Okay so here we are with Anatomy of a Scene #4! Today we’re doing the scene from the once-famous gothic daytime TV soap opera Dark Shadows (kind of two scenes, technically, or maybe just one longish one, depending on your point of view) where, in the year 1795, Joshua Collins finds out his son Barnabas is about to marry gorgeous servant girl Angelique instead of Josette DuPrés, who, just a few weeks ago, was the girl everyone (except Angelique, I guess?) thought he was going to marry…
https://tubitv.com/tv-shows/508986/s05-e20-episode-392
We open, after the opening narration, by focusing on Joshua’s black paper flower with purple center button thing that shows he’s in mourning over the recent death of his younger brother Jeremiah… (Also, Joshua is wearing one of those little waist-level things like Barnabas does! They’re BOTH wearing one, today! It’s nothing to do with mourning, because Barnabas was wearing one before anyone died– based on THIS page https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/explore/an-officer-and-a-gentleman-naval-uniform-and-male-fashion-in-the-eighteenth-century
(Scroll down to “Sir Home Riggs Popham”), I think the point of it is that it’s a holder for a SEAL, as in, like, sealing envelopes and things with the family symbol, if you don’t have a signet ring handy?!)
And the camera is zooming out at a medium speed… Soundtrack from the opening narration quickly fades to nothing–
Joshua: You want the entire village to know that our son killed his uncle in a duel?!
Naomi: Everyone knows now!
Joshua: Everyone does not! Some may suspect– the others will accept any story we tell them– and the story is going to be handed out– that Jeremiah met with an unfortunate accident while cleaning his gun. Remember that!
BARB SAYS: Look at how this is one of the first incidences of a Collins trying to change the facts of the family history for the sake of appearances. This is one reason why the “Collins Family History” that Vicki had with her does not help the Collins/Duprés families of 1795 avoid tragedies.
Naomi: You’d rather save face than mourn your brother, I’ll remember that too!
Joshua: Naomi!
BARB SAYS: Naomi is finding her voice at last. Too bad Joshua doesn’t have receptive ears to listen.
Naomi: Will your story help Barnabas forget he killed his best friend, will it help Josette, will it help anyone in this house?!
Joshua: We are leaving this house tomorrow!
BARB SAYS: Wow, that came out of nowhere. Joshua is actually having a human emotion other than the sin of Pride. Amazing.
And… he walks past her, to her left, and he starts back-acting– saying his lines to her even though she’s behind him. He can’t look her in the eyes anymore right now//until further notice.
Naomi: The new house isn’t finished!
Joshua: The workmen say it’ll be quite livable…
Naomi: But we can’t move tomorrow, all that work!
Joshua: Have it done!
BARB SAYS: Joshua is treating Naomi no differently than he would a servant.
Naomi: But it’s not necessary to rush so!
Joshua: As far as I’m concerned it is!
Naomi: Why?
Joshua: …Because I cannot stand in this house– one more day.
Look at how that’s a combination of “I cannot stand living in” and “I cannot stand this…” But also, with this line, he slowly turns around and looks at her again. This is honesty, no more avoiding the point. Interesting how Naomi wears a beauty mark right now– a star– near her left eye. You’re supposed to wear them where you want people to look, so this one says to Look Me In The Eye.
Naomi: Joshua!
HERE, the soundtrack starts up, dark and ominous…
Joshua: Simply because I control my feelings doesn’t mean that I don’t have them… Too much has happened here, too many tragedies! Perhaps Natalie and my sister were right– perhaps there are evil forces at work in this house.
(So you’re gonna leave so Barnabas can live here? Gee, thanks a lot!
But also: NATALIE? Not “The Countess?” Isn’t that interesting! I mean on one level it could just be that he scorns her title– we already know he does. But on another level, it’s so familiar, so intimate. Fitting in this moment of honesty about his feelings.)
Naomi: And we will leave them when we move?
(Meaning the “evil forces.”)
Joshua: I don’t know. …I just know that nothing else must happen–
Naomi: Something else IS going to happen, Joshua… And I don’t think it can be attributed to– witchcraft or evil forces… I don’t really know what it can be attributed to–
Joshua [talking over the end of her line a little]: –Well are you going to tell me, or are you not…?
