Okay, so this is going to be a thing we’re calling Anatomy of a Scene–specifically, this is going to be the first time Angelique and Barnabas are seen together alone in episode 368 (sometimes called number 368/369 for network numbering reasons I don’t want to get into right now) of the TV show Dark Shadows, in the 1795 storyline.
So here’s the set-up:
–Barnabas is the only son of rich parents, and the year is 1795. The place is the coastal fishing town of Collinsport, Maine—except back then, Maine was considered a part of Massachusetts, and not a state all by itself yet.
–Josette DuPres is a pretty rich girl of French ancestry, who has been living in Martinique in the Caribbean.
Now, Barnabas’ dad owns a very prosperous fishing fleet, and Josette’s dad owns a sugar plantation. They would both sort of like it if these kids got married (although Josette has had other suitors in the past who didn’t quite work out, apparently).
–Josette’s aunt Natalie is the Countess DuPres…
–And the Countess’ maid is a gorgeous blonde gal named Angelique.
Reader, Spoiler Alert: Barnabas took a little tour of the Caribbean (he stopped at Barbados, too), and he spent time around Josette. But in those days, young men and women with money were VERY chaperoned, and had to abide by LOTS of rules of being polite and not doing much touching—heck, one hardly ever left such people alone together for five seconds.
So, Barnabas met Josette, and liked her. Quite a bit, actually, to hear him tell it.
BUT, he had a self-esteem problem, and didn’t feel like Josette would return his feelings for her—
–So Barnabas had a secret affair with Angelique.
OOPS. THIS WILL COME BACK TO BITE BARNABAS.
HARD.
LITERALLY.
Because here’s what happened next—Barnabas said bye to everyone, and left Martinique—but he and Josette started writing letters to each other—and they discovered they DID BOTH like each other!
So now they’re going to get married.
But that means that not only Josette and her father have sailed to Collinsport… but also The Countess DuPres, Aunt Natalie… and she’s BROUGHT ANGELIQUE WITH HER.
OOOPS.
So the first time they saw each other, earlier today, Angelique came to the door and said that the carriage got stuck in the mud, so they send Angelique up to the house to get help, because the actual fancy people weren’t gonna walk in the rain and the mud. But there were other people around, so Barnabas couldn’t be much more than like “Oh uh hi Angelique.”
But now… it’s later that evening.
Barnabas is in his room. His bed is there, and a nice bookcase with a fold-out writing desk area. There’s also an arguably-comfy highback chair that he sits in.
Just before this scene, Barnabas was talking to The Countess in the living room, where The Countess was playing with reading tarot cards. She said there was “a wicked woman” in the house, and then she wouldn’t keep reading the cards about Barnabas and Josette, because the hints of the future she was getting were just too awful.
The Countess was glaring at Vicki, the governess to Barnabas’ little sister, because Vicki is good at annoying people a lot of the time.
But the whole thing rattled Barnabas, who by the way is really kinda dressed like Hamlet. He’s in his own room, so he’s got no jacket on, just a sort of vest over a white shirt with really puffy long sleeves. The fact that this is one of the episodes that we’ve lost the color copy of, and so we only have the black-and-white version (although many people still had black-and-white television sets at that time anyway) just adds to the Hamlet vibe, as does the book he’s holding as a prop—one thinks of Hamlet reading his “words, words, words.”
…Why would the Countess not finish reading the cards…? thinks Barnabas, and there’s a thunderclap when he thinks the word cards, because there’s a thunderstorm outside, but also because it’s a good thought for an ominous peal of thunder…
Barnabas continues to think: It’s all nonsense. Josette is coming. Everything will be all right then… If there’s a wicked woman in the house… it’s the Countess herself…
He means because she’s pretentious and judgmental (although not when you compare her to Barnabas’ father) and she’s talking about worrying predictions about the future of Barnabas and Josette…
But the MOMENT he thinks that last part, there’s a knock at his door—6 knocks, knock knock knock knock knock knock, quickly. He has to ask who’s there three times, and the person doesn’t answer, just keeps knocking. 6 quick knocks the first time, 7 the second, 6 the third. Considering who it turns out to be, it would have been amusing if it’d been three sets of 6, but maybe that would have been a little too on the nose.
When he opens the door, yep, there’s Angelique. “A ghost from your past,” she says, smiling, and she hurries in.
Angelique: Close the door, quickly!
Barnabas: Angelique…!
He’s not comfortable with this…
Angelique: I have waited for this moment all day long.
There’s a thunderclap on the end of THAT line…
Angelique: You do not remember?
Barnabas: I remember.
Angelique: I waited in my room. You didn’t come. So here I am.
He doesn’t say anything.
Angelique: Well, I have not your pride. I have no reason for pride.
