We’re catching up with Freddie who was buried alive – an unpleasant
way to die. But he is rescued by a Culebros whose boss blames him for the death
of two of the Lords. Her boss is another Lord (a female lord as she calls out
when Freddie assumes she’s male). She’s also not impressed he’s given up the
bloodwell, going against what a Peacekeeper is supposed to do
Freddie threatens to kill a minion, she’s amazingly
unimpressed – that’s what minions are for! She knows Carlos wants to bring his
big truck of blood there and have “culebros take their rightful place in the
foodchain” which she thinks is a stunningly bad idea that destroys everything.
Her people can’t get involved for “reasons” – reason being vague prophecy. She
says Freddie’s job is to put the right brother on the throne – that brother
would be Richie.
She also manages to be impressively creepy
Kate dies – and there’s a showdown between Richie and
Scott vs Carlos and Aidan. Richie gives up, rather than destroy the tanker as
he planned on. What this needs is a deus ex Richard gets his shiny Culebros
power: an eye on the palm of his hand he can use to compel people. He runs but
not before he tells Aiden to kill Carlos
That leaves Carlos chance to tell Scott that it’s totally
fine to kill Kate so Scott can find himself, reciting his own history of being
dismissed as a bus boy and trying to downplay the fact Kate is Scott’s sister
by pointing out he was adopted. They seem to make their peace… seem to anyway.
Aiden does try to kill Carlos which fails and then storms
off like the irrelevancy he is.
Kissa has killed Malvado and Seth completely ruins her
triumph with some hard truth – eventually she will realise she’s still angry.
She wants to know why Seth helped her and even he doesn’t seem to have a good
answer. He also randomly tries to stop Culebras feeding on people in the bar,
much to the annoyance of several in the crowd – he turns to Kissa but she’s
clear, she killed Malvado for freedom. Which, to her, means no rules and no-one
telling them what to do. Of course those Culebras think they have a new boss –
Richie
Who arrives – for Kissa to threaten his life. Yes she’s
not forgiving the betrayal. Richie uses his new kingy powers and language to
call in the other Culebras to save him. Kissa’s not impressed “you’re the one
that I just killed” – but they agree to talk while the rest look out for
Carlos.
In his office he tries to spin it as him helping everyone
– (though why he expected Kissa to be happy in El Rey with Malvado is bizarre).
Seth tries to recruit them to help him kill Carlos – and invokes Kate’s death
as a reason to do so. He also tells Seth and Kissa about the bloodwell, which
they don’t know about yet. Seth still isn’t letting go that Richie used Kate
and got her killed – but now Freddie arrives to add his own 2 cents and how
terribad it will be if Carlos creates an army of Culebras all hocked up on the
uber blood.
So plan making time – Richie doesn’t want the truck
destroying because the Culebros need the blood (Seth agrees because he doesn’t
want people eaten by vampires because random conscience he’s just spawned). So
it’s time to steal it apparently.
Carlos arrives – without the tanker, just with his chief
minion and future queen Maia. Kissa goes out to confront him, sipping from his
devil flash and wielding the key-club. They fight
Seth and Richie are off to steal the truck and airing all
their tiresome brother issues. It doesn’t all go entirely to plan, everyone
seems to lose their respective fights. Because that’s the rule of fights – the “good
guys” have to lose first – though Richie does whip out his new mind control power.
And Scott goes completely off the rails in the name of
Kate and crashes the blood truck, spraying he blood well everywhere. Carlos
seems to take over, inviting his Culebras to go out and feed – then come back
and slaughter all he humans.
SO everyone starts fighting to musical accompaniment of
course. Because why would the band stop? And how come Culebras lose their
strength and skill when fighting Seth? And Kissa takes on Maia (and wins) with
Carlos being extra sexist and vile about it.
This fight scene goes on forever
Finally Carlos gets staked by Richie – but that doesn’t
kill him because of the whole labyrinth thing. So they decides to chop him up
while he claims he made them all (sort of). They slice and dice him
And daylight with the remaining human survivors leaving
They plan to scatter Carlos body parts about. And Kissa
has decided, as she saw with Carlos, that Culebras are utterly helpless without
a leader. Seth encourages Kissa to lead – but she decides no because she’s too
much of a mythological figure. She wants Seth to do it. He refuses, so she
pleas on behalf of Richie.
