Parental issues and murder investigations are abound this week, but the most exciting thing is that Mark Pellegrino returns as a ghostly vision using witty taunts to torture a character on the brink of insanity. Wait, didn’t that just happen last week on Supernatural?
Recap:
After encountering Henry, Aidan’s overwhelming guilt gets the best of him, causing him to start seeing ghostly visions of Bishop, who taunts him and brings out Aidan’s crass, sarcastic and angry side. Despite his state, Aidan tries to help Henry get out of the city. Henry, by the way, has basically been on the run from all the head vampires for the past 80 years, thanks to his responsibility in driving vampires back to hiding (a la driving Suren to publicly kill.) Ghost-Bishop makes connections from Bishop and Aidan’s relationship to Aidan and Henry’s relationship, convincing Aidan to kill Henry before vice versa happens. Luckily, Aidan comes to his senses and instead vows to clear Henry’s name in the vampire community and find a way to let him to live his life. Ghost-Bishop, however, reminds Aidan that “the son always kills the father.”
Sally’s mom dies and is now a ghost–a reunion that is quickly squandered when Sally discovers her mom is totally okay with dying. It’s because she can hook up with a ghost named Jerry, her former neighbor she had an affair with before they died. Sally is of course distraught, both at the affair, and but also because her mom is less interested in her daughter than making out with a ghost. Sally pleads to her mother to help her figure things out, though it’s left open whether or not she’ll stick around.
The cops have discovered Will’s murder, and connect the dots to Nora and Josh. While Nora is missing, Josh tries to prevent two detectives from getting on his trail. He tries to get Aidan to use his police connections to clear his name, but with Aidan being all insane, Josh has to go to the newly-turned cop, Cecelia, himself. He strikes a deal to trade in the purebreds to her for his innocence. After some hesitation, Cecelia realizes the purebloods do exist, and convinces the detectives that Josh isn’t a suspect. In return, Josh gives her the twins’ address.
Review:
This is an episode that unfortunately suffers because of the show’s structure: splitting the episode 3 ways, between our three leads. Instead of getting A-, B- and C-plots that intersect at the climax, we get three A-plots that might sorta kinda crossover sometimes. While this is certainly an admirable attempt at letting all three leads have equal story value, the problem is that sometimes the individual content could use more time to be explored. We could have more fully explored Aidan’s psychosis and had him interact with more people in his sarcastic state. We could have had a comedic family-oriented story as Sally tries to work through her parental issues. We could have had a miniature fugitive storyline as Josh tried to clear his name. Instead, all the potentially interesting plots are developed just enough to move the plot, but the episode as a whole just doesn’t feel fulfilling.
But, enough about what could have been, because some of what we did get certainly wasn’t bad.
After Lost and the aforementioned Supernatural, Mark Pellegrino might have the most unique typecasting problem in television history. But even though the whole “taunted by a ghost from your past” idea has been played out numerous times over many fantasy/sci-fi shows, it’s generally a fun ride when it pops up. Pellegrino sold it here just as well as he did on the other two shows, and it was fun seeing him back as Bishop.
Oddly enough, apparently when on edge, Aidan becomes very sarcastic and very douchey. He’s always had shades of wittiness, but we rarely ever see it come out thanks to the ever-present veil of vampire brooding. So even though we were probably supposed to see Aidan’s attitude as being the ultimate downturn, he was actually the most entertaining he’s been all season. Even if the sarcastic side of him didn’t really make sense, Sam Witwer at least sold it; he deserves more chances to show off his comedic timing.
Aidan wore his emotions on his sleeves in his crazed state, which was very clear during his final scene with Henry. I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the homoeroticism in that scene—certainly not surprising in anything related to vampires. However, it will be interesting to see where the two go from here; Aidan/Henry is meant to be a recreation of Bishop/Aidan, so what’s going to be the final turn in their relationship that drives Henry to want to kill him? The easy assumption, of course, is that it will be yet another fight over Suren–but that might be a little too obvious.
Even Josh is losing it thanks to the police investigation, and is really going to a darker place. Luckily, it’s interesting to watch his desperation. Normally he’s steered clear of the vampires, but he’s completely willing to hand over the purebreds to save him and Nora—and surprisingly, he pulled it off. I doubt we’ve seen the last of the twins, though, and it’s an easy bet that this is going to come back to bite him. While he’s doing what he thinks is best, striking this deal (especially without the backing from Aidan) is really painting him into a corner, and the prospects of where it might go are exciting. The newly-turned cop, Cecelia, was also very fun to watch. Olunike Adeliyi really sells that mysterious intensity. Hopefully we see more of her.
The storyline with Sally’s mom was weird, to say the least. The entire situation behind her mom’s ghost was especially strange; why was she not even remotely freaked out at, you know, being dead? Sure, she was hoping to see Jerry in the afterlife, but presumably she didn’t know any more than any of us know, right? It was very forced to have her automatically accepting it and macking with her ghost lover right at her funeral. It provided some sick laughs, but it definitely wasn’t earned. That being said, Sally’s teenager-like reactions were funny. Sometimes she gets a little over-the-top with her youthful attitude, but it’s nice having the show explore that, despite being dead, she’s still young.
However, the other odd thing about this storyline is the timing of it, considering last week’s developments. Sally just ruined a woman’s life and discovered the creature after her is a reaper, but suddenly it’s not mentioned at all? Putting storylines on hold sometimes is necessary, but it should have gotten one line at the very least.
Like I said before, there were plenty of little elements in this episode that had great potential. And while the potential wasn’t squandered per se, everything was capped too early. There was plenty of tension or humor in each story, but none of them really rose to make the episode truly great. A full-on comedic episode for Sally, a tense “on the run” episode for Josh, or a cerebral and psychological episode for Aidan—all of those would have been great. Instead, we get an okay but sadly forgettable episode, despite what should have been the best of the season.
Stray tidbits:
- Aidan and Josh’s confrontation about the police was very intense, thanks to Aidan’s random bouts of anger and Bishop’s chiming in. There was a lot going on in that scene in general.
- The awkward dinner scene was, well, hilariously awkward. That’s another element that would have been worthy of an entire episode. Bottle show, perhaps?
- Why, exactly, has Henry been in Boston for 80 years if he’s in hiding? Are there vampire guards at the city limits?
- Stand-out tune: “Black” by Kari Kimmel, played at the end of the episode.
- “Is that a cat wearing a catcher’s mask?” – Bishop
- “If I could puke, I would, I swear to god…” – Sally
- “Why am I yet again cooking dinner for people who don’t eat?” – Josh
