From Dusk Till Dawn, Season 3, Episode 9: Matanzas

Time for lots of fighting. Lots and lots and lots of fighting and cheesiness. So much cheesiness. We have Burt impale 4 people on a sword at once. We have Seth leaping through the air holding a revolver open to catch a bullet in the chamber. Yes, this level of cheese. I do appreciate some silly cheese.

This all takes place in this abandoned ghost town with Freddie leading a begging Venganza to the town to be part of the sacrifice to get Amaru her body back. They pass along a road where Culebras are tortured by sunlight and Venganza reminds Freddie just how terrible Amaru is

Meanwhile, Seth and Richie organise themselves, Scott, Burt, Aiden, Carlos, Santanico and a bunch of redshirt extras to launch an attack on the town, on the church where the ritual will take place during the eclipse (of course the eclipse). During daylight which means culebras are prone to burning if they lose their protection. Group A: Seth, Richie and Red Shirts attack openly to provide distraction while everyone else sneaks through some convenient tunnels into the church, helped by Freddie who is a secret plant all along

Something they didn’t share with Venganza it seems.

Brasa raises some extras of his own – a lot of undead cowboys. Apparently this is something Brasa, demon of sunlight/sungod can do. This is where Seth and the redshirts have a long long long gunfight with bullets dipped in culebra venom featuring the aforementioned leaping-reload shot. After many many deaths all the pesky extras and zombies are cleared away leaving Richie and Brasa to face off

Now, some would say that a sungod vs human ends quickly but a) Brasa wants Seth’s body (which I totally understand) to possess and b) Seth is up their with Vampire Diaries, True Blood and Walking Dead for the power of their plot armour. Seth also have bombs, powerful powerful bombs with woo-woo which manage to squish even a sun god. A truck full of explosives beats sun gods apparently

Actually can we talk about this? Because the whole premise of this is Amaru will open Xibalba and unleash all kinds of hell on the world. But is this prophecy out of date? I mean, if one of the most powerful Xibalbans can be taken out by a truck full of explosives, perhaps a hellish invasion will meet 21^st century technology and we’ll have a lot of very surprised demons?

Meanwhile Richie and the surviving Jaguar warrior head off into the desert to have their own private duel. Ending in stalemate so he and Seth can have a radio conversation that sounds a lot like a poignant goodbye.

From Dusk Till Dawn, Season 3, Episode 8: Rio Sangre

Santanico still alive! Perhaps they realised just how few women they had left in this show and decided they had to pull her out of the plot box

Of course this is episode 8 out of a 10 season run – so very few points there. Especially since everyone in this episode refers to her sexiness.

So what has she been doing? She’s decided to resurrect Carlos which is apparently a thing. Because he knows how to find the missing Venganza via a dancer she’s obessesed with (this could be sign that Venganza is in a relationship with a woman, same with Santanico. But we don’t even get to see them together and, of course, that dancer ends up dead without ever opening her mouth so let’s not bake a batch of cookies just yet).

What kills her? El Tatuaje, the new big bad of the week.

Ok, y’know, last week I commented on how the show seemed to be delving into at least the names of Aztec/Meso-American mythology. But now we have a big guy called “The Tattoo”. Someone reached the end of their wiki research!

El Tatuaje has the ability to make the tattooed weapons on his body real. And he touches people and turns them into tattooed minions.

Back to Santanico – she and Carlos join the Geckos and, after a moment where they decide whether or not to torture Carlos for Reasons, Seth (who is leader and normally I’d say “why” but I did mention those moments when he almost seemed to mean it) decides to let Carlos in. His plan is to get to Venganza and find out where the Lords his Amaru’s bones (Amaru was consumed by the lords who kept her blood and, apparently, her bones) which they can destroy and hopefully kill Amaru.

This seems likely since Amaru is definitely pushing to be restored to her own body which seems to be behind the whole kidnapping of Freddie’s family.

Venganza is hiding in a prison – a prison where the inmates, culebras and humans, are in contrl all under the authority of Venganza and all lethal and scary. This reminds of me Santanico’s little utopia and again I question how a society that thrives so much on physical violence can have humans and super-powered, super-healing, near invulnerable monsters co-existing. Because, nope.

From Dusk Till Dawn, Season 3, Episode 7: La Llorana

Aiden has discovered a Culebra cult – yes, Culebras worshipping and sacrificing to Itzpa, a demon, who in turn passes on the energy/mojo to Amaru. This happens via scalping with a Xibalban blade and then handing them over when they’re all helpless and alive for Amaru to suck on their souls. Most unpleasant

Over at… well I’m not going to call them Team Good Guy given the givens, but with our protagonists Burt is concerned that Freddie has left the group after Richie used his mojo to force them to reduce their already paltry female representation even further. Freddie has decided to crawl into a bottle with a side order of casual sex and doesn’t want the Geckos near him. Burt, being more sensible, less emotional and generally not willing to lose a soldier to angst, decides he’s going to try and help Freddie through this somehow

Richie himself is rather troubled by the whole possession thing, as one would be, and his doing his research: discovering that when the Lords of the Culebra first arrived probably also possessed. The possession has also left him with issues – and possibly the ability to psychically eavesdrop on Amaru and her minions

Despite being under manned and Richie having issues, the whole gang decides they’re going to raid this cult with a chance of grabbing Amaru. This is a very bad idea

And it works…

The fact it does work should really have been a wake up call to everyone. After all, Amaru herself is super dangerous, Brasa with his sun-hand was nowhere to be seen and the cult of Culebras basically did very little

But they shackle her and manage to get her to Burt’s shop where he has a cage which will hold her – which he’s not amused by them bringing this to his home (he brings Freddie with him)

When they have her they decide to exorcise her – using a rack that Cortez brought other that once belonged to Torquemada. I have a major problem with this

Implying that this rack that Torquemada had actually works to remove possession implies that the Spanish Inquisition is right. Further we have it being brought to the Americas by Cortez, a Conquistador expressly to exorcise the Aztecs and other Indigenous Americans – and, again, it’s implied it works. This is a gross sanitation of two incredible evil events in history

Also, you’re going to haul a rack – especially such a simple rack – across the ocean?

The exorcism is brutal and horrific and does manage to break through to Kate – briefly. But Kate isn’t a fan of Seth – she doesn’t forgive him and with that line pretty much brutally pokes his sorest and most vulnerable spot – guilt over what happened to Kate. She also reveals that, basically and obviously, this was all a trap (hence how easy it was to capture Amaru)

From Dusk Till Dawn, Season 3, Episode 6: Straight Jacket

This episode contained a whole lot of fighting (which From Dusk Till Dawn has previously used as filler because they’re not even super fight scenes) with one important incident – and by important I mean enraging.

