Quentin Collins

Quentin Collins in 1897

This article is about Quentin Collins who was born in the 1870s and was still alive in 1995. For his great-uncle see Quentin Collins (1840). His Parallel Time equivalent was Quentin Collins (1970 PT) and his great uncle in Parallel Time was represented by Quentin Collins (1841 PT)

Quentin Collins (born 1870) (695) was the son of Geoffrey Collins and the grandson of Edith Collins and Gabriel Collins.

Quentin's brothers were Carl Collins and Edward Collins, and his elder sister was Judith Collins. He was brother-in-law to Laura Collins, Magda Rakosi, and Gregory Trask.

Quentin was evidently named after an ancestor, his great-uncle Quentin. This makes him one of the very few cases in the Collins family where a name was actually repeated across the generations (despite claims to the contrary by Barnabas Collins).

Family

Quentin with his wife and daughter

Quentin married Jenny Collins in the early 1890s. Jenny had fallen desperately in love with Quentin and hidden her gypsy heritage from him. (She was actually the sister of Magda Rakosi who lived in the Old House.) Quentin and Jenny and had two children (twins) who were born after Quentin had abandoned Jenny for Laura Collins. Edward and Judith arranged for the twins to be given to a local woman, Mrs. Fillmore, to raise as her own.

Quentin did not know about his children until after his son's death. His daughter, Lenore, nearly met the same fate. Quentin intended to re-open the nursery in Collinwood for her, but the ghost of her mother intervened to save her, as long as Quentin promised never to see her again. (810). Lenore's grandchildren (and Quentin's great-grandchildren) were the twins Tom and Chris Jennings and their sister Amy; Quentin would meet the last two almost a century later.

The Haunting of Collinwood

Originally Quentin died, shot by Beth Chavez in the Tower room in 1897 (836), and the corpse moved to his room which was then sealed off. When Amy Jennings and David Collins released his spirit in 1969 (646), he began haunting the family, almost killing Roger Collins. Quentin slowly took possession of David. Quentin's ghost appeared in mirrors and triggered poltergeist

Quentin's Ghost

activity in the house. He appeared to Mrs. Johnson in Chris' (Mattrew Morgan's) house (669). To David, in the secret room (677) and then afterwards starts meeting regularly. To Amy, in the drawing room (679). To Maggie Evans, in the storage room on the West Wing (680).

His ghost was a dangerous one, appearing to people he hated and attempting to strangle them or more commonly, to frighten people. Quentin's ghost was responsible for the deaths of the medium Janet Findley (649) and the elderly silversmith Ezra Braithwaite (685). After a frightening night, Professor Stokes tried to exorcise Quentin from the house, but had no success (693). Quentin's ghost became even angrier and his spirit terrorized all who lived in Collinwood. He even set the Professor's room on fire before driving the entire family out of Collinwood (694).

The family stayed at the Old House, where David lay dangerously close to death. Barnabas Collins then used the I-Ching to travel back to the year 1897 to save David (701). He arrived just as the matriarch of the Collins family, Edith Collins was dying. There was a family secret that Edith never got to reveal to Edward Collins, the eldest of her grandchildren. Quentin was always trying to find out the secret, but right before she died, she saw Barnabas Collins, a vampire at the time, and told him that he was the secret and that his coffin should not have been opened. Barnabas, of course, never told the secret. But Quentin eventually discovered that Barnabas was a vampire. The pair would eventually become friends, supporting each other over their respective curses.

The Laura Collins affair

Quentin had an extramarital affair with Edward's wife, Laura Collins. She fled Collinwood with him in 1896 to Alexandria, Egypt. There, Quentin, working as a spy for the Egyptian police, turned her over to a cult which chose her as a human sacrifice. Had he not offered her, he would have been chosen (732). A year later, Laura would return to Collinwood, much to Quentin's horror.

Unknown to Quentin, Jenny was pregnant at the time of his departure from Collinwood. While he was away she gave birth to twins, a boy and a girl. Edward and Judith Collins arranged for the children to be taken away, and the loss drove Jenny insane.