I asked Barb what pride Angelique is talking about, and Barb clarified for me that this is about breaking the ice after their long absence and the awkwardness of them having to pretend, earlier, that they aren’t the kind of people who, back on Martinique, might have had an affair, especially since that’s exactly what happened. So Angelique is saying, here, at least, that they’ve temporarily gotten caught in this situation where each of them is thinking “I really wanna find a moment to go to my hot darling, but I don’t wanna be the first to give in and show up, like I have no willpower in the face of sexiness,” but she is saying she loves him so much, she doesn’t have that kind of pride—she wanted to see him too much, so she was the one who gave in first, because after all, she’s not a man, with a man’s pride over his own willpower, so here I am, glad that’s over, yum yum give me some lovin’ now, Barnabas.
Anyway, she goes to him and embraces him.
Angelique: Oh, hold me!
Barnabas: Angelique…
Angelique: After you left our island, I would wake up at night, hearing you say my name. Did you… think of me at all?
Okay, now, that’s a big deal because when you hear the voice of someone who’s far away calling you in the night… that’s kind of a reference to an important thing that comes in the novel Jane Eyre (which Dark Shadows draws from sometimes). So the next thing that Angelique does shows that she’s hoping not only to communicate to Barnabas that she was thinking about him while he was away, but also that– if he was thinking about her– that maybe the two of them have a deeply fated connection between their two souls, like Jane and Edward in Jane Eyre.
Barnabas: Yes… I… I did…
See? So it’s no wonder that makes Angelique happy.
Angelique: Oh, tell me! Hold me tighter and tell me.
Barnabas: No!
THUNDERCLAP, and he breaks out of her hugging him.
Angelique: Well, you– you do not think me pretty anymore?
Barnabas: Yes, of course you are. But, but you see… it was a mistake…! Oh… I know it was wrong, to say it this way… It’s my fault, I know. It was my weakness to…
Angelique: Love me?
She’s got a dangerous tone on that one– the most dangerous tone she’s used so far.
Barnabas: I love Josette…
Angelique: But you came to me…
Barnabas: I’m sorry…
Angelique: For what? For making me love you…?
Barnabas: You do not love me.
I looked very carefully at how Barnabas said this. Does he believe that, I wondered? I backed up and watched him say it over and over. And honestly, he didn’t convince me. I think he’s just saying what he wishes Angelique would start saying.
And indeed she doesn’t like him trying it.
Angelique: Oh, you can tell me how I feel…?
THUNDERCLAP…
Barnabas: Oh, I am sorry…
Barb says he says that line like a waiter pretending to be so sorry to inform you that they’ve run out of Coke, but they do have Pepsi…
Angelique: Today, when you opened the door, I thought you were glad to see me.
She means earlier today, when she first showed up at the front door of the house (not his room, because then she wouldn’t bother saying “today” like that).
Barnabas: I was–!
Angelique: You are honest now?
She means “as opposed to earlier today, when there were other people around, and you had to pretend to not be especially happy to see me?”
Barnabas: Yes.
Angelique: Then you are glad I am in this room!
Barnabas: Josette is coming…
Angelique: She’s not here yet!
Barnabas: But she’s going to be!
The timing of him saying this, combined with where they’re standing in the middle of the room, next to his bed, suggests that Josette isn’t just going to be here in Collinsport, but here IN THIS ROOM, like Angelique just mentioned she herself is– Josette is going to be in this bedroom, in his BED, with HIM, because he and Josette are going to be married, darn it, Angelique!
BUT JUST AS IMPORTANTLY—his repetition, here, of Josette is coming, like in his thinking right before Angelique knocked, made me understand something—Barnabas is PRAYING for Josette to arrive here, not just because he wants to be sure that nothing bad—a storm at sea, for example—has happened to his fiancée—it’s also because he is PRAYING for her to show up, now, and SAVE him from the TEMPTATION represented by Angelique in his house (without Josette)! He’s repeating Josette is coming just like Bart Simpson repeating Krusty is coming in the Kamp Krusty episode, and for the same reason—we realize that Barnabas asked three times “who is it?” before he opened the door because he was SCARED of the temptation Angelique represents. Of course Angelique had to come find him in his room—OF COURSE he didn’t come to HER room—“do you not think me pretty anymore?” YES, woman, that’s the PROBLEM! He has been HIDING in his room FROM YOU! If she had SAID “It’s me, Angelique!” —he very possibly might have LOCKED HIS DOOR! But she was smart enough not to! (Also, because since theirs has been a secret affair, she doesn’t wanna shout “It’s me, Angelique, so open your damn bedroom door, Barnabas,” but that’s not the point right now. It’s also what I just said. It’s both.)
Barb has said to me that she has thought, at this point: “‘Dang, Barnabas, your ex is in the house and you’re just going to sit there hoping it’ll be all right once Josette shows up? Be a man, find Angelique, and break up with your ex, for pity’s sake!’ It’s like Barnabas thinks that once Angelique sees how much Barnabas and Josette are in love that Angelique will gracefully step aside! It’s also like he thinks that, as a servant, she should just UNDERSTAND that it’s over—without him having to say it to her face! What a bratty, privileged white boy Barnabas is. And when he’s kind of fumbling for words and stammering, he sounds SO young. It makes me think he’s always stammered a lot around his father and other mean authority figures, like George VI (the father of Queen Elizabeth II, who had a stammer thanks to his mean father George V).”
