#desmond possessing a doll
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In the enchanted realm of the fae, where magic danced through every leaf and blossom, there lived a gentle and whimsical fae. With her iridescent wings shimmering in the sunlight, the fae possessed a gift for words, her thoughts flowing like a babbling brook.
One serene morning, as the fae sat beneath a sprawling oak tree, she felt an overwhelming desire to connect with distant lands and kindred spirits beyond her realm. Inspired by the fluttering butterflies and the whispers of the wind, she decided to write a letter, pouring her ethereal essence onto the delicate parchment.
The fae's letter was a tapestry of dreams, enchantment, and heartfelt wishes. It carried the magic of the fae and the essence of her longing to connect with others. With great care, she folded the letter and sealed it with a single silver dewdrop, a symbol of her hope and longing.
Now, she needed a trusted courier who could carry her precious message to a distant post office, a place where it would begin its journey to lands far beyond her reach. She sought out a nimble and dependable squirrel, known for his quick feet and unwavering dedication.
The squirrel, with his bushy tail and bright eyes, listened intently to the fae's request. He understood the importance of her letter, and he agreed to take on the role of the courier, knowing that his mission would carry the hopes and dreams of the fae to distant realms.
With the letter securely tucked away in a small pouch tied around his neck, the pair set off on their adventure. The squirrel skillfully navigated the forest, his paws swiftly carrying him through thick undergrowth and across babbling brooks.
Days turned into weeks as he ventured into unfamiliar lands, following winding paths and crossing expansive meadows. He encountered towering mountains and serene valleys, each landscape more breathtaking than the last. Along the way, he encountered other creatures, each one marveling at the magical letter he carried.
Finally, the squirrel arrived at a bustling post office in a distant land, a place where letters from far and wide converged. With a confident smile and a sense of accomplishment, he handed the fae's letter to the diligent postal workers, explaining its importance and the enchantment it carried.
The postal workers, recognizing the significance of her letter, handled it with reverence and care. They pledged to ensure its safe delivery, knowing that it held the dreams and aspirations of the fae. With their assistance, the letter would soon embark on its journey, traversing lands and oceans to reach its destined recipient.
As the squirrel bid farewell to the post office, a feeling of fulfillment filled his tiny heart. He had played a part in connecting distant souls, weaving threads of magic and kinship across realms. With a sense of pride, he returned to the fae, sharing tales of his adventures and the joy it brought him to deliver.
Curious the squirrel asked what was written and the fae replied: "Desmond becomes a ghost after the solar flare and gets sent back in time with a doll for some reason and because he's becoming unstable possesses the doll so now everyone thinks the doll is haunted by a demon because of all the pranks he did, and no matter what they do to destroy it, he always comes back unscathed. (he just fixes the doll lol)"
Their small town only had him as the courier and, most of the time, he would receive packages sent by the children (well they were adults now) who left their peaceful little town.
Then the alchemist arrived and set up their little atelier on a small hill next to the town. And the packages and messages meant for their little town grew.
He didn’t mind.
The alchemist usually kept to themselves but, if he timed his delivery well, the alchemist will give him tea and maybe some sweets as he waits for the daily mails the alchemist always requested to be delivered.
He especially liked the tea the alchemist made using moonflowers from the nearby lake early this year. They were small white flowers that only bloomed during night time and would wither once the sun was up. He didn’t even know how the alchemist could have dried the leaves before it withered but, considering no one in town really knew how alchemy worked, well… he supposed the alchemist was able to make tea leaves out of moonflowers thanks to alchemy.
He had finished delivering today’s mails so he was on his way to get the packages the villagers wished to send out. As usual, his cart was pretty much empty as he slowly made his way to the atelier.
The sun was just about to set when he reached the atelier and he stopped when he saw the clay golem take water from the well before it entered the atelier while the alchemist watched it with that little frown of theirs that usually meant they were thinking of something that needs to be optimized or another.
“That one ‘bout ready to be shipped then?” He asked curiously, having seen the clay golem walking around the atelier a week or so now.
“Not yet. Still have to rebuild it.” The alchemist answered as they turned to face him, “Come on in. I’m still finishing my last request for the day. I made tea.”
The courier perked up.
He hoped it was moonflower tea but he wouldn’t mind if it was the usual hibiscus tea that the alchemist seemed to prefer. He placed his empty cart out of the way so it wouldn’t block the road.
Even though he was pretty sure that he was the only one who used this road anyway.
He entered the small atelier and looked around. It looked the same as usual. That device that the alchemist calls an ‘item rebuilt’ device held some kind of wood carving of an eagle of some kind. He had probably seen the alchemist request him to peddle similar carvings to the Archives about 24 times now. And it seemed he would be peddling another one next week as well.
He sat on the small dining table and waited as the alchemist poured him a cup of tea.
The last time he tried to pour himself a cup, the teapot bit his finger, so he decided to not touch anything unless the alchemist handed it to him.
His face brightened when he smelled moonflowers and asked, “Made another batch?”
“Just a small one.” The alchemist replied with a shrug, “Figured I’d treat myself.”
They were about to say something but the small cauldron let out a poof of colorful smoke and they said instead, “Take your time. I’ll just prepare the daily mails now.”
The courier nodded as he took a sip of the moonflower tea, watching the alchemist take out what seemed to be some kind of doll out of the small cauldron.
Huh.
He wondered what the story behind that one would be this time.
============== Actual Answer to the Ask ==============
… so… before anything else, I did base the idea of an alchemist working on an atelier from the Atelier series (because I was playing Ryza when I first got your ask) and they have this reoccurring character named Pamela who is actually a ghost… that haunts a teddy bear… Because of how we set up this ask and answer portion, I am immediately thinking of Desmond as Pamela which is funny because Pamela usually looks like these:
So now I’m just imagining Desmond as a ghost wearing an Assassin outfit that feels more gothic and fluffy? Like a mix of Ezio’s mentor robes and Evie’s Master Assassin robes but more flowy so his clothes would float whenever he appears like an actual ghost.
My initial idea was to keep the doll as a white teddy bear with a red ribbon the same color as Altaïr’s sash but let’s up the creepy factor. The doll looks exactly like Desmond in his ghost outfit but seemed to be made of fabric instead of porcelain or wood. It’s super weird because this doll? It never gets dirty. No matter where it’s been thrown or even when it was thrown in a fire, the damn thing still stays as pristine as always regardless of what happens to it.
Now, since we sent Desmond back in time, this does mean that we have an option of Desmond either haunting the Templars or the Assassins.
Honestly?
I think it would be funny if Desmond is haunting the Assassins XD
Altaïr:
Umar actually finds the doll in one of the bureaus, slumped over and looking quite pathetic. When he asks where the doll came from, no one can answer him and the Rafiq guessed one of the novices bought it for a girl or something but he got rejected. Sounds convoluted for Umar but if no one’s claiming it, can he take it? The Rafiq goes sure and Umar gives the doll to Altaïr as a sorta present as well as an apology because he couldn’t get Altaïr any other toy. Altaïr loves it because it’s so soft and pretty.
When Umar dies, Altaïr hugs the doll as he cries himself to sleep and he feels a gentle hand caress his hair. He falls asleep feeling a warm presence that he thought might be Umar.
When Ahmad tried to open the door to Altaïr’s room to ask forgiveness, he is unable to do anything because he felt a cold presence in the room, glaring down at him. The force is so strong that he lost all strength and fell on his knees crying as he begged forgiveness from Umar’s ghost. He still kills himself but his crying caused enough noise that nearby Assassins went to check it out and saw him do it.
The shouting coming outside woke Altaïr up but he hears a voice tell him to go back to sleep so he does.
Altaïr only heard the rumors that Ahmad had killed himself in front of their room but he didn’t actually see it. Al Mualim was never able to snuff out that rumor and Abbas hears of it as a child as well. This only made him hate Altaïr because he believes his father dying is Altaïr’s fault. (Which is really him being unable to cope with his father’s death and his father’s decision to die instead of living to stay with his son)
The doll stays in Altaïr’s room and Abbas likes to insult Altaïr for having it but Altaïr ignores him which only angers Abbas.
Assassins patrolling at night swears they see a ghostly apparition floating around. Altaïr’s floor has the most sighting but the mentor’s offices seemed to be the ones to have the most activity.
Mostly… everything looked off? Nothing is missing at all but it all looks off.
Desmond has been slowly moving everything an inch to the left.
Ezio:
Ezio finds the doll in the Sanctuary, slumped down near the bars of Altaïr’s statue. He tried to give it to Claudia who glared at him as she asked if Ezio remembered how old she was right now. Ezio just backed away from the room and made a tactical retreat.
In the end, he leaves the doll next to Petruccio’s box of feathers and asked the doll to keep his mother company.
The maids start hearing whispers coming from Maria Auditore’s room but they assumed it was the madame talking to herself.
Which only worried Claudia even more so she keeps an ear out for it.
When she heard the whispers, she runs as fast as she can to her mother’s room because she swears she heard two voices.
When she gets there, it’s only Maria Auditore in the room, holding the doll in her hands as she tells it stories about her children when they were young. Claudia doublechecks the room but there’s nothing there.
The next time Ezio returns to the Villa, Claudia tells him that his gift was slightly helping their mother. She was talking now but she… she keeps talking to the doll like it was a real person. She talks to everyone else but she keeps insisting on having afternoon tea with the doll and the maids are ordered to give the doll a teacup as well.
Mario thinks that this is some kind of coping mechanism for Maria. That she might have had a similar looking doll as a child and her broken mind had latched on to it. Right now, it was safer to let Maria do as she likes. If she starts doing something dangerous, that’s when they should take the doll. Otherwise, they risk breaking Maria even further if they take the doll now.
When Ezio visits Maria, Maria smiles at him and tells him to join their tea party. “Oh, Ezio, come join us. Desmond always love hearing stories about you.”
After Ezio’s meeting with Minerva, he wonders… if his mother knew who this ‘Desmond’ was…
Ratonhnhaké:ton:
Ratonhnhaké:ton finds the doll underneath the bed of the room Achilles gave him in the homestead. By then, he knew Achilles had a child who died and assumed that the doll was the child’s. He placed it inside a drawer he wasn’t using before leaving.
When he returns to the manor, the doll was sitting on top of the small bedside table in Ratonhnhaké:ton’s room and Ratonhnhaké:ton just assumed Achilles placed it there. He ignored it because he knows how much of a sore subject the death of his family is. He didn’t even realize that Achilles would have never entered his room without permission.
Achilles is the one who ‘feels’ Desmond the most. Mostly, he would see a ghostly figure leave the manor or enter it, hearing the creaking of the floorboard and even the ceiling.
He ignores all of it because… he actually believes it’s the ghost of one of his apprentices. With the small glimpses he saw of it, he believes it might be Hope and he believes this is another punishment.
Desmond doesn’t really play pranks on Achilles unless Ratonhnhaké:ton leaves the homestead after he has an argument with Achilles.
Because of this, Achilles believes that Hope is chastising him for being too hard on Ratonhnhaké:ton.
Desmond has noooo idea who Hope is but it makes Achilles more open to his ‘suggestions’ so… well… it might sound bad but he doesn’t mind pretending to be another ghost.
Achilles and Desmond usually play chess but Desmond only moves his pieces when there’s no one around.
The people of the homestead believe that the manor has a ghost living in it but it’s a benevolent one.
Other possible haunting locations:
The captain cabin of Aquila, Jackdaw and Morrigan (the doll was already there when they got the ships)
The train hideout in London
Café Théâtre in Paris
If you want ghost!Desmond to haunt the Farm, child!Desmond could find it under his bed
(ngl, this made me both think about my idea for a fanfic where Desmond is an alchemist with the setting of an Atelier game AND gave me an idea of Desmond actually replacing Pamela as the doll ghost when he gets kicked into one of the Atelier games… I wanna go for the Dusk Trilogy since she didn’t appear there at all and I think he’ll be a good friend to Ayesha. Plus, Atelier games are such chill games it would be a vacation for Desmond.)
#desmond as a ghost#desmond possessing a doll#desmond as pamela au#idk#sorta???#ask and answer#assassin's creed#desmond miles#altaïr ibn la'ahad#ezio auditore#ratonhnhaké:ton#connor kenway#teecup writes/has a plot#fic idea: assassin's creed
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watched legends of tomorrow 4.07 and 4.08. oh constantine youve really done it this time! i can see how some fans may have been irritated by the way constantine overwhelms these two episodes but i didn’t mind. who doesn’t love a tragic gay love story? as much as legends likes to portray constantine’s bisexuality in a humorous way, it’s also capable of taking his romances with men seriously and i appreciate that. also sidenote i am a whole lesbian but even i noticed that desmond was really handsome....good job constantine. i like how the episode sort of fakes you out at the beginning by implying (through meta jokes, of course) that constantine’s stuff will be the b plot when it actually turns out to be the a plot. not that i minded the b plot of everyone being attacked by a possessed doll and then puppet. so fun how sara gets to put her horror movie knowledge to the test.
from what i know of constantine in the comics, his character is fundamentally not an optimistic one, and the stories he is used to tell are not optimistic. but it feels like legends is putting a more hopeful spin on the character. i definitely don’t mind that, i think it works for the show and for this iteration of constantine. i am such a sucker for characters who are filled with regret and self-loathing but with the help of their friends find that they are not doomed to misery after all. i’m sure constantine will be put through the wringer more times this season but i get the sense that things will turn out okay for him in the end and i love that for him.
seems like this season’s big bad is demon desmond which rules. i love how personal it is for constantine. these 2 episodes do a great job of making it personal, so that when the two characters clash later on it will feel that much more heartbreaking. i wonder how the other legends will deal with having to fight constantine’s doomed ex-boyfriend.....ohhhh man i hope ava tries to take the pragmatic cynical approach and send him to hell and it sows conflict between her and sara. i need constantine and ava on opposite sides of an ideological conflict so bad.
speaking of ava i like her :) but you know that already. i liked the part where she said she liked sleeping next to sara, i was like wtf that’s adorable ;-; i thought it was sweet how sara really wanted ava and mick to get along. i think that subplot could have been handled better though. not a huge fan of ava as the uptight lesbian feminist who eventually learns that sexism can be fun actually. i know i would have written it differently. i think it was a mistake to have ava criticize mick’s misogyny, because that’s a quality of his that is really hard to excuse! would have been more fun (imo) to have her just be disgusted with his coarse habits and bad manners. the part at the end of 4.08 where ava said mick’s female characters were written in a sexist way but were so fun to read bugged me so much. sexist writing isn’t fun to read, which is something i’m sure the legends writers are aware of. i don’t like how this pushes the idea that not being offensive makes things less fun.
4.08 was a great showcase for charlie, and a very necessary one too. i like that the episode deals with the personal ramifications of charlie having her shapeshifting taken away. i was a bit annoyed initially how constantine took away her shapeshifting and nobody really treated it like a big deal, even though that’s incredibly invasive and life-changing for charlie. so i liked how this episode emphasized that shapeshifting was a big part of charlie’s identity and showed how she would do anything to get it back. though by the end of the episode charlie is once again unable to shapeshift, i’m much more comfortable with that now that the issue has been properly explored. i really like how she is fitting on the team now, although something about her whole deal feels tragic and i’m afraid she’ll eventually die by sacrificing herself to save the legends a la snart. but putting that aside i was so so happy to see her trying to mend bridges with zari and then even perhaps flirting with her......i want charlie to be gay so bad you have no idea.
the various timeline resets were so so funny. my favorite was of course the fake charlie’s angels one. lezploitation to the max! the puppets were pretty amazing too. and zari cat! the scene where constantine is miserably telling zari cat of his woes and she is just being a little kitty cat. perfect cinema. reminded me of that bombshells comic where zatanna came across constantine who had been tranformed into a little bunny. legends always does great with the silly stuff and this episode was no exception.
oh i forgot about mona....the stuff with her and the hairy monster guy was genuinely sweet and i am excited to see where it goes :) i feel bad for poor gary though. it’s ok gary someday you will find a girl or boy who cares for you
#legends of tomorrow#legends constantine#ava sharpe#sara lance#no tag for charlie yet :( we will see#<-- maybe that will be my tag for her lol#zari tomaz#syl posts
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A recent YouTube video on Haitian Vodou (”Voodoo”) from a channel I follow, detailing the history of the religion and debunking some common myths. Over the past year, I’ve been doing some research from various books and online sources about the religions collectively known in pop culture as “voodoo” with the intention of writing a series of blog posts investigating what Strange Paradise got right about Vodou, what it got wrong, and what things the show just flat-out made up and hoped that 1969 audiences wouldn’t notice. There will be a lot to cover (and probably a lot that I won’t be able to cover), but it’s a topic I want to explore in depth.
For now, however, I want to share some notes on some interesting points in the video that are relevant to this blog:
Although both are derived from the same sources (cultural influences from along Africa’s Atlantic coast--the regions where enslaved Africans were taken--and Catholicism) and involve similar beliefs and practices, Haitian Vodou and New Orleans Voodoo are two distinct religions. Nowadays, “Voodoo” is the correct term only for the variety that developed in New Orleans.[1]
Contrary to the popular stereotype, voodoo dolls are uncommon and not central to the religion. (I hope that the channel explores this topic more in future videos, especially if they do one on New Orleans Voodoo.)
Most Haitian Vodou practitioners believe in one supreme god (BonDyè in Haitian Creole, derived from the French Bon Dieu). The lwa play a role similar to Catholic saints and are frequently syncretized with them: for instance, Damballah (the Serpent) with St. Patrick.[2]
Possession is central to Vodou rituals, but is NOT considered a bad thing. During the ceremony, the priest or priestess enters a trance and invites a lwa to possess or “mount” them (as in ride their body like a horse, a commonly used metaphor) for the duration of the ceremony.[3]
Animal offerings are also central to many of its ceremonies, but frequently misunderstood. Dr. Kyrah Malika Daniels, the professor and scholar of African diaspora religions interviewed in the video, compares the use of animal offerings in Vodou to the serving of food at weddings and holiday gatherings in other cultures. During the ceremony, the participants consume the flesh of the animal after it has been presented to the lwa as an offering and blessed.
Although it's unclear whether the Serpent in Desmond Hall Arc I is meant to be the same being as the Serpent God from the Maljardin arc, the "serpent servant" thing is not accurate to the worship of Damballah or any other serpent lwa. Followers of Vodou believe in a reciprocal relationship between themselves and the spirits--where the lwa grant them protection in return for offerings--instead of a fundamentally one-sided relationship of master and servant. (This is understandable for enslaved people and their descendants seeking solace in their religion.)
DISCLAIMER: I am not a scholar in religious studies, nor am I an expert on Vodou or a Vodou practitioner myself. Everything that I know about Vodou and other African-diaspora religions comes from informal research done in my spare time. While I acknowledge that I may have made some mistakes, I have tried to represent the information on these religions as fairly, accurately, and respectfully as possible based on what I have encountered so far in my research.
Notes
[1] Conjure, also known as Hoodoo and Rootwork, is another African-derived magical practice that evolved in the Southeastern United States. Although Conjure is not mentioned in the video, I thought I would mention it here in a side note because SP tends to incorrectly use the terms “Conjure” and “Voodoo” interchangeably when referring to the religion practiced on Maljardin and the surrounding islands. Here is a fascinating article on Conjure and its impact on American history.
[2] As I noted in my review of Episode 23 of Strange Paradise, Damballah is also sometimes syncretized with Mesoamerican feathered serpent gods like Quetzalcoatl in the present day (albeit typically by followers of traditions other than Vodou). Although described as a voodoo priestess, the character Raxl, who comes from an unnamed indigenous tribe related to the Aztecs, refers to the Serpent God she worships as the Aztec god Quetzalcoatl.
