And lo it’s time to
rocket back to the core of our three storylines - Vanessa.
Last episode she
killed a man. And yes she’s killed a lot of people, but this is a man she
killed to eat. Not to protect herself or others, expressly to feed on their
blood. It’s a turning point, especially since her ancestor made it clear that
darkness and vampiriness may be much closer. Which this episode is all about.
First of all with some level of foreshadowing we have the shadowy figure who
appears before Sam and Vanessa. Vanessa assumes that this self-identified seer
is an elder who makes a big speech about how Vanessa’s future hangs in the balance
So when wandering
alone she runs into Mohammed - yes vampire Mohammed. And shockingly, our Honey
Badger reaches out to him and wants to help - specifically she wants to turn
him back human. Yes this is rather a 180 over her refusal to try to turn ancestor
guy back human, but whatever, reasons. Let’s pretend she really really cares
about Mohammed despite them not leaving on the best terms (he sort of betrayed
her for the sake of his sister and it was a whole thing). She chases him
and this becomes a long fight and chase and struggle as Mohammed tries to
escape… and through very bad luck Vanessa fall through a ceiling and impales
herself on a meat hook.
She can’t reach the
hook stuck in her back… every time she tries to lift herself off the hook she
merely drives the hook deeper, bleeding into the floor.
Time passes with
Vanessa unable to save herself… so on comes the hallucination
First up is John. Remember John? He was the arsehold from the first season who was first suspected of being a serial killer. He was also rapist and general arsehole. Vanessa killed him.
And he’s here now to
tell Vanessa basically that she’s evil, tries to invoke her guilt over killing
him but is mainly there to show she isn’t guilty and she enjoyed killing him,
she wanted to kill him because she is evil - something she’s very happy to
admit even if she does deny that it was her motivation.
This goes on for some
time for lots of rambling, after which he tag teams Julius, human Julius.
Julius is Vanessa trying to absolve herself pointing out he’s a good man -
Vanessa sees him as one of the best of men - though he has done many bad
things. But he did bad things because he was turned, he wasn’t responsible for
this. Of course that doesn’t exactly apply to Vanessa and she says so but her
Julius hallucination continues to insist she’s good.
Then we get vampire
Julius playing with corpses and saying how lovely blood is, how tasty it is an
how hungry she is. We also have a guest star from Dylan reminding her of what
she’s lost for bonus angst and reminding Vanessa that she wouldn’t feed her the
blood she needed to survive which probably stands out more now she’s just
hunted for food.
Then it’s the big
guns - Susan, her friend who Sam killed. She’s here to appeal to the light and
goodness inside her and especially basically pushing Vanessa to forgive
herself. Or at least move on - because she can’t let this one thing she’s done
get in the way of what she has to do (save the world, kill the elders et al).
And we have Sam. Sam
isn’t pushing hunger nor is he pushing the fact she’s evil - he’s pushing the
power and superiority of vampireness. How humans are weak and fragile and
pathetic and unworthy of their mighty vampireness. Vanessa protests she had
moment of weakness and succumbed - but Sam believes she “emerged”. He also
reminds her of the sadism she used to cripple him rather than just killing him.
He even tries to push the idea that he killed people to put them out of their
misery - that they were sad and pathetic and weak.
This is replaced by
Dylan again who basically gives her permission to move on from her death,
adding that everyone dies but also that Vanessa tried to save her. She failed
but she tried - and it’s ok to fail. She can’t blame herself for this - but ultimately
she can do anything
Ok hallucinations
done, Mohammed finally returns and vanessa convinces him to drink her blood. He
turns human again and frees Vanessa from the hook.
This gives Vanessa
and Mohammed time to catch up which is kind of fun and really human. And while
they left on bad terms, Vanessa has moved on from that clearly having learned a
few things about terrible mistakes people make especially in the name of those
they love. Vanessa has been through some stuff since then. They catch up about
Sam’s antics and they’re generally really friendly and happy
But she refuses to
let him come with her. She wants him to live. She wants to know she’s saved
someone, that she has done some good. Of course he agrees. And of course he
follows her.
Ok this episode… I
actually really like how the hallucinations brought out all the aspects of
Vanessa’s conflict after the character defining moment of killing someone for
blood. On the one hand, I think this was necessary. It was necessary to mark
this event to make it clear it was an event, that we’re not just going to leave
the body behind and not worry about it. This is a major incident, this is a
crossroads and Vanessa has to make and acknowledge that
But… well, there’s a
distinct redundancy here. There’s a sense that all of these conflicts are
things we should have already been aware of but for some reason the writers
weren’t convinced of our ability to pick this up so decided to spell it all
out. I mean it is nice to see them all represented - the tempting power of the
vampire, her own darkness, her loss, her hunger, her guilt and her battle to
both accept she’s fundamentally good, accept that she can be good and to
forgive herself for the pitfalls in her journey. To acknowledge that yes there
is darkness in her but that doesn’t have to define her or control her
It was well done
though perhaps unnecessary - and I am glad to see Mohammed back, human, being
more than just a mouse to Sam’s cat - and following Vanessa around. I like this
because he hasn’t been introduced for Vanessa’s moral journey - he’s clearly
re-entering the main plot.