Naomi: Well pfeh– You– you get so upset, I don’t know how to tell you!
Joshua: In a moment, I will be upset with you–! –Out with it, woman!
(Future Roger Collins Snark DNA showing up, there…)
Naomi: It’s Barnabas. He came and told me– that, well… he… he’s going to marry.
Soundtrack changes, anxious strings…
Joshua: –Marry…?! …Have he and Josette no propriety at all…?! She buries her husband one day, and then the next…?!
Soundtrack moves into anxious woodwinds… Joshua starts pacing just a little, but then he stops when she breaks his train of thought–
Naomi: It is not Josette. Despite propriety… I wish it were…
He turns– he looks a little afraid, almost–
Joshua: …Who IS he going to marry…? Naomi…!
Naomi: Angelique.
Joshua: ANGELIQUE! You mean that? Bring Barnabas down here immediately!
Musical sting… OPENING TITLE. Then we come back–
Barnabas: I’m sorry, father, that I didn’t tell you myself… I certainly didn’t– intend… mother to tell you…
He stumbled a little, there… the anxious woodwinds from before the opening credits continue on the soundtrack…
Naomi: Your father understands that, Barnabas.
Joshua: It is the only thing in this entire preposterous situation that I do understand. You can’t be serious.
(I am serious! And don’t call me Shirley– oh, you didn’t. Never mind.)
Barnabas: I am.
Joshua: But you can’t marry this, this– girl…!
Barnabas: I am GOING to, father!
BARB SAYS: Barnabas is standing up to his father. Look how his stammer is not there right now. He has made up his mind.
Joshua: It’s absurd!
Barnabas: I’m sure that you think so–!
Joshua: How well do you know her.
Barnabas: Very well!
BARB SAYS: Barnabas has a chance here to be honest. “Father, I met her in Martinique and we became close. I actually know her better than I do Josette. We had an understanding, and I am duty bound to make an honest woman out of her,” he could have said. Instead, he goes with a lie by omission.
Joshua: Why that’s nonsense, she’s only been here a month. Why– I-bw-b’– I haven’t even spoken ten words to her.
Naomi: Obviously Barnabas has!
Barb: Naomi made (whether she realizes it or not) a risqué joke!
Joshua: I barely remember what she looks like!
Naomi: She’s extremely pretty.
Joshua [to Barnabas]: Is that why you’re marrying her?!
Barnabas: …No.
And then, Joshua WALKS FORWARD AND PUTS HIS RIGHT HAND ON HIS SON’S LEFT SHOULDER IN A KINDLY WAY. WOW.
Joshua: …You’ve had a nasty shock. Josette marrying…
The hand moves down to his son’s left arm, gives it a comforting squeeze…
Joshua: …Jeremiah as she did. But there’s no need to rush into this–
NOW he doesn’t want people rushing things…
Joshua: There’s no need at all, you simply go to that servant girl–
Hand comes off arm, the better to use both hands for gesturing as he talks–
Naomi: –Joshua–!
Joshua: That is a fact, I am not making a disparaging remark. You simply go to her and tell her that you’ve made a mistake.
BARB SAYS: Yeah, like that’s gonna work. Sir, have you never heard of the phrase “breach of promise”? It means, if one breaks a promise to marry, one can get sued. It’s a concept that any man during that time period must have been well aware of…
Can you imagine that conversation–? I think it would be like:
Barnabas: Angelique…my father…he…
Angelique: Yes, my dearest one?
Barnabas: He…well…I am to say that I…he wants me to…I mean…I must tell you that I’ve made a mistake and can’t marry you.
Angelique (in thoughts): I will turn Joshua Collins into a mule and give him to Ben Stokes as a present.
Okay, back to the real scene– at this point, the soundtrack quickly fades to nothing. It’s like the soundtrack is holding its breath, waiting for what Barnabas’ response will be… BUT it doesn’t take long–
Barnabas: …No, father!
BARB SAYS: OMG, Barnabas said NO to his father again! He’s growing a spine!
In saying it, Barnabas turns and walks to his right, and starts backacting for a second–
Joshua: What do you mean “no father,” I’m sure you want to be out of this as much as I want you to–
[talking over end of line]
Barnabas: –I have no choice! I have promised I will marry her!
