“I liked you better when you were a vampire.”Īnyone who’s been following these reviews of Van Helsing knows that I love this show and its rich, multi-layered text exploring what it means to be human. In the not-too-distant future of Syfy’s “ Van Helsing,” vampires and humans alike are battling to survive any way they can, and it doesn’t look like diplomacy is their strong suit.This Van Helsing review contains spoilers.
When last we left vampire hunter Vanessa (Kelly Overton) in the Season 1 finale, we learned that the source of her strange powers is that she’s a descendant of Abraham Van Helsing, the doctor-turned-monster hunter from Bram Stoker’s “Dracula.” It was actually more of a confirmation, since that’s been obvious from the start, but her father’s identity still appears to have some mystery surrounding it. We also left off on a couple of cliffhangers: Vanessa finally found her missing daughter Dylan (Hannah Cheramy), who has been turned into a vampire. We’re not quite sure what that means, though. (Since she’s descended from Vanessa, doesn’t she have special blood?) Also, it was revealed that Axel (Jonathan Scarfe) is still alive, but maybe not alive alive. Insanely high radiation levels could have killed him, but it turns out he’s now a vampire, too.After establishing the shadow organization’s involvement with vampires and Dmitri in particular in “Everything Changes,” tonight’s flashback moves forward 10 years to 1986 and a teenage Scarlett engaging in knife training in her family’s barn before later fending off a teenage boy in the front seat of his parents’ car. The timeline gets a little fuzzy here since the episode opens in 1986 as a partially concealed vampire goes into a small town diner and orders a raw steak to which the cook responds, “We serving Doberman’s now?” Do the waitress and cook know he’s a vampire? Are vampires common knowledge in this world? Regardless, he asks for information about the Harkers and is directed to a farm on the edge of the county. “Scary Scarlett” has clearly had a difficult childhood, and it becomes even more challenging when the vampire from the diner approaches her in the loft. Not ready to take him on at this point in her training, her father fortunately arrives in time to shoot him and force Scarlett to learn the most painful lesson of her education. “That my dear was a vampire, and you’re going to kill it,” he tells her, hoping to make this momentous act easier by pointing out that it’s already dead. It’s critical that we see this stage in her development so that we have a better sense of the adult she’s grown into. And whether it’s the reality that her father’s predictions are coming true, or that she’s possessed by the sheer terror of the situation, the act of cutting off its head with her sword is a life changing experience. “Your mother would be proud,” Harker tells her, but that’s of little consolation to her at this point. Of course, Scarlett’s life gets only more complicated when her father tells her that “this is your purpose now. Until you’re ready, we need to make them think that you’re dead.” Does he refer to the vampires or the shadow organization from the Farm? And while Harker does his best to protect Scarlett, she now must enter the next stage of a life that has her constantly looking over her shoulder. That’s a terrible existence for a 16-year-old, but this experience represents a wakeup call for the young girl and sets the tone for a life that is no longer her own to a certain extent. Scarlett’s softer side also peeks out just a bit from her black leather armor, as her exchanges with Axel show us that there’s more than just a vampire killer underneath.
Their conversation about how she got so “kung fuey” drives home the point that the past makes us who we are, and even though he teases her that he comes from a long line of military men, the truth about his past explains a lot about Sgt. Though he now accepts that his sister’s abduction was not his fault, the experience, nonetheless, taught him a valuable lesson, not unlike the ones that Scarlett and Vanessa have learned.Ĭoming off last week’s episode with Sheriff Walt, it’s great that there’s still a chance for a little humor here.
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