Bolivar is moving the Master’s resting mud – and he and
his minions are slaughtering a few cops along the way. Eichorst and Bolivar go
to see Palmer, much to Marchand’s surprise and nerves. Eichorst isn’t impressed
at how close Abraham got to Palmer so he’s now having Bolivar play bodyguard
and minder. And he doesn’t get to say no.
It does give Palmer chance to question Bolivar about how
much of his personality remains while he’s a vampire – apparently most of it.
Marchand is a good judge of character and is not thrilled with them working with Eichorst and Bolivar – Palmer admits they’re pretty bad but wants to shield her.
Meanwhile Nora and Ethan celebrate a breakthrough – their
plaguey thing does kill vampires. A little too well – the vampire dies so
quickly it will hardly have chance to infect others.
Abraham has his own project – killing a vampire and bottling some goo and worms. He boils the worms, processes them and then drips the white goo into his eyes. As we’ve seen with Palmer, vampire goo can greatly increase vitality and health without being infectious.
When Nora finds him he is unconscious and bleeding through
his eyes – she uses CPR on him and manages to rouse him. He deflects and
questions and, later is clearly much healthier. He continues to deflect her and
Nora adamantly refuses to be stonewalled in such a fashion – she deserves
better. He confesses to her that he consumes the worms to maintain his health –
the implication being this isn’t the first time. He points out he’s 94 years
old and in very good health because of the worms.
She looks pretty horrified but he’s clear that he will do whatever it takes to face the Master – he won’t “fade as a weak old man.” Nora thanks him for telling her and walks away.
Vasily and Dutch continue their plan of securing an ever
widening area – including creating warning posters and planning to seal the
subway with explosions – to stop new people entering Manhattan and being
infected. Explosions make Vasily and Dutch hot
And Zach has disappeared. I supposed I should pretend to
care. They find him before he finds his vampiric mother (he intended to walk
the dark streets looking for her. This kid has a good chance to be an object lesson
in survival of the fittest). While looking for Zach, Dutch sees a “missing”
poster for Nikki – her ex and room mate.
Vasily and Dutch go to plan destroying the station – but Vasily
does say he’ll help Dutch find Nikki for “closure.” Which means going to Nikki’s
mother who is the one posting the posters – she hasn’t seen Nikki but she takes
the chance to say what a terribad person Dutch is who completely destroyed her
daughter, sucking the life from her.
In tears Dutch leaves to Vasily who comforts her and
kisses her and they have sex in the van.
Ephraim decides to show Zach their plague plan. Zach
continues to refer to the vampires as humans. We get some parent angst from
Ephraim and then Zach decides to destroy all their work so Ephraim does the parental
thing and drags him close to their imprisoned vampire so he can see how nasty
and deadly it is. Forcing him to see what his mother is before Nora intervenes
in this stellar parenting.
Which leaves Ephraim to drink and taunt his imprisoned
vampire so he can try and taunt the Master. He promises to kill himself and his
son before they become vampires. Oh Ephraim, promises, promises.
But they have succeeded in their weakened plague – and plan
to test it by unleashing their vampire on the city to infect his fellows
Quinlan trains Gus in the art of vampire slaying,
including killing them in close combat. Quinlan’s plan is to kidnap Eldtritch
Palmer (on account of having a very evil name).
They manage to infiltrate the building – but Palmer has
UV security system to fight Quinlan’s vampires. They are destroyed – leaving only
Gus to survive and flee.
Now over to Fitzwilliam, Palmer’s erstwhile employee, who
goes through the rigid and pretty racist security checks to reach Staten island
(the security is clearly focused on stopping vampires
He goes to see his brother there who has, apparently,
never been a fan of Palmer. Also on Staten Island is Feraldo, the arse kicking
council woman, who declares Staten island to be plague-free. Complete with utterly
brutal beheaded vampires on display. The mayor is kind of forced to applaud the
barbarity because everyone else celebrates.
Still he realises how effective it is – and asks her to do the same thing for the rest of the city, he wants her to be a champion for the whole city. She agrees – but she wants total, unquestioned command. The mayor agrees, so long as he gets to pretend to be in on it.
Zach can be eaten by a vampire any time now. And Ephraim.
There is no good in this family.
Nora’s conflicts and her steady acceptance of having to
do terrible things, having to sign off on terrible things, having to help
terrible things while still maintaining her own morality and guilt over it is
an excellent conflict. Now more of her, less of Ephraim. Similarly, Abraham’s
single minded even unselfish dedication (yes he’s extending his life but it
doesn’t seem to be because he values his life so much as he needs to live to
get the job done) is an almost frightening force.
I was glad that this show remembered that Dutch is
bisexual and we had some acknowledgement of her relationship with Nikki (and I
am glad it became overt after so much euphemism dancing). But her relationship
did seem to be completely toxic so we have to see where this goes. I also had a
vague feeling that every time we had some acknowledgement that Dutch and Nikki
where a thing, she had to hump Vasily’s leg.
I worry about the number of parallel storylines this show
now has – it risks becoming crowded.