Joshua: Well then break your promise–
BARB SAYS: So much for Joshua’s speech, elsewhen (when he’s talking to Trask), about the Collins family getting where they are in 1795 by, amongst other things, their “dedication to high principles!” (It’s in the first half of episode 387…)
THAT suggestion from his father gets Barnabas to stop backacting– he turns back to his father–
Barnabas: You raised me to be a man of honor–
Joshua: A man of honor doesn’t get involved in anything like this–
Barnabas: A man of honor marries someone suitable, I’ve tried to do that!
What?!? You have, Barnabas? Do you mean you tried, with Josette, and it just didn’t take? Or are you talking about Angelique now? Feels like the former to me…
Joshua: You– You’re hurt, you’re bitter…
Barnabas: –Neither of which will stop me from keeping my promise.
Joshua: This girl is an-an adventuress, you know that! She must be sent out of this house. I will NOT let you make this mistake– I will speak to Andre immediately…
(He means Josette’s father.) Joshua starts to walk off– but Barnabas’ next words stop him, make him turn around again–
Barnabas: Father– It is not a mistake–!
BARB SAYS: Interesting that Barnabas contradicts his father about the very nature of his relationship with Angelique.
Joshua: …It is a mistake! You do not love her…!
Barnabas: …She loves me…!
Joshua: Well that may impress you, but it doesn’t me…!
The future Roger Collins Snark DNA comes to the foreground again for a second, there…
BARB SAYS: When Barnabas says that Angelique loves him– Joshua already told Barnabas in an earlier episode that love doesn’t matter in marriage, so why did Barnabas think that argument would hold any water with Joshua?!?
Barnabas: I care for her– she will make a good wife.
BARB SAYS: WOW! That’s like I LOVE HER in soap-opera talk!
PARK SAYS: He’s said it about Julia…!
Joshua: –You don’t know that!
Barnabas: Father, I am going to live my own life, and if it is a mistake, at least it’s mine.
He almost rolls the R on “father…”
BARB SAYS: And this is the real Barnabas, the one Angelique fell in love with during all those nights in Martinique…
PARK SAYS: Yes, remember how earlier (in our first Anatomy of a Scene), Barnabas says he MUST be cold toward Angelique…
BARB SAYS: So the monster he will become is kind of his repressed emotions…
Joshua: I will do whatever I think best for you!
BARB SAYS: Look how Joshua is still treating Barnabas as a teenager who is lovesick.
Barnabas: Then you will let me alone.
Joshua: I have let you alone, and look at the result!
Future Roger Collins Snark DNA briefly activates again, there…
BARB SAYS: But HAS he left him alone, though, really? Isn’t one of the reasons that the affair with Angelique happened was because, in Martinique, it was the first time Barnabas wasn’t under his father’s thumb?
Barnabas: Have you thought that I might be happy with Angelique?!
Joshua, annoyed, off-camera (because Barnabas is being given a close-up): –Oh–!
BARB SAYS: So, is Barnabas implying that Barnabas thinks he MIGHT be happy with Angelique?
Barnabas: Has that possibility occured to you? No! So leave us alone, father– there’s nothing you can do to stop us now!
Joshua: We’ll SEE about THAT…!
Soundtrack goes “DUN-DUN… DUN-DUN-DUN… DUNNNNNN!”
POST-SCENE DISCUSSION LIGHTNING ROUND:
BARB SAYS: Okay, Joshua said something about what his priorities are… I know he said something about God, which was interesting to me… I don’t want to take a deep dive into DS and religion, as I know that some DS fans are religious and I have no intention of offending anyone, but, having said that… Joshua, with his emphasis on hard work and making money, strikes me as being rather a Calvinist. Calvin believed that if you did the right thing as a Christian, God would materially reward you.
PARK SAYS: Predestination, too? The Collins family is one of the elite favored by God?
BARB SAYS: Yeah, that was my next point… so… bad things are happening now….I wonder if Joshua, after all is said and done, thought, “This is God’s will, predestined….” Can we see 1795 as a predestined thing? I mean, Vicki was sent back into the past, but what could she actually CHANGE in terms of making a single thing better? Nothing.