[3] Milo Rigaud’s Secrets of Voodoo describes these ceremonies in more detail, including the behavior of different lwa when riding their “horses.” Although I highly doubt that there’s a direct link, I think of "mounting" as akin to the ancient Greek practice of communicating with the gods through oracles, rather than the Christian concept of demonic possession.
#links#videos#strange paradise#historical context#cultural context#vodou#sp and religion#sp and 'voodoo'#sp vs real life#great serpent#religion for breakfast
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I’m doing it folks, I wrote the whole first chapter of my new Sanders Sides fic today and wowie I’m hyped about it
Title: The Kingdom at the End of the World
Genre: AU; fantasy; adventure
**Pairings: **eventual Prinxiety, Logicality, and Dukeceit
**Warnings: **Uhhh… peril/suspense, death mention, anxiety, nightmare mention, and I think that’s it?
Chapter 1: Fated Meetings
Once upon a time, there was a kingdom at the edge of the world.
Nobody knew how it got there, or how it was even possible; it simply was. And it always had been. And it always would be.
It was the land of impossibles; of wintry blizzards in the middle of summer that lasted an hour before vanishing, of earthquakes that wiped out entire houses only to have the ground seal itself up instantly, of kisses that could cure death one day and bring it about the next.
Every dawn of a new day was the potential for a new disaster; every night the potential for a new miracle. The sun would break over the hills that marked the border of the kingdom (and thus, of course, the border of existence) and the people would sharpen their blades, rebuild their fences and patch their roofs, and prepare for another day of unknowables. For everything, of course, was random, and nobody could possibly guess what the kingdom that had no business existing would throw at them.
Except for one small group of friends who almost never met. And truth be told, this is really their story.
Once upon a time, there lived a reluctant oracle, a determined researcher, a kindhearted gardener, a would-be hero and his twin brother, and a lone shapeshifter. But none of them started out that way, of course. Or perhaps they did. Either way, back when the chaos wasn’t quite so chaotic, when the unpredictables were just a little more predictable, they were children.
And that’s where the story begins.
The old torn sheet that served as a makeshift cape flapped behind Roman as he chased after his brother, panting heavily. He lunged, but miscalculated his landing step and fell headlong onto the grass, nearly earning a faceful of dirt. Remus cackled and dodged Roman’s outstretched hand by inches once again, then disappeared over the hill.
The game, one they had played many times before, was simple: Remus would swipe an object– usually of middling importance– from his twin’s side of their bedroom, then both would don their capes and wooden swords as the game of cat and mouse ensued. They only had one rule: Never get caught. It was an unspoken promise that the game was theirs and theirs alone, and as long as they stayed within the area and neither got seriously hurt, nobody else needed to know. Sometimes if they were unable to play out of others’ view, the game wouldn’t end for days, which delighted Remus and frustrated Roman beyond words.
It wasn’t often that they left the boundaries of their own yard and the visible stretch of dirt road beyond. But this particular chase was of heightened importance. The small homemade doll that Remus gripped in his grubby hands was Roman’s most prized possession. It was a fairly plain thing– white cloth face with clumsily stitched-on black eyes and a small half-smile, dark brown yarn for hair, black clothes, and a crookedly sewn purple cape. Its right hand held a shield fashioned out of a scrap of wood. It had taken Roman over two weeks of painstaking work to make the doll, and although he had made dozens of other little cloth people before and since then, nothing filled him with pride like his little knight. Remus didn’t know this, but if it came down to it, Roman was prepared to take drastic measures to get his companion back. He brushed off his dirty hands and knees and sprinted to catch up.
They raced down the hill with the early morning sun glaring in their eyes. It was the best time of day to play, when only the farmers and their animals were awake. The boys could shout their taunts and battle cries without any fear of being seen or heard.
Truly, this was the way they’d spend the rest of their lives if they could. And when Remus finally stumbled over a hidden divot in the ground and lost his balance, giving his twin just enough gain to catch him by the cape and retrieve the treasured knight doll, Roman felt a rush of warm pride and selflessness that he couldn’t explain. He felt a little silly– it was just a doll, after all– but he knew that he was happy. And this was the way he always wanted to be.
*********************
The sun was just barely up, but Desmond didn’t want to wait any longer to open his window. It had been getting colder and colder. Soon the snow would come and he wouldn’t be able to open it at all. Not that there would be any reason to; the winter before, the two boys had only run by a handful of times. The rest of the days had been as quiet and cold as the snow itself.
But this year would be different, of course– although he wasn’t sure if that made it better. More interesting, maybe, but he was so used to being alone that the idea of having to share a room with his cousin for the entire winter made him cringe.
He glanced over at the smaller boy, who appeared to still be asleep in the other bed. Dee hated to admit it, but they probably had more in common than they did differences. Ten months made quite the difference physically– he was a few inches taller, with wavy golden-brown hair and… well, they didn’t really talk about the left side of his face.
In contrast, his younger cousin was scrawny with dark brown hair and eyes, and unmarked pale skin. Despite all that, though, they were both quiet and solitary, each happy to retreat to his own corner of the room when the night came.
Dee gripped the handle of the window, grimacing when it stuck from the cold and opened with a loud creak. He held his breath and froze while the sheets across the room shifted, then relaxed again when the noise stopped. Slowly, he pried the window open the rest of the way and stuck his head out, leaning as far as he dared.
It was quiet for several long minutes save the sound of a few barn animals in the distance. In the year and a half he’d been observing this little piece of the Edge from his window, Desmond’s hearing had grown sharp and acute, able to pinpoint faraway sounds with a fair amount of accuracy. Not that it had much use in the real world, but it was handy to be able to know when someone was on their way up the stairs so he could close the window and pretend to be reading– something he’d done plenty of times. It wasn’t that he was afraid of being caught; it was just the idea of having to explain_ why _watching those two boys was so important to him. He didn’t even fully understand it himself, but the moments in the day when he saw them run by, when he could pretend for just a minute that he was part of whatever game they were playing– that made everything okay.
It was cold enough that he could see the sparkling frost on the fields, but just as he began to worry that they wouldn’t show up after all, he heard a wild laugh in the distance. A grin broke out across his entire face– a rare occurrence since he usually tried to smile only on one side or the other. He watched, entranced, as the messy-haired boy in the green scarf came sprinting over the hill, arms flailing as he hollered triumphantly. After a moment, his twin in the red scarf came scrambling over the top of the hill as well, charging with more determination than Desmond had seen from him before.
“Don’t you want a blanket?”
Desmond jumped back in surprise, hitting his head on the window frame. “Ow!” he cried out, face turning bright red. “Jeez, Virgil! Don’t sneak up on me!”
His cousin shrunk backwards, wincing. “S-sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you. I’m sorry.”
“You didn’t scare me,” he huffed, quickly turning back to the window to make sure neither of the boys had heard his outburst. Thankfully, it seemed they were too absorbed in their game to notice anything else. “And no, I don’t want a blanket. If you’re cold, get back into bed. I’ll close the window in a minute.”
Virgil didn’t say anything to that, but he stepped closer to the window. “What are you looking at?” he asked quietly. He seemed to understand that Dee’s hostility was just defensiveness. Because he was protecting something important.
Virgil knew how that felt. He didn’t receive a response, but his cousin shifted over slightly, just enough to allow room for one more observer at the window. They both watched in silence as the twin boys dressed in homemade capes chased each other over the golden fields.
*********************
“You know what would be good?” Roman said aloud after making sure that his little cloth knight was safely secure under his pillow once again.
“No, what?” Remus asked, hanging upside down on his bed. His shoes sprayed dirt and grass across the quilt as he kicked his feet.
Roman paused before answering, something he did when he had to deliver something of great importance. “If I had a real knight to go on adventures and rescue people with. That would be the best.”
Remus stopped kicking momentarily. “Hey, what about me? I can do that stuff.”
“You never _want _to rescue anybody,” Roman explained exasperatedly. “I need, um… you know, a squire.”
“Well then that’s not fair,” Remus pouted. “If you get to have a sidekick, I want one too. And he’d be way cooler than a knight. He’d be a dragon.”
Roman snorted. “Sure. Where are you gonna find a dragon? At least knights are real.”
To his surprise, Remus tumbled off the bed in a backwards somersault and glared at him as he landed. “Dragons are real too, dork-face. And I bet I’ll find one before you ever find your knight. And your stupid doll doesn’t count.”
Roman’s cheeks flared pink. “He’s not stupid!” he shouted, reflexively reaching under his pillow and pulling out the doll to cradle it protectively. “And if you ever touch him again, I’m telling.”
Remus gawked at his brother in silence. Neither of them had ever threatened to reveal their game before– as petty as it might have been, it was theirs. “If you do that, I’m gonna…” He glanced around the room, looking for something adequate to destroy. “I’ll just- I’ll smash the whole house!” he spat out before storming out of the room, slamming the door behind him.
Stunned, Roman wondered if he should follow his brother, if he’d gone too far, if he was really as much of a good guy as he imagined himself to be. Thoughts ran through his head until his eyes burned with tears and he fell back onto his pillow, hugging his knight doll tightly.
*********************
Logan had had enough. He couldn’t stand to watch the boy try to water the frozen ground for one more minute. He set his book down, carefully marking his page, and hopped down from the chair he’d been perched in for the last hour or so. He’d been trying to read, but somehow kept getting distracted by the curly-haired, clueless boy outside the window.
He opened the door to the library, frowning at the chilly air, and shuffled over towards the cottage next door. There stood a boy about nine years old– his age– wearing a pair of gardening gloves and holding a watering can in one hand. On one of the latest days of autumn. When there was frost on the ground and fog on the windows.
“Hello,” he greeted the boy, wondering how he was going to break it to him that his efforts were in vain.
The boy, noticing Logan at last, broke into a sunny smile. “Oh, it’s you! I see you at the library all the time, but you always looked busy. I didn’t want to bother you.” He removed his dirty gloves and offered his hand. “I’m Patton, nice to meet you.”
Logan blinked, taken aback by the verbose greeting. “Um. Well. I’m Logan,” he said, shaking the cheerful boy’s hand hesitantly. “Listen, I came over here because I noticed you were trying to water something…”
Patton nodded. “Mm-hm. I’ve been planting different things every season and seeing which ones grow. Most of them don’t, but sometimes they turn out really beautiful.” He pointed to a vibrant cluster of golden-orange flowers that were partially hidden behind a larger bush. And indeed, they were beautiful.
Well, this wasn’t what Logan had expected at all. In fact, he was left at a loss for words. The boy he’d assumed was naïve enough to be planting seeds in a frost-bitten ground was actually… well, okay, that was still what he was doing, but he seemed to know that it wouldn’t work most of the time. And he _must _have known a thing or two about plants if the small patches of resilient flowers were any indication. It was almost scientific, in a way. Like an experiment. Maybe not as organized as Logan would have done it, but still… well, he _hadn’t _done it, had he?
He felt slightly awkward and ashamed for having approached the strange boy, so he just nodded and prepared to excuse himself, but before he could say anything, Patton was talking again.
“It’s getting cold out, though. Do you want to come inside? We have tea and cookies.” A slight blush was forming on the tip of his nose and cheeks, but whether it was from the cold wind or his excitement to have found a potential new friend was hard to tell.
Logan’s mouth opened to decline, but he reconsidered. He couldn’t go home yet, after all; nobody would be there. So it was either stay in the drafty library and read quietly or go with this oddly kind boy into a warm house with food.
“I guess I can come in for a little while,” he reasoned aloud, mostly trying to convince himself. He offered a small smile, wondering if he wasn’t making a completely illogical error by accepting this new person into his life.
*********************
Desmond didn’t know what made him look up from his book right then. If he hadn’t, he wouldn’t have let his eyes wander out the window even though it was the middle of the day. Nobody was ever out on the fields behind his house in the middle of the day, except the occasional herder. He’d made it a habit to avoid looking outside between mid-morning and late afternoon, because he knew it would only lead to longing and loneliness.
But for whatever reason, he looked out and saw someone indeed. His heart jumped when he realized that it was one of the twins– the wild one with the green scarf, whom he’d always harbored a fascination for. He was so caught up in watching him run that it took him a moment to realize what was wrong. Where was the other boy? He had never once seen them apart, ever. And it was always the boy in green chasing the boy in red, never the other way around.
So he really was alone then. But why?
Virgil noticed his cousin staring out the window. He saw the look of confusion and concern on his face and wondered if he should stay out of it, but Dee gestured for him to come over.
“What’s wrong?” Virgil asked.
“Nothing. I mean, I don’t know,” Dee said. “I’m trying to figure it out.”
The younger boy was quiet for some time, and when he spoke up, it surprised them both. “He’s running away from something.”
That was the thought Dee had been avoiding, and it made him frown deeper. “You think so?” he asked quietly. “What would he be running from? He’s not afraid of anything.” He was talking more to himself than to his cousin, but when he glanced over for confirmation, he noticed that Virgil’s face was even paler and more troubled-looking than usual.
“I was awake even earlier than you this morning,” he confessed, looking at his hands and fidgeting anxiously.
“So? What does that have to do with anything?” Dee said impatiently.
Virgil didn’t look up as he blurted out: “I had a nightmare. I’ve been having a lot lately, actually. That’s part of why I’m staying here, you know. To see if I can get them controlled. Or something.”
Dee stared at the dark-haired, trembling boy. “What kind of nightmares?” he asked at last.
Virgil shook his head. “Things… things that happen. Sometimes bad things, sometimes weird things. Sometimes they happen the next day, sometimes the next week, sometimes they never happen at all.”
“What are you saying, Virgil?” Dee asked, more calmly this time. “So you have visions of things happening before they happen?” When the other boy nodded, he pressed on: “And last night, you saw something happening today?”
“No… I don’t know!” Virgil looked to be on the edge of tears now. “It’s never in the same order. Once, I dreamed about this giant bird that came down and wiped out an entire farm. And that happened, remember?” Dee remembered. “But before that, there was the tidal wave that opened the pit in the sand. And I dreamed of that too, but that was even longer ago. Sometimes I forget the dreams until the day they happen, and then it’s too late.”
As they waited for the information to sink in, both boys continued to stare out the window, watching the lone twin pause to catch his breath. His back was facing the hill he had just descended from, so he didn’t see the flare of fire that shot out from behind it, nor the smoky-looking black dragon that peered over, looking for prey.
At first neither Virgil nor Desmond could move. Time seemed to halt as they stared at the beast, at the black fog-like aura it produced, at the boy at the bottom of the hill who was certainly no match for a dragon. Nor were the other two boys. Nor was their house; although if the dragon was satisfied with just one prey, there was a chance it would go home without destroying any houses. Staying inside gave them a chance, while leaving would… well, if it didn’t kill them, it would change everything. Desmond knew that in his heart, as sure as he knew the sun would rise.
“There’s a big vine on the side of the house,” he said quickly and decisively, shoving open the window. “We can climb out and slide down; it’ll be faster.”
Virgil looked at him, open-mouthed. He nodded, swallowing his terror, following his cousin out the window and down to the ground below.
They were in full view of everything now– “everything” being the boy whose green scarf had fallen off, and the dragon in pursuit, but that was more than enough– and Desmond hadn’t been this exposed to the world in so long that he’d forgotten how utterly terrifying it was, dragon or no dragon.
The left side of his face, covered in scale-like marks and ridges, had once matched the right. Two years prior, it had begun to change for no reason. None at all. The more his parents had fussed over it, the more people had stared, the more he’d hidden himself from the world… nothing had made a difference either way. His left iris had shifted from a dark brown to a sickly yellow, like a reptile’s.
He’d grown used to it; even though he’d long since gotten rid of the mirror in his room, he’d still catch glimpses of himself in the glass of the window. And he could accept that this was how he’d always be.
But oh, he’d forgotten how it must look to a person who’d never seen him before. And judging from the look on the wild twin’s face, Desmond’s half-reptilian face was a new and unexpected sight.
But that didn’t matter now. It didn’t matter that he’d never be able to watch the twins again– if they even wanted to run through the fields near his house now that they knew he lived there. It didn’t matter that any small remaining dreams he’d had of joining them in their game were now crushed into dust. It didn’t matter. Because the raging dragon was getting closer, and the three boys were directly in its line of sight.
“It’s okay, I have a plan,” he spoke at last, lying through his teeth.
“Yeah, me too. Keep running!” The wild boy grabbed one of each of their hands and yanked, dragging the two stunned cousins behind him.
“What are you doing? We can’t outrun a dragon!” Dee yelled, not thinking about how tightly they were holding each other’s hands.
“What, so you just wanted to stand there and get cooked into little burned meat chunks?” retorted the other boy. “Man, I thought_ I _was stupid!”
Before Dee could think of a suitable comeback, he heard Virgil mumble something inaudibly. “What’d you say?” he asked. When Virgil didn’t respond immediately, he shouted, “Virgil!”, snapping the younger boy out of his state of panic.
“I- I said, I said there were two.”
“Two what?” Dee demanded.
Virgil glanced over his shoulder, eyes widening at how close the dragon had come. “Two dragons… in my dream…” he managed to choke out before stumbling to a halt. He fell on his hands and knees and stayed there, breathing rapidly and squeezing his eyes shut. “I’m sorry… I’m sorry. I should’ve done better…” he mumbled as the other two desperately tried to get him to his feet again.
“Come on! We have to go!” Dee screamed. A deep, terrifyingly powerful feeling was building inside him. “Virgil… come on, run!” he begged once more, before the dragon swooped down towards the three boys, engulfing them in shadow.
*********************
Roman had never run so fast in all his life. He’d thought that the doll was important to him, but when he’d realized his brother was missing, and then heard the panicked rumors of a dragon flying low over the outskirts of town, he hadn’t even stopped to think. He’d just let his legs carry him down the path he and Remus had beaten from years of chasing each other in their silly game. Down the field, over the top of the hill– and he stopped dead in his tracks.
There wasn’t just one dragon, but two, and they were fighting each other in midair. One was sleek and black and shadowy; the other was small and muted gold, and both seemed to be fighting with everything they had.
The second thing he saw was two boys in the shadow of the dragon’s battle– one unfamiliar, the other very familiar indeed. He snapped out of his daze and called, “Remus!”
His brother turned to look at him, shocked, and began sprinting towards him just as Roman did the same. They met halfway, grabbing each other’s arms in relief and fear.
“Let’s go!” Remus cried, starting to pull his brother back up the hill and towards home.
Roman, however, fixated on one thing. “Who is that?” He pointed at the cowering boy– no, not cowering, surely, for he was brave enough to face a dragon. He must have been in trouble, or else he’d be running away too.
“I- I dunno,” Remus said in frustration. “Look, he’ll be okay, but we gotta get out of here!”
“We can’t just leave him there!” Roman protested, starting to make his way towards the boy.
The dragons were getting tired now, and their battle was dangerously low to the ground. Roman barely dodged a stray flare that sizzled the ground as he approached the stranger. “Hey!” he called out. “Can you hear me?”
The boy, who hadn’t yet moved from his position on his knees, slowly turned to look for the source of the new voice. His eyes landed on Roman, but he remained still.
“Come on, it’s okay now,” Roman said. A bit of an exaggeration, but if it would draw them both away from danger …
“Roman, hurry up!” Remus called from the top of the hill.
Roman held out his hand, not wanting to get too close and frighten the other boy away. “C'mon, come with me,” he pleaded. “I’m not gonna hurt you. I promise.”
The boy looked up, then around, then back at Roman. Slowly and shakily, he stood up and began to stumble over towards him. They would make it.
Suddenly the boy looked overhead and stopped in his tracks, gasping. “Look out!”
