the cast to squirm and become angered is starting to come to light…a soap has the chance to develop slowly a story, allowing pieces of a puzzle to slowly fit into place. While Victoria’s past, her secret so sought after, has taken a back seat to the Devlin story, her character has remained important, if just as an outsider seeing her new home’s family coming unglued as Burke remains in Collins Port. What I liked about this episode is how Roger and Victoria talk about the Widows of the great cliff that overlooks the ocean--Roger enters storyteller mode to weave an oft-told bit of history regarding the sorrow and woes of those Collins widows awaiting their fishermen husbands to return, such never to happen. Victoria listens attentively while Roger spins this yarn which could or could not be true, although he insists the widows do wail within the wind, speaking still of their melancholy.