PARK SAYS: Well, the things that are destined to happen DO seem unavoidable! We go back in time like three times and we can’t stop a certain character from dying…
BARB SAYS: Yeah! You know my theory about DS and time travel. Some things can be changed– like Quentin dying and coming back to haunt the Great Estate– but no matter how many times Barnabas tries to change the past concerning Josette, he can’t do it.
Now, THAT might be Angelique’s curse in action, but it’s interesting that Barnabas, who stepped on a ton of metaphorical butterflies in 1897, couldn’t set things right about Josette.
PARK SAYS: “Many long years of hard work, dedication to high principles, and a devotion to God.”
That’s what Joshua tells Trask, in the first half of episode 387, is what it’s taken to result in “the prestige of the Collins family name.” That’s why scandal must not be risked, at any cost. Because of THE PRESTIGE OF THE COLLINS FAMILY NAME. Joshua makes it sound like everything’s about THE PRESTIGE OF THE COLLINS FAMILY NAME more than the money he’s got, nor what it buys//can buy. Which dovetails interestingly with the talk about raising Barnabas to be a Man of Honor.
BARB SAYS: It’s funny, speaking of Christianity, that Barnabas, Sarah, Joshua, Naomi, Jerimiah, and Abigail are all Biblical names. Whereas, Josette and Angelique aren’t Biblical names. It’s also interesting that Barnabas, by being kind to Ben (the least of these, his brethren, to quote the Bible) is closer to the Christian ideal than Joshua.
PARK SAYS: I’ve noted that. And good point about the DuPrés family– Andre, too. They are FRENCH non-Bible-naming heathens, not of Puritan stock.
BARB SAYS: It’s also funny that Joshua, who fought in the Revolutionary War, the war for freedom, and hates that the Countess has a title, since we’re all EQUAL, thinks a lot like Napoleon the Pig in “Animal Farm,” that some people are more equal than others.
BARB [catching up to what Park last said] SAYS: YES! I mean, there’s the Countess with her Tarot Cards!
PARK SAYS: That’s why they love bright colors so much– they aren’t Puritans. [Park imitates Joshua Collins voice] “They might as well run around topless on that island of theirs…”
BARB SAYS: I love the scene coming several episodes from now where Angelique says to Joshua that in America we are all allowed to rise above our station and it cuts no ice with this self-proclaimed “patriot.”
BARB [catching up to what Park last said] SAYS: Exactly. Enjoying oneself aesthetically is tantamount to being a heathen in Joshua’s eyes. Simple things like wearing a silly big hat (I love Grayson Hall in that hat), dressing in velvet and silks, wearing perfume, and enjoying color are morally suspect in Joshua’s eyes.
And getting married for money? Terrific. But love, lust, companionship, and tender expressions of love and concern? How foolish and morally suspect those things are to Joshua…! Joshua must be, in the core of his being, a very lonely man. Look at the way he admits, in this scene, that he has feelings, but he keeps them under lock and key.
I’d feel sorry for him if he wasn’t such a dictator.
I mean, it’s one thing to be a Stoic. But it’s another to expect everyone else to show no feelings…
PARK SAYS: I imagine it’s how a Man of Honor must behave. Which is why Joshua’s actor Louis Edmonds would be so ideal for the father of the main male character in your novel SONG TO THE SIREN.
BARB SAYS: Exactly.
You know who else he reminds me of? Doctor Sloper in The Heiress. David Selby was in a production of that play (as Morris Townsend). Can you imagine the DS cast in that play? Louie as Dr. Sloper, Nancy as Catherine Sloper, Clarice as Aunt Penniman, and David Selby as Morris? Oh, it’d be like I died and went to heaven.
PARK SAYS: Oh that’s absolutely on purpose– Nathan Forbes is completely Morris Townsend!
BARB SAYS: Yes!!!
PARK SAYS: He even enjoys the brandy and such in the sitting room [like Morris Townsend]!
BARB SAYS: It’s like the writers said, “Hey, let’s take the book Washington Square (which the film The Heiress is based on) and make it into a Jane Austen comedy of manners. And then, later, we’ll rip off the film Gaslight.”
PARK SAYS: Yes. And THAT is ALL Sam Hall. Maximum narrative collision.
BARB SAYS: And, that is one of the many, many reasons I love the show (and the man).
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Hey, want to get our newsletter so you never miss our twice-a-month updates? Just go here: https://wickermanstudios.com/contact-us/