Recap:
Aidan and Suren continue their bloody sexcapades until Mother returns, and gives them both a mean talking to about how they aren’t getting the job done. This causes Aidan to flash back to the 1930s again, where we continue the story with Aidan and his right-hand-man, Henry, who I mistakenly said Aidan killed in last week’s recap. Oops! In any case, Henry apparently has an affinity for betrayal, because he does it to Suren too. Turns out, Henry was only in it for the sex, which became clear when Suren caught him sleeping with another woman (and presumably countless other women.) Suren actually had feelings for him, and in a fit of jealous rage, she kills Henry’s mistress in the middle of a huge party, revealing her vampire side to them all. Mother is forced to have every single person slaughtered, and “grounds” her daughter, which amounts to literally burying her underground for an entire century, setting up where we found her at the beginning of the season. In the present, Aidan and Suren go to where they think the last Orphan den is to appease Mother. Aidan is shocked to find Henry alive (so to speak) but he makes sure Suren doesn’t see him.
Sally also continues her sexcapades as Melissa, her doctor-crush’s girlfriend. However, Sally’s frequent possession weakens her to the point that she becomes stuck in Melissa’s body. As she struggles to get out, she sees the shadowy figure once more, and it pushes Sally out of Melissa’s body, but not before giving her a huge fright. A piece of Sally’s spirit is left in Melissa, in turn leaving her in a broken mental state. She starts flashing back to Sally’s death, even visiting the house it took place in. Sally wishes to console her somehow, but finds Melissa constantly drawing the shadow. On the drawing, she writes “REAPER.”
Nora is really short with Josh after hearing more about the werewolf twins and his research. It doesn’t get better when her abusive ex, Will, shows up. As it’s so close to the full moon, Josh and Nora are both on edge, and Josh is not happy about Will’s return. The twins egg Josh on to go with his instincts, which he does in full force when he attacks Will and tries to bash his head in with a 2×4. Nora stops him, but Brynn eggs her on, too—she recognizes that Nora doesn’t actually want to let go of the wolf, and that’s why she isn’t supporting Josh’s search for a cure. The night of the transformation, Nora and the twins wolf out and murder Will, while Josh is left alone in the storage shed.
Review:
This episode is very, very packed. New plots just kept coming up, which left the pace of the episode feeling a little off. But story-wise, they all tied together nicely, continuing off of last week’s theme of “saying yes,” but taking it a step further. This isn’t just taking a moment to indulge one’s self anymore, this is going full-on selfish and on base instinct. Aidan kept killing, Sally kept possessing, and Josh and Nora held nothing back in their respective attacks. Even Suren and Henry play into this in the 1930s timeline, with jealous rage and lust, respectively. And none of the results are particularly good for anyone.
We finally get a more fleshed out look at Suren and that party first teased a few weeks back, and I’m happy with the result. Initially, Aidan’s guilt over her seemed like another “vampire feels bad for making someone a vampire.” But in this case, Suren is centuries older than Aidan is; he isn’t guilty because he turned her into a vampire, but because he inadvertently pushed her to Henry, who broke her heart and ruined her life. It’s an indirect guilt, but it plays into Aidan’s very guilt-ridden character. And it’s nice to see that Suren never went completely insane and slaughtered everyone, like the initial flashback implied; she’s actually much more sympathetic and a victim here, which Dichen Lachman portrayed well.
As much as I liked Josh finally letting his anger out, the transition didn’t feel right. Something seemed off between the twins initially egging him on and then seeing him tackle Will. Sure, his wolf side made him more emotionally unstable, but he’s been able to keep it together surprisingly well for the past couple of transformations, so it seemed odd that he’d fly off the handle so quickly. The development itself is fine, but it didn’t feel like we saw that moment where Josh finally snapped. Or at the very least, if it was supposed to have happened during his conversation with the twins, Sam Huntington didn’t sell it. It may have worked better if it were developed over a longer period of time in the episode, instead of having it click in-between scenes. It’s a downside to having such a packed and plot-driven episode, I suppose.
The final scene with Nora was brilliant. The disorienting intercutting between her conversation and the murder was extremely effective. It really did seem like we were seeing flashes into the past, as human Nora stalked Will, not the future wolf kill. It was certainly a shocker that she finally went that far, though it’s not a surprise—it’s exactly where she’s been headed all season. The three naked werewolves curled up together in the woods covered in dried blood and dirt was surprisingly creepy, despite soft music and bright lighting. However, the slow pans across both sides of Nora to see the twins were unbearably slow. I get the idea of slowing things down a bit and experiencing the awakening like Nora did, but at the same time it dragged way too much. The crane shot that came after worked, though. Kristen Hager portrayed Nora’s new-found serenity very nicely in that quiet scene.
So Sally’s being stalked by a reaper, it seems. This definitely isn’t a unique development for anyone who watches supernatural shows; we’ve seen plenty of mythologies where reapers come for ghosts who need to cross over. The question here is where it’s trying to take Sally. If a ghost misses her door to a good afterlife, does that mean she goes to a bad afterlife? On the other hand, if it weren’t for that reaper, Sally would be stuck in Melissa, so it actually helped her in a way. In any case, the reveal was very well set-up. The lighting in Sally’s final scene with Melissa was much more shadowy than we usually get from this show, and had a blue tint to it that made the entire scene feel very creepy and surreal. Also, it was nice to see Meaghan Rath being able to show off her figure in anything other than a sweater and some yoga pants…even a bedsheet.
It looks like we’re going to be getting yet another recurring character by way of Henry. (As an aside, he’s played by Kyle Schmid, who guest starred in the same season of Smallville Sam Witwer starred in.) It’s unclear what role Henry will play from here on out, although we’ll definitely be getting some love triangle action with Aidan and Suren, I’m sure. What I’m not sure of is how well the show can handle so many new recurring characters. Suren, Brynn, Conner, Zoe, now Henry and possibly Melissa. And that’s not counting return appearances from Mother and Julia. And Nora has a prominent role. Last season juggled some supporting characters here and there, but not to this caliber.
It seems another theme of the season, in addition to all the giving-in-to-addiction stuff, is exploring how the roommates fair when they’re apart. Everyone has their own little world now, and the more they get involved, the farther they are from their quest to be human. As a brief bit of speculation, I assume the arc of the season will end with our three roommates (or four, if Nora stays around) rising from rock bottom by coming together once again. But until then, things are surely only going to get worse.
