Sunday, November 6, 2016

Van Helsing, Season 1, Episode 8: Little thing


The gang is on the move in Axl’s tankbulance

Can we look at this for a moment because I have to question the practicality of spikes on this damn thing. A vampire could cling to them while the ambulance drives around. And if you do use it to impale someone, great, you’re now trying to drive a not-very-manouverable vehicle at the best of times with corpses flailing around in front of your windscreen, impaled in place.

Anyway, the gang sets off heading to the military base Axl has decided is their new mission even though some of the gang are finally questioning why he is holding to missions he’s kind of making up as he goes along. Especially when they hear church bells and some of the gang would quite like to check that out. Doc is the one who swings it though – her sister was at this military base and may have some answers about Vanessa (who, herself, is ambivalent about what the military wanted with her or will do to her)

Instead they arrive at the base to find out it’s pretty much abandoned. No sign of a struggle – but completely empty. Doc and Vanessa do find Doc’s sister’s (Grace) office – and signs that she was working on way more than Doc was aware of. The only information they find about Vanessa is a reference to a “farm”.

In the base they do find Goran – a man who has been split up from his group, the resistance. I think he’s been cast as the friendly but not too bright big guy. The gang is suspicious and worried about using dwindling resources on more people – but Vanessa cuts through that (having lived through the apocalypse less than most people) and points out they can’t just send someone away because they’re hungry.

This does raise the question of exactly what to do next – and Axl wants to hunker down and wait it out again – assuming there’s a way it can be waited out. And despite the land mines, the base is too big with too many windows and entrances to fortify like he did the hospital. Facing people actually *gasp* arguing with him


They do agree for a few days rest where they can recoup – and Axl happens to know about an actual underground bunker. It’s possible they would have argued with him but the bunker is known as “the farm” which instantly gets Vanessa and Doc on side. Of course the bunker is locked but Goran comes with explosives which are very good lock picks

I don’t know how bomb proof I would expect a bunker door to be. Especially when they all go in – and then the single entrance caves in due to the explosions. I don’t know… aren’t bomb shelters/bunker supposed to be better at dealing with explosions than this? Isn’t that kind of their raison d’etre?

Everyone kind of takes being trapped underground surprisingly calmly which is a bit weird. But possibly due to the large amount of supplies underground – including booze. Booze makes everyone a lot happier.

Except John drinks and then decides to go from drinking with Susan to kissing her – and then tries to rape her as she continually fights and struggles and screams against him. This attracts the rest of the group to stop him – and when he calls Vanessa a bitch she punches him out. Go Vanessa. She also votes for castration no-one else backs

They are left wondering what to do with him since they can’t banish him given the whole cave in. Doc points out he’s also a pretty prime candidate for being the murderer since the marks he’s left on Susan’s neck match those of the victims. Searching his things they find a knife and a finger…

Well that seems pretty airtight. Honestly, I think too airtight. In TVlandia, no murder mystery is solved that easily. And, honestly, no-one decided a personal belongings search was necessary before now? They were actually all locked up by Brandon and he didn’t even search their bags?

The question is solved by John taking Susan hostage and Vanessa responding with a knife to the neck. That solves that problem.

More interesting is that along the way we have 2 more conflicts with Axl. One is both Vanessa and Doc continue to challenge Axl and step up in different ways themselves. They question whether his answers and goals are the same ones they have

The other is Doc finally telling Axl, and his poutiness, to back off. Axl’s continued invasion of her space and assumption of a kind of relationship they don’t have has been increasingly creepy as he continues to ignore her blatant “back off” body language. Now to see how he reacts to the rejection

We also have brief cameos from Sheema who is now Rebecca’s pet (which involves a comfortable and terrifying life) and discover that Rebecca is apparently trying to use women to birth vampire babies – or so it seems. I cringe at this Twilight-esque nonsense that an immortal, powerful dangerous vampire woman is going to be bereft and sad because she cannot have babies.

And we have Mohammed still chasing after the main gang - and he has a photograph of a woman he is looking for. It's not Sheema...