Return to Collinwood

Quentin returned to Collinwood after Jamison Collins convinced Edith Collins to allow him to return. After Edith died, he conspired with Evan Hanley to get Sandor Rakosi to edit Edith's will to leave him the entire fortune instead of just leaving him a place to live in Collinwood as long as he wanted. With the help of Evan Hanley, Quentin summoned Angelique (711) to aid him against Barnabas, whom he thought was after the family fortune. Angelique was willing to help Quentin, but when he was stabbed to death by his wife, Jenny (720), it was Barnabas who asked Angelique to bring him back to life (721). She did so, but it was as a zombie. Zombie-Quentin attacked Rachel Drummond (722) before switching bodies with Jamison Collins. Angelique then allowed Jamison to return to his body and cured Quentin of his zombie trance, but the credit went to Rev. Gregory Trask, to whom Judith Collins became much indebted (725).

Next Quentin was almost killed by Angelique when Laura Collins returned (732). Angelique told Barnabas that he should let Quentin die, but Barnabas was convinced this would cause David Collins to die in 1969. So once again, Barnabas agreed to marry Angelique if she would restore Quentin to life (732).

Magda's curse

When Jenny Collins escaped from her room at Collinwood, she saw Quentin and Beth kissing. Jenny tried to kill them, but Quentin strangled her to death. When Edward Collins told Magda about the accident, she went to see her sister's body. Magda found a button from Quentins Jacket in Jenny's hand and knew that Quentin had killed her. Magda then placed a curse on Quentin. The curse would change Quentin and the first-born male of each generation of his decendants into werewolves. That night, Quentin transformed into a werewolf and brutally murdered a teacher at Worthington Hall. For the next few months, Quentin transformed into a werewolf and terrorized Collinsport, killing several of the villagers. Every morning, Quentin would be haunted by the ghosts of his slaughtered victims. This nearly drove him insane.

Beth revealed to Magda that Jenny had born Quentin's children - and therefore Magda had cursed her own kin when she cursed Quentin. Magda tried everything she could to take the werewolf curse off of him. One day, she stole the magical hand of Count Petofi, who had been an extremely powerful warlock who had also suffered the curse of the werewolf. When Magda and Quentin performed a ceremony to remove the curse, they lost control and the Hand nearly killed him. However, Quentin transformed into a werewolf and ran out of the room.

The werewolf killed many people who were hunting for him but eventually got stuck in a bear trap. The werewolf was then taken to the Collinsport jail were he struggled to break free. When the dawn came, the werewolf transformed into Quentin, but he was not identified because he was deformed from the Hand. Quentin later escaped with the help of Barnabas. Quentin then roamed the woods and countryside, transforming into a werewolf when the moon rose and killing people much more brutally then before. When the deformed Quentin finnaly came to his senses, he stole the Hand from his friend Evan Hanley. Quentin was later captured by a mysterious stranger named Aristede, who clamed that he knew his secret. It turned out that Aristede was working for Count Petofi himself! When Petofi arrived in Collinsport to reclaim his hand, Quentin had restored his face. When Quentin transformed into a werewolf, he nearly killed Aristede. But he was stopped by Petofi, who seemed to have some kind of control over the werewolf, and tricked him into being kidnapped.

Quentin later escaped from the place were Petofi was holding him, and tried his best to destroy him. He joined forces with Magda, Barnabas, and even the witch Angelique. Together, they tried to destroy Petofi countless times, but each attempt failed because Petofi had reclaimed the Hand. Petofi eventually brought a painter named Charles Delaware Tate to Collinsport and had him paint a portrait of Quentin. When Charity Trask witnessed Quentin transform into the werewolf and maul a girl from the village, she began to believe that she was a woman named Pansy Faye. When Quentin's portrait was finished, he found that the portrait transformed into a werewolf and he did not. The portrait also aged while he did not, rendering Quentin effectively immortal.

Post-werewolf life

Quentin's happiness from having his curse transferred to his potrait was short-lived when he discovered that Charity Trask, possessed by Pansy Faye, prophesied that he would be murdered on September 10th, 1897. When Julia Hoffman mysteriously appeared at the front door of Collinwood, Quentin found out that not only would he be murdered, but that Jamison would turn against him (837); Quentin made up to Jamison. He later had a mind switch with Count Petofi, but was able to reverse it.