Last episode Richie was kidnapped by Amaru and taken to the mental hospital where she was locked up, the bloody words still on the wall. With a flashback we’re shown a new power of Amaru’s – the ability to turn people to their dark side and make them evil and violent: marking them with blood red eyes.

She then uses this power on Richie – turning all three of his eyes (including the eye on his palm) red, raising his shadow self and convincing him to serve her sending all of his fellows to a “better place”

Which basically means killing them and sending them to Xilbalba

So when the gang arrives to save him he starts picking them off one by one and imprisoning them. Yes he’s not killing them because he has a plan which defies even Amaru – he needs to capture them so Seth can join them in Xilbalba (apparently he can only get there by killing the others? I don’t know, Richie logic)

Most of the episode is spent on these battles and cat and mouse games

Look, I like action, I do. And a well choreographed fight scene is a joy to behold (just look at any episode of Into the Badlands, that is awesome and beautiful). But From Dusk Till Dawn has many of the same terrible problems that we’ve seen with Vampire Diaries and Originals when it comes to supernatural power –it varies. A couple of episodes ago Burt took down Richie and Seth like they were small children because he was the eternal hunter and Just That Awesome. This episode Richie takes him down with minimal effort. Seth is human yet seems to manage better against Richie than Burt does. Scott has these amazing sword skills from nowhere. We see this a lot with From Dusk till Dawn, a character’s skill, power etc will change episode to episode at the convenience of the plot.

From Dusk Till Dawn, Season 3 Episode 5: Shady Glen

This episode brings us everyone bickering with everyone else. Endless endless bickering. And I actually like it. I like it because, sadly, this is humanity. This is what we do. We’re petty, we’re silly, we’re all too often utterly incapable of putting our petty nonsense aside because of the bigger picture

So we have Dakota hating the Geckos. We have Freddie and Richie striking up sparkes as Freddie is reminded he hates the Geckos too. We have Burt and Aiden sniping at each other. We have Scott whining about being given orders. There’s lots of bickering

I also like the role that Seth plays in this. Rather than making him a fighter on par with the other supernaturals (though I do appreciate his work out scene, though it should have been shirtless) which was always ridiculous, they make him more of a leader. He is the one who repeatedly steps in and demands everyone focus. He is the one who silences the arguments, who reminds people what they’re facing who gets everyone on track. Seth the combat monster alongside Richie, Ximena, Aiden and Freddie doesn’t work. Seth the tactician and leader who keeps his eyes on the bigger picture and doesn’t let current issues cloud matters? That works. That’s a role he can fill. And to a lesser extent he has for a while – I mean, Richie was reluctant to seek out Santanico but it was Seth who cut through the emotion and pointed out it was necessary. Seth is the pragmatist, possibly because he is the outsider.

So the demon this week is Cipactli, an Azetc primeval monster – and it comes with a swarm of insects as well. It heads into the sewers and pollutes the water (thankfully this town has its own limited isolated water supply) which makes people who drink it into cannibals who insatiably attack their nearest and dearest like they’re made of Baileys Truffles

I would also note now that if something makes my family taste like Baileys truffles they are all dead. And they understand this.

All of this is explained by the research guys: Aiden and Burt (who has seen this before) who both snipe at each other constantly

This is a shift from Amarra’s usual tactics of targeting the Culebras and leaving humans out of it. And that’s one of the reasons they manage to get Dakota onside. Yes, Dakota went to Freddie to tell him that Richie is still alive and survived a shotgun blast and Freddie quickly tried to distract her and get her out of the way. That obviously didn’t work so instead she followed Freddie and found out he’s working with Richie. The man who claims to have been raised by her father is now working with the man who killed her father.

Dakota was not amused

Thankfully a flash of culebra fangs and a small town full of cannibals seemed to be enough to get her to put her antipathy to one side and try and get in with the gang for the time being. Oh she intends to catch up with the murdering later but she’s willing to put it to one side while dealing with a cannibal plague. I respect a character who has priorities like that even if it takes, as I said before, Seth to try and keep them focused.

From Dusk Till Dawn, Season 3, Episode 4: Fangalorious

Time to catch up with Scott – he has a band now and has even taking his sister’s advice to heart after she urged him last season to find a way to feed on blood that didn’t kill the innocent

He found a way. Since Culebras can mind meld by mixing blood with humans – so as part of his schtick of his band’s act he encourages people to cut their hands (don’t do that!) so he can mix blood with them and then pick the terribad evil person to snack on. Sure he’s still killing people – but they’re rapists and if you’re going to murder people, they’re a good choice to be chomped on.

He’s also causing one hell of a hepatitis outbreak.

And after one act he meets Kate… yes, actual Kate. Kate has managed to throw off the influence of Amaru to warn Scott that he must save himself from Amaru and stay away from her

Y’know this plan has a flaw. See, Amaru and Brasa haven’t been able to find Scott – and they really want to because killing Scott will quash Kate’s soul and give Amaru full control of the body. But now they’ve found Scott because Kate just found him. I mean, he didn’t even know Kate was still alive so it’s not like he would even seek her out

Anyway, Amaru takes over and does her soul sucking thing – to which Scott is resistant – when Freddie the peacekeeper shows up and saves him by shooting Kate. She backs off and Freddie takes an enraged Scott off to Freddie and Seth.

While Amaru goes off to Basra to get some healing by chomping on a random guy before practicing her knife skills and demanding they find Scott again because of that whole soul squishing thing. And, of course, they pull out some new monsters of the week to send after Scott

These are Jaguar warriors that hunt by hearing their enemies’ heart beats and then using epic combat skills to slice and dice them. They’re the guards of the sun god (that would be the demon Brasa and his burniness) as he passes through Xilbalba. So pretty elite.

As we can see when they catch up with the Geckos, take down some random minions and impale Richie on a giant blade. While Seth manages to capture one of the others (of course on a team of 2 men and 1 woman, it’s the woman who is captured).

From Dusk Till Dawn, Season 3, Episode 3: Protect and Serve

Time for a new demon of the week – this time a scorpion demon hunting down young culebras.

One of them manages to escape to turn up on Freddie’s doorstep – begging the peacekeeper for help before killing himself with one of Freddie’s stakes.

Freddie follows up a neck tattoo on the dead Culebra – who doesn’t turn to ash when he dies which is different – and finds a fraternity full of culebras led by Aiden Turner. Professor Aiden Turner

Sex Machine

Oh, yay, he’s back. Can we get rid of him and keep Santanico around

Freddie continues have some reservations about his role as peacekeeper – especially since the culebras are still biting, turning and killing people.