“Wha–” Roman barely had time to say before he was knocked down onto his back as a razor-sharp spear of deadly magic landed inches away from him. He looked up and took in the sight of the dark-haired, pale boy who had landed halfway on top of him and was breathing rapidly, eyes squeezed shut to prepare for the worst.
Roman reached out on instinct, gripping his protector’s hand. “Are you okay?” he asked, praying that the answer was yes.
The boy opened his eyes. “I think so,” he said softly.
Roman gasped with recognition. My knight! he thought. He looks just like him.
“You saved me,” he said aloud.
Before they could say anything further, one of the dragons let out a screech. Whether it was one of victory or defeat was hard to tell, but all at once the black dragon was flying away, retreating to whatever dark recesses it came from, and the gold-colored dragon was sinking to the ground, exhausted but triumphant.
*********************
“So let’s get everything straight,” Logan mused, scribbling words furiously on a notepad. With the dim light reflecting off his glasses, he looked and sounded much older than his nine and a half years.
“I know it sounds crazy,” Desmond said.
“It doesn’t,” Logan said simply. “Just because you can’t explain it doesn’t mean it’s crazy.”
Dee raised his eyebrows. “Thanks, but I turned into a dragon and back again while my cousin’s having nightmares that sort of predict the future, but not always. It’s okay to say that sounds crazy.”
Virgil smiled a little, a small victory in Dee’s eyes. The younger boy hadn’t spoken much since the incident, which had happened three days ago. In that time, Dee had managed to collect himself and ended up reasoning that he needed to tell someone about everything that had occurred. Not his parents; not any adult. “They wouldn’t believe me,” he’d explained to the others, but the true reason remained unspoken but known between the four boys: Desmond and Virgil had no way of knowing what would be done to them if their abilities were discovered. They could be locked up, sent away, even killed if people were fearful enough.
This was the Edge, after all. Anything could happen.
So the four had gone to the library to seek out information about their conditions. Histories, legends, hidden records, folk tales– anything at all would help. Instead they’d found Logan, a boy just Dee’s age who seemed wiser and more level-headed than any adult they’d ever met, and Patton, a boy who’d been ready to believe everything they told him and determined to help them no matter what.
Nobody paid much attention to the group of whispering boys who occupied the back corner of the library nearly every day that winter. But once upon a time, there were six unlikely friends who were lucky enough to learn how much they needed each other.
And for years, everything seemed like it would be all right.
Then things on the Edge began to shift.
#sanders sides#roman sanders#virgil sanders#remus sanders#deceit sanders#logan sanders#patton sanders#prinxiety#logicality#dukeceit#my writing#fic: the kingdom at the end of the world
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Thoughts on the newest LOT episode
Where do I even begin? This episode was soo good! Cuz of time differences, I saw it later than everyone else but still.
SPOILERS AHEAD
First off, let John be happy damnit! Matt’s acting was amazing, and I love the relationship John and Desmond had. Even if it was short lived. And now we finally know who the big bad is this season (i think) NERON! The little friendship between Constantine and Charlie was also amazing, and I can’t wait to see it more in future episodes.
The puppet bit was funny, and that mustache was too good. I’m not sure why they thought that tying up the burnt doll was going to keep the spirit down when its a spirit and spirits are usually known to be able to travel around and possess other things if/when their current vessel isn’t usable anymore. But all in all, it was pretty good.
I love how we all thought that Mona was going to fall for Gary, but instead, she fell for the monster Kaupe and Gary fell for her. It looks like “Project Hades” is underway already, and tbh I’m surprised the time bureau hasn’t noticed that their creatures are being targeted. I happened to read a recap of the episode, and it said that Mona was the one to cause time to freeze but after watching the episode… Idk. It looks like she’s trying to activate the fire alarm so someone can come to help her.
I’m not really sure how time froze in the first place, but apparently, it did. According to the next week’s episode promo and synopsis. “Reality is fractured,” and it’ll be up to Zari (who rn is a cat, I love it) Charlie and John to fix it without the others finding out. However, John and Charlie refuse to listen to Zari who wants them to go back and fix the problem and let history go as it should have the first time. Charlie, whom I guess doesn’t want to give up her renewed shapeshifting powers and John, who I guess doesn’t want to send Des to hell (again) don’t listen to Zari and continue to make things worse. Which means lots of different alternate realities; we see more puppets, the unicorn from the first episode makes a comeback and according to interviews, alternate versions of everyone, which should be really fun.
This is also the mid-season finale, so naturally, it’s going to be left on some sort of cliffhanger and then make us wait weeks to find out what’s going to happen next. But that’s next weeks problem. All in all, I thought this episode was awesome, and I can’t wait for next week.
#dc legends of tomorrow#dc lot#legends of tomorrow#legends of tomorrow spoilers#legends of tomorrow dez#john constantine#zari tomaz#legends of tomorrow hell no dolly#legends of tomorrow charlie#gary green#legends of tomorrow mona
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“The illustrations in picture books are the first paintings most children see, and because of that, they are incredibly important. What we see and share at that age stays with us for life.” – Anthony Browne
Over the past few weeks, my fifth and sixth grade art classes have been reimagining book covers for their favorite books. We started by creating lists of up to ten books that had secured a place in our memories either through the story told, the images on the pages, or both. We then shared our lists and engaged in conversation with each other about the books. This activity will go down as one of my favorite moments this school year. I enjoyed the lively conversations, the reminiscing about early childhood stories, about memories derived from time spent being read to and learning to read at home and at school.
As book chatter filled the classroom, I couldn’t stop my own nostalgia for read aloud moments as a child and later as a parent and teacher. My mother had been a first grade teacher before she started her our family and relished read alouds. Many of my seven siblings and I would gather together around my mother on the couch or floor to listen to a story.
When there were five of us. I’m on my mother’s lap.
I especially remember these moments happening when one of us was sick and the house was more quiet than usual. Our books of choice were usually selected from our many Golden Books, which were both inexpensive and fairly predictable in content. Affordability was key with a large family in the 1960s.
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My two sisters and I had one particular favorite, Three Little Horses by Piet Worm, 1958, which we read over and over together and acted out with our farm animals, Barbie (and Scooter and Ken) dolls, and our brothers’ Tonka trucks.
We took turns “being” the different horses, identified by color, although I remember being Blackie most often. Oddly enough, all these years later, we have three alpacas in the same array of color on our little farm. And I’m the one who chose them from hundreds of alpacas when I purchased them for my husband for Christmas several years ago. Although I didn’t realize it at the time, this was probably not a coincidence. Here they are in our photo from this year’s holiday card:
No, alpacas don’t have antlers.
As a former regular education teacher in third then fourth grade, I know kids love books and I’m always amazed by the effect a good story has on them. Read alouds unite and sometimes divide, leading to thoughtful and passionate discussion, ihich is what happened when my students made their lists of favored books and then shared them at their table. Such rich discussion!
Reimagined Book Covers
The next step was to choose one of the books and try to rethink the illustrations (if there were illustrations). Students who chose chapter books had a chance to fully invent the drawings. Students who chose picture books had to first remember the illustrations enough to change them completely. Imagine the Cat in the Hat without his tall red & white striped hat! As one child in class said, “He could be wearing a fedora!” Indeed.
After preliminary drawings and some demonstrations by me on block lettering and margins (yes, a little math integration) once students’ planning drawings were approved, they took a sheet of 11 x 17 chipboard and began ruling it up for the book cover. I find my students have little exposure to learning typography, yet they attempt it regularly on posters for their other subjects.
The next demonstration was on painting with this medium. We used tempera cakes for the paint and Sharpie as an outliner where needed. Rather than mixing colors on a palette, the challenge was to create new colors by layering different colors. For instance, blue plus orange and a little white = sand color.
Layering paint rather than mixing it
The covers took a while to create (about 6 classes), but I think you’ll agree that the time spent was worthwhile.
Here are just twenty-four of the book covers, which are on display in the school lobby. The artist of each Reimagined Book Cover is identified in the lower right hand corner. Click on the first photo to see them all in a slideshow. Fabulous!
Estella Soares
All the rest of the Reimagined Book Covers are on display at Artsonia here. Please stop by the Miscoe Hill lobby and the virtual gallery to see all the work!
Digital Reimagined Book Covers
Many students were able to translate this project digitally using their choice of either Canva or Vanilla Pen for the graphic design component. They then did some “appsmashing” by creating drawings in Autodesk Sketchbook to import to the graphic design layout. This extension brought the creativity to a new level.
Alesandria Carneiro
Alexa Ladd
Siena Miller
Logan Didio
Madelyn Weibe
Owen Richie
Luciana Pereira
Samantha Crotty
Travis Miller
Emma Langner
Brooke Palmer
Taylor Ferlo
Jacob Poirier
Calliope Vallee
John Desmond
Ella Vanasse
These fantastic digital artworks can be viewed on Artsonia here.
Reflection
I’m so glad we did this project for so many reasons. As I mentioned before, I loved the conversation about books the project generated. I loved that every student could arrive at a favorite book without resistance or hesitation. I enjoyed integrating literature into the art curriculum in a meaningful way. Lastly, the personalization of this project that builds on the interests of the child makes it an empowering platform for self-expression.
Admittedly, sustained work like this can be a challenge for fifth and sixth grade art students who are typically accustomed to one or two class directed projects. Aside from the required use of typography, margins, and the skill set of mixing color by layering, the only other creative constraint was the 11 x 17 chipboard. Students were able to choose the orientation for their book cover and 99% chose portrait orientation. The ruling up of the board was also challenging, with many students possessing only rudimentary ruler skills. I did a lot of ruler holding while the kids traced and also reminded them to measure from the end of the ruler (zero), not the one inch mark.
In a sustained project like this, success skills abound, including perseverance, design thinking, taking time to plan, problem solving, ideating, reimagination, and critical thinking. Technology skills include learning to photograph artwork in a rectangular form (not a trapezoid), editing, and uploading. Students also wrote reflective Artist Statements on Artsonia.
On personal level, I had read many of the books as a third and fourth grade classroom teacher, but certainly not all of them. Thanks to this project, I’ve added to my reading list.
Reimagined Book Covers "The illustrations in picture books are the first paintings most children see, and because of that, they are incredibly important.
#arted#ArtEducation#artsed#Artsonia#coreintegration#creativity#digitalart#ipadsinarteducation#MiscoeHill#mursd#mursdvisualart
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i watched legends of tomorrow 4.12 today and it was so good. written by 2 women and directed by a woman thats how you know its gonna be good!!!!! this episode had like 4 different plotlines going on, but it managed to balance them relatively well. much better than it had in a few previous episodes. it helps that they all had to do with neron in some way or another (aside from the plot of zari trying to decide what to text nate).
of course, what i really like about this episode is how it focused on the sara/ava relationship, and on ava’s reservations and insecurities specifically. this show has done such a great job of crafting ava ever since it introduced her. it knew exactly who she was and it revealed that to the audience little by little over time until we all couldn’t help but love her! this episode is a lot like the preceding one in a lot of ways. 4.12 does for ava what 4.11 did for zari. both episodes explore the hidden emotions and fears of these proud, guarded women. having both been introduced in season 3, zari and ava are established enough that we are familiar with their personalities and know how they behave, but we don’t necessarily know why they behave the way they do. these episodes provide insight into their internal lives, which helps give context to their past actions. it is so rewarding to see these tough, prickly characters suddenly become vulnerable.
i think i’ll need another post (and a rewatch) to unpack the symbolism of ava’s evil ikea purgatory but suffice to say i loved it. insanely funny to have sara & ava’s first task be to assemble ikea furniture together. and it was cute! it was so cute. the mattress thing was also very sweet. honestly all the ordeals were so ridiculously domestic it was so lovely to see. i wasn’t thrilled about how the 3rd task was doing dishes & sorting mail, just because i was expecting an escalation and it didn’t feel like one? but i guess that’s also kind of the point, that sometimes life is going to be boring and you have to deal with it. the ava dolls were wonderful - i’ll elaborate more in a later post but yeah really good.
i straight up barely remember what happened in the main neron storyline but thats okay. i do feel like the constantine/neron confrontation and the subsequent constantine/desmond reunion would have carried more weight if they had been the a plot of an episode rather than relegated to the b plot. but i loved seeing constantine and nora outsmart neron, and i loved that ray ruined it. so often ray saves the day even when he’s being reckless, because legends loves to validate his optimism and compassion. but this time his compassion gets him possessed by a demon! very fun, can’t wait to see how that shakes out.
i am going to pretend the magical theme park does not exist because i hate that plot element so much. i know legends is a silly show but i just cant take it. i cant take it. sorry nate.
zari trying to figure out what to text nate was so cute. and everyone chiming in and trying to help her, even mick! i like that charlie is very encouraging of zari pursuing the guy she likes even though charlie is obviously into zari. that moment when charlie asks zari if shes straight and zari doesnt answer......i really never would have expected this kind of dynamic between 2 women of color on legends and i am just so thankful it exists. truly beyond my wildest dreams. i’m going to pretend that the reason zari refuses to tell nate what her text really said is that shes no longer as interested in him and is more interested in charlie. i know thats not the real reason but i can pretend.
all in all a fantastic episode and for sure one of my favorites :)
#legends of tomorrow#sara lance#ava sharpe#avalance#zari tomaz#legends constantine#legends charlie#syl posts
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Episode 43 Review: Curiouser and Curiouser
{ YouTube: 1 | 2 | 3 }
{ Full Synopses/Recaps: Debby Graham | Bryan Gruszka }
Maljardin, an isle of mystery. Much remains unknown on Jean Paul Desmond’s isolated island, including the locations of the conjure doll, silver pin, and the missing cyanide, the contents of the final week of Dr. Menkin’s missing notes, and the true cause of death of Jean Paul’s beloved wife Erica. Now that a mysterious black rabbit has appeared on the island which has known no wildlife for three hundred years, new mysteries arise, including one that literally surrounds that rabbit’s neck.
In Ian Martin’s original timeline, this would be the point where the Reverend Matt Dawson exorcised Raxl and Quito’s writing box (although whether that would have revealed the Conjure Man’s also mysterious original message is anyone’s guess), but executive meddling required him to negate that timeline and write about the Rabbit of Evil instead. Come, let’s follow the black rabbit into the increasingly bizarre rabbit hole that is mid-Maljardin-era Strange Paradise.
A minute and a half in, and Cosette Lee is already in top form. Chew that scenery, Cosy!
We open with a recap of the séance from a week and a half ago, courtesy of Raxl and Jean Paul. Raxl gives us the great line above comparing the falling chandelier to “a fist of the devil,” which she delivers beautifully. She connects the falling chandelier to the rabbit who just appeared--or, as she calls it, "this THING that mocks the problem!"
This is Jean Paul’s concerned face.
When she reminds him that the black rabbit appeared out of nowhere on the island which previously harbored no wild animals, he looks increasingly concerned. Whereas in yesterday's episode, he dismissed her claims as superstition and the rabbit as a harmless animal that probably came over on the boat, now he appears willing to think them over. At least that’s how it appears in this part of the scene, although it’s also possible that he’s just worried about Raxl’s sanity. Raxl may be melodramatic and she may sometimes go to extremes in her efforts to protect her home from THE DEVIL JACQUES ELOI DES MONDES, but she is arguably saner than you are, Jean Paul.
"Oh, master, believe me!" she begs. "This…thing, this…thing in the form of an animal is a manifestation of evil!"
“Evil, in your eyes, Raxl,” corrects Jean Paul, or so he thinks.
“Not only mine. Look at Quito. He has eyes, too. He knows. Oh, master, believe me! This black rabbit is an emissary of DEATH!”
Jean Paul continues his mansplaining.
Oh, Jean Paul! To think, I had so much hope for you! I guess that, even after repeated possessions, Dr. Menkin's mysterious death, a leaking capsule, a falling chandelier, and all the things that have happened to Holly, you still refuse to believe in "superstition." You know that, down in Hell, Jacques is kicking back in his peacock chair, gloating about this again:
Jacques: “Jean Paul, what was that again about your IQ of 187?” *evil laugh*
"Then how could it be on Maljardin?" she asks.
"The supply boat, perhaps," he repeats from last episode. "Holly Marshall had no trouble in hiding herself in order to get over here. Surely a small animal like this would be even less likely to be noticed." It sounds plausible, but it’s still doubtful that the rabbit would have lasted so long after the supply boat returned to Maljardin without eating some poisonous plant and dying. I doubt that Quito leaves fresh produce just lying around on the boat.
"If you want to, believe that," replies Raxl, "but I believe it is possessed by EVIL!"
"Raxl, it seems that you are the one who is possessed by fear.”
"It seems the Devil is possessing us all, quietly, cunningly, and each day just a little more," she says, before leaving for the crypt. Quito follows behind, carrying the rabbit, who is just as enthusiastic as it was last episode about being part of one of Canada's first domestically-produced soaps. The way it squirms trying to escape from Quito’s arms in the crypt scene is priceless:
ROFLMAO
Meanwhile, Jean Paul argues with Jacques about the rabbit. Jacques agrees with Raxl on the rabbit's supernatural origins, which further angers Jean Paul. He asks him why he wants to convince him of that, and Jacques gives this cryptic reply: "Big beings have little beings on their backs to spite them, and little beings have smaller beings, and so on, ad infinitum."
"Now, perhaps Raxl is right," Jean Paul muses. "Now just what is in your mind?"
"Perhaps you'll find out at the séance," Jacques teases. He goes on to suggest to him that perhaps Erica did not want to be frozen in the "ridiculous" cryonics capsule. Jean Paul gets all defensive in response and accuses him of trying to break their pact. "Isn't it about time that you delivered her back to me?" he demands.
"We'll find out at the next séance," says Jacques, and Jean Paul demands that he not attend. Jacques implies that there may not be another séance (but why not?), and Jean Paul flips out on him:
FEAR the finger of DOOM!
The acting from both Colin and Cosette in this episode is so over-the-top that it’s somewhere in outer space.
And then...
The Reverend Matt Dawson walks in on him arguing with Jacques and thinks that he was talking to himself.
How does Jean Paul respond? Why, by gaslighting him, of course! “It’s hard to imagine that a man of the cloth would lose control so easily,” he says as though Matt were the one with a screw loose. Now, isn’t that charming?
Matt warns Jean Paul that the people on Maljardin--himself included--are looking for an escape. "We are not children, and we are not completely powerless," he tells Jean Paul. "We will find a way to cut the knots that bind us here."
He also says that his faith, which was challenged when he arrived on the island, is returning. Jean Paul uses this as another opportunity to gaslight him: “You are not regaining your faith. You are merely losing your faculties.” One would think that was a Jacques line, but it’s not. There’s neither a shot of the portrait disappearing, nor any Jean Paul headache faces followed by Jacques’ beringed hand grabbing his face, nor is Fox-C grinning psychotically like Jacques would probably do while saying that. It’s Jean Paul at his most unpleasant.
“On Maljardin, only I speak,” he continues. “Others listen.” It’s like he’s determined to be as much of an asshole as possible in this episode. Bless his heart.
But all the despotic orders in the world won’t shut the Reverend up. “Now I know why I came to Maljardin,” he replies, and it’s not to stalk a twenty-year-old teenager. “It was my destiny to be a force of good among all the evil here.”
“A savior?” Jean Paul asks.
“Perhaps,” he replies. “Is there one here who needs saving from himself?”
Sometimes I wonder if Reverend Dawson was intended to be the real hero of SP.
