Eichorst has been badly injured losing a hand. And
apparently the vampire cure for unexpected limb severing is to burn the stump
then plunge it in water. Ok
Eichorst is going to get a lot more irritated because
Palmer is pushing more and more against the control of the Master. He is
determined to find out what’s on the ship in his name – but when he gathers his
own force of men to invade the ship (which is what he takes, so low has his
authority sunk) he finds his own men slaughtered and the ship empty.
Meanwhile, Ephraim and Dutch are joined by Quinlan (with
lots of awkwardness) to leave the Safe Zone to go to the airport and find the
plane that started this whole thing to try and find a recording of the Master’s
communication without a whole lot of background noise. This involves going
through parts of New York that have been reduced to an utter war zone, looting,
murder, robbery in the street and everyone carrying weapons – it’s a complete
ruin.
But here we get to the meat of the plot – Vasiliy and
Abraham
There were times this episode where I questioned why we
needed this episode. Did we need the history of Vasiliy’s grandfather? Did we
need a scene of the two going to stock up on more silver?
But we’ve had a rift between the two. They were very
close in early seasons of this show but have drifted apart as Abraham studied
the Lumen and Vasiliy took the fight to the vampires
Vasiliy is shaken now. His fight has lost, completely lost.
The vampire victory destroyed Vasiliy’s confidence and Abraham spells it out –
you can’t fight a war against an enemy that can quickly restock their numbers
over night.
So the two needed to reconnect. As they go to find the
silver, Vasiliy detours so they can check on his parents. Earlier in the show
he asked them to leave the city but the rift between them was too great. They
find his parents, dead, in a vampire infested building: dead by suicide after
both were infected. Vasiliy is contemptuous of his dad, holding a grudge, but
Abraham calls them brave and tries to comfort Vasiliy
Faced with this, his shaken confidence and Abraham’s
gruff kindness, Vasiliy reveals his family history. His grandfather fought the
Nazis in Ukraine in World War 2 and was captured… and recruited as a
concentration camp guard. Vasiliy and his dad never knew if he was forced or
not (the flashbacks show clearly he was) but the guilt of grandfather Fet
killing Jews in the concentration camp haunted the family. And was part of why
Vasiliy’s father, an academic, a man who desperately avoided any chance of
violence or darkness in his life, loathed that his son became
With this we need to remember that Abraham is a Jew and a
holocaust survivor.
It’s a haunting scene. And Abraham doesn’t absolve the
grandfather – I think it would have been utterly appalling if he did – but he
focuses on Vasiliy himself, on forgiving his father (not his grandfather) on
not being haunted by his past. He offers comfort and advice and it is, simply,
one of the best paternal scenes I’ve seen on television in a long time. It’s a
powerful scene that really reconnects the pair after so much distance
After this scene, Abe and Vasiliy meet Palmer – and Palmer
tells them about the ship and it’s hidden contents. In exchange, Abe gives him
a dose of the White: which painfully helps restore Eichorst’s health.
I notice Palmer has picked up a new Black servant – I hope
he lives longer than the last.
Obviously we have parallels here - the parallel of collaborators is clearly there between Vasiliy's grandfather and Palmer but I'm not sure what the message is supposed to be there
