Roman goes to a seedy motel (so labelled by it apparently
being commonly used by prostitutes) with a woman called Nadine he’s known
before; it appears she’s married to someone called Davey who leaved her
bruised. Because this is Hemlock Grove and this is Roman, he loves her bruises.
She takes off her top and he starts licking her neck – before pushing her to
the floor. Again, he’s resisting feeding. He insults her as “damaged goods”.
She’s furious, especially when he doesn’t pay and goes to call her very well spoken pimp (apparently the man who hurts
her as well).
Davey is a creepy salesman, offers him different women –
including an underaged girl – Roman talks blood type and then just bites Davey.
Montage of Davey’s very messy blood being drained vs the very very old
fashioned porn film playing. Surprisingly Davey isn’t dead (yet) but there’s a
lot of mess
We cut to a woman called Miranda, out driving at night
and avoiding a guy she apparently left outside her house. Her night gets a lot
worse when a truck behind her tries to ram her off the road and, despite some
quick thinking and good driving to avoid it, the truck rams her broadside.
She survives the crash and makes her way to Roman’s house
(where he’s just finished cleaning himself up), with a cut in her scalp. She
begs him to call for a tow (not the police, she doesn’t have insurance). He invites
her in (though it takes him a while and is worried about blood on his carpet).
While they wait for the tow, Miranda admires Roman’s very wealthy surroundings while his silence creeps her out, he offers to let her stay though
To Olivia. A bird flies into her greenhouse. Olivia is
sad.
That’s it – I think someone’s trying to put their art
degree into use. There are a lot of scenes like this in this episode.
Olivia is sad because some of the drugs Johann is giving
her stimulate empathy (he calls it a refreshing break from her sociopathy)
which is why she’s all worried about Roman (while the rest of us would be quite
happy if he were brutally axe murdered). With the added problem of why they
need to talk to Roman, he doesn’t much like either of them.
Andreus is also in town to spend time with Destiny – she seems
quite happy to see the guy she’s known for exactly 10 minutes on her doorstep
expecting to crash at her place so I assume he is really really good in bed.
Peter tries to visit his mother (lots of scenes of him scanning the surroundings) but she isn’t allowed visitors because she assaulted a guard – which Peter finds highly unlikely and expects someone’s messing with her.
At work he gets to tell Miranda how much it’s going to
cost to fix her car (a lot) and she doesn’t have insurance. All sympathetic, he
decides to look for used parts to reduce the bill for her (and, on the way,
disabuses her of some of the Roma stereotypes while still conforming to them).
Roman buys a horse. His dad had horses. It’s all meaningful.
Olivia looks sad in a room. That art degree has raised its pointless head
again.
Olivia goes to see her son, threatening his assistant with
cremation if he gets in her way. Roman isn’t thrilled to see her (he also
wanted raw liver for dinner apparently) and makes it really clear; he also isn’t
impressed by “Johann’s work’s important for reasons I can’t tell you”. She talks about the hunger and how, no matter
what he thinks, he can’t hide the bodies forever – she couldn’t until she married
the White Tower (Roman only takes an opportunity to slut shame from this, of
course). Roman brings up Shelley (Olivia claims she grieves for her) and his
own daughter (in her little soundproofed cell) – who Olivia expected him to
kill. She handwaves it as part of his progression he wouldn’t really do it and
adds that they’re Upir. And that she’s his mother. He doesn’t want either to be
true – vampire or her son. Which should be really wounding but just feels kind
of melodramatic.
She leaves, but warns him his hunger will grow and he should come to her before destroying everything. She goes to the labs instead where creepy Russian scientist is playing with creepy blobs of flesh. She lies to Johann – or is possibly high on some delusional drug he’s feeding her.
Over to Norman the superfluous meeting with Marie who I don’t
remember but is connected to Letha in some way. She’s going to sue the Godfrey
Institute to see what they’re hiding about Letha’s pregnancy and death – Norman
advises against this though he’d quite like answers himself
Moving on to Peter again who drops off Miranda at Roman’s
(which he doesn’t think is a good idea) before going home, going to bed and
having cryptic dreams. Destiny performs some woo-woo (see what I mean about
conforming to stereotypes) this doesn’t go well and ends up with her vomiting
black goo and needing miracle television CPR. When she comes to all she can
tell Peter is to avoid the dreams because something Really Bad is coming. With no
information about how he’s supposed to do that – and he’s not letting it go,
obviously. Especially since Andreus recognises a sign from his dreams as a
caravan park sign.
Roman checks on his baby and the Nanny (who seemed to
have raised Roman as well) thinks the family is cursed because the babies cry.
As you do. This entire scene appears to exist so the nanny can comment on the
family being unhappy.
Roman awkwardly and weirdly invites Miranda to stay at
his place since she has nowhere to go and can’t afford a hotel. Over dinner she
explains her road trip and compare dad father stories (Roman is terrible with
his) before looking at horses and calling Roman a Byronic hero (that’s the
writers wanting to put their English degree to good use)
She gets in the shower and we focus on her tattoos (and breasts). And yes, Roman spies on her. Before going to his stables and feeding on his horse.
Norman drops in on Johann and after some sparring he
warns Johann about the legal trouble about to fall on him – and that he’s
willing to throw his considerable wealth behind it.
More scenes of Olivia angst.
In the woods, a drunk man runs across 2 men wearing
silver masks – just like the pilot (remember them), chanting in Latin and
flicking water about (which, coupled with the self-flagellation, sounds like
old-school Catholic). They garrot him, because strangling just isn’t gory
enough for Hemlock Grove.
There seems to be a lot of attempt to establish
atmosphere in this show that isn’t really working too well for me – because it
feels so forced. There are a lot of scenes without a lot happening but with
creepy music. Or random things like birds dying running into a greenhouse. They’re
establishing an atmosphere but it’s clear that they’re REALLY REALLY trying to
do so. It’s like having the director behind me yelling “METAPHOR!” “SYMBOLISM!”
“LOOK FUCKING THEMES! DID YOU SEE THE FUCKING THEMES?!” while the composer
whispers on the other side “oh creepy, yeah it’s creepy, so very creepy, isn’t
this really creepy?”
This makes the whole episode seem rather slow, we don’t
have a lot of progression in between the long scenes that seem to be there just
for various characters to stare while music plays, or scenes that are dragged
out longer because of dramatic pauses and camera angles.
With these semi-frequent challenging of Roma stereotypes
(while embodying them), it’d be pretty nice if just once Peter would actually
tell people not to call him “gypsy.” And, really, what is the point of laughing
at the idea that all Roma are psychic and have woo-woo when the Roma on the
show all have woo-woo or are criminals or both? You can’t say “hah hah these
stereotypes are silly” and then embody them!
