Monday, February 15, 2016

Hemlock Grove, Season 3, Episode 7: Todos Santos



And everything continues to fall apart, pretty much, in great big messy chunks

Olivia killed Isaac in her increasingly dangerous hallucinations (because, of course, mental illness = murder in TV world, it is a rule) and is now hallucinating him running around as Chango – which is part eye candy, part source of snark and quips, and part cringeworthy racial stereotype.

Now driven by his randomness, Olivia sets off on her little path of chaos – first trying to “save” her daughter from Aitor by bringing up his long-ago criminal past (which appears to involve murder and be the motive behind his constant altruism – it’s a redemption arc). She doesn’t care about any of his good deeds and just wants him away from Shelly

She follows this blackmail up with a visit to Johann to further confirm she’s dying and needs a new body to move into – and Johann confirms it needs to be an Upir body (he’s been doing some of his own random testing and studies – of course he has, he does so love some deeply unethical human trials).

So she goes hunting an Upir, and after a few random deaths, a few inappropriate hallucination comments in lifts she ends up in an Upir conference eyeing up potential body donors. (The conference is because the new plague has not gone unnoticed).

Spivak seems to have finally got tired of being ignored by this show –honestly we have far far far far too many storylines and none of them even close to being resolved – and decides to send a random guy to slaughter the board of the Godfrey institute, conveniently not killing Johann or Roman. Why has he done this? I can’t even begin to guess – I honestly think “because everyone is ignoring me” may be the answer

Anyway it does allow the show to be properly gruesome which is hasn’t been for a long time and after some decapitation and eye gouging Johann and Roman learn… absolutely nothing. Well that was a useful scene.


Peter’s storyline is also falling apart since Destiny is continuing to try and figure out what happened to Andreas and the guys who killed Andreas are getting rather tetchy about things. On top of that his fellows are not really willing to go to a great deal of effort to throw Destiny off the scent. Not made any easier by general incompetence and the fact Destiny is, after all, psychic.

This I messy, gets messier until Destiny randomly decides to confront Roman and he tells her the truth without even a pretence of diplomacy. She hits him. He hits her – much harder. Then breaks her neck

Why? Did anyone ask why? Sorry, this is Hemlock Grove reasons are for other shows. I think she’s just dead to add to Roman’s pile of angst – which is much the same reason why Annie is around (does anyone else have a reason why she’s here beyond Hemlock Grove suddenly realising they needed more incest?). Annie is all sad over Destiny’s body which is a nice touch but I’m not entirely sure how happy Destiny would be with her smearing blood on her body.


About the only one who is doing well and moving upwards is Shelly. That definitely cannot last. But I do love how her confidence is growing and from the cringing figure she was she is now an active member of the community and is quite willing to greet people with “I’m big but not dangerous”: she’s seeing her own strength and danger.