Raxl and Quito enter the Not-So-Hidden Temple of the Serpent with the rabbit. She pleads and begs for the Serpent to give her answers about the Rabbit of Evil, calling the adorable animal a “monster.” This scene is classic Raxl and belongs on any list of Raxl’s best scenes. Here are my two favorite lines from it:
Raxl: "Speak to me, Great One, for the sake of my master and his beloved visitors and for all the spirits in this house who are roasting on the spit of the fire of evil. OPEN YOUR SPEECH TO MY UNDERSTANDING!"
"Quito, TAKE THIS EVIL THING! Its foulness has stilled temporarily the voice of the Great Serpent!"
But it doesn’t stilt the Serpent for long. The mysterious locket at the beginning of this review appears around its neck, where it wasn’t before. When Raxl touches it, it stains her hand with blood.
Meanwhile, in Jean Paul’s hidden monitor room...
Jean Paul: "Erica, my darling, I wonder how you will find me when at last we are together again? I fear the strain of all this has made me hard and cynical. The Reverend is good, twice the man he was when he first arrived. If only he could see the rightness of my cause, he would make such an ally for my purposes." [You’re deluding yourself, Jean Paul. You have zero chance of convincing Matt that your cryonics scheme is anything but blasphemy.]
"Some serve me, to their honor and reward. Some cross me--to their death!"
*reading Teleprompter* "No one understands. There is an inner circle, my love, and it is big enough for just the two of us."
Jean Paul: "My darling, the second séance is very close at hand. The Conjure Woman recovers and this time nothing will stop us!"
*more obvious Teleprompter reading* "You will come, you will speak, and at last for the first time, for just a little while, you and I will be together."
He’s so cute! <3
Like the previous episode, it’s obvious that they rushed this one even in comparison to the others, because of how often Fox-C reads the Teleprompter. I’ve noticed that he does so more often starting during this week of the show and increasingly until Cornelius Crane takes over writing the show--which won’t be for another two weeks--before slowly petering out until Desmond Hall. I see this as a measure of how hastily an episode was slapped together, although I could be making assumptions.
Anyway, Raxl asks Quito if he noticed the bloody locket before, and he shakes his head. “I am right!” exclaims Raxl about her belief that the rabbit was a demon. She follows this up by asking the Serpent, “Where did it come from?” and we cut to the camera panning over the cryonics capsule:
Obvious foreshadowing is obvious.
Quito leaves the temple to find Matt and Holly sneaking into the crypt, and chases them back up to the Great Hall. Holly demands to know where the rabbit is and Raxl (who enters just then) announces that it ran away!
“Discovered something, didn’t you?” Matt asks Raxl. He asks if she found the doll and pin or the week of missing notes, to which she answers no and no. “For Heaven’s sake, what? Another demon?”
Just as baffled as I am that a Christian minister like him doesn’t believe in demons, she accuses him of mocking her. He accuses her of turning irrational, which means that Jean Paul’s “everyone is irrational but me” delusion must be rubbing off on him. Holly accuses Raxl of having already killed the rabbit.
“Foolishness! Madness!” Raxl shouts. “I tell you that-”
Matt interrupts to point to the rabbit, who, despite its tall ears, is somehow able to sleep through this argument. Must have selective hearing.
Holly grabs the rabbit and Raxl starts screaming for her to hand it over. “IT IS EVIL! IT MUST BE KILLED!” she cries as Matt restrains her. “IT MUST BE DESTROYED BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE!” Fortunately for Holly (but unfortunately for Raxl), Jean Paul hears the commotion and comes downstairs to take the rabbit from them.
When he does, we hear the sound of a small object dropping. He leans over to pick it up and reveals the strangest detail so far in this mystery:
Jean Paul: "This locket…"
Raxl: "Yes, master, I-"
Jean Paul: *more pained* "This locket…was…Erica's!"
Everyone’s jaw drops--which we see in a series of close-ups of all five human actors in this episode--and the music swells. After commercial, Raxl tearfully reveals that Jean Paul gave Erica the locket on her birthday, and tells Jean Paul and the others that she knows that the locket was not around the rabbit’s neck until after she called upon the Serpent. Holly accuses her of being superstitious, and they get into a fight where Raxl tells Holly that she and her fellow Christians don’t understand the spirit world and Holly calls Raxl’s beliefs “mumbo-jumbo.” Matt also accuses Raxl of lying about how the locket appeared “so that we would believe in spirits and demons.” I know that not all Christian denominations believe in the literal existence of spirits and demons, but it’s still odd hearing the Reverend deny their existence.
Raxl calls him a fool, too, and says once again that the rabbit must be killed. She and Holly are about to go back to arguing when Jean Paul cries out, “YOU ARE ALL WRONG!” And then we have yet another shocking revelation: Erica was wearing the locket upon her death, and still when she was entombed in the cryonics capsule!
Somehow he’s able to get the rabbit to hold still for a few minutes, even with all the shouting in the final scene.
In case anyone’s wondering why this entry took so long, it’s because I’ve also been working on a couple posts reviewing Ian Martin’s entire period headwriting this show. That’s what I plan to do at the end of each arc or at the end of each writer’s stint on the show (with the exception of those writers who only wrote a few episodes, like James Elward, Joe Caldwell, and the team of Ron Chudley and George Salverson). You can expect my two-part review of Ian Martin’s SP shortly after my review of Episode 44, which may also be slightly delayed because of it.
Coming up next: Ian Martin’s final episode, the much-anticipated second séance and its shocking conclusion.
{<- Previous: Episode 42 || Next: Episode 44 ->}
#strange paradise#review#maljardin arc#ian martin#week 9#episode 43#the bloodied locket#jean paul's monitor room#foreshadowing#great serpent#lost episode summaries#the not so hidden temple#passive aggressive jean paul#rabbit of evil#scenery chewing#times infinity#sp and religion#tape recorder journal#teleprompteritis
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Episode 31 Review: Danger to the Cryonics Capsule
{ Not available on YouTube }
{ Full Synopses/Recaps: Debby Graham | Bryan Gruszka }
{ Screencaps }
And now we reach Episode 31, the first episode that isn’t currently available on YouTube. In fact, none of Week 7 is available on YouTube, which means no Bad Subtitle Special until the end of Week 8. (Is anyone else disappointed, or is it just me?) It’s a pity, because this is both a good episode and probably relatively unchanged from Ian Martin’s original script, although the absence of cheesy one-liners about the Devil does suggest some rewriting.
Here's the synopsis for this one, by the way, from the October 24, 1969 issue of The Plain Dealer:
It’s interesting to note that, while this summary comes from the period of the Lost Episode summaries, it still accurately describes the plot of the aired version of the episode. It doesn’t describe all of it, but then, none of the newspaper summaries do, before or after the Lost Episodes period. So, without further ado, let’s hurry back to the crypt on Maljardin and check on Erica Desmond’s cryonics capsule.
Dan trying to stop the cryonics tank from malfunctioning, despite knowing nothing about how it works. Not generally a smart idea.
While Jean Paul and Elizabeth are still with Vangie at the French Leave Café, the cryonics capsule's cooling mechanism malfunctions and its tank starts spraying water upwards. Dan tries to get it to stop spraying, but his efforts are in vain and he calls for Alison. She freaks out and they both run down there, but it doesn’t stop until just after Quito arrives around the corner.
There’s a scene where they’re trying to fix the machine and both of them are talking to each other, but the only audio we hear is the background music. Not sure if that was deliberate on the part of the writer or the director, or if it’s a blooper.
Alison asks Dan what he was doing down there, and he confesses that he was searching for the missing cyanide. There’s an interesting part where he says “I’m not sure I trust [Raxl] or that zombie,” and Quito--who is still hiding--clenches his fists as though angered by the reminder of his undead state.
Quito clenching his fists just before the intro.
After they return to the Great Hall, Alison blames Dan--"perhaps you inadvertently crossed the wires," she says--but he denies it. I'm surprised that Alison would accuse cautious, practical Dan of something so careless, but I don’t know him as well as she does. I’m also not sure how inadvertently crossing the wires would cause a tank to start spraying water, and I’m not sure the characters have any idea, either.
On the main island with Jean Paul and Vangie, Jean Paul recaps his cryonics scheme in a way that makes it clear that Ian Martin and/or the meddling executives really didn’t want him to repeat his catchphrase from the earlier episodes again:
Jean Paul on Erica’s resurrection: "It WILL happen. I made that vow the day my darling wife was stricken IN SPITE OF GOD!"
Raxl, of course, blames THE DEVIL JACQUES ELOI DES MONDES for the leak in the capsule’s tank. Raxl may be right--she usually is about matters of the occult--but after learning of the note from the Episode 30 script about who pushed Holly down the stairs, I’m thinking that the true culprit is someone else, someone less obvious. This scene also provides some blatant foreshadowing for the aborted plotline involving Tarasca:
Raxl: “The master must be protected from all demons, from the past and in the present, especially the witch who seeks to own him!”
The next shot.
A clear shot from shortly after of Elizabeth’s dramatic eye makeup.
The witch’s own version of Bissits Face™?
Meanwhile on the main island, Jean Paul convinces Vangie to hold a séance to contact Erica's spirit, which she is willing to do if slightly reluctant because she knows that she will eventually die on Maljardin. This suggestion excites Elizabeth, whom he has to remind that "it is not a game." She also asks if he would ever let her go, and he says that he would only let her return to Maljardin: proof that Jean Paul is still on board with the whole detained guests thing.
In the lab, Alison is searching the drawers of Dr. Menkin’s cabinet for his notes on Erica and finds a small notepad hidden among the papers in one. She reads it, her mouth agape, as Raxl enters.
What could it say about Erica?
Raxl lets Alison know that she knows about Dan searching for the missing cyanide in the crypt and is not pleased. She asks Alison if Dan doesn’t trust her, and she defends him, saying that none of them can trust each other anymore. Then they debate whether or not one of the other characters made the machine break down. Alison says that she now thinks it most likely broke down on its own, but Raxl still insists that someone (by which she means Jacques) tampered with it. Raxl has a point, because brand-new water tanks don’t generally start spraying out huge amounts of water on their own like the capsule’s cooling tank was doing.
SCENE INTERRUPTING DAN: “Hello, Raxl. I didn’t know you were interested in lab experiments, too.” (LOL)
Even though the leak was clearly the work of supernatural forces, Alison still tells Dan, "Don't make any more waves around here." Good luck with that. You may want to talk Jean Paul into having Quito buy you duct tape the next time you see him, then tape Dan’s mouth shut and tie his hands behind his back to keep him from tearing it off. That’s the only way to stop him from accusing Jean Paul of being a murderer and imprisoning all of you here. (It will also make it easier to get with your far more attractive brother-in-law, especially if you leave Dan in his bedroom while the two of you wrestle with your unresolved sexual tension in the Great Hall.)
In the crypt, Raxl tells Quito that it’s time to begin searching the caskets for the conjure doll and the silver pin--which I thought she said they already did in previous episodes, but I could be wrong. Maybe they just want to double-check to make sure they checked everywhere in the basement. Quito begins pulling open Jacques’ casket and we cut to a couple filler scenes with the other characters. When we return to Raxl and Quito, we find her back upstairs searching the fireplace in the Great Hall for the doll and pin. When Quito arrives, she asks him if he found them in the casket and he shakes his head. They head upstairs to continue their search--which, again, I thought she said that they already searched upstairs in Episode 29, but I suppose they just want to double-check.
Alison tells Dan when he next visits the lab that Dr. Menkin was trying to learn how to recreate an entire human body. Reminds me of Frankenstein. Dr. Frankenstein and Dr. Menkin both tried to play God by creating a living human body, but their experiments differed in that Frankenstein used cadaver parts to build his man, while Menkin’s experiments involved cellular regeneration and possibly (based on the sources referenced in Episode 26) robotics/artificial intelligence as well. I don’t know if Martin had planned to draw a direct parallel between the Drs. Menkin and Frankenstein at some point, but I suspect he was.
But Alison still doesn’t know enough about his experiments to satisfy her (or us), because all of Dr. Menkin’s notes from the six weeks before his death are missing. This is suspicious for obvious reasons, given his death shortly after her arrival, which she still doesn’t know was Jacques’ fault for no other reason than that she was upstairs at the time when he told Raxl his highly suspicious story about Menkin’s “accident” in the water.
Really, Dan? A bottle of cyanide goes missing and yet you willingly drink alcohol that’s been sitting out where anyone could pour poison into it? SMH Yet another reason why Alison should duct tape your mouth shut.
Dan is suspicious of Raxl--who is just about the last character they should suspect of hiding the cyanide or murdering either Erica or Dr. Menkin--but even more suspicious of Jean Paul. He and Alison also discuss how Jean Paul may not have filed Erica's death certificate with the authorities and how suspicious this makes him look--which is recap, yes, but which I bring up again because it is still relevant. I am really thinking (and was really thinking as far back as last fall) that Martin was originally planning to reveal that Jean Paul killed Erica and was trying to resurrect her out of some combination of guilt, regret, and fear that Erica's death would make him look suspicious. This would not only make these clues worth more than red herrings (or, should I say, kippers?), but it would also connect to all the things that Jacques says about he and Jean Paul not being so different. I have a whole theory about this, which I plan to discuss in a future post sometime later in this arc.
Alison also mentions some sea caves five hundred yards from an unseen cove on Maljardin, which she says Raxl told her about (unfortunately, I don’t remember in which episode). This seems to be foreshadowing something--I’m guessing the discovery of Jacques’ pirate ship that’s mentioned in another episode--but they never visit the caves, unless that’s where the Temple of the Serpent is located.
Back on the main island, Jean Paul has returned, but Vangie has left to go somewhere. Jean Paul says that she is probably packing a few days’ clothing for her stay on his island. Elizabeth is relieved to hear that she will only be there a few days. She also reveals that she sees Vangie as "competition" for Jean Paul's affections. (LOL) I would say that she is deluding herself, but then, she is unaware that Jean Paul was possessed all the times that he flirted with her; in her mind, Jacques is the real Jean Paul and the Jean Paul who mourns Erica is “not himself.” It does explain, however, why she was clinging to him in that one scene from last episode. Even so, Vangie never has any love interests on the show. I’ve suspected for a while that she and Raxl secretly have a thing for each other. Obviously they wouldn’t have shown that on TV in 1969, but that doesn’t mean that I can’t still ship them together.[1]
Elizabeth’s profession of interest in him motivates Jacques to possess him again, and we get
HEADACHE FACES! Yay!
After possessing him, Jacques reassures Elizabeth that he is very much still interested in her (Elizabeth, I mean, not Vangie). He also sends the audience more false hopes for Holly's death: "I'd stake Jean Paul Desmond's life, virtually every day…What’s one life, more or less? It doesn't even matter whose life. Take your daughter for example, before she's twenty-one and inherits all those millions."
Elizabeth looks appalled by this suggestion, but it’s hard to say if she truly is or if it’s all an act. I’m sure, though, that this is, roughly, the thought process going through Jacques’ mind:
Coming up next: Jean Paul and Vangie make more arrangements for the séance to contact Erica and Raxl reveals more of Maljardin’s history.
{ <- Previous: Episode 30 || Next: Episode 32 -> }
Notes
[1] In the books, Quito is Raxl’s husband, but that obviously isn’t the case on the show, or else she would most likely be jealous of his affections for Holly. The fact that she isn’t suggests that the two aren’t married (or, at the very least, aren’t married anymore) in the show canon. This means that Raxl doesn’t have a canonical love interest.
#strange paradise#maljardin arc#ian martin#week 7#episode 31#review#analysis#bissits face#comics#cryonics capsule#headache faces#makeup#raxl/vangie#SCENE INTERRUPTING DAN#speculation on ian martin's original story#tarasca
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SP Influences: The Case of Charles Dexter Ward and The Haunted Palace
CONTENT WARNING FOR DISCUSSION OF RAPE (NOT JUST THE FANTASY METAPHOR KIND) AND SLAVERY. ALSO SPOILER WARNING FOR THE HAUNTED PALACE (1963), THE CASE OF CHARLES DEXTER WARD, AND BOTH THE FIRST AND FINAL ARC (INCLUDING THE ENDING) OF STRANGE PARADISE.
Although it never directly copied from other works, the 1969-70 soap opera Strange Paradise appears to have drawn inspiration from several classic works of Gothic fiction. Unlike its more famous cousin Dark Shadows (1966-71), which lifted most of its major plotlines from public-domain horror classics like Dracula and The Turn of the Screw with relatively few changes, the influence of other works on the plot and characters of Strange Paradise generally took a subtler form. Many of the early advertisements and articles promoting the serial compared its protagonist Jean Paul Desmond and villain Jacques Eloi des Mondes (both played by Colin Fox) to Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde from the Robert Louis Stevenson novel, but--as Curt Ladnier has pointed out--there are only superficial similarities between the plot of the serial’s Maljardin arc and The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, making the two works less similar than readers likely expected. Instead, the plot more closely resembles that of another, lesser-known story about a protagonist controlled by his evil counterpart: the 1963 Roger Corman/Vincent Price film The Haunted Palace, a loose adaptation of the H. P. Lovecraft novella The Case of Charles Dexter Ward.
The plot and characters of Strange Paradise have too much in common with those of The Haunted Palace to be mere coincidence. In particular, the character of Joseph Curwen and his characterization in the film strongly resemble the portrayal of Jacques Eloi des Mondes, enough to conclude that Curwen must have inspired his backstory and his interactions with the other characters. While it is likely that Lovecraft’s original 1927 novella The Case of Charles Dexter Ward also directly influenced the serial, there is stronger evidence for indirect influence by way of the film adaptation.
The Case of Charles Dexter Ward
The plot of The Case of Charles Dexter Ward shares a common theme with the Maljardin arc: the evil ancestor from the seventeenth century who returns from beyond the grave and assumes the identity of his lookalike descendant. In both cases, the ancestor was involved in the occult during his lifetime and reviled for his rumored diabolical activities. During his lifetime--which he used magic to prolong--Curwen practiced necromancy, tortured knowledge out of the people he resurrected before murdering them again, experimented on living people, and summoned the god Yog-Sothoth for assistance in his occult activities using spells from the Necronomicon. Two fellow warlocks named Simon Orne and Edward Hutchinson assisted him with his occult studies, and were both still alive when his descendant Charles Dexter Ward brought him back to life. In the early episodes of Strange Paradise’s Maljardin arc written by Ian Martin, Jacques is portrayed as the literal Devil: an accusation about which he often jokes. He has many supernatural abilities, including possession, manipulation of electricity, telekinesis, the ability to magically alter messages written in sand, and--most importantly--the ability to resurrect Jean Paul’s dead wife Erica (Tudi Wiggins), which is why he frees his spirit in the pilot. He has an interest in voodoo, although he himself does not appear to practice it and instead fears its power. Unlike Curwen, no accomplices of Jacques’ return from the dead in the Maljardin arc, although it is possible that Martin intended for the seventeenth-century witch Tarasca, an earlier incarnation of wealthy widow Elizabeth Marshall (Paisley Maxwell), to fulfill this role after possessing Elizabeth.[1]
But these occult matters are not the only common interest that Joseph Curwen and Jacques Eloi des Mondes share. Both character were involved in the more earthly evils of the slave trade. A merchant by trade, Curwen also bought and sold slaves, importing enormous numbers of enslaved people from Guinea into his hometown of Providence, Rhode Island in 1766. He sold few of them, however, and Lovecraft heavily implies that he used most of them in his experiments. The televised version of Strange Paradise never explicitly references slavery (although Jean Paul’s immortal servants Raxl (Cosette Lee) and Quito (Kurt Schiegl) are implied to be Jacques’ former slaves), but the non-canonical book series by Dorothy Daniels does on occasion. In the second book Island of Evil, Jean Paul lists “black gold, another name for the importation of slaves” along with piracy and brigandage as one of the sources of the des Mondes’ family fortune.[2] A flashback sequence in Island of Evil confirms the past enslavement of Raxl and Quito, as well as an African voodoo priest whom Jacques forces to turn Quito into a zombie: the closest event in the Strange Paradise expanded universe to Curwen’s experiments.
