Witch Hunt & The Zombie-Ghost

EPISODE 381-400 

Still under Angelique's spell, Josette and Jeremiah secretly get married away from the family. When they come back and give them the shocking news, an angry Barnabas challenges his uncle to a pistol duel where he fatally wounds him. Jeremiah eventually dies in his sick bed.

Meanwhile Angelique casts a spell that makes Sarah sick which she uses as a window to trick Barnabas into marrying her. She also summons Jeremiah's ghost to further torment Josette but she herself falls victim to his haunting.

Sick and tired of the mysterious happenings surrounding the family, Abigail invites a witch hunter called Reverend Trask to seek out the witch, whom they believe to be Vicki. Barnabas and some others help Vicki  to hide and in turn she confides in Barnabas by telling the whole story of how she came here. But Angelique's interference sends Vicki right into Trask's arms.

Oh boy, have I been lazy or what? This is the longest I took between two posts, even my watching has slowed down. To be honest, despite what I said in the previous entry, this 1795 story is going a bit slow for my taste. But let's not go around blaming the show altogether; lately I haven't been the most joyful bird in the flock either. But aaanyways, let's go on with the actual ranting shall we?

Collins Family Drama

The history is not only unfolding in front of us but it is also getting altered, giving me a WTF moment every now and then. Wasn't Jeremiah supposed to be Josette's husband more than a day? Didn't Barnabas say (in 1967) that he would have liked nothing more than to kill Jeremiah? Now all these alterations, usually related to Jeremiah's death, can be explained as;
a) dramatic license taken by the writers to make it all more suitable for the soap concept.
b) a famous fan theory: Altered Timeline. Surely Vicki's travel to the past has effected the course of some events and since Barnabas the vampire doesn't recognize her in the future timeline, we are denied the satisfaction of a "predestination paradox"*. Also let's not forget about my theory of this all being in Vicki's mind. If this were the case, wouldn't it be ironic that the first person here to die is this century's Burke, the very person whose death caused Vicki to be entrapped in these illusions. Poor Vicki, right now if she weren't busy with a witch hunt on her head, she would have mourned for the guy..again!
*Did you know that such a book exists? I will definetly read it when I'm done watching. Has any of the fans here read it?

It is also a bit odd that Barnabas shoots his uncle and just gets away with it. Nobody is slightly bothered by it. Oh well, it must have been something of the 1790's I guess. Just like Boy George was of the 1980's.

Josette the mourning widow

I wonder why the heck the du Pres family is still hanging around? I mean Josette practically lost two husbands, surely they don't expect her to marry Joshua Collins or anything? And speaking of the devil, his Thundercat days are over and yes he is human again but everybody's awkward about the situation, calling it "something weird going on". He turned and unturned into a freakin' cat for god's sake! Angelique should actually have let Ben have his way with the cat when he had the chance, that's all I'm sayin'. Anyway, my heart aches for Josette is the moral of this paragraph~

Alright, so about Angelique...

The witch shows her true face

I am not sure how I feel about her anymore. I mean surely I like to watch her but seeing her a fool for love, begging and pleading to Barnabas on her knees is..well..degrading! There's something noble (and rotten) about not casting an outright lovespell but instead making him love her at his free will, even if it takes to torment the ones around him. I thought it was the bells for Sarah (which wouldn't really bother me) but her life was spared at the last minute. Regardless of what I said in the previous post (about her non-murderousness), I am sure Angelique isn't afraid to go the distance and Sarah's eventual death will most likely be by her hands. And on that note, she once again used a toy (Sarah's famous doll this time) to cast her spell. I wonder if the connection between these spells and Barnabas the vampire's weakness against these toys will be further explained.

It's also funny that she doesn't have quite the hold over the dark arts. Her minion Ben isn't afraid to call her a witch and laugh at her (rather loudly) when her plans sometimes blow up in her face. Then she raised Jeremiah from his grave to scare Josette and the others but he got out of control and started to taunt her instead. She must have failed some advance classes at the Witch Academy!

Jeremiah vogue-ing!

The existence of Jeremiah after his death is a bit inconsistent. I mean we (along with Josette and Naomi) saw him rise from the grave looking like a zombie but his powers (appearance and disapperance, voice from beyond, creating illusions) are more like a ghost's. Hence I shall call him, the super amazing zombie-ghost; one of the original creations of Dark Shadows. Seriously though, what's with the hanging eye? Jeremiah got shot in his chest or something so when did his eye got all saggy?
Angelique feels there's some other force controlling him. But who can it be? Is it Abigail? Natalie? Voldemort?

So, scared by these unexplainable happenings the family flees to the New House aka Collinwood even though it's not totally finished. And the Old House is given to Barnabas & Angelique as a wedding gift by the glorious Naomi Collins. Guess the Collins women always were generous with gifts (Just tell me where I can find one!!) This similarity, along with others, makes me wish that the writers used this same actors - new characters aspect a little more creatively and gave those people somewhat different characters compared to their 1967 counterparts. Everyone is more or less the same save for Nathan and maybe Natalie (who is slightly less hysterical than Julia with better hair). I hope for a more outside the box characterization for the 1800's time-travel story in the later episodes.

Bloody Wedding

So Barnabas & Angelique got married despite Joshua's strong objections. He even disinherited his son, but what he doesn't know that he will live much much longer than the rest of these suckers. But poor Barnabas got left at the altar twice in a row (first when Josette fled to marry Jeremiah, second when Angelique was kidnapped by Jeremiah's zombie-ghost and buried alive but came back to go with the wedding. That's one heck of a determination btw). I think the only person who doesn't object this marriage is our good ol' naive Naomi who is just ready to befriend Angelique and drown her in gifts when Joshua is ready to wipe the floor with her. Honestly, I wouldn't wanna be on bad terms with a witch. Unless I'm a  zombie-ghost, who by the way tried his best to literally blood up this marriage.

Trask looks like a vampire
than Barnabas ever did.

Finally let me say a few things about that Reverend Trask (his 1967 counterpart is that film noirish lawyer. I actually forgot his name. Lemme check from the previous posts. Anthony "Tony" Peterson. Umm ok.). He is loud, pretentious, self-proclaimed and having taken part in the Salem Trials, a sodding sexist as well. Almost nobody buys his act but that fanatic Abigail. I kinda cheered when Vicki slapped the man on the face with her almost 200 year old young feminism. Too bad, he has her now. What kind of a witch trial he'll put her through, I shall see~ 

It seems to be up to Barnabas to figure out Angelique is the witch. He's already suspecting and he will do it if he can get over the "but how can my wife be a witch!!" phase. C'mon it's not like she's your wife of 29 years, I bet you didn't even do it yet! ;)


With demonic love~