Aiden is, as should be no surprise, a super creepy, handsy molester of his female students. I loathe this character and really really wish he was eaten. Alas, it doesn’t happen. He has built a “family” of frat culebras and seems to be genuinely caring of them as he objects furiously to Freddie dismissing them. He’s still a nasty predatory molester but he cares about this “family”. Though Freddie still points out he’s turning teens and they’re eating people so family isn’t that fluffy

Aiden does drop a lot of world building on us, back in Xibalba, hell, their was a hierarchy of demons and Culebras were waaaaay at the bottom, effectively slaves and cattle to the higher demons

A point he could have made far better without holocaust and slavery comparisons

One of the ways of controlling Culebras is to mutilate them and remove their venom glands – as the victim at Freddie’s was. Without the venom a Culebra cannot turn, heal super fast and doesn’t even turn to dust when they die. The venom is their mojo. And one of Aiden’s other “family”, Chloe has also been captured and in need of rescue

From Dusk Till Dawn, Season 3, Episode 2: La Reina

We have a brief flashback into Kate and her slaughtering her way through a mental institution, painting the word “Amaru” (an Incan dragon) in blood on the wall before joining Brasa. She declares, most ominously, “today is my awakening” and has a nifty ability to kill with a touch. She’s super duper creepy.

In the present, Freddie the Peacekeeper and Ximena are working together with a few clashes (they are so going to have sex by the end of this season). He is outraged by the Culebras running around killing people and breaking the rules while Ximena has rogue Culebras not even appearing on her priority list since her entire species is being annihilated and the rogues have absolutely no choice, no safety or security now all the leaders are dead.

And now Brasa, the fiery handed demon, has a new target – the faith of the Culebras. The worship of La Diosa, the worship of Santanico. Brasa is raiding any safe house, any culebra place of worship where Santanico is revered is hit and burned down by his fiery magic. Freddie and Ximena follow in his wake as Brasa hones in on the meeting of the Apostles – who we assume are the head priests of Santanico’s religion (a religion, it has to be said, she is not even remotely interested in taking part in).

They don’t arrive in time – and the apostles are massacred leaving Ximena and Freddie to try and get some revenge on Brasa. It doesn’t work well – but at least Freddie saves her. She also has a nice time out moment to call him out on his bitterness and loathing of culebras. It’s a really nice call out – she wants him on side but isn’t willing to put up with the attitude to have him there.

Now to Seth and Richie who are trying to put together a force of Culebras without the lords (Richie playing softly softly while Seth trying to give hard truths). The speeches are good – but ultimately they don’t have the pull to bring the Culebras together. Unlike Santanico…

From Dusk Till Dawn, Season 3, Episode 1: Head Games

Last season, among the many many events, we had Carlos destroy the Titty Twister. And something crawled out of the ashes.

We also had a whole lot of death and destruction and Seth and Richie now finding a new place in Culebra society – specifically, Lord Venganza (aided by her assistant Ximena) has pulled strings and declared that Richie and Seth will be their “collector” – an honour she bestows after making it clear, no matter what Santanico said and no matter what corrupt lords they killed, that they’re still soooo far down the ladder. Some of the lords are not exactly being fans of the Gecko brothers.

Richie is honoured by this high office. Seth, much more grounded and much less given to listen to spin, knows they’ve been given a lower level goon-squad position. Tax collector, enforcer, even if it does come with Culebros minions.

The brother’s interacting here is pretty good – I like it. Last season had a whole lot of overdramatic family drama which, to be honest, I found unnecessary boring an over the top. Here we have the general but affectionate bickering that really sells them as brothers, overlaid with the very real issues they still have. Richie is still super invested in being a Culebras, climbing the ladder et al while Seth has no interest in being a vampire, views this as a job and makes it clear they’re not “his people”, much to Richie’s offence. Richie is really invested in the mythology and history and culture of the Culebros. It’s going to be an interesting conflict if the show can reign in its usual love of melodrama.

Anyway, after collecting tribute and money and making a nice living but, Seth’s very right they are acting as collection agents. Oh and Freddie the former Texas ranger is now acting as peacekeeper for Venganza as well.

Things don’t keep going smoothly when we get a new player – someone who terrifies Venganza. Calavera – a demon. Yup, that world building just exploded everyone!

From Dusk Till Dawn, Season 2, Episode 10: Santa Sangre

We’re catching up with Freddie who was buried alive – an unpleasant way to die. But he is rescued by a Culebros whose boss blames him for the death of two of the Lords. Her boss is another Lord (a female lord as she calls out when Freddie assumes she’s male). She’s also not impressed he’s given up the bloodwell, going against what a Peacekeeper is supposed to do

Freddie threatens to kill a minion, she’s amazingly unimpressed – that’s what minions are for! She knows Carlos wants to bring his big truck of blood there and have “culebros take their rightful place in the foodchain” which she thinks is a stunningly bad idea that destroys everything. Her people can’t get involved for “reasons” – reason being vague prophecy. She says Freddie’s job is to put the right brother on the throne – that brother would be Richie.

She also manages to be impressively creepy

 Back to the gang with Kate severely injured, Scott trying to help, Richie begging Scott to save her (even while she shames him for focusing so much on being the king he derailed her plans to save her brother) while Carlos is pretty indifferent. She continues to give them both a massive slap down, shaming them for all the effort she put in to saving them all to be ruined by greed. She dies as she tells Richie he should burn in Hell.

Kate dies – and there’s a showdown between Richie and Scott vs Carlos and Aidan. Richie gives up, rather than destroy the tanker as he planned on. What this needs is a deus ex Richard gets his shiny Culebros power: an eye on the palm of his hand he can use to compel people. He runs but not before he tells Aiden to kill Carlos

That leaves Carlos chance to tell Scott that it’s totally fine to kill Kate so Scott can find himself, reciting his own history of being dismissed as a bus boy and trying to downplay the fact Kate is Scott’s sister by pointing out he was adopted. They seem to make their peace… seem to anyway.

Aiden does try to kill Carlos which fails and then storms off like the irrelevancy he is.

  

Kissa has killed Malvado and Seth completely ruins her triumph with some hard truth – eventually she will realise she’s still angry. She wants to know why Seth helped her and even he doesn’t seem to have a good answer. He also randomly tries to stop Culebras feeding on people in the bar, much to the annoyance of several in the crowd – he turns to Kissa but she’s clear, she killed Malvado for freedom. Which, to her, means no rules and no-one telling them what to do. Of course those Culebras think they have a new boss – Richie

Who arrives – for Kissa to threaten his life. Yes she’s not forgiving the betrayal. Richie uses his new kingy powers and language to call in the other Culebras to save him. Kissa’s not impressed “you’re the one that I just killed” – but they agree to talk while the rest look out for Carlos.

