The big play is made but the gang comes up short.
What They Say:
First Born – The Occido Lumen is stolen and Setrakian and Fet search for it; Gus and Angel try to keep a secret houseguest from a police sweep; and quinlan’s reasons for vengeance is unearthed.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
Watching this series is something that reminds me of a show that would have done exceptionally well in the 90’s on the secondary broadcast market and been a cult series at this point. It’s cheesy as hell at times and with some of the actors it’s just comical. But the show also just hits a certain sweet spot for me with what it does as I enjoyed watching Eldritch trying to find a position among different sides the last time around, Eph revealing what happened to Nora and being questioned as to “why now?” and seeing Quinlan staking out more of a position himself and looking to use Eph to do it. Of course, we also got some time with Zack having dialogue and that’s just problematic, though at least he makes some discoveries himself and realizes that he may have ended up in a really bad situation because of his choices.
The cold open for this goes for the disturbing as we get what seems like a flashback to Kelly giving birth to Zack and how it went in something really rare with a caul birth, which is basically the baby being in the amniotic sack. It certainly is something that you can’t be sure of at first if he’s just an odd hazy and twisted memory of Kelly’s through the master, but as we segue into the present and she’s talking to Zack about the super special bond they share because of that, it just really takes on a creepy level. Natalie Brown has been killing it with the way she plays Kelly as it’s disaffected but also with enough emotion that the Master lets her have through the connection to Zack that it’s simply eerie. It’s one of those performances that just feels otherworldly because of it.
Eph and Quinlan’s absconding with the Lumen as a way to get what they both want was certainly not a surprise based on how the last episode ended nor is Setrakian and Fet’s reaction to finding it missing. Their belief that it’s just Quinlan that took it is natural makes sense as does Fet slipping a tracker into the book previously because of his general distrust of everyone. Eph, for his part, is still questioning what he’s doing and whether to follow through with it but Quinlan is making things fairly compelling. Even more so as he reveals the reason for wanting to eliminate the Master. The dropping of the information that the Master is actually Quinlan’s father is definitely an engaging moment, though I’ll admit to forgetting about when the Master came into existence as I kept thinking it was really just a few hundred years ago based on one of the flashbacks. Things get hazy at times.
This takes us to a flashback, something that I enjoy from this series, to the year 58 AD in the Roman countryside. It’s here that we see Quinlan as nothing more than a caged animal that has been found by an old woman named Ancharia. She’s come to find him and to understand who he is as part of the larger scheme of things. Her taking him from the circus of curiosities in the countryside begins the hard work of essentially civilizing him, such as bringing his name of the time as Quintus and revealing to him his origins as a hybrid, a half-strix in the tongue of the time. Though he’s just starting to regain scraps of who he can be, she fills his head easily with the prophecy of what he’s to do and his goal of saving both species in the end from the threat that is the Master. You can see how he’s being groomed here and how easy it is to latch onto something after being brutalized for so long.
But all that, plus what Ancharia has taught him over the next two years serves him well in really starting him on his journey to deal with all of this. The arrival of some strigoi finally gets them on a journey, which means lots of CG expanses and landscapes that works nicely to set the mood and time period, and we also get some good bonding time as best as you can imagine shown between these two. While Quinlan knows his mission and what it will end with, something he talks about in the present with Eph, there’s a journey that will go beyond the years of what Ancharia can provide. She’s also teaching him in a particular way, one that favors the human side, which is called out when the Master shows up and makes clear that he needs to be more in order to do the job. And that Ancharia may not be telling him everything that he needs to know. It’s an interesting expansion on his backstory with how he has to work with different fronts and allegiances in order to achieve the end goal.
Quinlan is forced to make quite the choice here about which path he needs to take, which we certainly know what it’ll be, but seeing some of the cost of what he has to take works well. As does his facing off against the Master of this time and how he’s not able to be controlled by him. Of course, the Master is far more skilled than Quinlan at this point so he can do only so much. There’s a lot of training ahead of him to be sure and we’ve seen the results of that. Eph and Quinlan do work together fairly well in making their call to the Master and explaining exactly how the trade will go. It’s pretty straightforward and Eph actually covers all the right bases here and I like the way it plays out visually with Quinlan coming in from behind and ensuring that he’s not seen by the drone that they talk to the Master through.
In Summary:
This episode also features a bit of time with Gus as Angel comes to his place and finds out what he’s doing there, which leads to plenty of stupid moments before the pair end up conscripted into sweep teams and Gus’ mom seemingly getting away. That all just wasn’t clear. For the most part, the flashback material is what works the best here but I also like seeing how Eph and Quinlan are working together with an uneasy alliance to get what they want. It builds toward a pretty good showdown in the final minutes of the episode, albeit with the fakest of Lumen’s they could come up with, as we see Eph playing for keeps in a good way here. Quinlan, sadly, doesn’t play his hand well and the whole thing just turns into an expected mess. Bah.
Grade: B