Both Jacques and Curwen also met their ends at the hands of locals. In The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, Ezra Weeden begins spying on Curwen because he suspects him of illegal activities including witchcraft. Eventually, he turns most of the prominent figures in Providence society against him and they band together to raid and destroy Curwen’s Pawtuxet farm. During the raid, Curwen dies for the first time, but only after devising a spell for his future resurrection. Likewise, in Strange Paradise, Jacques dies after the natives of Maljardin turn against him, although the trigger and cause of his death are different. When Jacques murders his wife, the princess Huaco, by pushing her off the island’s cliff, a group of natives including Raxl and the Conjure Man band together to kill Jacques using a conjure (voodoo) doll and silver pin. These weapons curse Jacques to throw himself from the cliff and keep his spirit "shackled to the Temple [of the Serpent, Raxl’s god]” until the day he tricks his descendant Jean Paul Desmond into removing the pin from the doll, thereby setting him free.
Jacques’ disappearing portrait from Strange Paradise Episode 12.
Also significantly, both The Case of Charles Dexter Ward and Strange Paradise give the evil ancestor’s portrait a prominent role in the plot. In both cases, this portrait hangs at the ancestor’s former residence and disappears either temporarily or permanently when he takes control of the man who resembles him. When Charles Dexter Ward is researching the history of Joseph Curwen, his sources lead him to an eighteenth-century townhouse at Orney Court in Ward’s hometown of Providence, Rhode Island, where Curwen settled after fleeing Salem, Massachusetts. He hires a restorator to restore the painting, has it moved to his study, and discovers some documents of Curwen’s hidden in the wall behind it. When he finally succeeds in resurrecting Curwen, the painting disintegrates into dust: an end which Curwen himself later meets. On Strange Paradise, Jacques’ oil painting sometimes disappears when he possesses Jean Paul, but the show is inconsistent about this cue from episode to episode.[3] In contrast to Curwen’s painting, Jacques’ portrait always returns after he leaves Jean Paul’s body and appears to be indestructible: when Jean Paul sets fire to Maljardin in Episode 65, the portrait survives and later re-appears in the attic at Jean Paul’s childhood home Desmond Hall in Episode 131.
In spite of these similarities, I should note that the method of resurrection differs from one work to the other. In Strange Paradise, Jacques achieves this by possessing Jean Paul: after Jean Paul frees him by removing the silver pin from the head of his effigy, Jacques’ spirit can enter and exit Jean Paul’s body at will. In The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, the title character literally resurrects Curwen, his great-great-great-grandfather, using his essential salts, after which Curwen murders him. Ward behaves as though Curwen has possessed him--he has the speech and manners of a man of the colonial period and knows extremely specific details about the history of Providence--but the pit above his right eye which Ward did not previously possess and the lack of the olive birthmark on Ward’s hip indicate a different body. When Jean Paul opens his casket in the pilot, he finds only the conjure doll and silver pin; the absence of Jacques’ body is never explained and could be for any number of reasons, which we shall not discuss here.
The Haunted Palace
A lobby card for The Haunted Palace asking the question, “What was the terrifying thing in the PIT that wanted women?” (Source)
In 1963, American International Pictures released The Haunted Palace, a loose adaptation of The Case of Charles Dexter Ward written by Charles Beaumont and directed by Roger Corman. Due to alleged executive meddling (a theme which should already be familiar to regular readers of this blog), the film was marketed as an adaptation of the Edgar Allan Poe poem of the same name, which Vincent Price quotes throughout the film. In the adaptation process, Beaumont made many changes to the source material, the most notable of which was the decision to have Curwen breed human women with the elder god Yog-Sothoth, as alluded to on the lobby card above.[4]
Though an entertaining and visually enthralling film, most of the changes made to The Haunted Palace weaken the plot. In my opinion, Beaumont added too many Hollywood horror conventions during the adaptation process, which did not always work effectively considering the unconventional source material, not to mention left many plot holes unfilled. The dated and sleazy sexual angle which he added to the film makes the cosmic horror of Yog-Sothoth less cosmic and more carnal; whether this makes him more or less frightening depends on one’s personal opinion, but I feel it contradicts his otherworldly characterization in Lovecraft’s works. For the most part, the talents of the director and the actors (especially Price, who is fabulous as always) make up for these problems, but I prefer--and highly recommend--the far more faithful radio drama adaptation by the H. P. Lovecraft Historical Society.
The most notable influence of The Haunted Palace on Strange Paradise comes from its characterizations of Charles Dexter Ward and Joseph Curwen. Despite many similarities with The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, the characterizations of both Jean Paul Desmond and Jacques Eloi des Mondes owe far more to the portrayals of the protagonist and villain in the The Haunted Palace than in its source material. In The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, neither Ward nor Curwen shows any romantic or sexual interest in women whatsoever. Lovecraft’s Ward only cares about antiquities, the local history of Providence, and the story of his ancestor; at twenty-six, he is unmarried and either asexual or simply too absorbed in his studies to pursue any romantic or sexual partner. The sexual orientation of Lovecraft’s Curwen is just as much of a mystery: although he took Eliza Tillinghast as a wife during his lifetime and their union produced a daughter, theirs was an arranged marriage for the sake of elevating Curwen’s social status within Providence society.
Both Price’s Ward and his Curwen, in contrast, show a marked interest in women. While their marriage is never outright stated to be a love match, Ward and his wife Ann (Debra Paget) appear to feel mutual love and devotion and have enough chemistry to imply a mutual sexual attraction. Like a dark mirror of Ward, Curwen shows a marked interest in the sexual and sexualized domination of women. In The Haunted Palace, the people of Arkham consider him a threat primarily because he lures local women to his palace to use in his rituals. While possessing Ward, Price’s Curwen rapes Ann--whom he later offers to Yog-Sothoth as well--and resurrects his former mistress, Hester Tillinghast (Cathie Merchant), who assists him in his sorcery in the film’s climax. If Lovecraft’s Curwen never did any similar actions, he does not mention them in his novella.
In Strange Paradise, romantic and sexual desire for women motivates both Jean Paul and Jacques. Jean Paul resurrects his ancestor neither out of an obsession with his history (as in The Case of Charles Dexter Ward) nor by accident (as in The Haunted Palace), but because Jacques’ spirit promises that, if the recently widowed Jean Paul frees him, he will restore life to his beloved wife Erica (Tudi Wiggins). Many episodes show Jean Paul mourning her death and narrating a tape-recorded journal to her, and he obsesses over protecting her cryogenically-preserved corpse from danger. Jacques romantically pursues several female characters over the course of the Maljardin arc--including Erica, her sister Dr. Alison Carr (Dawn Greenhalgh), and the wealthy widow Elizabeth Marshall (Paisley Maxwell) and her 20-year-old daughter Holly (Sylvia Feigel)--and makes many sexual innuendos about them. After resurrecting Erica, she obeys Jacques as though he were her husband and assists him by murdering most of the guests on Maljardin. This makes her character’s role comparable to that of Hester in The Haunted Palace.[5]
On a more superficial note, neither Jacques nor Curwen wears a costume appropriate to his era of origin. In his portrait and in flashbacks, Jacques wears a side-parted 1960s hairstyle and clothing, including a doublet and lace collar and cuffs, more appropriate for the 1630s than the late 17th century when he lived (1660-1689, according to the plaque beneath his portrait). Similarly out of place, Curwen has short hair and a beard and wears a historically inaccurate lace bib in his portrait and in the prologue at the beginning of the film. Unlike the others, this similarity is almost certainly coincidental.
An even greater similarity, however, can be found in the scene forty-five minutes into the film where Curwen speaks to Charles through his portrait.The scene occurs after the second instance of Curwen possessing him, during which he unearths Hester’s coffin and has his fellow warlocks Simon Orne (Lon Chaney, Jr.) and Jabez Hutchinson (Milton Parsons) deliver it to his cellar laboratory. Ann catches him down there and he sends her away, still possessed by Curwen. When Curwen leaves his body, they have this conversation:
JC: (from painting) "Charles Dexter Ward…"
CDW: "Leave me alone! LEAVE ME ALONE!"
JC: "I will never leave you alone. Your blood is my blood, your mind is my mind, your body is my body. It will do you no good to resist me. Your efforts grow weaker every day."
CDW: "No! NO!"
JC: "You cannot keep me out, Ward. My will is too strong." (he possesses Ward again) "Too strong for you, Ward. Too strong for you."
Similarly, most episodes from the Maljardin arc of Strange Paradise feature at least one scene where Jean Paul communicates with Jacques’ disembodied spirit, represented by his portrait. In some scenes, they use a shot of the portrait hanging in the Great Hall; other times, they superimpose Jacques’ painted face over that of his identical descendant. One of the earliest examples of Jacques referring to them as one comes in Episode 5, when he taunts Jean Paul about his attraction to Alison. “She’s so delectable a woman. How could I--you--we--ever resist or let her go?” he says, snickering throughout. During another such conversation in Episode 27, Jacques refers to Jean Paul’s body as “our body” and commands him to rest because he is tired. In still another scene ten episodes later, he complains to Jean Paul that he is “waiting for the use of our body” as Jean Paul begs him not to “enter”; the dialogue in the scene has undertones suggestive of fantasy-metaphor rape, which Jacques’ sickeningly sweet tone of voice underscores. These are only a handful of examples of the recurring theme of Jacques viewing Jean Paul’s body as his own and seeking to dominate it completely.
Comparison of a shot of Joseph Curwen glowering in front of his portrait with a similar one of Jean Paul glowering in front of the portrait of Jacques from Strange Paradise Episode 41.
Surprisingly, unlike in the novella, Curwen's portrait does not disintegrate when he possesses Ward. As Strange Paradise eventually started doing with Jacques’ portrait, Curwen’s portrait remains hanging until the end of the film, when it burns along with the rest of the palace (which begs the question of how it is even physically possible for stone to burn). Jacques’ portrait meets the same apparent end when Jean Paul sets fire to the château and flees Maljardin, but later returns to him at Desmond Hall, seemingly undamaged by the flames. It does not vanish for good until the final week of the show (Episodes 191-195), when a group of characters force him out of it by rubbing his brother’s ashes on his eyes and lips; this drives him out of the painting and into Jean Paul’s body, which he leaves at the end of the penultimate episode.[6]
Still another similarity comes from what is, in my opinion, Beaumont’s most ingenious change to the plot: the implication that all the human townspeople in 19th-century Arkham are reincarnations of identical people from the previous century, not just the necromancers. The same actors even portray their descendants: for example, Leo Gordon plays both Ezra and Edgar Weeden, and Frank Maxwell portrays both Dr. Marinus Willett and his ancestor Priam. Implied reincarnation figures heavily in the original outline for Strange Paradise, with Jean Paul, his sister-in-law Alison Carr, and the young heiress Holly Marshall all having dreams about previous lives on 17th-century Maljardin. Much like Jacques who possesses his descendant, Holly’s mother Elizabeth Marshall may have also been possessed by her previous incarnation, the native priestess Tarasca, under this outline, as foreshadowed in the clips in this video. The second Desmond Hall arc (Episodes 131-195), likewise, involves reincarnation from past ancestors (including the return of Jacques), but this final arc otherwise shares little in common with either The Case of Charles Dexter Ward or its adaptation.
Conclusion
There is strong evidence that Strange Paradise drew inspiration from both The Case of Charles Dexter Ward and The Haunted Palace for the story about Jean Paul Desmond’s possession by Jacques Eloi des Mondes. We see elements from both the book and its first film adaptation in the serial: Ian Martin’s characterization of Jacques, the possession, and the talking portrait owe more to the film, while the disappearing portrait and certain elements of Jacques’ backstory are more reminiscent of Lovecraft’s original novella. Despite this inspiration, Ian Martin added many other elements to the story of Maljardin that were not present in either work, including the conjure doll and silver pin, the strange circumstances surrounding Erica’s death, and secondary protagonist Holly’s pursuit by several male characters and victimization by a mysterious spirit. The result is a serial combining the plots of The Case of Charles Dexter Ward and its adaptation with original ideas to create a unique and--yes--strange new story.
Notes
[1] For more information on the aborted Tarasca storyline, see “The Secret of Tarasca“ and the section of my review of Episode 40 titled “The Lost Episode 40.”
[2] Dorothy Daniels, Island of Evil (New York: Paperback Library, 1970), p. 45.
[3] The Paperback Library novels do not just portray this consistently, but portray the other characters as seeing an empty frame while Jacques is controlling Jean Paul’s body. See also my review of Episode 15.
[4] For an in-depth plot comparison, see the blog post “The Films of Charles Dexter Ward” by Fake Geek Boy.
[5] According to an early newspaper summary for Episode 35, Tarasca would have endangered the life of Jean Paul’s love interest Alison, also shows some signs of possible influence by this subplot. See also this video.
[6] Many of the events of the final month of Strange Paradise are unclear and/or unexplained, so this interpretation should be taken with a grain of salt.
#strange paradise#the case of charles dexter ward#h. p. lovecraft#the haunted palace#charles beaumont#essay#sp influences#maljardin arc#desmond hall arc ii#aka#the great desmond hall mind screw#related media#analysis#dorothy daniels#fantasy metaphor murder#fantasy metaphor rape#ian martin#paperback library#tarasca#vincent price
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Ian Martin’s Strange Paradise, Part I: The Top 5 Best Things
SPOILERS FOR LATE MALJARDIN AND BOTH DESMOND HALL ARCS
Hello and welcome again to my Garden of Evil, where this week I’m doing something a little different. Episode 44 having marked the departure of co-creator and original headwriter Ian Martin, we have officially reached the end of an era of Strange Paradise history. No longer will discussions and speculation on Martin’s authorial intent be relevant to the happenings on this show (although I will continue to give my thoughts on the Lost Episode summaries), now that Bob Costello is running the show with a different authorial intent.
Ian Martin’s episodes contrast with the second half of Maljardin in many ways. The pace is slower, the structure and characterizations more like those of a standard soap, and the tone at times borders on comedy. He also appears to have put more thought into the characters’ backstories than any of the other writers, much of which he never got the chance to show on screen. Moreover, of all the show’s writers, he seems to have put the most of his own heart and soul into it, if the death of his first wife six years earlier and his reuse of elements from the series in his later works are any indication.
That brings me to my plans for this week in my Garden of Evil. Before moving on to review Episode 45, I will post my final thoughts on his episodes, first listing what I consider the top five best things about his period headwriting the show. Next, I will make another of the top five worst things about the first 8.8 weeks of Maljardin (because no creative work is perfect). So without further ado, here are (in my not-so-humble opinion) the top five best things about Ian Martin’s Strange Paradise:
5. Clever, memorable dialogue and (sometimes) clever wordplay
I say “sometimes,” because (as we all know) Jacques loves his puns and Devil jokes, which tend to be as cornball as they come. The (intentional) humor in Ian Martin’s dialogue tends to be hit or miss, but when it hits, it hits harder than the chandelier hit the séance table. Even when the jokes miss, it’s clear that he tried hard to make the show both funny and scary, and some of the worse ones still amuse me in a dad-joke sort of way.
Some jokes from SP that I find genuinely funny:
Jacques: “‘Prisoners’ is such a harsh word, Alison. Now, actually, I prefer the [terminology] ‘detained guests.’“ (Episode 14)
Alison: “I find you and everything you’ve done distasteful and revolting."
Jacques: "Methinks the lady doth detest too much." (same)
"I wish my mother was on canvas instead of always on my back.” (Holly, Episode 18)
Dan: "Knowing how much you loved Erica, I can appreciate your display of courage."
Jacques: "It was either that or letting myself go to the Devil!" (same)
Jacques: “Such a delightful bedside manner. Why not let her operate?” (Episode 21)
Jacques: “If your room is a prison cell and you are a prisoner, well, I invite you to your last hearty meal.” (same)
Holly: "Would you like to see my scars?"
Jacques: "Well, lead us not into temptation...now, that isn't from Shakespeare, is it?" (Episode 25)
Elizabeth: “It seems to be your opportunity to entertain, Reverend. May I suggest Song of Solomon?” (Episode 40)
Also, some things that aren’t jokes per se, but still clever wordplay:
Matt’s name, a reference to the Tarot card The Fool, or Le Mat in French.
Jacques: "Well, Dan, are you going to join me in some kippers this morning, or haven't you finished fishing for the day?"
Dan: "Just lowering the line, and I'm afraid you're going to get hooked." (Episode 26)
The whole kippers thing from the same episode.
The scene transition lines.
Two things that Curt pointed out to me a while back: the recurring “little bird” motif and the fact that Jacques, who was “shackled to the Temple” for three centuries was also shackled through the temples with the silver pin. (Thanks!)
Of the later writers, Cornelius Crane (who will write the last two weeks of Maljardin and most of Desmond Hall Arc I) will be the only other to consistently use humor in his SP scripts. His will be a different style of humor, lighter on wordplay and heavier on wit, satire, and snark between characters, in many ways reminiscent of my favorite Dark Shadows writer Violet Welles. While the style of humor in Crane’s episodes has generally aged better, I can’t deny the cleverness and charm in the lines quoted above.
4. A more complex story than later arcs
Compared to all other arcs of the show, early Maljardin has, by far, the most subplots. You have (1) the main plot that revolves around Jean Paul’s attempts to preserve and resurrect Erica, which leads to his desperate attempts to protect the cryonics capsule, Jacques’ freedom and repeated possessions, and Raxl and Quito’s search for the conjure doll and silver pin. Directly connected to this are (2) Jacques’ murder of Dr. Menkin, (3) Alison and Dan’s search for the true cause of Erica’s death and for Dr. Menkin’s missing notes, and (4) the love triangle/square between Dan, Alison, and Jean Paul/Jacques. Then you have the four interconnected plots directly involving Holly, including (5) her romantic pursuit by Matt, Tim, Jacques, and Quito; (6) her conflicts with Elizabeth including direct competition over Jean Paul/Jacques; (7) her torment by Erica’s spirit; and (8) Tim’s subplot about the damned Holly portrait. Then there are (9) the saga of the missing cyanide and (10) the guests’ resistance to Jean Paul’s imprisonment of them on the island. In addition to these, we have (11) the history of Jacques, which may have included innumerable subplots of its own had Ian Martin been allowed to explore it thoroughly. We know that Jacques’ pursuit of Alison and Elizabeth would have connected to this, given their previous incarnations as Rahua and Tarasca, and that Martin originally planned for Tarasca to have her own storyline. If we include the aborted arc about Elizabeth’s possession by Tarasca, that would have made a whopping twelve subplots(!), unless I’m forgetting about something.
For comparison, here are the major subplots from Desmond Hall, during the period when Cornelius Crane did most of the writing: (1) Jean Paul’s possession by the Mark of Death; (2) the coven’s schemes to undermine the Desmond family, which led to the disappearance of Philip Desmond; (3) the Evil Serpent plotline; (4) the Hamlet subplot involving Cort’s conflicts with his mother and dear stepfather; (5) the love triangle of Cort, Holly, and Philip’s ghost; (6) the second love triangle of Ada, Laslo, and Irene; (7) all of Jean Paul’s romantic entanglements; and (8) the attempted possession of his fiancée Helena by Erica. That’s still a lot of intersecting plots, but not quite as many as in early Maljardin.
I know I’ve complained in the past about the recap that makes up about half the dialogue in early Maljardin, but the sheer number of plots may have required it to ensure that returning viewers remembered everything and new viewers weren’t completely lost. I don’t have to like the constant recap, but I must admit that it was probably necessary even for the fans who managed to catch every episode during its original run.
3. Stronger characterizations than under the writers of late Maljardin
Like a traditional soap opera, the first half of the Maljardin arc is character-driven. Most important plot points occur on Mondays and Fridays, leaving the mid-week episodes for (mostly) minor plot points, subplots, and character development. We see Alison’s relationship with Jean Paul evolve from friendly in-laws to potential lovers, only for her to tire of his constant mood changes and withdraw from him. We see Reverend Matt Dawson’s crisis of faith, from his stalking Holly out of an allegedly spiritual love to his questioning his disbelief in demons while trapped on Maljardin. We see Dan lose all respect for Jean Paul as he becomes convinced that his employer murdered Erica and Dr. Menkin. We also see Jean Paul grow increasingly volatile even when Jacques isn’t possessing him, making his prisoners try harder to escape and creating a vicious cycle of repression and paranoia on the island.
After Robert Costello becomes producer, the arc shifts to a more plot-driven narrative. In a span of just four weeks, Erica will be resurrected and proceed to murder most of the characters. Character development will lose its importance in late Maljardin, and the characters of Elizabeth and Holly (and later Jean Paul) will become almost unrecognizable. Although Cornelius Crane was a competent writer who gave strong characterizations to the characters he created, he makes it clear that he didn’t care much for Martin’s creations through how quickly he kills off most of them and alters the personalities of two of the ones left.
2. Actual research
This one is most noticeable in two areas: the scientific subjects discussed and the way that Martin uses the Tarot. Before writing for SP, he worked on The Doctors and The Nurses, both early medical dramas with soap opera elements. Little survives from either The Nurses or the 1960s era of The Doctors[1], but one can imagine that he got into the habit of researching medical topics then--perhaps not including subjects as far-out as cryonics, but maybe some of the others discussed on SP like cellular reconstruction, organ transplants, and eclampsia. Here on SP, he’s referenced specific scientific studies, including Miroslava Pavlović’s study of brain transplants in quail embryos, Kenneth B. Wolfe’s “Effects of Hypothermia on Cerebral Damage Resulting from Cardiac Arrest,” and--most fascinating of all--W. Grey Walter’s robotics article “An Imitation of Life,” whose potential significance to Erica’s backstory I discussed in the final part of my Shadow Over Seventh Heaven review series.
His penchant for research becomes even more obvious when we explore his use of the Tarot and compare it to the way the cards were used on the show’s inspiration Dark Shadows. Despite also having done research on various occult matters--the most obscure being the use of I Ching wands for time travel[2]--DS’s writers were notably lazy in their use of Tarot symbolism, sticking mostly to the Major Arcana, often interpreting their names literally, and using the Tower of Destruction so often that one would think that copies of the Tower comprised half the deck. Not so on SP. Although he did have tarot reader Vangie Abbott use Death literally in Episode 7, and he does portray the Nine of Swords as “the card of death” when it typically means nightmares, suffering because of loss, and inner torment, his use of the Tarot typically shows careful research into the meanings of mostly cards from the Minor Arcana (the suits of wands, cups, swords, and pentacles). He uses it both as a means of giving character profiles and for foreshadowing, although the cards often foreshadow planned events that never took place because of script rewrites.
He did, however, take some artistic liberties with other subjects that he must have researched while writing the serial. I mean to write a detailed analysis someday comparing and contrasting the show’s portrayal of vodou with the reality, but I’m not satisfied with the scanty amount of research that I’ve done so far. I have already written about the Great Serpent and how Raxl appears to syncretize the loa Damballah with the Aztec feathered serpent Quetzalcoatl, but there are other related subjects I want to discuss someday in other posts. The short version: the “voodoo” portrayed on the show is a mixture of elements of genuine Afro-Caribbean religions (worship of a Serpent God, belief in zombies, use of drums in rituals, the titles “Conjure Man” and “Conjure Woman”) and traditional Mesoamerican religious practices (Quetzalcoatl, Aztec human sacrifice, Raxl’s mention of curanderos). The evidence suggests that he picked and chose elements from these traditions for Maljardin’s “Conjure Faith” in a way reminiscent of the real-life phenomenon of religious syncretism. While somewhat problematic, the obscurity of some of the things he picked and chose shows that he must have conducted some research even on these subjects.
1. The best Jacques
Jean Paul Desmond may be the protagonist, but, in the first seven weeks of the show, it’s his devilish ancestor Jacques who truly steals the show. From his evil laugh to his snarky commentary on the happenings on Maljardin to the hilarious and adorable expressions he makes as he plays with his detained guests, there’s no denying that Jacques is the star of Martin’s SP. When he’s absent, the whole show suffers from a lack of his mischief, not to mention that smile that stirs up desires in me that can never be righteously fulfilled. If there’s a Devil, I bet he resembles THE DEVIL JACQUES ELOI DES MONDES in looks, voice, and demeanor--the better to seduce you with (and by you, I mean me). Horns and a pointy tail, after all, don’t tempt half as well as a beautiful black cape and Bissits Face™.
The Jacques of late Maljardin will be a far flatter character, more outwardly evil but less charming and consequently less entertaining. In Desmond Hall, his role will be reduced significantly and he will have very little dialogue, mostly just the same clip of his laughter repeated. He will have a few fun scenes in the second Desmond Hall arc, but the post-Martin Jacques is no devil, just an ordinary man with a slightly different personality, led over to the dark side. This is understandable--the thought of the supernatural embodiment of evil remaining imprisoned for three centuries is quite far-fetched, and Desmond Hall Arc II writer Harding Lemay wasn’t fond of all-evil characters[3]--but I still find the original Jacquet the most fun by far.
That concludes this post on my favorite things about Ian Martin’s Strange Paradise. Stay tuned for my list of some things about his writing that needed improvement.
{ Next: The Top 5 Worst Things -> }
Notes
[1] The Thousand Oaks Library in Thousand Oaks, California has ten of Martin’s scripts from The Doctors from shortly after the series switched from its original experimental anthology format to a traditional continuing soap.
[2] The portrayal of the I Ching as a means of time travel on Dark Shadows almost certainly came from William Seabrook’s book Witchcraft: Its Power in the World Today, where he describes the 49th ko hexagram’s use in a form of past-life regression in New York magick circles in the early 20th century. See Seabrook, “Werewolf in Washington Square,” Witchcraft (New York: Ishi Press, 2015), pp. 164-175.
[3] Harding Lemay, Eight Years in Another World, chap. 3, Kindle edition. In this chapter, Lemay discusses his conflicts with Irna Phillips, the creator of Another World, over how to portray soap opera characters. According to him, Phillips believed that characters should be depicted as either “Saints” or “Sinners,” the only permitted nuance being that female Sinners had to love their children if they had any. Lemay disagreed with such black-and-white characterizations, finding them unrealistic, and made the serial’s characters more morally gray.
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Quiz: Which Desmond Hall Character Are You?
SPOILER WARNING FOR DESMOND HALL ARCS I AND II
Last week, I was going to work on finishing my next review, but then my muse pulled me aside and ordered me to write a Desmond Hall personality quiz while threatening me with a conjure doll and silver pin. Not every Desmond Hall character is in this quiz, only the ones that I thought would be the funniest to write. Enjoy!
1. You have just arrived at an ancient manor house enveloped in darkness that rests atop a sinister network of haunted caves. When you learn this, how do you react?
A. Lie in bed for several days while writhing in agony.
B. Accept it and keep myself busy while pining for my voodoo island home.
C. Act insufferably smug, because soon the house will belong to me.
D. Go search for creatures in the caves to alleviate my boredom and satisfy my compulsion to do random disturbing things.
E. Barely react at all because the writers have forgotten that I have a personality.
F. Swan around while talking to myself about how the manor looks like something out of a storybook.
G. Wish that I could live there again, because I've been trapped in a trippy magical closet for months.
2. The daily newspaper arrives and the headline reads, "GIRL BRUTALLY MURDERED.” What is your response?
A. Retreat to my bedchamber and panic loudly about how I hope no one discovers that I’m the murderer.
B. Get the body buried and all evidence concealed.
C. Observe a moment of silence for my former doxy, then promptly forget she ever existed.
D. Cut out the photo of the victim's face, suspend it from a papier-mâché gallows tree, and display it prominently in the foyer.
E. Feel moderately concerned for my safety, but not too much. My ghost boyfriend will protect me...maybe.
F. Scheme to blackmail the killer into marrying me.
G. Wonder, "Was that my brother again?"
3. Your hobbies include:
A. Moping around the manor house in fancy suits and contorting my face as though trying unsuccessfully to relieve myself.
B. Reciting dramatic monologues with bits of scenery caught between my teeth!
C. Plotting murder, robbery, and the corruption of young maidens while sipping sherry.
D. I wander. I visit. I'm here and there. I'm a kind of ghost of Desmond Hall.
E. I used to enjoy rebelling, flouncing, and bickering, but I've lost my taste for those. Now I prefer hanging out with old people in a cottage that smells of strange spices.
F. Talking to and stroking my sweet little snake. (By which I mean "reptile with no legs and a forked tongue." Get your mind out of the gutter.)
G. Necromancy.
4. Your favorite foods include:
A. Bubbly eggs cooked in champagne. Definitely not kippers.
B. The cuisine of my native island, before the evil of THE DEVIL JACQUES ELOI DES MONDES made all the plants poisonous and killed all the animals!
C. My spouse's hors d'oeuvres--but only when I don't have to eat them off the floor.
D. Sugar, strawberries and cream, and the very best...*checks Teleprompter*...butter.
E. Muffins laced with magical herbs.
F. The delicious misery of the man who tried to strangle me and of all the other women who want him.
G. I don't eat anymore. I'm a ghost. Food passes right through me--literally.
5. What turns you on?
A. A lover who is unpredictable but not murderously crazy, and who likes to wear lacy nighties.
B. I would not know! I have not felt those urges in three hundred years!
C. Money.
D. Anyone from my preferred gender who actually wants to spend time with me.
E. A ghost who behaves like Edward Cullen.
F. Jean Paul Desmond! He is the sexiest male character in the history of television.
G. Submission and unquestioning devotion. Also, lesbians.
6. What is your signature look?
A. Highly flattering mod suits combined with an unflattering combover.
B. A long black Victorian dress.
C. A stodgy gray/green suit, which is probably in desperate need of Febreze after being worn three days in a row.
D. Turtlenecks.
E. Bleached blonde hair and faddish early ‘70s fashions.
F. Long pointed fingernails, false eyelashes, and a creepy grin.
G. I once hung from the ceiling with my shirt torn open. Does that count?
7. Everyone has a skeleton in their closet. What is yours?
A. Although I want to reach out and help the beautiful young women who come to me, instead my hands reach out to kill!
B. I single-handedly cursed my employer's family by signing his grandfather’s (misspelled) name on a pledge to the Dark Lord.
C. I am a black widower.
D. I used to participate in necromancy rituals with my dear cousin.
E. I stole a piece of my mother's jewelry and sold it at a pawn shop.
F. I am a priestess of the Serpent God.
G. Funny you should mention skeletons. My closet has a literal one hanging in it.
8. If you had to guess, which of these personages were you most likely in a past life?
A. A freebooter possessed by the Devil.
B. Myself.
C. Henry Seewald--who looks exactly like a toddler version of me--transported back in time via the 49th hexagram.
D. Someone named Claude.
E. A young girl sacrificed by a priestess who looked like my mother.
F. Ophelia, if she were real.
G. My great-uncle with the same first name as me, who was allegedly disowned for being a poet.
9. Your favorite Dark Shadows character is:
A. Barnabas Collins.
B. Magda Rakosi.
C. Nicholas Blair.
D. David Collins.
E. Carolyn Stoddard.
F. Angelique Bouchard.
G. Quentin Collins.
10. What from 1970 Dark Shadows do you believe was most likely inspired by Strange Paradise?
A. The character of Judah Zachery, who is highly reminiscent of THE DEVIL JACQUES ELOI DES MONDES.
B. The use of a retcon to completely change Angelique's backstory.
C. The name Desmond Collins.
D. The implied reincarnation in the Summer of '70 arc that (sadly) never got explored as much as it should have been.
E. The subplot about Quentin falling in love with Daphne's ghost.
F. The Leviathan cult's use of snake iconography.
G. The carousel in Tad and Carrie's playroom.
If you answered mostly A, you are Jean Paul Desmond, richest man in the world and master of Desmond Hall. Tall, dark, and incredibly handsome in spite of his receding hairline, Jean Paul is the victim of two self-imposed curses, one of which causes him to strangle people when the Mark of Death appears on his hand (which is totally not a reflection of some repressed or hidden part of his personality, having formerly displayed megalomania and control freak tendencies on his island). When not under the effects of this curse, he is the living embodiment of charm and sweetness and attracts would-be partners like moths to a flame. Logically, the same must be true about you, because online personality quizzes are never wrong. ;)
If you answered mostly B, you are Raxl, daughter of the Priestess of the Serpent and winner of the Canadian 1969 and 1970 scenery-chewing contests. Far older than she looks, the Desmond family’s housekeeper may not be as loyal as she appears, depending on the whims of whomever wrote the plot outline for the final arc. She is an expert on all things occult and supernatural, from tarot cards to the Egyptian Key. Even after her retcon, she is awesome.
If you answered mostly C, you are Laslo Thaxton, husband of Ada (Desmond) Thaxton and master of Desmond Hall in the absence of Jean Paul and Philip. I would say that you are an unscrupulous, greedy Devil-worshiper like Laslo, but I’ve always hated those personality quizzes that make moral judgments about people just because they share some traits in common with the villain. Therefore, I’m just going to assume that you are most likely a decent person who only got Laslo because you happen to love money and Nicholas Blair.
If you answered mostly D, you are Cort Desmond, twenty-something cousin of Jean Paul and Philip. Eccentric and erratic but oh-so-adorable, Cort is a polarizing character loved by some fans for his good looks and (often unintentionally) funny lines, but hated by others for being somewhat of a spoiled brat. Like Hamlet whom he idolizes, he seeks justice for the death of his father, along with the inheritance his Dear Stepfather Laslo wants to steal from him.
If you answered mostly E, you are Holly Marshall--or, rather, what Holly has become since her creator Ian Martin left the show. Formerly a spitfire with a high IQ, a low boiling point, and a love for outdated slang, Holly has become a shell of her former self under the new writers. She spends more time unconscious and hypnotized than not; when she is conscious, she wastes her time pining after an unsuitable love interest who treats her like Edward treats Bella in Twilight. I hope this doesn’t describe you, because, if it does, you should seek help. Don’t be like Desmond Hall-era Holly!
If you answered mostly F, you are Agatha Pruitt, a young seamstress obsessed with Jean Paul. While the master of Desmond Hall has attracted many suitors, none are as strange or disturbing as Agatha, who blackmails him into letting her live at Desmond Hall after his failed murder attempt and proceeds to wreak havoc there along with the Serpent God (who may or may not be Raxl’s Great Serpent) whom she worships.
Finally, if you answered mostly G, you are Jean Paul’s brother, Philip Desmond (not to be confused with his cousin Philip Desmond, or either of the two Philippes des Mondes). A secretive figure largely mysterious even to his own brother, the handsome Philip dabbles in the dark arts and other mysteries, which ultimately leads to his disappearance into the caves beneath Desmondton and reappearance as a ghost. His character alignment is unclear--he may be evil, or just chaotic neutral--but one thing is clear: whoever messes with Philip has the Devil to pay.
#strange paradise#desmond hall arc i#desmond hall arc ii#dark shadows#quiz#justforfun#i'm cort by the way#although i thought i would be agatha because of my answer to question number 5#a lot of people think of sp as a ripoff of ds#but in truth the copying and inspiration went both ways#case in point: the carousel which sp introduced several months earlier#also you're welcome for that bad ada subtitle
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Episode 37 Review: The Message in the Sand
{ YouTube: 1 | 2 | 3 }
{ Synopses/Recaps: Debby Graham | Bryan Gruszka }
Last episode, Jean Paul Desmond’s attempt to contact his late wife Erica via séance came to a crashing halt (literally) when the chandelier hanging directly over the glass-top table fell, knocking medium and Conjure Woman Vangie Abbott into a zombie-like catatonic state. Although the séance ended before anyone could establish contact with Erica, the prisoners on Maljardin did receive a message from the beyond in Quito’s writing box. Unfortunately, the only one among them fluent in the ancient language is Vangie herself, who is unable to communicate due to the spell cast over her by THE DEVIL JACQUES ELOI DES MONDES. Raxl has some knowledge of the ancient language, but it is only enough to get the basic gist and not the whole message, which means that another mystery ferments the brew of darkness on the Island of Evil.
According to Raxl, the grains of rice warn of more accidents and spirits whom Jean Paul has angered, but that is not the entire message. Will she learn what the entire message says before Jacques causes even more disaster on Maljardin?
Jean Paul cannot believe, after all his playing God and tyrannical behavior on Maljardin, that the spirits could possibly be angry with him.
Don’t act so shocked, Jean Paul.
Like the last episode, this one picks up where the last left off--meaning, in this case, right after the cliffhanger ending with the writing box. This time, there is no mention of another impending accident, but instead of a much dire consequence of the next séance. “The ancient symbols, the ancient tongue of my people can be translated in many ways, but they all warn of death!” Raxl proclaims.
But Jean Paul doesn’t care. In front of almost the entire cast, he begins a soliloquy about he was so close to making contact with his dear, sweet Erica, and that matters to him far more than either Vangie’s life or his own. But then, along comes SCENE INTERRUPTING DAN, asking him again about the falling chandelier:
Colin Fox is way overacting in this scene, even by Strange Paradise standards. I don’t think I’ve ever seen even Cosette Lee or David Wells overact this hard.
He marches away to his bedroom and Raxl tells Quito that they need to keep the message intact so that Vangie can read it when she recovers from her trance. Once again, she has forgotten the name of the spirit who is meddling in the affairs on the island:
Jacques: *pouting* “Oh, Raxl, you forgot about me already? I thought for certain I was far more memorable than that.”
Meanwhile, Jean Paul clutches a bedpost in his fabulous bedroom and ponders who could have stopped him from making contact with Erica:
Really, Jean Paul? Dan says you have an IQ of 187. You should be able to figure this out.
While Dan recaps to Tim all about the chandelier and about all the suspicious things that happened on the island during the previous week and a half,
the master of Maljardin enters his hidden monitor room through his bookcase and records a message to his dead wife:
Erica, you must be near tonight. For a fleeting moment, the séance seemed to have brought us together. When you are alive again and hear this, you will know that I have risked everything to bring you back from your long, lonely sleep. Oh, Erica, I knew the risk, but I must be stronger than that devil on Maljardin! I will win, because nothing must prevent you from joining me again in life! If I lose, I will join you in death, my Erica, and anyone who interferes with us being together again will die!
Yandere Jean Paul once again.
Just before this scene, we get a really good shot of the bookcase that disguises the entrance to Jean Paul’s monitor room. I have a weakness for both this bookcase and the ones in the drawing room at Desmond Hall, because the books on them look like the ones in the older sections of the stacks at the library where I work. How I wish I could read their spines and see what kinds of books he’s into!
This shot when he enters the hidden room makes him look tiny.
His recording to Erica is unusually long in this episode, probably to make up for the lack of tape recorder journal scenes in Week 7. While Tim (who seems to believe Dan’s theories) tells Holly that he believes that Jean Paul slashed Erica’s portrait, the recording continues:
No one will touch you, Erica, or the instruments of your preservation. No man living, no man dead. Oh, my Erica! I can say no more today; I’m tired, but no one must know this, only you because-
Taken out of context, the dialogue in this scene sounds rather rapey.
