What Was Burke Devlin’s Motivation in Dark Shadows?

*This post contains spoilers*

In Dark Shadows: The Beginning, Burke returned to Collinwood with, as Mr. Malloy put it, a “single-minded” quest for revenge. This desire was so strong that he threatened a wide variety of people, unscrupulously used Carolyn, misled David, and threw his weight around to the extent that he seemed very much like the bullies he saw the Collins’ as.

He may sometimes have viewed his stance in a Robin Hood sort of way, taking down the bullies for his sake and the town, but the results of his obsession tarnish the nobility he may have seen in what he was doing.

His actions gave David the totally opposite idea of this intent in episode 74 when David said, “Nothing’s against the law unless you get caught.”

Burke asks him, “Who told you that?”

To which he horrifyingly heard back, “You did.”

He once said to Vicky, in episode 65, he wished he could be away from these pressures and even went so far as to say God help him, he wished he could let them go.

He also had to admit several times that he was so drunk the night of the fatal hit-and-run car accident that he couldn’t remember anything except that Roger took the wheel from him. How reliable is that memory really? He could feel sure enough to know what he believed and be angry, but could he feel 100% sure of his innocence to truly rest easy after being convicted of the crime?

I wonder about his obsession. Is he just this humanly angry at Roger that he let his need to get revenge consume even more of his time than the jail term did? Roger did also steal his lover from him. Or was there a part of him that wasn’t 100% sure and wanted it proven who really was driving that night? Either way, it’s a fascinating story.

What do you think?