Back at the plague ship, Ethan, Malcolm and Sembene are going into the heart of darkness. All of them have a bad feeling about it, but they’re men of action, and so they press on, discovering a room filled with unconscious blonde women. It would appear that the Master has a type (insert blood joke here). All of the women have black sockets in place of eyes and overgrown nails, which signify just how long they’ve been under his control. The hold of the ship is like a nest. Though the women appear to be asleep, one arm moves next to Sembene’s leg – he doesn’t see it.
Away from all the vampires, Van Helsing finishes telling Victor about why he brought him into the fold. Sooner or later, Victor would have stumbled into this mess, he believes, and he wanted to make Victor aware before his blind investigations could put him in harm’s way. Van Helsing expresses his belief that while his life is almost over, Victor “could yet astonish the world.” Those words suddenly take on a life of their own when Caliban jumps in from out of nowhere and drags a shocked Van Helsing into an alleyway. Helpless to stop him, Victor can only watch as his creation snarls and snaps Van Helsing’s neck, leaving the esteemed doctor to crumple to the ground in a broken heap.
I’ll give that a moment to sink in, because I know I had to rewind it five or six times. Van Helsing, the Van Helsing, is dead. And there were no vamps involved, whatsoever. In my notes, the only reaction I could come up with to this scene was “WTF” with nine exclamation points, and I’ll stand by that. It looks like, instead of being the group’s medical examiner, Victor will have to take on the role of vampire expert as well. (The more I think about that maneuver, the more I like it, but still, John Logan, you are a cruel, cruel dude. Now I get to be torn up about two helpless guys Caliban saw fit to brutally murder. Thanks for that.) The creature, still sore from getting dissed by Maude earlier, wants a companion, urgently, and tells Victor that he’s tired of his temporizing. What he just did to Van Helsing, Caliban is ready to do to everyone Victor associates himself with. Victor can only drop to his knees besides his fallen mentor and weep in horror.
Back at the plague ship, the vampires are all stirring. When they leap for Ethan, Malcolm and Sembene, all hell breaks loose. All three men prove adept at shooting, clobbering, skewering and otherwise sending the vampire women onto the next life, though the sheer number of vamps present made me fear for Sembene, if not the others (no way those two characters are dying anytime soon). As they battle, Malcolm continues to look around for Mina. A lantern gets knocked over, and a fire begins to spread, but the men are a little busy to be worrying about that. Meanwhile, the Master watches from below the cargo deck. By the time the fire has built to an inferno, most of the vampires have been dispatched. Suddenly, the Master reveals himself on the other side of the flames – Mina in hand. She calls for Malcolm, and he can only scream her name in agony as the Master drags her away out of sight. Sembene is barely able to hold Malcolm back as a beam falls on top of where he had attempted to cross the flames.
Dorian and Vanessa’s night is getting just as heated, albeit in a different and much more pleasant way. They rip off one another’s clothes and lie on Dorian’s bed. As they start to fuck (because there’s really no other way to put it – there’s nothing intimate or romantic about their dalliance), Dorian brings out a knife. I’m guessing that stayed on the bedside table when Ethan was over, but Vanessa is a little kinkier. She cuts his chest, smears around the blood, bites him viciously and climbs on top. Finally, like he wanted, she’s relinquishing control. Unfortunately, that really wasn’t a good idea. Time slows (as shown by a very cool visual of a candle flickering), and Vanessa hears the same voice that was in the darkest corner of her room as a child after she caught Malcolm and her mother in the maze. “Hello, my child,” it intones. “I’ve been waiting. What games we will have… now.” Vanessa snaps back to reality and, horrified at the demon’s renewed presence, climbs off Dorian and runs out of the room, leaving one very confused yet aroused bachelor behind.
Later, nude, Dorian struts down to look at his portrait again. Remarkably, the gouges on his chest and back from his night with Vanessa begin to close up as he stares at the still-unseen portrait. Judging by how it restores him, the painting could grant Dorian immortality – but he still seems young and inexperienced in a lot of ways. How did he encounter this painting, I wonder? That’s a question for season two, I’m sure.
Meanwhile, Malcolm sits in his chair back at his house, nursing his wounds. Ethan assures him that they’ll find Mina again, but Malcolm angrily retorts that he’s not sure they will. And in any case, judging by the status of the other women in the Master’s possession, he’s not sure that the state she’s in can even be called life. “Let me tell you something, pal,” Ethan snaps. “You’re pretty god damn sure you understand what’s going on all the time. My father’s the same. He just stands over everything and moves all the little toy soldiers around.” Malcolm asks him to cut to the chase. “There are some things you can’t control,” says Ethan. “There will be battles you will lose. At the end of the day, the only thing you have is the people you trust.” He tells Malcolm to stop lying to Vanessa then leaves. That may be bad advice judging from what we just saw at Dorian’s place. Vanessa’s not exactly in control anymore.
Vanessa soon arrives home, looking horribly disheveled and somewhat possessed. Not seeing her, Malcolm begins, “Vanessa, I have a lot to tell you. I haven’t been honest with you about-” He sees her and stops. Vanessa isn’t pulling her own strings any more. She begins to lift off the floor in front of him, her back arching, fully in the grasp of whatever demon has rooted itself inside her soul, and the episode cuts to black.