Richie is busy setting himself up as the new boss before
he and Seth have another round of brother issues. They fight and Seth ends up
beating his brother into the sunlight and threatens to kill him unless Richie
accepts that it’s a dual operation – Seth and Richie together. He agrees. Freddie
agrees – before he goes home.
Kissa plans to leave – though Richie makes a plea for her
to remain. She refuses, she will no longer be the property of men. She returns
his necklace.
And Kate – well she died in a puddle of that cursed blood
well. Guess who is back?
Well… that was a terrible ending.
What was Carlos’s plan anyway? Just show up and… what?
Because his forces, such that they were, not only completely lost against
Richie, Kissa, Seth et al, but they were slaughtered without managing ONE
casualty on the other side. What did he actually intend to achieve here? And
what did the writers intend except for a fight scene that lasted, what, 16
minutes? The conflict felt so tapped on the end – like they wanted the series
to end last week and then this episode was to tie up loose ends – but they
realised they didn’t actually have enough loose ends to tie
And I am so sick of Gecko brother drama – which, annoyingly, I think is what stopped this season being excellent for me.
I think this season as better than the first, but it had
a lot of potential to be excellent, especially since it broke away from its
origins and not having to follow the same painful track and tropes of the first
film. A series drawing heavily on Aztec symbolism, an original take on
vampires, a rich society and history and with an almost entire cast of POC? Yes
that could have been awesome. The potential was there
But I think there was almost too much and not much of it
developed. What does Freddie being the Peacekeeper actually mean? What are all
these prophecies we see scattered around? What is El Rey? Exactly what makes
the Bloodwell blood special? How is it special? Is it more than taste? What is
the Labyrinth, what does it mean? Who are the other Lords? What do they do? Why
couldn’t they intervene? Why didn’t they intervene when Celestino was killed?
Exactly what are the basic physical traits of a Culebras and how come they go
away when fighting Seth? What goes into the cult of the Deosa?
I’m frustrated because this world is rich enough and
interesting enough that so much could have been done with it and I WANTED these
answers. But could we have really got them all in 10 episodes? I’m not sure –
that’s a lot
There was also a problem with focus – because not only
were a lot of these answers missed but a lot of relationships needed more
definition. Scott and Kate was an awesome storyline with potential for immense
growth on both sides (I think Kate got it, Scott less so) but not enough time.
I don’t even know what Freddie was doing. Paloma and Santanico was excellent
and meaningful – and rushed. Similarly Sonja felt rushed and out of place – and
why even introduce Maia at all?!
Instead we have episode after episode of Gecko drama and,
your mileage may vary, I had real trouble caring. Apart from anything else the need
to jump from the first season (and the characterisation of the film) meant a
fair bit of character overhaul. And, honestly, with all the fascinating things
here, is “brother drama” high on anyone’s agenda? It frustrated me so much
because this should have been Santanico/Kisa’s season but so often she seemed
to be in the background to the Gecko’s latest tantrum
Still I did very much like how Santanico/Kisa ended – her
own name, free from all men, free from all love interests, living her own life
beyond revenge. I do, however, think even if she didn’t want to accept
leadership some more respect for her as the deosa would have been nice – or more
analysis of why she didn’t want it. I would have also really liked it if she
had been more of a power throughout and not so often victimised.
I do think the depiction of women this season has been
better than the sex objects of the first Season (which isn’t saying an awful
lot) – with Kissa/Santanico and Kate’s storylines being there if often
distracted. Next season Kat promises to be a fascinating character. Still, isn’t
flawless – there’s a lot of sexualisation that was never turned on the male
characters and Kissa deserved to kick arse more than she did.
Most of the cast are Latino which is almost unique on
television – and certainly in the genre (which often feels less diverse than
the media in general) though the only non-Latino POC, Scott, was sorely
underused. Still it is very rare to see this many Latino people on the screen,
I do wish we had drawn on more of the Aztec mythology, but it’s still interesting
to see such a number of POC characters on one show and in so many of the roles
on the show.
Sadly, there are no LGBTQ characters still.
Despite the ending, I am looking forward to season 3.
This season was a nice departure from the first and introduced, even if it didn’t
develop, a whole lot of awesome. Now season 3 will be an even further departure
– and more opportunity.
