“Episode 5.” Dark Shadows. ABC. Various stations. 1 July 1966.
It’s finally morning as Carolyn enters Victoria’s room. Victoria is leaving, mostly due to the weirdness of the whole area, but Carolyn implores her to stay, at least long enough for a cup of coffee. While the two young ladies go downstairs, David, who has been eavesdropping, slips into Victoria’s room.
He calls out to his mother before he violently attacks Victoria’s luggage. Down in the breakfast nook, Victoria and Carolyn chat. Victoria makes it clear she wants nothing more to do with the job or the area. Carolyn protests, but Victoria makes it clear David and Roger’s actions have convinced her to leave. She also mentions the sobbing she heard, something that takes Carolyn by surprise. She swears she heard nothing.
Roger enters the room. He’s happy, but kind of forced. He apologizes for his actions the previous night and starts to leave when Victoria mentions the crying. Judging from Roger’s expression and the background music, Roger knows the source of the noise. He swears it was Victoria dreaming, nothing more.
Back in Victoria’s room, David is rifling through Victoria’s clothes and drawers. Downstairs, Victoria reads a letter from the orphanage and makes it clear she’s going back to New York. Carolyn grows more agitated at the idea of Victoria leaving. Victoria points out that it was Carolyn who insisted she leave.
Carolyn swears she was kidding, and expresses envy at Victoria’s freedom of movement. Victoria points out that while Carolyn may have a weird family, at least she has one. We get into Victoria’s background some more.
She was a foundling, abandoned at the doorstep of an orphanage. She only had a note with her first name on it. From there, the orphanage received fifty dollars a month every month from the time she was two until she turned sixteen. The only clue to the sender’s address was a Bangor, Maine postmark. Noting that Collinsport is only fifty miles from Bangor, it seems the chief reason Victoria took the job was to discover where she came from.
Back in Victoria’s room, David is continuing to rummage through her things. Victoria herself is walking along the stretch of cliffs known as Widow’s Hill when a strange appears behind her and implores her to return to New York.
Victoria, at this point annoyed, asks the man who he is. The man rambles for a bit before telling her to tell Roger of his appearance and no one else. The man, calling himself Sam, then rambles on a bit about Josette Collins. Josette, the bride of Jeremiah Collins, committed suicide on the same spot where Victoria is standing and her ghost continues to cry to this day. He also imparts some more info about the Collins family.
Victoria promptly tells Sam that he’s crazy and heads back to the house. Confronting Carolyn, they talk about her mother. It seems the reason that Elizabeth hasn’t left the house in eighteen years is that Carolyn’s father ran out on them. Carolyn explodes at Victoria, but later runs after her. All this talk has sparked an idea: what if Carolyn’s father is also Victoria’s father? After all, he left eighteen years ago and that’s when the money started. Even Victoria admits this is stretch.
Finally entering her room, she sees David’s handiwork. David jumps out from behind a curtain, mockingly reading the note that was left with her. He gives it back to her, but only after crumpling it up first. He angrily tells her “the Widows” ordered him to do that and adds that no one listens to him. A little while later, Victoria tells her Carolyn she is going to stay.
Seriously, can no in this town ever get to the point? After all that build up we finally see David, and the term brat doesn’t seem adequate. Theories are brought up, although at this point they just that.
Questions raised: Who are the Widows? Who is Sam?