In his office he tries to spin it as him helping everyone – (though why he expected Kissa to be happy in El Rey with Malvado is bizarre). Seth tries to recruit them to help him kill Carlos – and invokes Kate’s death as a reason to do so. He also tells Seth and Kissa about the bloodwell, which they don’t know about yet. Seth still isn’t letting go that Richie used Kate and got her killed – but now Freddie arrives to add his own 2 cents and how terribad it will be if Carlos creates an army of Culebras all hocked up on the uber blood.

So plan making time – Richie doesn’t want the truck destroying because the Culebros need the blood (Seth agrees because he doesn’t want people eaten by vampires because random conscience he’s just spawned). So it’s time to steal it apparently.

Carlos arrives – without the tanker, just with his chief minion and future queen Maia. Kissa goes out to confront him, sipping from his devil flash and wielding the key-club. They fight

Seth and Richie are off to steal the truck and airing all their tiresome brother issues. It doesn’t all go entirely to plan, everyone seems to lose their respective fights. Because that’s the rule of fights – the “good guys” have to lose first – though Richie does whip out his new mind control power.

And Scott goes completely off the rails in the name of Kate and crashes the blood truck, spraying he blood well everywhere. Carlos seems to take over, inviting his Culebras to go out and feed – then come back and slaughter all he humans.

SO everyone starts fighting to musical accompaniment of course. Because why would the band stop? And how come Culebras lose their strength and skill when fighting Seth? And Kissa takes on Maia (and wins) with Carlos being extra sexist and vile about it.

This fight scene goes on forever

Finally Carlos gets staked by Richie – but that doesn’t kill him because of the whole labyrinth thing. So they decides to chop him up while he claims he made them all (sort of). They slice and dice him

And daylight with the remaining human survivors leaving

They plan to scatter Carlos body parts about. And Kissa has decided, as she saw with Carlos, that Culebras are utterly helpless without a leader. Seth encourages Kissa to lead – but she decides no because she’s too much of a mythological figure. She wants Seth to do it. He refuses, so she pleas on behalf of Richie.

Richie is busy setting himself up as the new boss before he and Seth have another round of brother issues. They fight and Seth ends up beating his brother into the sunlight and threatens to kill him unless Richie accepts that it’s a dual operation – Seth and Richie together. He agrees. Freddie agrees – before he goes home.

Kissa plans to leave – though Richie makes a plea for her to remain. She refuses, she will no longer be the property of men. She returns his necklace.

And Kate – well she died in a puddle of that cursed blood well. Guess who is back?

Well… that was a terrible ending.

What was Carlos’s plan anyway? Just show up and… what? Because his forces, such that they were, not only completely lost against Richie, Kissa, Seth et al, but they were slaughtered without managing ONE casualty on the other side. What did he actually intend to achieve here? And what did the writers intend except for a fight scene that lasted, what, 16 minutes? The conflict felt so tapped on the end – like they wanted the series to end last week and then this episode was to tie up loose ends – but they realised they didn’t actually have enough loose ends to tie

And I am so sick of Gecko brother drama – which, annoyingly, I think is what stopped this season being excellent for me.

I think this season as better than the first, but it had a lot of potential to be excellent, especially since it broke away from its origins and not having to follow the same painful track and tropes of the first film. A series drawing heavily on Aztec symbolism, an original take on vampires, a rich society and history and with an almost entire cast of POC? Yes that could have been awesome. The potential was there

But I think there was almost too much and not much of it developed. What does Freddie being the Peacekeeper actually mean? What are all these prophecies we see scattered around? What is El Rey? Exactly what makes the Bloodwell blood special? How is it special? Is it more than taste? What is the Labyrinth, what does it mean? Who are the other Lords? What do they do? Why couldn’t they intervene? Why didn’t they intervene when Celestino was killed? Exactly what are the basic physical traits of a Culebras and how come they go away when fighting Seth? What goes into the cult of the Deosa?

I’m frustrated because this world is rich enough and interesting enough that so much could have been done with it and I WANTED these answers. But could we have really got them all in 10 episodes? I’m not sure – that’s a lot

There was also a problem with focus – because not only were a lot of these answers missed but a lot of relationships needed more definition. Scott and Kate was an awesome storyline with potential for immense growth on both sides (I think Kate got it, Scott less so) but not enough time. I don’t even know what Freddie was doing. Paloma and Santanico was excellent and meaningful – and rushed. Similarly Sonja felt rushed and out of place – and why even introduce Maia at all?!

Instead we have episode after episode of Gecko drama and, your mileage may vary, I had real trouble caring. Apart from anything else the need to jump from the first season (and the characterisation of the film) meant a fair bit of character overhaul. And, honestly, with all the fascinating things here, is “brother drama” high on anyone’s agenda? It frustrated me so much because this should have been Santanico/Kisa’s season but so often she seemed to be in the background to the Gecko’s latest tantrum

Still I did very much like how Santanico/Kisa ended – her own name, free from all men, free from all love interests, living her own life beyond revenge. I do, however, think even if she didn’t want to accept leadership some more respect for her as the deosa would have been nice – or more analysis of why she didn’t want it. I would have also really liked it if she had been more of a power throughout and not so often victimised.

I do think the depiction of women this season has been better than the sex objects of the first Season (which isn’t saying an awful lot) – with Kissa/Santanico and Kate’s storylines being there if often distracted. Next season Kat promises to be a fascinating character. Still, isn’t flawless – there’s a lot of sexualisation that was never turned on the male characters and Kissa deserved to kick arse more than she did.

Most of the cast are Latino which is almost unique on television – and certainly in the genre (which often feels less diverse than the media in general) though the only non-Latino POC, Scott, was sorely underused. Still it is very rare to see this many Latino people on the screen, I do wish we had drawn on more of the Aztec mythology, but it’s still interesting to see such a number of POC characters on one show and in so many of the roles on the show.

Sadly, there are no LGBTQ characters still.

Despite the ending, I am looking forward to season 3. This season was a nice departure from the first and introduced, even if it didn’t develop, a whole lot of awesome. Now season 3 will be an even further departure – and more opportunity.

  

From Dusk Till Dawn, Season 2, Episode 9: There Will be Blood

1912 flashback and people digging for something – with a charismatic man convincing people to keep digging past exhaustion. But they do strike… blood. A blood well. That charismatic digger then attacks his fellows with a pick axe

Well that could have been a not-too-subtle environmental activist metaphor or it was just Dusk Till Dawn.

In the present, Aiden, Carlos and Scott and some minions find that bloodwell. Carlos uses the obsidian club key to open it, exposing a huge lake of blood (Malvado senses it open).

We have another flashback of how the bloodwell was made and why Kate wants it – just in case we’ve had trouble catching up. Which has been a major problem with this whole storyline

Richie is still being tempted by Malvado to take over his empire. Malvado going to El Rey (whatever that is) requires a whole lot of blood – the blood well. Preferably without Carlos tainting it and becoming uber powerful off it first. And Malvado still wants Santanico. The plan is for Richie to steal the tanker full of blood from Carlos after he has extracted it.

Now they just need to know where it is – so they ask Kate (who was traded last episode). Richie insists on being the one who does the blood-sharing-images thing. He gets a quick recap of everything she’s been up to and the location of the bloodwell. Richie also takes Kate of Malvado before he can turn her.

Kate very much wants to know what is going on with Richie who is full of guilt and trouble – he tries to get her to get out of the car. No way is she going to be dumped; she lays down the law, she is going to the bloodwell. She also calls him out on his motives and tries to further push the brothers back together – only to learn that Seth and Richie are in this together. She has a wonderful naïve moment of thinking the Geckos have a grand plan which will ensure everyone is super duper happy.

At the site, Aiden and Carlos are happily loading up their tanker though there’s some tension between Aiden (and his new Culebros women – because of course he has a fanclub and walking sex objects) and Carlos. Carlos has clearly been letting his ego run wild.

As they wait to move in, Kate realises that Richie is not planning a happy future for them all. Kate is furious and he puts it down to what he has to do – throwing in the bodies she’s buried as proof that she should know all about that.

She runs to Carlos and co to warn them about Malvado’s plotting. She gives them about 10 seconds warning before Richie attacks with a big vampire killing gun. He’s all alone and Carlos’s new girlfriend holds a gun to his head.

From Dusk Till Dawn, Season 2, Episode 8: The Last Temptation of Richard Gecko

Narcisco’s head is delivered to Malvado who promptly puns over it. It was delivered from Freddie who is now working with Scott, Aiden, Kate and Carlos.

They’re performing a ritual based on the bonds now they have the full set which Aiden can now translate. The first step to setting it up is having innocent blood sacrifice innocent blood – or getting Kate to kill someone. She naturally protests but is rather quickly talked into it even if she does cry and need Scott’s nudge

The daylight sky turns to night – but only through the vampires’ eyes. Aiden just tells a crying Kate to see the bigger picture.

Over to Richie and Seth with Richie expositioning about his “extra power” – apparently every Culebros has a bonus power and he doesn’t know what his is yet. They’re still working on their plan to get to Malvado and getting into the organisation by trying to work with one of Malvado’s minions – a Culebros called Greely. They seem to convince him and he agrees to join their revolution (largely because Malvado is taking took great a percentage of his profits)

Despite the plan and them now being surrounded by Culebras, Seth makes it clear he’s still no pro-snakey-vampire (though he now seems to be making an exception for Richie).

Part of the plan also involves putting Santanico in suspended animation so Malvado can’t sense her (since he made her). Before going under she warns Richie not to let Malvado in her head and share a last kiss as she’s loaded up.

So to the Jackknife where Greely makes his “tribute” to Malvado. Which involves a fun game of find-the-lady with coloured stones and a four armed vampire before they can make their delivery. Part of this delivery is Freddie

Yes we need a flashback to explain this – he found them and they talk with guns pointed everywhere (and mocking Freddie’s dead mentor), Freddie wants to get something from Malvado (presumably the key thing they need for the prophecy) and offers the map that Malvado’s brother had of Malvado’s operation without which they’ll be hopelessly lost

They agree and he joins team let’s-all-pretend-we-don’t-hate-each-other. After some more close calls they manage to get in to the big stash of Malvado loot – Seth is happy.

Carlos, Kate and Scott go to see Malvado fully admitting to killing Narcisco and destroying the Twister – and sassing Malvado with internet memes on top of that. He demands they key in exchange for the doorway to the well that his brother Celestino had (the big exposition of the pit of blood he made) – which Malvado apparently wants to go to “El Rey”. Another realm (yes, vampire are aliens are something as was touched upon in a massive “whut?!” and then not really investigated).

From Dusk Till Dawn, Season 2, Episode 7: Bring me the Head of Santanico Pandemonium

Seth has found another of Malvado’s properties (he does enjoy less than salubrious locales) and decides to pass on a threat through a Calebros waitress, which gets him an introduction with the big man himself after being patted down by a man who apparently has 4 arms. After much back and forth, Seth offers a deal.

All is not going well with Richie and Santanico because of her ruining their little dinner with Seth – he accuses her of making everything harder because she’s so revenge focused she doesn’t stop and think. She has a more direct way to get uncle Eddie’s info though it offends Richie’s honour – she has not very flattering opinions of that honour

While Seth, while not Santanico’s biggest fan, isn’t discounting her vampy instincts and demands to know what secret Sonja is keeping – Sonja tells him about an abusive ex partner (lover and in crime) who she had take the fall for one of her crimes – I rather suspect there’s more to it but since Seth isn’t exactly forth coming about the Calebras or why he is now insisting both they and Eddie drop the idea of stealing from Malvado, he isn’t exactly in a place to throw stones.

Seth absolutely fails to convince Eddie to drop the job (and Eddie is both misogynist and dismissive of Santanico and Sonja hating each other being a problem) and all he manages to do is completely offend the older man because Seth has completely forgotten all his people skills.

Discarding the code, Santanico and Richie go to steal Eddie’s info only to be found out by Eddie and to have Sonja turn up to reveal Seth has already stole them – and she’ll show them if she still gets to be in on the deal (and Santanico has another “I want to kill Malvado more than anything so trust me” speech).

Richie catches up with Seth trying to hire new minions and after a very easy kill and a quick slap down, Richie leaves with the info and Seth hissing slurs against Santanico

Which brings us back to the beginning and Seth making a deal with Malvado. Again, aimed at his hatred for Santanico.

So new gang, Richie, Eddie, Sonja and Santanico – and Seth drops in to try and kill Santanico until Eddie calls time. This is his job and even though he has no idea what’s really going on he doesn’t want the Geckos to ruin his last score. After his rant, Santanico insists that Richie tell Eddie the truth

From Dusk Till Dawn, Season 2, Episode 6: Bizarre Tales

Back to Dr. Aiden Turner, (Sex Machine, alas). Having sex with and biting a woman before Narcisco catches up with him and isn’t a big fan of the delay. Aiden explains why he is so sex obsessed – because he lost his genitals in an accident as a child and has been over-compensating on an epic level ever since. Anyway, he’s still missing 4 bonds with the clues to the treasure – and he can’t find it without them

Narcisco kills the woman Aiden just turned.