Quentin with his great-grandson Chris Jennings

What happened to Quentin over the following decades remains unknown, but he appeared in Collinsport in 1969 using the name of Grant Douglas. He visited the Todds' antique shop in Collinsport and got a date with Carolyn Stoddard. However, he was hit by a car that Barnabas was driving and lost his memory. As he recovered, Quentin believed that his name truly was Grant Douglas. Julia Hoffman and an actress named Olivia Corey tried the best they could to help Grant get his memory back. Unknown to Grant and Julia, Olivia was an alias of his love Amanda Harris.

Julia discovered that Charles Delaware Tate was still alive in 1969. Chris Jennings (Quentin's own great-grandson) and Grant went to see him, hoping to persuade the painter to create another magical portrait that would remove Chris' werewolf curse. This proved unsuccessful, and Chris transformed into the werewolf and killed Tate. He would have also killed Grant if he had not been scared away when Grant defended himself with a silver candlestick. When Grant told Julia this, she knew that only Quentin Collins would know that werewolves are afraid of silver, having been a werewolf himself. Julia then found that Quentin's portrait (now hidden under a landscape painting) was in the hands of a wealthy man named Sky Rumson, Angelique's latest husband (who was unaware of her witchcraft). Angelique gave Julia the portrait, and she arranged for its restoration. When she showed it to Grant, his memory was restored.

Quentin's happiness was short-lived when his love Amanda Harris was taken away by a stranger named Mr. Best. Mr. Best turned out to be a manifestation of Death himself, and brought her to the land of the dead. Desperate for Amanda's love, Quentin made a deal with Death to bring Amanda back to the land of the living. However he was unable to uphold his part of the bargain and he lost her forever.

Quentin eventually moved on from Amanda and helped Barnabas, Julia, and Chris fight (and eventually defeat) an ancient race called the Leviathans. It is believed he lived for the rest of eternity.

Post-Show Imaginings

In the TV Guide article written by Dark Shadows head writer Sam Hall revealing the outline the show would've taken had it not been canceled sooner than expected, Quentin resumed his wanderings in an attempt to find a permanent solution to his lycanthropy, knowing he could not destroy his portrait without becoming a werewolf again. Although often tempted to return to Collinsport, destroy the portrait and then commit suicide before the next full moon triggered a transformation, he did not; he had heard rumours of Count Petofi's survival and continued to search for him in the hope he could help him.

In the 2003 audio play Return to Collinwood, Quentin returns to Collinwood after unsuccessfully searching for David in South America. He became Maggie Evans' boyfriend.

Relationships

Quentin married Jenny Collins in the 1890s and she bore his two children. Quentin was unaware of her gypsy origins until after her death.

He had an affair with his sister-in-law, Laura Collins that ended in tragedy.

In 1897 Quentin met and fell in love with Amanda Harris, a beautiful woman with no past. She was pursued at the same time by Tim Shaw, Charles Delaware Tate and others, although she truly loved Quentin more than anyone. He pursued her even beyond the grave, but eventually lost her in a battle against Death.

He later reappeared in the 20th century using the name Grant Douglas. He met and charmed Carolyn Stoddard who was still on the rebound from Chris Jennings (Quentin's own great-grandson!) Their relationship soon turned to a warm friendship.

Angelique briefly orchestrated a romance between himself and Maggie Evans, but it did not last.

Several years later he became obsessed with the beautiful spirit of Daphne Harridge.

Notes

• Although his son's name was never officially revealed, Quentin referred to him as "another Quentin Collins" implying that his name may have also been Quentin.
• Although Quentin is first seen in episode 646, his voice isn't heard until an offscreen laugh in 689. He has no actual dialogue until episode 701.
• According to Sam Hall's article Quentin never destroyed his portrait because he would again become a werewolf. Yet surely if he destroyed the portrait his chronological age would catch up with him and he would die on the spot? He was a hundred years old when the series ended, and over 130 years old in Return to Collinwood!

Source Material

Quentin is based on the character of Peter Quint from Henry James's The Turn of the Screw, as well as the title character from Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray.