Cathy goes back to her cottage in Virginia, intent on
seeking revenge on her mother. She figures the best way to go about this is
through Bart. She attempts to literally just run into him in the woods where
she knows he jogs. But he ends up finding her at a café. He demands to know
just who the hell she is. He knows she must be related to Corrine somehow,
they’re so much alike. Cathy keeps telling him to ask his wife. It’s very
mature. Bart pulls out her blackmail letters again. I guess he just always
carries them around with him? Cathy eventually comes up with the story that
Corrine is her half-aunt, and she just needed the money. Bart seems to buy
this. Then he starts talking about how she never paid his fee, and he doesn’t
necessarily mean money. They go for a walk, and he forcefully kisses her. She
fights at first, but then gives in. Of course she does. He eventually ends up
taking her home, but tells her he still demands his payment in full. Ew.
Chris comes for a visit, and tells Cathy he knows exactly
what she’s doing, trying to steal Bart away from their mother. He warns her off
it, but Cathy, as per usual, doesn’t listen. No incestuous sex was had on this
trip. Yay! Good job, y’all.
Cathy tries running into Bart on the trails again, and this
time it works. She makes him chase her, until she hurts her knee and falls. He
catches up to her, and they flirt, and she gets all antagonistic again,
confusing the hell out of him. Corrine is in Texas at some spa, and Bart is
lonely, with only a crippled old woman for company. Cathy pumps him for
information on the Grandmother’s condition. And then she tells him she’s lonely
too, and invites him over for dinner.
So he comes to dinner, and they’re both dressed to kill.
They eat, and then Cathy tries to get him to play chess, but he wants to dance.
They talk, and Bart tells her how his isn’t a happy marriage, that he doesn’t
know Corrine at all. This upsets Cathy, because she wanted to break up a happy
marriage, not one that was already falling apart. And then Bart rapes her.
Yeah, it’s disgusting. And then he tells her he’ll be back the next night, and
demands Beef Wellington be served. You sure know how to charm a woman, Bart
Winslow.
During the next day, Bart sends Cathy roses and necklace.
They mean nothing to her however, because she knows they were bought with his
wife’s money. When he arrives that evening, Cathy is dressed in old clothes,
and serves him a hot dog and cold beans, exactly what she and Jory had earlier.
Suck on that, Winslow. But he eats it anyway. And then he tries to blame her
for last night because of what she was wearing. Ugh, again, disgusting. Then he
tells her he loves her. What? So they have sex, it’s slower this time, and
Cathy enjoys it. Cathy considers part one done, and part two will be when
Corrine knows she has Bart’s child. Cathy, you are just a delight.
And then she does something to capture your heart even more.
Because Bart had told her all about his schedule, she also knows the
Grandmother’s. So she sneaks into Foxworth Hall one day when the servants are
all off. She takes a nice little tour around the house, before heading to the
Grandmother’s room. She finds her there in bed, weak and unable to talk. But
she recognizes Cathy immediately. Cathy dances all around her bed, going over
all the sins the Grandmother committed against Cathy and her siblings. She just
gets crazier and crazier. Then she pulls out a willow switch, and then
something even sicker. She had collected all of Carrie’s hair that fell out
while she was sick, and put it all together to make a switch out of that. Then
she hits the Grandmother with it. But of course, that doesn’t actually do any
damage. So Cathy strips her down, rolls her over, and beats her once with the
willow switch. But that’s all she can stand to do. When she rolls her back
over, the Grandmother is calling her a coward with her eyes. So, in lieu of the
tar, Cathy gets a candle, and drips hot wax in her hair. Then she leaves.
Bart says it must have been a servant that did it. He also
tells her Corrine is back, has lost weight, and is acting sweet like when they
first married. Cathy asks him why he doesn’t just go back to her then, and he
says he just can’t live without Cathy now. So she feels like she’s won.
One day, Cathy and Jory run into Corrine at the post office.
The two women ignore each other, but Jory talks to everyone, and tells Corrine
she’s pretty like his momma. Then he asks if she has a little boy he could play
with, and she says she doesn’t have any children. Cathy is all, Bitch, you
don’t deserve to have children.
Cathy does indeed end up pregnant with Bart’s child, and he
is less than thrilled about it. He tells her he can’t marry her, and never said
he would. But he does want his child. Cathy says she’s going to leave, and
never let him see his child, unless he divorces Corrine and marries Cathy. But
she doesn’t really mean it; she’ll stay as long as he needs her.
Christmas is coming up, and Cathy has a new scheme. She
remembers the first time she ever saw Bart, at the Christmas party she and
Chris got to watch their first Christmas at Foxworth Hall. Cathy has a dress
made just like Corrine’s was that night, and has her hair cut and styled the
same way, too. She even has the same perfume.
On her way out to the party, she reads letters from Paul and
Henny. Henny is dying. She tells Cathy to rejoice in the new baby, but to
forgive her mother and the past. But Cathy never did listen well, did she?
Cathy sneaks in the backdoor of Foxworth Hall, using the key
Chris made all those years ago. She goes up to her mother’s room, and steals
the jewelry she was wearing that night. Then she’s got time to kill before her
planned entrance at midnight, so she goes up to their old room and attic. It’s
totally the same, and it completely freaks her out.
At midnight, Cathy approaches the top of the grand
staircase. She draws everyone’s attention, including Corrine and Bart’s. As she
comes down the stairs, she yells out all the details of their imprisonment.
Until Bart stops her, and thanks her for her performance. He introduces her,
saying she’s an actress as well as a dancer, and they cooked up this little
skit as a joke.
Then he forces her to dance with him, and he is pissed. But
Cathy just goes on talking to him, giving him more and more details of their
time there, until it seems he begins to believe her. But then he says he just can’t believe Corrine would kill her own
children, and Cathy pushes him away and starts yelling some more. Corrine
finally yells at her to stop, and Bart ushers them moth into the library.
The Grandmother is in there as well, in her wheelchair.
Corrine keeps denying Cathy’s story, until Cathy whips out copies of all of
their birth certificates. Oh snap. Can’t deny it now. So Corrine begins to
confess, but with tons of excuses. And she lets some information out that Cathy
didn’t know. The grandfather knew about the children all along. He wanted them
to be locked away up there for the rest of their lives. Cathy wants to know why
she wouldn’t let them out after he died, but he had struck a deal with the
butler, John, to make sure she never let them out. And so she did in fact
poison the children, but she said she only wanted to do it a little bit, so
they’d get sick enough that she could take them out. Whatever, Corrine. Then
Cathy asks what she really did with Cory’s body. She says she threw him in a
ravine, but Cathy knows that’s not true. When she was in the attic earlier, she
found a small room they’d never seen before, and it had a strong, sickly sweet
odor.
Sick.
All of a sudden, Chris comes bursting into the room. The
hell? Anyway, Corrine thinks for a moment that he’s his father, and starts
apologizing for everything. That makes Chris believe, finally, that she was the
one to feed them arsenic. She flips out, and runs out of the room.
Chris says they’ve got to go, but Bart asks him a few
questions first, and Chris backs up Cathy’s story. They all start to leave the
library, but all hell has broken loose. There’s a fire. Bart tells Chris to get
Cathy outside, and runs to find Corrine. Cathy and Chris make it out, and watch
the house. Bart does get Corrine out, but she yells that her mother is in
there, and Bart goes back in. He and the Grandmother never make it out. Corrine
comes over, yelling at Cathy, and pleading with Chris, just generally going
crazy, until she’s led off in a straight jacket. It appears she set the fire,
because it started in the attic room.
At least Cathy’s blaming herself now.
Oh yeah, the reason Chris came and found her? Henny had a
stroke, and Paul had a heart attack trying to help her.
Three years have passed, and Cathy has given birth to Bart
Jr., and married Paul. Paul has had three more heart attacks, and is very weak.
One day he tells Cathy to make a life with Chris. Apparently she can’t have any
more children, so it would be safe. Still not right, but hey, whatever.
Paul dies peacefully in his sleep. Cathy, Chris, and the
boys move to California, but go back to the east coast to visit family.
Including Corrine. She’s in some sort of a mental institution. She goes
completely crazy at the sight of Cathy, so it’s only Chris who visits with her.
If she recovers, she won’t be faced with murder charges, because Cathy and
Chris have disclaimed there was ever a child names Cory. Ummm, why exactly?
Guilt? I don’t know.
Chris seems very happy with this perfect life he now has,
with the woman he’s always wanted, and two boys who call him Daddy.
And then one day, Cathy goes up to their attic, and finds
two small beds there. She doesn’t know how they got there. And she finds
herself buying a picnic hamper, just like the Grandmother used. She tells
herself she’s not like her, damn it!
Whatever. Bitch be crazy.
And so ends this charming installment of the Dollanganger
story. Wasn’t it fun?
Tonight’s the night! Join me on
Twitter at 9/8c. You know it’s
going to be so bad it will be great!