Time for a flash back with Feddie and his old mentor Earl, and his-less-than-stellar moment defending the rangers’ brutally violent past. Then on to the autopsy of the bodies he found (he has invited Katie along which is apparently ok) – and learning that a similar grave was found back in 87 as well.

Freddie also has the missing bonds. He tries the blood-sharing-memory trick with blood under the fingernails of one of the victims – and gets little info but a lot of very horrific images of the mass killing. It is not pleasant – especially since he sees a whole lot more than the deaths they’ve seen, thousands of people killed by one of the Nine Lords.

Of course, the ranger who was investigated the case back in 87 was Earl. Chasing the paperwork finds a surprising lack of information – and Freddie’s boss is also irritated/concerned that Tony (the range killed by Aiden) is missing. Freddie ducks all knowledge (and his boss doesn’t seem to care that Freddie has brought a teenaged girl along for investigation. Because reasons). Back to chasing after Earl’s notes which leads to an oil company.

Time to arm up and go “investigate” finding and incapacitating a Calebros. Which gets them an introduction of sorts to see a guy with a lot of books, a typewriter and ominously long fingernails (the victims were all marked by human fingernails). They introduce themselves to the man, Ceslestino Oculto, at gunpoint. He’s ominous, scary, cryptic (he talks about “arriving in this realm”. Freddie finds the ominous obsidian club that was used to incapacitate the victims. Celestino is their “serial killer.” And a Calebros. And one of the Nine Lords.

Celestinos is very very dramatic and he worked with Earl in the past – he threatened Earl’s family, which apparently convinced him to back off

From Dusk Till Dawn, Season 2, Episode 5: Bondage

Seth and Sonja have just been confronted by an unpleasant man with a gun who has just figured out that Richie and Seth are the infamous Gecko brothers. Seth decides to be condescending to Sonja and we have a three way argument with guns – and Seth’ uncle Eddie happily steps in to shoot the guys. Now someone has to clear up the mess.

Eddie has some rather bizarre reticence to share info with Seth despite the big guys with guns. He finally tells Seth about a truly massive illegal operation run by the “Browns” covering most of Texas and worth $33,000,000; and somewhere in the middle of it is a huge warehouse full of lots of skimmed profit. And Richie may have stumbled onto it (So I take it this network is Malvado’s).

Santanico has been imprisoned and tired up by Carlos. Of course she’s in her underwear. He shows her the shiny new knife he has after his little trip into the labyrinth. He’s determined to bring her back to the show which she absolutely refuses to tolerate.

Paloma and the other girls are still locked up and ready to be shipped out. Richie is being held by the nast pimp who calls Narcisco to let him know how everything has gone weird with Carlos and Santanico. Nasty Pimp doesn’t listen to Narcisco and seems quite put out by the fact Richie is listening to a ghostly Santanico rather than his threats. Richie’s more focused on following the plan (per ghostly Santanico) when Seth spoils things by rescuing him and shooting the guy. Clearly Richie has to eat everyone then.

Richie is not amused by this. The brothers get right to bickering as they leave the bodies behind, since Seth is a little annoyed that Richie has dragged Eddie into lots of trouble. Seth won’t let him leave until Richie tells him about the truck of “flesh” that is being sold to the “browns” (and, yes, Seth is disgusted at the idea of peddling women though Richie insists none will be eaten). Seth insists on coming with him in looking for the truck.

Eddie is also not very happy with Richie. He’s quite… vehement about it. They snark back and forth endlessly. I do like how they bounce off each other. Anyway, Eddie has found them a corrupt sheriff who could help. Richie wants to bite him, Seth vetoes the idea and they go for huge bribes.

Time to catch up with the Reckoning guy, he is still tracking down Richie through nasty means, eating flesh, killing people, et al.

From Dusk Till Dawn, Season 2, Episode 4: The Best Little Horror House in Texas

We have a flashback – to when the Titty Twister was the Twister saloon – and when Santanico was still dancing for a crowd of men to gather blood of the vampires – and still watched and controlled by Malvado and used by him. Though Carlos, even back then, tried to insinuate himself closer to her though Malvado pushed him away. Because he knows she’s the super special one honest – while she continues to mouth the words he wants to hear while glaring at her, before he rapes her.

To the present, Sanatnico is lost in thought of the past and their plan to follow the trafficked women to Malvado’s hide out. She’s also wondering what’s going to happen next since Richie still wants to step into Malvado’s shoes.

She demands he pulls over and gets out the car while he tries to convince her not to break all the things while h rants on about how he’s going to do this she snaps, snarls and smacks him to the ground. They both go Calebros and the fight is on – it only stops when Richie gasps “the car” when she’s about to slam his head into it.

Yes I laughed. Yes I’m ashamed of that. Yes I’d laugh again.

She lays down the law – Malvado will die, his world turned to dust and there will be no more slavery.

Carlos and Malvado talk about the prophecy, the treasure that Aiden (Sex Machine) can find now he has his book – and Carlos is worried that Santanico may get the treasure first. This is just a lead in for Carlos poking Malvado about Santanico still being free and robbing his shipments. He isn’t impressed by the seemingly indestructible Regulator on the hunt. Malvado isn’t impressed – manhandling Carlos and accusing him of trying to have sex with Santanico again (after Malvado “shared” her with him another strike in the “ want to see Santanico kill this guy” column) and deciding he doesn’t need Carlos any more. Carlos pushes his luck taunting the Santanico will be looking for him.

Back to Richie who continues to do business with his verbose Nathan in a strip club while Santanico is in the back with the trafficked women, including Paloma the woman she recently forced to dance. Paloma is fearful and praying and refuses to go out to dance even when Santanico promises her no-one will touch her and they’ll both destroy the organisation. The Madam there decides to inject her with something – and slaps Santanico when she stops her. Yeah, Madam Diana becomes lunch and Santanico assumes his appearance. Paloma is duly impressed – even as Santanico uses the same worlds Malvado used on her to convince Paloma.

Carlos and his people arrive to see the girls with a plan to buy – Richie and Santanico quickly hide so he doesn’t recognise them; Santanico continues to play Diana, keeping on plan.

From Dusk Till Dawn, Season 2, Episode 3: Attack of the 50 Foot Sex Machine

One of the downsides of reviewing and recapping is you find yourself typing things and then quietly hating your fingertips. The title of this episode is one of those times.

