This episode has a few flashbacks to Scarlett Harkness’s childhood
and how terribad it was because her dad trained her to hunt vampires and people
were scared of her. Especially the guy who tried to push her to have sex and
she held a knife to his throat and made him wet himself.
She is known as Scary Scarlett and does not like this at all as
she tells her dad in no uncertain terms, especially since she doesn’t believe
vampires exist. Which is when the vampire attacks to help prove it to her and
her dad forces her to kill it so she is prepared. In the aftermath they fake
their own death with some stolen bodies and go on the turn to hide from the
vampires
Ok, I get it, insight into Scarlett’s past - but didn’t she kind
of tell us all this already?
In the present the gang have been captured by the cannibal BBQ
cops who have now all been slaughtered by the Sisterhood of Scary Vampires
whose female unity is now under the control of a man because Of Course They
Are. That guy (Scab?) and Dmitri are now hunting for the Van Helsing
So our gang decides to do that least sensible of all things -
split up. And the precious key they’re guarding they give to Julius and Doc -
the ones least able to protect themselves. Hey they get a disposable cop to go
with them but he ends up quickly bitten and Doc has to kill him. She looks a
little traumatised but this - even as Julius tells her she had to. After all -
she and Julius were in that same state not so long ago.
Scarlett cuts herself to try to lure the vampires away which kind
of works - Dmitri smells her Van Helsing blood - but the sisters have ALL the
super powers, apparently being immune to bullets. Thankfully they’re
superstitious so they don’t follow Scarlett and Axel to a cemetery where they
engage in some taunting
And then decide to leave said cemetery and hide in an armoured car full of money. Now I get the potent point that all that money is worthless and how the world has changed so yeah for imagery. But if you’re going to rest up for the night of childhood talks and sexual tension then maybe do it in the cemetery where you’ve already established the Sisters won’t go rather than crawling into a metal box
But metal box it is where Scarlett explains her own history and
how the apocalypse wasn’t so bad for her because everything made sense. I can
see that - she’s spent her whole life being an ostracised outsider preparing
for the vampire apocalypse so when it happened, yes it was terrible, but she
finally fit. She finally had a purpose. Her life finally made sense. Kind of
like a survivalist in a bunker would make sense if we actually had a nuclear
war but without that they’re someone who is wasting an awful lot of disposable
income on some really elaborate cosplay.
They discuss childhoods and Axel reveals he isn’t an army brat.
Scarlett wonders why he stayed with Vanessa’s unmoving body for three years if
he hasn’t had generations of mindless obedience drilled into him. He tells her
about his fridged whose disappearance he blamed on himself
This is… disappointingly predictable and somewhat different from
the first season. There it was clear Axel was following orders long after it
was clear they were irrelevant because he had NOTHING ELSE TO DO; following
those orders gave him purpose, made him still part of a greater whole,
preserved the impression that the greater whole. That worked - far more than
saying “I spent 3 years watching over a comatose body because my sister
disappeared”.
This is when Scarlett and Axel kiss and have sex - but not before
Scarlett checks if Axel had sex with Vanessa. Axel says “not even close”. Hmmm…
I’m sure they got close a time or two.
After they finish they find that their van, with only one way in
or out, and surrounded by Sisterhood vampires. Because this wasn’t predictable.
So they have to escape, and before they do this Axel puts on a vest of money
and duct tape. Because armour. I guess. Look with everything else that happens
in this show I’m not quibbling over money armour.
I am quibbling over the fact Axel can go one-on-one with a member
of the Sisterhood, an ancient powerful vampire and apparently win. Can we be
consistent here? Vampires are supposed to be nearly impossible to kill, super
strong and super fast, how does a human wrestle with one without being
squished? As Axel appears to not have super powers, I question how he wasn’t
torn into lots of little Axel pieces.
Scarlett has woo-woo and training on her hands so can face off
against 2 Sisters - and lose. But luckily for her she’s bitten and the Sister
who bites her turns human (and is promptly killed by the other Sister who is
disgusted by her human-ness). Scarlett heals her bite wound and lo she has
inherited Vanessa’s-ness. She theorises it’s due to Vanessa biting her
This also causes her some level of angst - because, as she
mentioned, she kind of had life all figured out and now? Now everything is
Complicated
While I’m concerned because we’ve now gone a couple of episodes
without Vanessa and now we have a replacement Van Helsing who also seems to be
inheriting Vanessa’s love interest… and I also realised that I’m not actually
THAT bothered because I didn’t find Vanessa the endless rage monster’s
character that interesting. But she was bisexual, even if it was blink-and-you-miss-it-portrayal
and one of our very few LGBTQ protagonists...
Time to check with Doc and Julius who are running around
relatively unprotected and not really good at defending themselves with the
super precious key. But we do have a really cute moment of Julius discovering
modern food (since he was turned in the 50s when food was a terrible horror
show of tinned soup and gelatin in everything and caused untold horrific
damage) and absolutely loving it even though everything he’s eating must be so very
very stale
 |
| Stale crisps look much more appealing... |
He
discovers that Doc has a complex history with Axel and that she’s still very
bleak and moody.
Which is when Scab and Dmitri find them - there’s mockery and
taunting and Dmitri knocks Julius out. Or kills him. Which is sad. I guess? Again
not especially connecting to this character or seeing the point of him.
They don’t kill Doc though despite her being inedible because they
want her to tell team good guy to come get them because plot. They do take the
key though so Dmitri can helpfully exposition his plan to free the Elder, reap
the benefits of his gratitude and win this war….
….win? I mean, didn’t they win already? Human civilisation has
fallen. There are scattered pockets of survivors. Even the Resistance looks
pretty much dead? Or is this just the Pacific Northwest? Is the rest of the
world fine? Is this constant missing sun just part of being in the North-west
(insert weather snark here).
