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At the end of the preceding episode and the beginning of this one, Jack makes his sudden surprise appearance from beyond the grave, scaring Livvie and at first making her doubt her sanity, while Caleb and "Michael" continue to enact their "sibling" rivalry in the depths of the basement.
As Caleb, now in the basement, unveils a portrait of his first
Olivia and promises himself that he will have her back again,
Michael interrupts his conversation with the portrait, threatening to thwart Caleb's plans. Michael's pleas ("I am begging you, Caleb. You desperately need help") are met with derision, as Caleb mocks him in a sarcastic voice. Caleb tells Michael that all he needs is Olivia and when Michael says, "she's dead," Caleb assures him, "I found another one, almost identical--same name, same look.
She's . . .[pauses, makes an expression of almost crude lust, reminiscent of Booth in "Two," sniffing loudly, licking his lips] "perfect." "I won't live the rest of my life alone. Celibate, pathetic," he vows, contorting his face with disgust while Michael looks down, almost shamefully, as if embarrassed about his celibacy. Caleb then makes the astonishing revelation (which, unfortunately, is never developed in any subsequent Port Charles episodes) that Michael "tried to steal" the woman he loved once before, but now nothing will stop Caleb from having her. Chastising Caleb for his attacks on that "kid in the woods," Michael threatens Caleb, saying he'll go to the police or if he has to, will kill Caleb himself. Caleb responds by making another strange remark, a foreshadowing of future revelations. "Ooh," he mocks, making an exaggerated expression of fear, lampooning his brother, "But suicide is a sin, Father. Kill me, you're killing part of yourself, Michael. We're twins, connected. Hell, that's the only reason why you're still walking around. Although, you know, I must confess I do think about it every time I look into your pious face." Vehemently spitting at the ground, Caleb once again shames Michael for his lack of sexuality and exclaims with a note of desperate sadness, "I've been alone too long, and I've waited for the right soul and I've found her. And I am going to love her exactly the way I did Olivia." Michael, once again, looking rather ashamed but trying to appear resolute, replies, "I loved her too. But I didn't destroy her. You destroy everything you touch." "That's your opinion!" Caleb angrily yells. "And to be honest with you, brother, I couldn't care less about it. This time I will have what I want." As the conversation continues, Michael keeps repeating that he is only trying to protect Caleb by locking him in the basement. With a sense of rather futile, exhausted persistence, Michael finally exclaims, "What do you want me to do? You want me--you want me to beg? Fine. I will beg you."
Again, Caleb mocks his brother's piety, equated in Caleb's eyes, no doubt, with weakness. "Yeah that might keep me. Beg for me, Michael. Come on," he says, sarcastically adopting the tone of an evangelical preacher, "Let me hear you. Beg me. Come on, what's the matter? Pray for my sins, brother! Pray!" With that, Caleb knocks Michael against the wall, runs up the stairs, and locks Michael in the basement.
This and subsequent episodes with Caleb and "Michael" brilliantly convey the duality of Caleb's consciousness and raise the intriguing, never adequately answered question whether Michael ever physically existed as an actual twin brother or was always merely a split-off aspect of Caleb's psyche. I believe that due to the severity of Caleb's psychosis, the fact that he really seemed to believe in Michael's physical existence, Caleb had at one time a twin brother, perhaps a priest, who, just as Caleb here claims, once may have also loved Olivia. Perhaps Caleb killed him and then, as a psychological defense mechanism, created within himself a Michael persona, a force of guilt and retribution as well as a "mask" which enabled him to survive within society without being suspected and may have even helped him keep his vampiric urges under control. Maybe some of the time Caleb lived as Michael, suppressing his needs until they became so overpowering he had to satisfy them, had to revert back to being Caleb. His desires and needs, suppressed so long, became even more violent; at these times Caleb was like a beast locked in the basement, hungry, feral, desperate. |