Some people are moving surreptitiously through the night until Santanico and Richie kidnap one of them.

Richie goes to see a guy called Eddie who apparently likes them – since he paid to have their fake bodies buried and greets Richie with a hug. They discuss good coffee and Richie wants to be connected with a man called Nathan Blanchard, who Eddie describes as a “pimp” and generally not a nice man. Eddie’s leery about Richie being apart from Seth until Richie finally guilts him into helping.

Back to Santanico who is eating rats and now has a collection of women in a cage. She drags one woman out and brutally forces her to dance.

Richie gets his meeting and tells Nathan he had stolen a truck which happened to be full of “immigrant girls” he’s looking to sell on to Nathan – a “flesh trader” and become a regular “supplier.” To which he shows videos of half naked women Santanico has forced to dance. And Richie is offering to “sell” women rather than “rent” to try and get an in on Malvado’s network (and new blood source). They set up a new deal

While the woman Santanico made dance is trying to stand up to her – Santanico tells her that no-one will touch her but she is going to use the woman to bring down Malvado. She gives a snippet of her history to the woman to show off, again, how much she really loathes him. The woman, however, says Santanico is doing the same thing to her that Malvado did to Santanico

Richie and Santanico talk, covering a range of subjects (like rats tasting good because they don’t have souls and Santanico trying to get Richie to eat some of the women) and their motivations. Richie has dreams of replacing Malvado and controlling his organisation while Santanico wants it all destroyed. His perfect eye-sight is also fading, he’s wearing the glasses he wore while human. Santanico says his “calebros soul” is warring with his mind. She doesn’t think his humanity will last which is nicely ominous.

Nathan has sent two men to kill Richie and take his “cargo”. Naturally, it doesn’t go well for them with Santanico pretending to be one of the kidnapped women and Richie killing and taking the place of one of the men (using the Calebros disguise – they can look like the people they eat).

From Dusk Till Dawn, Season 2, Episode 2: In a Dark Time

We begin with another epic voice over from Santanico about her freedom (and these voice overs ARE epic, I have to give them that) and both her quest to bring her old overlords down – and theirs to hunt her down.

Now to Seth and his own little intimidating speech about stealing stuff which is also semi epic

And then to Scott who has his chains broken by a ragged man in a very bad condition – clutching snakey vampire-fangs in his hand. Apparently, his own fangs. I think this may be Carlos but he is in such a terrible ragged condition it’s hard to tell. Carlos was ordered into the Labyrinth under the orders of Narcisco last season…

Upstairs, Narcisco is recovering from having his face ripped off and dealing with Malvado who is not impressed with the poor victims Narcisco is dredging up. He doesn’t seem best pleased that Carlos beat the Labyrinth. After some grooming, Carlos is looking more himself again and Malvado wants to know about a prophecy apparently revealed in the Labyrinth, something about a massive new blood supply. He demands that Carlos explains it; but Carlos babbles a lot about Dora the Explorer and the man who “knows the answer” Whoever that is. While he’s not that coherent, Malvado offers him Narcisco’s job if he can find this person who knows the prophecy.

Carlos and Scott go back under the club, and Carlos is not having a happy fun time down there nor is he especially coherent. Down there they’re attacked by the newly Calebros Professor Aiden Tanner. Yes, Sex Machine still lives. Alas.

He recounts how he was found while dying and turned into a Calebros. Then they find Narcisco who also wants Aiden – Scott tries to stop them taking him since he can win favour but Carlos folds and hands him over. Carlos is all humble and submissive to Narcisco.

Aiden is dragged up to read the prophecy – which he can’t, not entirely. But knows of a Codex that will be able to translate it. Which he describes as being “someplace safe”. To earn his place in his new family, Malvado tells him to go find this codex.

He goes out, in daylight, using a parasol. Yes he’s not exactly great at being a vampire.

Seeing that Carlos may not be the best star to hitch his wagon to, Scott approaches Narcisco and asks how he can climb up the organisation. Narcisco tells him to kill Carlos

Scott goes hunting Carlos – and fails badly. Especially since Carlos has cast himself new, metal fangs from his old sword. I’m with Scott – who sensibly runs.

From Dusk Till Dawn: Season 1, Episode 10: The Take

In the middle of a mystical labyrinth trying to find the prize which will probably free Santanico, surrounded by people who want to kill them, Seth decides to confront Richie about killing their father. Because Priorities. Richie admits it and they get back to things while the Mob boss continues to be “colourful.” And, yes, Seth it is very very annoying. They shoot him – it’s very very satisfying

Going into the vault takes them into the tunnels under Santanico’s temple where they find a pot. Inside which is a snake which Richie swallows – the snake is full of Santanico’s blood and this is apparently a good thing

Seth is just lost and confused and has no idea what happened to his brother.

With the rest of the humans, Pastor Jacob faces off against his hissing, vampiric son while Freddie goes to find Katie – who is tied to an altar by Professor Sex Machine who intends to sacrifice her. She manages to free a hand and hit him when he gets even creepier over her – and Freddie jumps in. Sex Machine recognises him as a Tomi, a descendent of some really powerful warriors, hence his immunity to Santanico’s bite. Even when fighting for his life he has to dish out the exposition. Both Freddie and Katie stab Sex Machine at the same time; Katie saving Freddie.

Jacob talks to Scott – but it seems less about calming him down and more about making him accept that he’s evil and needing of death which isn’t very reassuring. He throws Scott onto an altar and prepares to stake him – when Scott says he was never really accepted as part of the family. Jacob is shocked and protests he just wants him to find peace in heaven – stabby time! But he can’t do it.

Scott wants them to be a family again – and bites Jacob. There’s one way of family togetherness!

Scott blames Jacob for his mother’s death – she was ill and Jacob just decided to leave it to god. Katie arrives then to dispute – he suffered for them and was a good dad (still not seeing how that changes what Scott said). He tries his recruitment pitch on Kate but she just screams at him and calls him a monster – Scott storms off. Jacob tells Katie that she and Scott need each other while still saying ominous things about “how it has to end”.

Either Jacob has to die for being a vampire – and so does Scott. Or Katie and Scott need each other. I think they’re mutually exclusive.

In the temple, Carlos brings out a chained up Narciso who taunts Santanico (who is still dressed!) and Seth and Richie arrive. Seth has decided to negotiate despite being the only human in the room; while vampires et al aren’t his thing, he does think he’s been cheated by the goal posts of his job moving quite excessively. He has a point. He wants a higher cut of the money, which is a problem because Santanico and Carlos are both very eager for the cash. It may even have worked – if Carlos hadn’t betrayed Santanico to Narciso and snuck his men into the room.