Usually, I think of Jacques’ attempts to take over Jean Paul’s body as fantasy metaphor murder. He wants to steal his body and his entire identity, becoming the new Jean Paul Desmond and leaving the old one’s soul either trapped in Hell or suspended in time as indicated in Episode 60. (That is, if we assume that they’re not different sides of the same man and Jacques isn’t just the evil side to his own personality.)
This time, however, all Jacques’ talk of wanting to “use” and “enter” Jean Paul’s body in that menacing yet smarmy tone make me think instead of fantasy metaphor rape. Vampirism may be the most popular fantasy metaphor for rape in fiction, but this scene with its sexual undertones presents demonic possession almost in the same light, at least in this scene. We already know that Jacques isn’t above sexual encounters with questionable consent and that he’s more than willing to seduce women while impersonating Jean Paul (which would equal rape by deception if it led to sex), so it really isn’t much of a stretch.
“Jacques Eloi des Mondes is coming aboard,” THE DEVIL JACQUES ELOI DES MONDES announces, and he takes over once again:
HEADACHE FACE!
Jacques grabbing Jean Paul’s face seems to be the show’s new way of indicating his possession.
Jacques after he has taken control. His hair even looks a little messy, too, like Jacques’’ in the flashbacks.
He catches a glimpse of Raxl and Quito in the crypt and decides to spy on them. Conveniently, they happen to be discussing the message in the writing box, which we now learn contains symbols meaning “conjure doll” and “silver pin.” She tells Quito that she can’t read the rest of the message, which directly contradicts what she said about it telling of accidents and death last episode and at the beginning of this one. Assuming that this is just a continuity error, we know the following about the message so far:
Another accident is going to take place.
The spirits on Maljardin are mad at Jean Paul. We don’t know which spirits, but I would hazard to guess Dr. Menkin, the Conjure Man, and Erica.
DEATH!
Something involving the conjure doll and the silver pin.
Raxl reading the message. It looks like a complicated script to read, even compared to the Aztecs’ pictographic writing system and the Incas’ quipu.
“Now I know your secret,” Jacques smirks, “so I can turn you off, Raxl--perhaps someday soon for good.” I’m confused: what secret of hers did he just learn? He already knows that she’s a voodoo priestess and that she’s been searching for the missing conjure doll and silver pin ever since he hid them back in Episode 2. It can’t be the Temple of the Serpent, either, because they go back upstairs instead of entering it at the end of the scene. So, by process of elimination, the answer can only be that he just learned that she can read the ancient language of her people! And, if Jacques doesn’t also know how (and he most likely doesn’t), then the Conjure Man can still communicate with her from beyond the grave!
Back in the Great Hall, Tim and Holly are chatting and he suggests that there might be a hidden tunnel somewhere on the island where they could escape. Just then, Jacques interrupts their conversation and leads Holly away for a private discussion--which turns out to not be so private, because it’s in the dining room, but that’s probably why Quito is standing off to the side of the doorway.
Sorry, Tim!
While they’re together for their little semi-private meeting, Jacques decides to promote underage drinking:
Jacques pouring out some wine for himself and Holly like the cool stepdad who lets you drink at 20.
I love the epithet “prince of the sea” for both Jean Paul and Jacques. It fits both of them so perfectly with their elegance and outwardly regal demeanors.
Quito blocks Tim from entering, but then leaves to visit Raxl again--and yet Tim does nothing while he’s gone? Seriously? Has even Ian Martin gotten bored with Boring Artist Tim now? Or did he just forget about him during his hasty rewriting spree?
Meanwhile, Jacques pressures Holly to reveal the subject matter of her and Tim’s conversation, and she reluctantly agrees after he starts carrying on about secret tunnels:
More confirmation that Jacques did not build Maljardin. (Remember the Raxl line from Episode 32 where she mentioned that kings inhabited the château before him?)
“I heard Matt Dawson speaking about secret places in the crypt,” she says. “I don’t know where or what; he wouldn’t say! He said it was a secret, that he had given his word.” This is a major change from Martin’s original plans for this episode, which we can see in its Lost Episode summary.
The summary indicates that originally, instead of asking Jacques about secret passages, Holly would have told Jean Paul about the Temple of the Serpent. The version of the summary published in the Cleveland Plain Dealer (October 31, 1969) indicates that “she does not know it is a Temple,” but she probably wouldn’t tell him about the room if she didn’t sense that it was important in some way.
Yet another version--this one from the Fitchburg Sentinel (November 4, 1969)--states that the Temple “could be used to destroy Jacques Eloi des Mondes,” which is fascinating. I won’t analyze this bit, though; Curt has already done a brilliant analysis of this summary and how it connects to one of Jacques’ lines from Episode 2, and it’s better and more in-depth than my analysis would have been. I highly recommend it, but beware of spoilers through the end of Maljardin if you’re worried about those.
He calls himself “Jean Paul Desmond” three times during this scene, as though he’s desperate to prove to her that he’s not Jacques Eloi des Mondes, but Jean Paul Desmond. It’s hilarious.
But back to the broadcasted version of the episode. Jacques is intrigued by what Holly says and tells her to search for the passage with him in the crypt. Once again, she agrees, being as captivated by Jean Paul Desmond as she is.
On their way down to the crypt, Jacques tells Dan that he can leave the island when he wants to, and Dan responds by threatening again to tell the cryocapsule. Needless to say, Jean Paul is going to reverse this when he finds out what Jacques said, thereby making him look even more insane than before.
When they arrive in the crypt, Jacques asks Holly where she thinks the secret room is, but she doesn’t know. Somehow neither she nor he has ever found the glaringly obvious door on the crypt wall. I have a headcanon that centuries have gone by without anyone discovering the not-so-hidden door on their own, simply because Raxl and Quito haven’t pointed it out to them. Somehow no one notices the doorway, and it stretches my willing suspension of disbelief farther than anything else on Maljardin.
Jacques tampering with the Conjure Man’s message.
But he drops the subject of the secret room as soon as he finds the writing box. He crosses his hands on top of it, lifts them, and poof! The message is rearranged. And then, through the power of Headache Faces™, Jean Paul regains control over his body:
This is his ugliest headache face so far.
Here, have a photo of Jacques smiling from earlier in the episode to wash out your eyes.
Jean Paul chases Holly out of the crypt and tells Quito that he must stay in the crypt and guard the capsule. He pronounces it the British way (”cap-syuel”) instead of how he normally says it (”cap-suhl”). Since normally only Alison and Vangie pronounce “capsule” that way, it appears that their pronunciation of the word is rubbing off on him. (It’s already rubbed off on me. I’m not kidding. The more time I spend re-watching this show instead of socializing, the more I start to talk like these characters--and I don’t even mind.)
Raxl and Quito--who came running back to the crypt when Jean Paul shouted at Holly--go to retrieve the writing box and bring it into the temple, which they decided not to do earlier when they really should have done so. But then she opens it and discovers that most of the message is gone!
Raxl: “There is only one message now: death!”
Coming up next: Alison discovers more clues to the mystery of Erica’s death.
{<- Previous: Episode 36 || Next: Episode 38 ->}
#strange paradise#ian martin#maljardin arc#week 8#episode 37#review#the blue suit of sexiness#conjure doll and silver pin#continuity errors#fantasy metaphor murder#fantasy metaphor rape#headache faces#hot as hell (best of jacques)#jean paul's monitor room#lost episode summaries#maljardin blog#the not so hidden voodoo temple#scenery chewing#tape recorder journal#the writing box
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Episode 32 Review: Sea Fever
{ Not available on YouTube }
{ Full Synopses/Recaps: Debby Graham | Bryan Gruszka }
{ Screencaps }
I apologize for the delay in posting this review. Once again, I’ve been busy in real life and didn’t have enough time to work on it last week. (And so soon after starting my Shadow Over Seventh Heaven review series!) But now I’m back and I have enough time to write about my favorite show again--and, in a week or so, hopefully enough to continue my other review series as well.
This is the first episode to differ completely from the Lost Episode summaries published in various U.S. and Canadian newspapers--and therefore probably the point at which the original outline and the final one began to diverge. Episode 30′s summary described an event that happened in the episode, but whose cause appears to have been changed during forced rewrites; last episode’s was still accurate after revisions; but this one’s summary is the first to describe a scene absent from the final, aired episode. (More on that later.)
Shall we begin this review? This episode features some of the darkest Jean Paul (yes, Jean Paul!) dialogue thus far, along with many entertaining facial expressions as multiple characters feast on the scenery. It’s a wild ride with a genuinely scary scene, and, if you like those things, I think you’ll enjoy it.
We open right where last episode left off, with Elizabeth reacting to Jacques’ little comment about Holly and how he would stake her life in a bet that Vangie couldn’t contact Erica in the planned séance. ”Jean Paul,” she shouts, “your inference that I would harm my daughter to take her fortune for my own is insulting and in bad taste: something I’d never expect of you!”
The handsome devil replies, “Your strong defense against a simple query lends credence to a simple supposition”--which is just a fancier, less archaic way of saying “the lady doth protest too much.”
She flounces and runs into Vangie at the door--figuratively, not literally, although that would be amusing. “You interrupted Mrs. Marshall’s romantic exit from which there might be no return,” Jacques comments, which sounds suspiciously like foreshadowing.
The conversation drifts to the séance and how Jacques is most definitely not going to back down because he’s not a coward, and then, suddenly,
Vangie SCREAMS!
Apparently, every time a female character other than Raxl screams, she has to try eating her hand immediately afterwards.
She’s screaming because she can sense that someone is tampering with the cryonics capsule. And, at the same time that this happens, Jacques also de-possesses Jean Paul:
I’ll let these headache faces speak for themselves.
Jean Paul who threatens to kill anyone who tampers with the capsule. Very nice (not)! Normally, I find his concern for Erica romantic, but this is going too far. He reminds me of the captain in the CBS Radio Mystery Theater episode "Sea Fever" (also by Ian Martin) who…well, I don't want to spoil the ending, but let's just say that he is even crazier in love than Jean Paul. It isn’t one of the best CBSRMT dramas, but it will likely chill your bones. It certainly chilled mine.
Love this shot of Colin Fox backacting while Paisley Maxwell and Angela Roland stare at him with wide-open eyes. This episode is full of unintentionally funny facial expressions.
Jean Paul hurries back to Maljardin with Elizabeth and Vangie, and heads to the crypt immediately to see Raxl about the capsule. She recaps to him about the capsule tank’s malfunctioning in the previous episode. He asks who discovered it; she tells him Dan, which only makes him more suspicious of him. SHe also recaps to him about how Alison and Dan are searching for the cyanide that he stole from the lab. “Everyone questions my changes of mood,” he shouts. “Now I must question changes in others!...There is danger hiding everywhere on Maljardin. It has a history that has plagued the family, that will plague all who pry into my affairs!"
While Vangie questions the sincerity of Elizabeth’s devotion to Jean Paul above, Jean Paul leaves red flowers on the cryocapsule and announces his planned next moves to his love: “Erica, my dove, now [there] are some people here on our island who would destroy the process by which you will be returned to me and fill my arms again, but I promise you, no one, no one under any consequences [line flub], will live again if he or she causes you to remain forever dead!"
A beautiful shot of Jean Paul with flowers for Erica.
When Raxl next joins Jean Paul in the crypt, she tells him that “only the priestess of the Serpent knows what is really on their minds.” Jean Paul mentions that she has told him before about the human sacrifices that the priestesses used to perform on the island--which is not recap (as we have only heard her tell Matt about them so far), so she must have told him sometime before Erica’s death. She insists that, although that was true long ago, their altar has not been used for them since Jacques's time.
“But, if his evil can rise again, as you fear,” he begins, implying that he wants to start making blood sacrifices.
“No! Please, M’sieu, no!” Raxl interrupts.
“I will do what has to be done, Raxl. Nothing more, nothing less.”
Raxl draws the Sign of the Great Serpent in the air and the same Great Serpent symbol that's in the Temple appears on screen. It’s a cool effect and not something that’s ever seen in any other episode.
She leaves the crypt, looking back at Jean Paul a few times, probably in complete disbelief that he wants her, daughter of the unseen Priestess of the Serpent, to sacrifice Dan and any other troublesome guests to protect against THE DEVIL JACQUES ELOI DES MONDES. This is a shocking new low for Jean Paul Desmond, and shows the darker side of his character. This is a man who, even without a curse and even when he is not possessed, is capable of murder because of his obsession with his love interest. This is a male yandere.
She sees Matt in the Great Hall, who tells her that he’s searched all over Maljardin and that there must be many hidden rooms there. It turns out they have both searched in every room they know about and still have found neither the missing cyanide nor the conjure doll and silver pin. He demands that she tell him the legend of Maljardin and that old black magic. And so we learn from her some very important background information, some of which is never brought up again:
Where there is evil, there is magic. Where there is magic, strange things happen, but first there must be evil, and there is!...Before the time of Jacques Eloi des Mondes, when this house first stood, it was a palace of kings and there were many people here until this island became his!…Only the greedy and foolish [natives] remained, and none who left ever returned.
There is a curse here, Reverend: him, that devil!
The implication is that Jacques did not build the château, but took it from someone else, which connects to his revelation about a month earlier that he was a “free looter”--or, in other words, a pirate. Matt argues that Jacques cannot still hold control over Maljardin because he died three hundred years ago, but Raxl says that “for some of us, three hundred years is but the span of a single lifetime,” indirectly revealing her true age to him.
She smiles at him right after she reveals to him that she’s centuries old. I think this is the first time Raxl smiles on the show, and the only time in the entire Maljardin arc.
Matt asks about the natives who stayed on the island, and Raxl says of them, “They died very soon. It was the curse on Maljardin. Have you ever seen a man who has lost his soul, Reverend? Their eyes down, the fishermen no longer fish, the children cease to play. They do no more than sit and wait [for death]...Since then, no native has ever tried to settle on Maljardin.” Only Vangie, the Conjure Woman, can go back and forth to and from the island “on the wings of the Great Serpent,” but she, too, is destined to die someday on Maljardin.
At the end of this scene, Vangie enters and adds that she doesn’t know when she’ll die, because the tarot cards did not (and cannot?) give her an exact date. This would seem to make her death on the show a foregone conclusion, but that may or may not be the case. (I say that not only to avoid spoilers, but also because the show and the original scripts give the Conjure Woman radically different fates, as we shall explore in future reviews.)
Meanwhile, down in the crypt, Jean Paul is still talking to Erica about how he is determined to kill anyone who interferes with the cryonics process when Jacques starts intruding on his mind. Like in Episode 27, the special effects team illustrates this by superimposing Jacques’ face from the portrait over that of Jean Paul when he is talking to him:
The best example from this episode.
None of Jacques’ lines in this scene are as funny as those of the old, pre-Lost Episode era Jacques, even if Fox-C still delivers the devil’s lines with the same amount of sarcasm and relish as before. His best line this time around is, in my not-so-humble opinion, “Suppose we just whisper so dear Erica may sleep.” I miss early Jacques’ jokes already--yes, even the ham-handed, cornball puns--and it hasn’t even been a week’s worth of episodes since the last.
We cut to Raxl and Vangie in the Great Hall, discussing the upcoming séance. Vangie says that she wants to find out if Erica’s spirit genuinely wants Jean Paul to continue mourning her and keeping her frozen. She insists that Raxl let her touch the cryocapsule before the séance, most likely to get a sense of Erica’s energy before they perform the ceremony.
Jean Paul: “What are you doing!”
Raxl: “Please, M’sieu. The Conjure Woman is trying to help.”
Jean Paul: “Only for a séance, Vangie. Erica must remain undisturbed.”
Vangie: “And if you don’t like what you learn?”
Jean Paul: “I’ll face that--when the time comes!”
The Lost Episode summary indicates that, at some point in the original draft, Raxl and Vangie had a conversation about Jacques, and Raxl would have told her how she can tell him and Jean Paul apart. As I’m sure many of you have realized, Raxl and Vangie oscillate between knowing that Jean Paul is being possessed and merely suspecting, depending on the episode. In the original Episode 32, Raxl would have known when Jacques is controlling Jean Paul’s body and Vangie would have only suspected until after Raxl explained. Ruling out all obvious non-diegetic clues such as the vanishing portrait shots and Jacques’ theme music, she could have said any number of things, including:
His energy/aura changes (although, logically, Vangie would notice that, too).
He wears the ring from the portrait (which we know is diegetic, because Elizabeth commented on it in Episode 13).
He opens his eyes really wide and makes silly faces.
He makes corny puns Never mind, we’re not doing that anymore.
He acts far too cheerful for a man who is supposedly mourning his dead wife.
He talks about kippers.
Etc.
I suppose we’ll never know which one(s) she mentioned, but I suspect #1, #2, and/or #5. Anyway, Jean Paul leaves to return upstairs and Vangie continues whatever she started doing with the capsule. He orders Jacques to “stop turning people against [him],” which he refuses to do, threatening to keep Erica dead if he doesn’t shut up about it.
“When we really get into the battle, someone has to die,” quips Jacques.
“Perhaps it will be you!” shouts Jean Paul in response.
“Or you, Jean Paul Desmond,” the handsome devil replies. “Or will you be preceded by one of our guests? Now let me see. A likely candidate could be...”
Jean Paul turns away from the roars of laughter, and the episode ends before Jacques can name the guest(s) he plans to murder.
Could it be Vangie? Or Holly? Dan? Alison? Even Elizabeth?
This episode was a fun one to watch, and probably the first review I’ve completed in only one day since sometime last winter. Jean Paul’s willingness to put everyone’s life on the proverbial line to save Erica shows a dark side to his nature that mostly vanishes at the end of this story arc--which is a shame, because I find morally ambiguous antihero Jean Paul the most interesting version of his character. I recommend this one, if you have access to it.
Coming up next: A Quito-centric episode where the detained guests learn shocking truths about Jean Paul’s manservant.
{ <- Previous: Episode 31 || Next: Episode 33 -> }
#strange paradise#maljardin arc#ian martin#week 7#episode 32#review#genuinely scary episodes#cbs radio mystery theater#creative line interpretation#cryonics capsule#diegesis#hand staple mouth#headache faces#kippers#lost episode summaries#scenery chewing#sign of the great serpent#smiley raxl#yandere
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Episode 30 Review: The Executive Meddling Begins?
{ YouTube: 1 | 2 }
{ Full Synopses/Recaps: Debby Graham | Bryan Gruszka }
{ Screencaps }
Welcome to my Garden of Evil, where today we end one era of the history of Strange Paradise and begin a new one: the period of the “Lost Episode” summaries, when the soap opera’s producers forced headwriter Ian Martin to rewrite much of his original story, discarding many subplots and planned plot twists and negating the original episode synopses that had already been sent to newspapers throughout North America. The known published synopses for this episode are as follows:
"Vangie, the voodoo priestess, uses her conjurer's powers to weaken the evil spell which possesses Jean Paul and to plant the suggestion that she come to his private island."[1]
"A secret potion draws Jean Paul to a voodoo priestess."[2]
According to Curt Ladnier’s blog, this is the first episode known to have been altered after the synopses were sent out, but, before starting this review, I had my doubts. Certainly, comparison between the summaries and the aired episodes show clear evidence of script changes by Episode 32, but there was enough ambiguity in certain events in this episode for me to question if this one was even rewritten in the first place. So, without further ado, let’s run a fine-toothed comb through the aired version of Episode 30 and see if we can find conclusive evidence of rewriting.
