The Collinsport Weather Report: Episode 122: The Return of the Blonde

Thursday, December 15, 1966

Note: The episodes’ official numbering includes skipped numbers for pre-emptions, in accordance with their numbering system (so that one could look at the number of an episode and know what day of the week it aired on). I have elected to number the episodes by what episode it actually is, but I will note the official numbering also. This is the 122nd episode, but the official number is 124.

My name is Victoria Winters. It is dusk at Collinwood, and I am still held captive. I had lost hope, until someone whose curiosity is stronger than his sense of danger found me.

David takes Vicki’s gag off.

She tells him they have to hurry, that if Matthew finds him there, he’ll kill both of them.

David says Matthew wouldn’t do that.

They argue.

He struggles with untying the knots.

They hear a noise and are afraid it’s Matthew.

David goes to check but it’s a shutter.
Vicki talks about telling the sheriff, and David becomes afraid he’ll go to jail.

He tries to convince Vicki she doesn’t need to tell the sheriff if he rescues her, but she says Matthew could hurt someone else.

Vicki says she’ll tell the sheriff how David helped her. David says the sheriff told him that someone who helps Matthew would go to jail.

David runs away while Vicki frantically begs him to come back.

The blonde lady at the restaurant asks about the accident ten years ago.

Maggie says the man who went to prison for it came back to prove he didn’t do it. He’s made a lot of money now, although “whether he made it crooked or straight I don’t know.” Maggie also says “he’s got a chip on his shoulder so big it’s a wonder he can walk straight.”

The blonde says he wasn’t always like that.

Maggie is always telling herself she’s going to leave this town soon. The blonde has just been in Arizona—Phoenix. Maggie says she likes that name, Phoenix.

“It’s named after a mythical bird—which, when it felt its life drawing to a close, would build a funeral pyre, and light it by fanning its wings, and then—and then burn itself to death. But from those ashes, the phoenix would be reborn, and live on another five hundred years. Ancient Egyptian legend.”

“Be great if we could do that. But maybe that’s not such a great idea. You come out worse than before.”

“Anything would be better than . . .”

Maggie says maybe it’s good if life has been rough.

“The important thing is to get rid of the old way of life, find a new beginning, a new direction.”

“And you’ve come back to Collinsport—to be reborn?”

“Perhaps. Either that or to die again.” She says she has things that need to be done.

Maggie starts asking about how long since she’s been in Collinsport (ten years, of course, the magical ten years), whether she spent most of that time in Phoenix (no, just the end part), where she spent that time. The blonde says she’d like more coffee, thus placing Maggie back in her role as waitress.

David runs in terror from the old house and into Matthew, who asks him where he’s going.

“Nowhere.”

Matthew says David left ahead of him, and he knows every inch of the property just as well as Matthew. David says he was hiding from a deputy.

Matthew doesn’t believe him. He says he has to come back with him.

David begs him, saying he wants to go home.

Matthew starts to drag him back, but David wrenches free and runs away.

Sam arrives at the restaurant with his usual hangover. The blonde tries to look inconspicuous.

Maggie’s disappointed that her father hasn’t done any painting. She wishes he’d pull himself together.

He says he’ll do a whole body of work soon, forty canvases.

Maggie thinks maybe they should move away—he could be more inspired somewhere else. (Funny, all this talk about moving somewhere else when she’s getting closer to reeling Joe in.)