Dmitri is still
looking for the elder so he goes to the Sisterhood (who are following Scab for
ridiculous reasons) who happen to have an oracle which no-one happened to
mention before. Said oracle spouts lots of random cryptic nonsense after
forcing Dmitri to kneel. She gives Dmitri a burning GPS to find the elder and
then goes on a random killing spree because why not?
Also he’s only
allowed to take two other vampires with him. Because KILLING SPREE (and if he
had an army then Abby and Scarlett would die because and the plot would get
AWKWARD)
While they head to
the elder hiding place, so does Scarlett and her mother Abby and…
...and there’s no
nice way to say this but this whole scene about Scarlett feeling all resentful
about her absent mother and them both throwing it back and forth would be so so
so much better if the acting wasn’t so cringeworthy. Honestly this wasn’t sold
at all - it’s even worse than trying to see Dmitri as an actual villain. I have
no connection here - it’s clunky, the dialogue doesn’t work and Scarlett’s
emotions are all over the place.
Among the mess and
resentment we confirm what we already knew (including Scarlett using the SAME
test as Vanessa to see if Abby is really her mother - she knew where the key
was hidden so she checks out). That they got out of the farm when Abby realised
Doctor immortal evil wanted to experiment on her little girls - and also said
little girls started showing of their super strength
I have to mention how
super super inconsistent Van Helsing has been about the powers of Vanessa. At
age, what, 5? She was able to throw a grown man across the room. How did she
even reach adulthood - AND protect her best friend from an abusive partner
without realising she was superwoman?
Also Abby has a
necklace full of Dark One blood passed on from her grandmother after her parents
were killed by evil vampires. And grandmother also tested baby!Abby’s reflexes
with a battleaxe so this family has always been hardcore.
And about that Dark
one - apparently the first vampire who has a whole Wheel of Time
don’t-say-his-name thing going on (hey I know most people would reference Harry
Potter, but nod to the epic that did it first). Scarlet is surprised he’s even
still alive - but hey, immortal vampires and all. Abby wants to pass that vial
on to Scarlett but since Abby was around when she and Vanessa were experimented
upon and they apparently got contaminated with all that nasty Dark One Blood.
I’m not sure why she’s leaped to this rather than assuming standard vampires
were used to experiment on them… but hey the script says so
Scarlett also says
she can “barely feel Vanessa” so she can still feel her
They arrive at the
cave of the Elder where Dmitri has used his key already - now the cave has
mystical hallucination woo-woo. For Abby and Scarlett this means they get
convenient pictures to go alongside their recapping. The vampires get horrible
memories
Ivory, one of the
Sisters, gets an image of being tortured by Christians to try and force her to
convert. It’s a shame that this character has never really appeared before
this. Scab has the memory of how his fellow workers tormented him because he
broke a picket line - which was made especially odd by him maintaining his
vampire mannerisms while in his memory as a human
And Dmitri remembers
his time with the Marquis De Sade because he was super kinky, working up to
having sex with his sister and this is when he was turned into a vampire by the
elder. Because wanting incest is apparently a highly desirable vampire trait.
They snap out of it
and continue on until the Van Helsings arrive for a fight scene to chase off
the extras leaving on Dmitri, Abby and Scarlett
This is why Dmitri
isn’t allowed to bring his army because plot!
Dmitri holds
Scarlett’s throat and demands Abby open the Elder door because only a Van
Helsing can do it
Yes. Really. And ABBY
KNEW THIS. So did Dmitri! She knew that Dmitri couldn’t possibly get into the
Elder without their help. If they wanted to thwart him they just had to move to
Mexico. Our outside the 10 square miles they all keep wandering around over and
over again. And what was Dmitri’s idea? To turn up and camp and hope a Van
Helsing happened to wander by?