The episode begins with Holly being pushed down the staircase in the Great Hall. She screams loudly and Jean Paul and Reverend Matt Dawson come rushing to her aid. While they help her over to the couch, she turns to Matt and accuses him of deliberately pushing her. Jean Paul (who is wearing an unusual but fetching ensemble with a dark blazer and off-white pants) is also suspicious of him, because, according to him, the Reverend was there when she got pushed. Handsome devil Jacques, of course, comments:
An indication that Jacques did it, or just commenting on the situation?
For some reason, Jean Paul doesn’t blame Jacques this time, but instead Matt, who was there (as was Jacques, most likely) and who has the possible motive of revenge for rejecting his romantic advances (not applicable, but Jacques does have the motive of liking murder). Here is the conversation between them and my commentary:
Matt: "Mr. Desmond, I resent your insinuation. Why should I want to harm Holly?"
Jean Paul: "Or kill her?"
Matt: "You can't be serious."
Holly: "Whoever pushed me was."
Matt: "But I followed you down here to help you, not to hurt you."
Jean Paul: "Or to have her." [Is he implying that he thinks Matt wants to take advantage of her?]
Matt: "Are you serious?"
Jean Paul: "Your adoration is about as obvious as her pretty face." [And your pretty...everything.]
Matt: *getting pissed at Jean Paul* "I have had about all the insinuations I can take! All right, I do care about her--deeply."
Matt: *to Holly* "Now, can't you believe that I'm the last one who would want to harm you?"
Holly: "You're the first, because I don't care for you!"
Jean Paul tells Reverend Stalker to leave Holly alone "or you'll have me to answer to," so the disgruntled padre flounces. But on his way out, he has some accusations of his own:
ROFL at Matt’s delivery of this line.
Matt reveals that he still hasn’t grasped the concept of the detained guest.
So now you believe in demons? What made you change your mind?
The dialogue in this episode so far is heavy with exposition as usual, but it feels different this time. Usually, the exposition takes the form of one character telling another directly about the events and revelations from past episodes, but this time it's structured differently, as a two-way expository dialogue rather than a speech with questions and reactions from the listener. It still doesn't feel entirely natural--it still has the feel of exposition dialogue--but it's a different format.
I should also note that, according to Bryan Gruszka of StrangeParadise.net, the script reveals that neither Matt nor Jacques pushed her. The attacker’s name is a spoiler in spite of the fact that Martin never got to reveal that they were responsible, so I shall link to the Week 6 trivia page here for anyone who is interested.
Jean Paul has a possession headache, but no funny headache faces this time.
Jacques leaves the portrait (which decided to disappear this episode) and mocks Matt for believing in him--which, I should note, is a change from last episode, where the Reverend firmly denied believing in devils and called them superstition. He calls Matt's belief in him "a sad testimony to the belief in which he was schooled"--again, even though Matt actually didn't believe in devils until apparently the beginning of this episode. Already this is a break in continuity, which does not necessarily indicate someone tampering with the established canon, but is suggestive of it nonetheless. Of course, that’s assuming that it isn’t just an error, which it might be. (Remember that Martin can’t decide whether or not Raxl knows Jean Paul is possessed!)
What's with this lighting effect? Did the director decide that Jacques looked too sexy under normal lighting, so they decided to use underlighting to make him look scarier and less hot? Because the effect is not scary. It makes him look like a Muppet, and Muppets are not scary.
Jacques is getting better at impersonating Jean Paul, as evidenced by this deeply ironic part where he comforts Holly. “Have no fear, cherie,” he says, “I will protect you.”
Meanwhile in the Not-So-Hidden Temple, Vangie gives Raxl a bottle of some potion to slip Jean Paul, which she tells her "is not to kill, but to prevent more killing. It is a Conjure brew to free his mind to make it more responsive to mine." This must be what the Lost Episode summaries are referring to! She doesn’t outright state in this scene that she wants Jean Paul to bring her to Maljardin by boat, but she says that’s what she wants in the episode before this one, so anyone who has seen Episode 29 would already know that.
An interesting detail not mentioned on the trivia page: before parting, Vangie asks Raxl, daughter of the Priestess of the Serpent, to pray to her mother.
Vangie teleports/floats back to the main island, which frightens Quito until Raxl assures him that “the Conjure Woman has found her way home.” They leave the temple and begin traveling down the long tunnel back to the crypt. Unbeknownst to them, Reverend Dawson is there, searching the crypt wall for the Not-So-Hidden Door:
Come on, Matt! It’s not at all hard to find!
He finds it and pushes on the door just as Quito starts pulling it open. When Quito grabs him, both of their expressions are priceless:
I can’t decide whose expression is funnier.
“I was not trespassing in your sacred temple, Raxl!” he cries, then insists that he was only down there “to find a means of saving your master.”
“You knew of the temple because I showed you, a man of your-”
“I have not betrayed its sanctity,” he interrupts, even though he was clearly trying to find it so he could search it for the poison. The implication is that, if he visited without Raxl and Quito’s permission, he would betray the temple’s sanctity. He tells her about the missing cyanide, she tells him about the missing conjure doll and silver pin, and then she assures him that neither Jean Paul nor Jacques could have hidden either in the temple because neither know about it.
Up in the Great Hall, THE DEVIL JACQUES ELOI DES MONDES is relaxing pompously when Raxl and Quito enter. He orders Quito to prepare to sail to the main island, which leads Raxl to declare, perhaps over-confidently, “The Conjure Woman got to him even without [the potion]!” This negates the second summary which explicitly indicates the potion as the means of “draw[ing] Jean Paul to [Vangie],” but not the first. Also, what makes Raxl think that this is evidence of Vangie’s influence over him? Apparently Jacques choosing to go to the island out of his own free will isn’t a possibility.
Matt asks if he can return to the main island, but Jacques refuses, declaring that “today is a rather special trip for a lady and myself,” referring to his deliciously evil girlfriend Elizabeth Marshall. The Reverend responds by asking if he trusts her not to reveal the secret of Erica’s death, which Jacques uses as yet another opportunity to make Jean Paul look like a murderer by saying, “There is no one dead here--that I don’t pronounce!” And then he threatens him again:
Someone’s on Jacques’ list of people to kill!
We next see Jacques strutting into the French Leave Café wearing a pair of huge round sunglasses over his eyes. Ironically, the demon who is normally so fond of black clothing has changed into Jean Paul’s off-white suit jacket, although he retains the same red shirt and red-and-black striped tie. I’m thinking that Jacques picked out both outfits and changed before heading out because he just felt like playing dress-up that day. Typical 17th-century fop, just with more modern clothes.
Jacques’ new outfit.
Gold-digger Elizabeth clinging to Jacques as though she’s worried that Vangie will try stealing him from her. Makes me wonder what her 17th-century counterpart’s relationship was to Vangie.
What, no joke about how you “still can’t stand the heat?” I’m shocked!
Even on a date in a public place, he tries to make Jean Paul appear interested in committing murder. He asks Elizabeth how much her daughter’s inheritance is, in case she dies, and then gleefully reminds her of her accident earlier that day!
Back on Maljardin, Quito returns from the main island by himself. While Holly is sipping some of Raxl’s tea (in the literal sense only, unfortunately), he walks up to her holding a shiny stone and offers it to her. She takes it only reluctantly, which reminds me of another Lost Episode summary, this one for Episode 33:
Source: Cleveland Plain Dealer (October 24, 1969).
Quito doesn’t show any signs in this episode of being undead, but he does give Holly a sparkling stone, with little reaction from her. Later in this episode (not in the aired version of Episode 33), Holly gives the stone back to Quito despite his insistence that she keep it, which brings him to tears when he is alone with Raxl towards the end. These events suggest a rewrite more strongly than the original summaries at the top of this page do, because the newspaper summary for Episode 33 clearly indicates that these events were originally slated to happen three episodes later, but moved to this one during rewrites.
What about Quito? It certainly appears that Holly’s won Quito’s heart.
Meanwhile at the French Leave Café, Vangie approaches Jacques and Elizabeth and insists on reading their fortunes, although Elizabeth does not want to hear it. She lays the “King of Scepters” (or, rather, the King of Swords--see the screencap at the beginning of this entry) on their table and Jacques freaks out, enough apparently to de-possess Jean Paul:
Hooray! A headache face!
So did Vangie’s Tarot card make Jacques de-possess him? Or was it something else?
At the end of the episode, Jean Paul invites Vangie to Maljardin himself out of a desire to contact Erica. Much like Jacques’ decision to visit the main island earlier this episode, it comes across as something Jean Paul would decide to do of his own accord, without magical influences. Therefore, I think that we can say that Ian Martin’s original idea for Vangie to use her powers to convince him to take her to the island was indeed scrapped--and that was probably a good thing, because this feels more natural.
The episode ends ominously, with Jean Paul willingly putting everyone’s life on the line to contact Erica’s spirit. Not so different from Jacques wanting to kill everyone.
In conclusion, Episode 30 shows distinct signs of having been rewritten since the release of the Lost Episode summaries. Not only did Vangie’s means of allegedly convincing Jacques to visit the main island and Jean Paul’s motivation for bringing Vangie to Maljardin change, but events originally planned for Episode 33 were moved to this one. There are other minor details that, too, suggest a rewrite: the different mode of exposition and Jacques’ lack of devil/Hell jokes where Martin would have likely inserted them just a week ago. The episode feels different from the earlier Week 6 episodes, but not enough to suggest a new writer.
Coming up next: The last Bad Subtitle Special until the end of Week 8, followed by a review of Episode 31. A mysterious force is tampering with the cryonics capsule, while Alison uncovers even more clues to the mysteries surrounding Erica.
{ <- Previous: Episode 29 || Next: Episode 31 -> }
Notes
[1] Fitchburg Sentinel, October 24, 1969.
[2] San Mateo Times, October 17, 1969.
#strange paradise#maljardin arc#ian martin#week 6#episode 30#review#extra long corona edition#analysis#continuity errors#costumes#evil makeover#headache faces#holly/quito#irony#jacques/elizabeth#lost episode summaries#maljardin blog#the not so hidden voodoo temple#tarot#unexplained plot point#a big thank you to curt for sending me all the lost episode synopses#they have been very helpful in my research
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Episode 24 Review: Top 5 Reasons Why the Holly Portrait Subplot Doesn’t Work
Welcome back to Maljardin, where the melodramatic master Jean Paul Desmond is God and the Devil is a snarky talking portrait.
Speaking of portraits, today we will be looking at the subplot about Tim’s portrait of “Erica” (or, rather, of Holly) and the main things that are wrong with it. This subplot is, in my opinion, the worst in the Maljardin arc and I’ve been holding off on writing a detailed explanation of why I feel that way until my review of this episode, which mostly centers around the damned Holly portrait.
The portrait, circa Episode 18. There aren’t any good shots of it from Episode 24, so I had to settle for this one.
To recap: After the death of Erica Desmond, her husband Jean Paul hired Tim Stanton, a young artist in debt to the mob, to paint a portrait of her. Erica being both dead and encased in a cryonics capsule which both Jean Paul and THE DEVIL JACQUES ELOI DES MONDES refuse to open, Tim must instead use young heiress Holly Marshall as his model until Erica comes back to life as Jacques promised that she would.
Sound like a reasonable plan? No? I didn’t think so, either, and now I shall explain why. Here are the top five reasons why I think this subplot is stupid:
#5: Holly neither looks like Erica, nor knows what Erica looked like.
This screencap is actually from Episode 13, but I’m including it because it’s relevant.
I sometimes wonder if this criticism is unfair, because the only viewers up to this point in the show’s broadcast history who would have seen Erica were the viewers of Episodes 1, 2 (where Tim shows Alison his sketch of her), and 4. In the first scene of Episode 4, the Cryonics Society froze her corpse in the cryonics capsule, meaning that anyone who started watching after that scene would not have seen her face before Tim got his assignment from Jean Paul. Even so, neither Erica resembled Holly, which makes it absurd for her to sit for it. Why not have Alison pose instead when she’s not working? After all, they are sisters and they share a strong family resemblance according to the original pilot script. Holly barely resembles either Erica beyond being pretty.
Tim’s sketch of Erica from Episode 2, with a screencap of Alison from Episode 17 for comparison. With its upturned nose and full lips, the sketch is clearly intended to resemble Dawn Greenhalgh (Alison) and not Sylvia Feigel (Holly).
Because Holly hardly looks a thing like her, Tim complains in Episode 13 that he “can’t use her for anything but position and play of light.” In spite of this, later episodes including Episode 24 show that he has painted a sort of semi-abstraction of Holly’s face, with features about halfway between those of Holly and those of Erica. This means that he’s only making more work for himself for when Jacques brings Erica back to life--if he brings her back to life--because he will need to paint over the semi-abstraction with Erica’s face. In short, he’s wasting his time.
Besides, it’s unclear why Holly doesn’t know what Erica looked like if Erica was a very famous actress and she and her husband were stalked by the paparazzi until they escaped to Maljardin (as previous episodes have indicated). Surely she would have seen a photo of Erica in the newspaper at some point, or her face on the poster for one of her plays, or something. I realize that’s not the same as seeing someone in real life, but it’s just odd that she doesn’t know.
#4: Tim doesn’t have even a photo of Erica with him and so has to rely mostly on memory.
He even says so in Episode 13: “I have to depend on my memory of your wife and that sketch I made of her at the café,” he tells Jean Paul (or, rather, Jacques while he is possessing him). As we saw in that episode, opening the cryonics capsule and posing Erica’s thawed-out corpse for Tim is too devilish even for Jacques, so the starving artist is left with a dilemma. Jean Paul, being a fancy rich guy of noble descent, naturally assumes that any criticisms of his assignment is just a case of beggars trying to be choosers and ignores them; in his mind, he did him a favor by paying his debts and taking him to his island, so Tim should obey his every whim without question. But the truth is that Jean Paul has no understanding of how artists work, nor why Tim needs the real Erica to complete the painting, and he may not even understand the creative process behind painting a portrait.
This could make for interesting social commentary if the writers had had Tim take a good hard look at the situation and realize that Jean Paul is not just imprisoning him on the island but flat-out exploiting him. They could have made his subplot about class conflict, the establishment’s lack of empathy towards creative types, or both. However, they choose not to use the subplot for such commentary, instead going in a much more conventional direction.
#3: The Holly portrait is mostly used to drive a clichéd romantic subplot.
Two people meet and hate each other at first sight--or at least pretend to--although they are clearly attracted to each other. They argue, bicker, treat each other indifferently at best and abuse each other at worst, until one day they realize that they have fallen in love. When was the first time you read or saw this story? Do you even remember the first time? Most likely you don’t, because the exact same plot has been used and reused so many times since Shakespeare’s Much Ado about Nothing premiered that Western media is saturated with it. It’s not a bad plot in and of itself, but it’s been overused so much that you can usually see it coming from a mile away. When Tim and Holly first bickered over her being too young to order booze, I predicted that they were setting up a romance between them. There are many signs: Tim confesses to Vangie that he feels sorry for Holly, Elizabeth suspects that he’s hitting on her, and, while she claims to dislike them both, Holly seems slightly less irritated by Tim than by her former captor, Matt Dawson. Ian Martin was clearly setting up a romance between the heiress and the artist, who are gradually bickering less and less: a telling sign that they are getting closer to falling in love.
As creepy as it is and as much as I don’t want them to get together, I actually find the Matt/Holly subplot more interesting to watch than Tim/Holly. Danny Horn of Dark Shadows Every Day may have written about how “groovy priest attracted to the beautiful young girl that he wants to take care of” is an old soap cliché, but I’ve seen it done far less often, which I suspect has something to do with all the church scandals in the past twenty years. The Belligerent Sexual Tension plot, on the other hand, is still very popular, so it feels less fresh to me than Matt and Holly’s subplot. (That doesn’t mean that I don’t still think he should leave her alone. Personally, I ship Reverend Dawson with his right hand and I think they ought to stay together.)
#2: The use of the Holly portrait on the show doesn’t connect to the show’s use of portraits for symbolism.
This one is really nitpicky and based mostly on my personal interpretation, but bear with me. Although far more complex than the Dark Shadows ripoff that many critics reduce it to, Strange Paradise nevertheless relied on many of the same tropes and themes, including the way its writers used portraits. On Dark Shadows, the writers often used a trope that Cousin Barnabas of the Collinsport Historical Society blog calls the “Portrait as Id,” meaning the use of paintings to symbolize and illustrate the truth about whatever character they represented. We see this in Strange Paradise as well with the portrait of Jacques, who tells Jean Paul that he is “the man you are, the man you might have been,” implying that the ostensibly good Jean Paul is not so different from his evil ancestor. Later on after Robert Costello becomes producer and the show becomes more like Dark Shadows, we’ll meet another character whose portrait does not turn out as intended because of the evil in said character’s heart, which also connects to this idea of portraits reflecting hidden reality. Although the conjure doll also resembles and represents Jacques, he does not generally use it to communicate with Jean Paul the way he does with the portrait. This makes sense, given that the doll and silver pin ended his life, while the portrait was painted at some point while he was alive.
In contrast to the portraits mentioned above, Holly’s portrait does not convey any additional information about either her or Erica. Because it represents the late Mrs. Desmond in name only, the Holly portrait says nothing about Erica’s id, her personality, or the state of her soul. It doesn’t even say very much about Holly. Instead, it’s mostly just used as an excuse to force Holly and Tim to interact with each other and bicker until they can finally admit that they’re in love.
#1: It goes (almost) nowhere.
And when it does finally go somewhere, it’s only relevant for a few episodes before it’s forgotten about. Holly’s participation in the portrait sittings soon becomes completely irrelevant, much like so many of the show’s early subplots which Late Maljardin’s headwriter Cornelius Crane chose to ignore. I suspect that the Holly portrait would have eventually became more significant in the main plot had Martin not been fired around Week 9. We may never know how it would have become so, nor how significant it would have become in his original outline. Who knows? Perhaps Martin would have crafted a shocking plot twist involving Holly that justified its existence. Perhaps he would have connected the portrait and its eventual fate somehow to the nightmare she had about Tarasca, having it reveal some terrifying truth about Maljardin’s past. At the very least, he might have used it to cement the romance between Tim and Holly. But instead the subplot ends with little payoff.
Tim on his subplot.
Still, despite the focus on the Holly portrait, this episode isn’t entirely a waste. Raxl saves it with her pleas to the Serpent and her attempt to contact the Conjure Woman, in all her scenery-chewing, melodramatic glory. There’s also a scene where Holly pressures her to read the two Tarot cards--the King of Swords (whom Matt identifies as Jean Paul) and the Queen of Cups (whom he interprets as Holly)--that she dropped on the floor earlier in the scene “just for kicks,” and she refuses, shouting “No!” repeatedly. If you love Raxl like I do, you’ll enjoy her scenes. They’re not Best of Raxl material, but they’re fun.
So long until my next review, which will cover Episode 25, followed by Week 5′s long overdue Bad Subtitle Special. I know that this is a change of pace from my usual recap-style reviews, but I really wanted to go into more detail about why I don’t like Tim’s subplot. I hope you enjoyed this post and I’ll see you again soon.
Coming up next: Elizabeth continues her attempted seduction of Jean Paul as we explore inter-generational conflict on Maljardin.
{ <- Previous: Episode 23 || Next: Episode 25 -> }
#strange paradise#soap opera#review#ian martin#maljardin arc#week 5#episode 24#foxless episodes#analysis#list#conjure doll and silver pin#the damned holly portrait#dark shadows#matt/his right hand#scenery chewing#soap opera tropes#speculation on ian martin's original story#symbolism#tarot
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