Seth changes sides again to side with Richie and Carlos makes a dramatic speech about loving Santanico and hits her when she claims she always loved him and he hates himself (really? She is the oldest vampire, she is the one who made him, but he can still slap her and she just clutches her cheek?)

He’s super jealous and Narciso’s minion injects venom into Richie’s neck while Carlos considers making Santanico his slave. Richie attacks – the venom doesn’t seem to do much. Santanico is hella pissed at being called a slave in her own temple – and grows giant wings as more minions of hers appear – women (just as Richie collapses from the venom – delayed reaction). Santanico chases Carlos as he drags Richie away – but she cannot leave the temple.#

That leaves Seth and Santanico to moan at each other good points from that is that while she has been imprisoned her whole life, she refuses to be called a victim. There’s also some about Seth not forgiving Richie over their father’s death and Santanico setting up Seth to compete with Carlos in between saying how scary the 9 lords are.

From Dusk Till Dawn, Season 1, Episode 8: La Conquista

Flashback to begin – waaaay back this time, to the Conquistadors arriving in Mexico.

In the present, Santanico is with Richie’s wounded, maybe dead body. And by “with” I mean writhing gratuitously over it while still wearing not much of anything” because Reasons. She lets Carlos know that Ranger Freddie is still alive and she’s isn’t happy about it. The problem is that, whatever they need Richie for, it has to be his choice and desire.

When Richie wakes up he backs away from Santanico, horrified. He blames her for the women he killed and mutilated.

In the main club there’s a showdown, Seth has a knife to Freddie’s throat, Jacob’s upset about Scott being missing and has a shotgun to Seth’s head to stop him killing Freddie, Freddie has visible bite marks and they’ve already seen people turn and Freddie claims to know a way out. Lots of tension. Jacob calls on a vote for who wants to leave Freddie behind – and Katie votes for death, as does the professor. Jacob is shocked, they’re sensible – someone is bitten, they turn, they attack you.

They tie Freddie to a stripper pole before opening his “way out” the trap door to the grinder. They work their way down to a side passage, working carefully pas the grinder (Professor Sex Machine drops their weapons in it. Not useful – but, hey, if they were still drinking blood from the fountain they could get a splinter).

Freddie frees himself from the pole and grabs the Eye Knife to free his arms. But before he can join them through the trap door, Carlos arrives. They fight, Carlos with sword, Freddie with Axe (Carlos claims to have made Freddie stronger – I think to explain why Freddie isn’t dead in seconds). The fight looks well done but the cameraman has a bad case of random jerking. Freddie manages to disarm Carlos – but the axe to the face just causes wounds that heal instantly. Carlos rams Freddie onto the bar, salts Freddie’s wounds, drinks some tequila then bites him. Freddie apparently has a special blood line. Proved by him throwing a stick and impaling Carlos before stabbing both his hands to the chair – Carlos laughs.

Santanico continues to try and seduce Richie and convince him she’s a nice vampire and he stabs her. She doesn’t give up and we get a flashback when she was a mortal among the Inca. She ran rather than let people be sacrificed in her name; since she refused to spill blood, she was cursed (as we saw in the pilot) to have an insatiable need for blood. The hunger drew her to the temple where she would be enslaved (presumably to the Lords of the Night). He’s still not overly sold on her plea to free her.

Meanwhile, Professor Sex Machine expositions the fact the vampires have visions (Seth objects – he’s with them on Temple of Doom but draws the line at Crystal Skull. Seth, all right thinking people draw the line at Crystal Skull). Also underworld may be mentioned. Meanwhile Katie takes comfort in the belief that if she dies she will go to Heaven with her mother. To which Jacob basically prepares to spill some big terrible secret about the dead mother and, presumably, why she isn’t in heaven. This causes something to growl. I’m with you unseen monster, bad mouthing the girl’s mother when she’s desperately using the memory to be brave is totally not cool Jacob. Never mind losing his faith, this man is a monumentally shitty pastor. Can you imagine going to see him for comfort? “I take comfort knowing my mother’s in heaven!” “What? Your mother? Hah. Well you can take comfort that she ain’t cold at least!”

Anyway, I digress, they run from the angry vampires, Katie and Jacob falling behind because Jacob has a bad leg. But Seth can’t leave them behind and helps them behind the door they found just before the vampires get them. Professor Sex Machine was willing to leave them behind and Katie gives him a very appropriate kick.

Their little sanctuary is full of all the various cargo the vampires have stolen over the years. And they find a very agitated man with a shotgun who has been hiding down there for a rather long time – though he’s not sure how long. However he’s, perhaps, a little affected by his experiences and demands they spin the “wheel of misfortune”, a little cardboard game of life or death he’s set up. Which Seth wins, earning a shopping spree! And the revelation that the man has been to the very centre of the temple and seen bad bad things.

Scott isn’t dead, he’s in some uber scary catacombs full of scary noises and glowing green eyes. So, not in a good place either – he comes out in Santanico’s lair, watching her trying to convince Richie to trust her

Freddie wants Carlos to tell him why Santanico needs Richie and Carlos responds with a flashback – he was one of the Conquistadors. Hearing of the killing and abuse of the Incans – and the forcible conversion of them; Carlos isn’t so interested in the latter, wanting gold more than anything. So his commander decides the best way to do both is find their gods – which are probably gold statues. The Incans took him to a temple, a step pyramid with the Eye Serpent symbol with lots of gold – and a chained Santanico. She starts to bite him – and he cuts off her chains

Becoming her servant (and creation) which he has been ever since; keeping the deathlords happy and both of them alive. He lured his fellow conquistadors to the temple and killed them.

See, kill your villains, don’t wait for them to exposition!

Santanico tells roughly the same thing to Richie only says Carlos doesn’t love her – he worships her. He’s also greedy, always has been – and makes a profit from working for the lords which means she doesn’t think he can pass the “trials” needed to free her.

Carlos continues his exposition with the news that Richie has only killed one person at their behest, the bank teller (we’re ignoring the police he shot, apparently) the other serial killer victims were not his. He also dismisses the people who regularly die in the Titty Twister because he doesn’t consider them “innocents”. He adds more talk about who Freddie is, a white hat, the price he’ll pay and how he’ll never see his family again – before a vampire sneaks up behind Freddie and knocks him aside.

The vampire is Scott, bitten by Carlos. Carlos is freed but Freddie escapes down the trap door. Carlos again assumes Freddie is dead. And Scott, who was spying on Santanico, tells Carlos she chose Richie over him.