This week’s episode was quite an intense one. Written by married duo and show runners Jeremy Carver and Anna Fricke, the episode primarily focuses on the relationship between Aidan and Bishop, and the history of the vampire coven. The episode was directed by the same person who directed last week’s episode, Paolo Barzman.
We finally find out about those random hanging “people” Marcus went to meet up with in Amish country…They are “The Dutch”, the Elders of the vampire community—the leader for example is 1,010 years old. They are not very impressed with the state of the coven. Rebecca is more than upset with Aidan for killing Bernie. Josh is kidnapped by vampires while preparing for a date with Nora.
And on to the analysis…
I haven’t quite decided how I feel about the flashback scenes from 50 years prior with Aidan and Bishop. These scenes definitely provide a lot of information. They were given the “old fashioned” quality by different, more grainy lighting and film, also older clothing and hair styles were utilized. We find out some important things about Bishop and Aidan. We have seen these two interact often this season, but here we get the chance to see them interact the way they did 50 years ago, when both of them are in different situations than they are in now. For example, at that time, Bishop was in love with a human nurse named Jane. Jane knew what Bishop was, but did not want to be a vampire herself. Bishop acts completely different than we have seen him so far. It was great seeing Mark Pellegrino play the part differently. Bishop was softer in manner and more timid than the way we are used to seeing him. We also got a glimpse of a different side of Aidan. One thing we have really gotten about their association is that Bishop and Aidan have really been through a lot together. There is a really strong bond between them. In the flashback scenes, we see that when Aidan threatened to abandon Bishop, Bishop showed fear over this prospect. He did not want to lose Aidan. Going back and seeing this side of Bishop does help show why he is so lenient toward Aidan now. He doesn’t want to push him away entirely. Bishop knows Aidan well enough to feel that Aidan understands that there is nowhere else he really belongs. Bishop wants Aidan back and even though this theme has been there throughout the season, we understand it more completely here.
We knew that the vampires thought very little of werewolves, I am not exactly sure why I was surprised to see that they have them go all fight club for sport. This seems in line with other vampire/werewolf mythologies where werewolves are essentially used as attack dogs for the vampires. Here there are dog fights that the vampires bet on. That they abducted Josh was important to getting him into the storyline and not having this episode completely about Aidan. The question becomes, who was the one that set it up to be Josh? Is Marcus making a play for the territory and purposely dragged out Josh to compromise Aidan and in so doing compromise Bishop? Did Bishop do it to force Aidan’s hand? My money is on Marcus planning it. The way the events played out, it didn’t really put Bishop in a very good light with the elders. After he tells the elders that the older wolf is sick, he then shows up to fight? And that happened right after Bishop told the Elders he didn’t want to send one of his vampires into the ring because it would be suicide and he didn’t have any men to waste? Bishop already seems to have allowed things to go on of which the Elders would not approve. This just made him look bad. He wasn’t following orders, and he doesn’t have full control of what is going on. We know from the flashbacks that the elders killed Bishop’s creator for these types of transgressions. We also know from the end of the episode that the Elders plan on killing Bishop…or at least that is what Bishop believes. This does seem like it is most likely the case, due to the way they treat him.
Another question with Aidan and Bishop is what exactly does it mean that Aidan is going “back to him”? What are the under vampires supposed to do? Does this put Aidan in position above Marcus? That does seem to be what was hinted before by Aidan to Marcus. With Aidan back, Bishop may actually have a chance to survive the Elder’s stay. That idea actually gives some weight to the possibility that Bishop got Josh involved to push Aidan into making a deal where he came back. If Bishop knows the Elders are gunning for him, he would need supporters himself. He doesn’t seem to overly trust Marcus. Possibly Bishop is hoping to pull Aidan back in to have his back to stop the coup. But what will Aidan do to stop the Elders from taking out Bishop? He did little things behind the scenes to try to help Josh, but nothing really overt. Could he actually make a stand right in front of the Elders?
About Josh…I could completely understand his frustration with Aidan over Aidan’s inaction. True that Aidan didn’t have much of a choice considering the sheer numbers against him if he were to do something, but one can see how Josh would feel betrayed. Sally had more confidence in Aidan. Josh seems to think that Sally’s confidence in Aidan is naïve, but the thing about Sally is that she can go anywhere. This means she has the unique opportunity to see certain things that Josh can’t see. It would seem that she would have the ability to see more of who Aidan is than Josh has. Odd then that Sally did not know about Rebecca. Sally recognized Rebecca from the snuff film, but didn’t know who she was before that or know of Aidan and Rebecca’s relationship. She did, however, see the manipulative power Rebecca has over him. I liked that Sally stood up to Rebecca. I also liked that she was there for Josh and Aidan. She was open with her thoughts on the situations, both Aidan and Rebecca’s and Aidan and Josh’s. She said what needed to be said regardless of whether or not they wanted to hear it.
Josh is still seeing Nora and is in fact preparing for a date by shucking corn outside when he is kidnapped. Side note: I like how there is care shown regarding the fact that Sally is a ghost. Here, Josh takes out one of those blue tooth ear devices to put on his ear so he doesn’t look like he is talking to himself outside. I must admit that I was ecstatic that Sally commented on the fact that people that wear them look douchy. I was so glad that fad was short lived. And we’re back—So how about that date? I don’t imagine Nora is going to be pleased she was stood up. He has a great excuse for not being there, but how is he going to explain it to her? It isn’t like he can say that a coven of vampires abducted him to participate in a dog fight. I imagine with the weight of his conscience post “first kill”, he is going to do some serious distancing from her. He will see himself as a monster now more than ever and feel he is not worthy to be with her…that he is a danger to her. We found out that Josh was attempting to find some way of controlling or curing lycantropy. He now has the notes from “the Professor” without the 15 years of dissecting experience werewolf Douglas had, also. In the end of the episode we see that he did take the notes with him when he was let go. It will be interesting to see what comes of this. Will Josh attempt to go back to medical school? Maybe he will just go for night classes to learn more about chemistry in an attempt to find a cure?
I was surprised at the end of the episode that Josh seemed so understanding of Aidan. He was very focused on the fact that he had to kill. This is of course understandable…He isn’t trying to shift the blame to Aidan for not getting him out of the situation, he just seems torn and empty from the experience. He actually appeared more worried about the fact that Aidan has agreed to go back there. I found that a little odd. I wonder if he will develop a rage against Aidan for what happened. Sally was more disgusted that Aidan was willing to go back to Bishop and the others.
A few random things we saw in this episode—vampires dying show blood and then upon actual death they “dust” almost Buffy style. Of course I am not sure how old that particular vampire was, it could just be old ones that would actually be to dust by now that actually “dust” like that. Maybe fledgling vampires only die. The werewolves are very cool looking transformed. I was very impressed. This change was handled very well, too. Move over cheesy Buffy werewolves, we have awesome digitally enhanced werewolves here! Ghosts can be dissipated with iron? That sounds Supernatural like!
So nothing from this episode is really resolved, except that Josh, who was kidnapped and for all intents and purposes would have been kept caged for sport once a month, was actually let out to go home. The Elders are still there, apparently with the intent to do in Bishop the next day, Nora was still stood up for the date, and Aidan now has to go back to work for Bishop. Luckily, we get another episode on Monday…
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