Darl Shadows Diary, Episode 30

Episode 30, "What Monsters We Make"
Aug. 5, 1966

Cousin Barnabas,
Things will probably look a little strange today. Do not be fooled: Dr. Hoffman has been around with that damnable medallion of hers. You probably won't remember much of the day thanks to her unique combination of hypnotism and pseudoscience, but don't worry ... you didn't miss much. You saw Prof. Stokes naked and asked for Dr. Hoffman to go all 'Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind' and delete those memories from storage.

Sincerely,
Cousin Barnabas

I spent the entire day walking around with the notes for this journal entry in my pants pocket. Apparently, I awoke early this morning at the asscrack of dawn and watched an episode of Dark Shadows ... and then forgot about it. A few moments ago I popped the DVD into the player, say down with my notebook and had a moment of (what I believed to be) déjà vu Turns out it was just plain old vu. I blame Dr. Hoffman.

And WOW did a lot happen in this episode. This is the most proactive episode yet, with people actually trying to solve some of their problems instead of wallowing in them. The episode begins with a voice over from Victoria Winters, reciting some of the purplest prose this side of Mickey Spillane. It was nice to see the show get back to its spooky roots after so many episodes devoted to automobile maintenance, shady business contracts and civil rights disputes.

Victoria gets trapped in the drawing room during a momentary power outage/gust of wind. The door opens her to reveal a silent figure shrouded in black. It's a genuinely unnerving, and so spooky that I understand why Victoria willfully forgets about it a few minutes later. Roger suggests she saw him as he passed the door, headed downstairs to fetch candles, but that was NOT Roger.

But the dead can wait, because the living are creating more urgent problems. Roger is feeling particularly assholish, insisting he doesn't care how his son finds his way home. Sure, it's dark and storming outside, but David (along with Burke Devlin) is one of "the two people in the world he dislikes most." Victoria comes to the defense of ... Burke. Which was unexpected.

She throws David under the metaphorical bus and reveals the brat was behind Roger's car wreck. Roger refuses to believe it but gradually warms to the idea, possibly because he'd rather be rid of David than Burke. Vicky brings Roger up to speed on the plot points he missed while he was away harassing Devlin, but he seems inclined to give his son the benefit of the doubt he withheld from his adversary.

On cue, Burke and David arrive at Collinwood. Roger and Victoria double-team the boy, who insists Victoria is "lying" and is really the one responsible for trying to kill Roger. Go ahead ... picture Victoria working on a car. I DARE you. Besides his usual conspiracy theories, David can't really offer a motive for Victoria to kill Roger. It's likely he never prepared for the eventuality that his father would survive the wreck and has no plan to fall back on.

Burke covers for David, telling Roger and Victoria that he found the boy walking down the road. Despite this lie, he produces the missing bleeder valve he discovered after David planted it in his hotel room. I can't quite figure out what his game is, but look forward to seeing how this plays out in the next episode.