Angelique: You’re so different here! You’re as cold as that wind outside your house…!
THUNDERCLAP. Not surprising, since Angelique just mentioned the storm//weather outside.
Barnabas: I am not cold, but I want to be. I have to be!
Angelique: Why…?
Barnabas: Because, Angelique, I didn’t know that we were going to be married then. To be honest, I thought I was in love with Josette, but I didn’t realize she was in love with me. But now that we’ve written, well, you and I… well, it’s impossible.
(He pronounces it a whole lot like “unpossible.”)
Angelique: Are you sad about it?
Serious danger in her tone again here, like “you BETTER be sad about it, if you know what’s good for you.”
Barnabas: Well, what good will it be to admit that? We both have different roles to play now.
Note that he SUPER does not admit whether he’s sad or not– and he COULD have just said “yes I am” or “no I’m not.” So that means YES, he’s got regrets about how it seems like fate intends him to marry Josette and pass on Angelique.
Angelique: And what is mine…? The Countess’ maid? You knew me as I really am! I am no one’s servant but yours!
Barnabas: No…
THUNDERCLAP… The second time that he’s said NO to her and gotten a thunderclap for it…
More importantly, though: The subtitles on Tubi where I streamed the show say “You KNOW me as I really am,” but I listened a bunch, and that’s not what she says. She says “you KNEW me as I really am!”
KNOW just means KNOW. But KNEW, in THIS context, in THIS man’s bedroom, suggests, as they used to say, the word “knew” in “the biblical sense,” meaning, er, well, these two have made love previously. More on THAT in a minute…
Angelique: Yes… I am your servant. You are my master.
(There is very noticeable very annoying squeaking in the studio at this point, like there’s a squeaky wheel on a camera or the boom mike or something… it’s all part of watching Dark Shadows, folks. But they are so professional, they just keep going like there’s no squeaking.)
MORE IMPORTANTLY, though– She is his servant! Barnabas is her master! What sort of submissive and dominant games were Angelique and Barnabas into, those nights in Martinique when they were alone? Because if a woman in any other daytime soap opera talked like this? The censors would go INSANE. They would NEVER let that air. But this is the 18th century! Writer Sam Hall could, if anyone said anything, say “I’m doing The Crucible here, I’m doing literature. This woman is the servant class in this society but she’s telling this man she loves him, wants no one but him. This is—” And on, and on, if he wanted, if anyone asked. So this aired. Totally got away with it.
Angelique: That’s the way it is. That is the way it is to be.
Barnabas: No, Angelique!
Angelique: You will see!
And he will see. Eventually. And he’s really, really, really not going to like what he eventually sees.
Barb says:
The audience of the 1960s has seen scenes like this before– this is just in a different, costume drama context.
I mean, imagine this scene, but instead of a costume drama, we have a man, let’s call him Barney, who is engaged to a woman from a wealthy family, let’s call her Josie. We find out that Josie’s– for the sake of this scenario– cousin, from the poor side of Josie’s family, shows up for the engagement party, and corners Barney, throwing herself into his arms, and reminding him that they had an affair while Barney was courting Josie.
What does the audience feel about each of the characters? They already know Barney as a tortured soul, as a man with a mysterious past. They now know that Barney was two-timing Josie, the gal he was courting, the gal that (as we already learned many episodes ago) he’s still obsessed with. Now, they are made to understand that Barney is a cheat. They’ve loved this guy… and now, he did something sinful. I don’t think that the audience is necessarily judgmental… but they’re definitely intrigued.
All I’m saying is that a certain set of expectations is at play here, based in great part upon other television shows the audience has already seen.
Now, I have an observation: Barnabas says to Angelique that he thought he loved Josette, but didn’t know if Josette loved him. So… that means, he knew he was there to see about courting Josette, he WAS one of her suitors, but knowing that, he was still so unsure about it, he– who was conceptually in the running for Josette’s hand– he deliberately had an affair with Angelique. That means, he knew that he was there for the purpose of seeing if he might become taken off the market… but he had an affair with Angelique anyway. Now, Angelique knew that Barnabas was a (potential) suitor of Josette’s, but she had an affair with him anyway. So, Barnabas is Schrodinger’s cat, or Schrodinger’s suitor… Yet, he did NOT keep himself chaste for his potential fiancée. Therefore, he is a cheater. All of his “I thought I was in love with her, but didn’t think she loved me” talk to make himself out not to be a cheater is bullshit.
Notice all the times that Barnabas deflects giving straight answers to Angelique’s questions. For instance, Angelique states that Barnabas loves her. Instead of saying, “No, I don’t, I love Josette instead,” he just says “I love Josette.” Thanks, Barnabas, but that statement does NOT address what Angelique said!
NEXT TIME: Anatomy of a Scene #2: The conversation where Barnabas comes to Angelique’s room…!