NONE OF THIS WOULD
HAVE WORKED! Dmitri’s army staying behind, the Van Helsings even being there -
it works only because the script writers have decided that it would so it does
Oh and more - Abby
has to apparently kill herself opening this door. Yes this was a completely
unnecessary suicide mission. And yes Abbie knew about this
Can this get more
ridiculous? YES IT CAN!
Because they open the
door and the elder emerges. He wants blood but doesn’t want Scarlett because of
the evil Dark One Blood in her veins but he plans to eat the dying Abby.
Scarlett, helpless, tells him not to and he kneels
Yes he kneels
See, apparently back
in the day this Elder was captured by the Van Helsings and they gave him a
choice - fealty or death. She he swore fealty to the Van Helsing bloodline and
cannot disobey an order. To such a degree that Scarlett orders him to murder
Dmitrii and despite Dmitrii being his favourite, he crushes his head
Apparently he’s super
honourable? Or literally bound to his word magically? Can vampires not break
their word? Maybe they could explain this a little? Because honestly I’m not
finding “honour” to be a sufficient explanation for why he would obey his
mortal enemy and kill his favoured child
But also remember
that the Van Helsings, after securing the impossibly powerful creature’s
unflinching obedience, decided that the best thing to do with it was to seal it
in a crypt
While Abby considered
it necessary to “stop” this creature which she could control with a word even
though “stopping” it involved killing herself.
This makes no sense.
Can it get more ridiculous?
Yes it can!
Because Scarlett
stabs the Elder with her Dark One Blood and tells him to find her sister
Not find her sister
and protect her. Not find her sister and bring her home. Not find Vanessa and
explain things to her. No just find her. To this creature who has every desire
to find loop holes
So he finds Vanessa,
still alive in the evil people facilities, and bites her. This turns her eyes
red. Who knows what it does to him since biting her normally turns vampires
back to human. So who even knows? Cliffhanger I guess
But this whole season
has kind of annoyed me - most of which has been clearly displayed on this
episode. We have the dubious acting (honestly Dmitri makes me cringe every time
he’s on screen). We have the split up cast - seriously the finale was all about
Scarlett who was something of an addiction to the series and Abbie who we’ve
known for 1 episode: most of the cast weren’t present. We have the plot lines
that make little sense and rely on poor decisions and a lot of dubious
decisions and massive coincidences. This is the story of this season and it’s
terrible, utterly terrible.
The acting from the
beginning has lacked a lot of nuance or levels. The whole cast has been split
into several groups having little to do with each other: Mohammed and Sam,
Vanessa, Doc and Axel, Lucky & Flesh: they’ve all been kind of just
wandering through a ridiculously tiny space with everyone running into each
other fortuitously.
We have the abortive
and confusing plot lines - like the BBQ cannibals, the random walking around
because of convenient visions, killing off Dylan after making her the sum total
of Vanessa’s motivations in season 1, the casual dismissal of Julius despite
him being a major antagonist, the introduction of the Sisters with no real
explanation - it’s all shallow and dull
Inclusionwise we have
a show that on paper has several marginalsied characters, but does little to
centre any of them. Mohammed and Doc both started the season being Designated
Terrible people which is a problem when they represent pretty much the only prominent,
non murdered POC on this show (we had Brandon and the Mohammed stand in, but
they’re pretty much dead). They spent waaay too much time this season being
constantly apologetic, especially Doc, while Mohammed was on the periphery for
most of the season, constantly victimised and completely irrelevant to everyone
else. This is what I consider “prominent tokenism”: where you have a token who
is present on screen a lot but on the whole doesn’t add a great deal to the
plot.
LGBTQ characters are
in a similar position - last season Vanessa had a relationship with her best
friend but her bisexuality is completely unrepresented
past that single brief moment in a single episode. We had an episode with 2 gay men, one
of them a POC, in what was a potentially interesting storyline - but it was
just that, 1 episode and then forgotten
Sam was unique for
being a Deaf character in a dystopian show - and then we learned he was a
serial killer followed by him being “cured” anyway. So…. not the best shall we
say
