The title sums up this show
All I can say is... It's about damn time that Eph, Nora and Jim's part of the story gets interesting. After having their first encounter with a fully developed vampire, the CDC trio dissect the creature to understand what is already in plain sight. Gus enters the picture once again as a man struggling between being a good person and being a criminal. The villains of the evil corporation continue to be evil. A wife of one of the four survivors makes a drastic decision concerning her now vampire husband. And Abraham Setrakian shows off his vampire hunting skills.
This really is the episode people have been waiting for. Where the action begins to ramp up and the horror begins to stack up. By action I don't mean action action, I mean the pace of the show has finally reached the point we want. And this episode was all about the horror, instead of trying to discover what is already known.
But for the sake of still wanting to discover what is already known to the audience has to be fully realized by the main characters in this episode. The beginning picks up right where the other left off and serves as a Vampire Anatomy 101 class. We learn that the virus completely rewrite the human body into an entirely new creature that only resembles human. It also explains why the genitalia falls off. The design and the science of this vampire is fascinating. It takes cues from how viruses acts and blows it up into a true predatory scale. This thing was designed for one singular purpose: to drink blood. It is not trying to have sex with you, it doesn't have the means to do so. It just wants to kill. Kill and drink blood. And maybe if it gets lucky, spreads the worm parasites to other hosts. This creature may have more in common with the modern zombie of spreading a disease, but with this the results are more terrifying and gives a plausible reason for the spread. While not an entirely original take on how a vampire spreads its disease, the anatomy change is refreshing in not having them turn into beautiful creatures. I welcome these menacing beasts over sparkling vampires any day.
Of course it is at this point that Eph (Corey Stoll) has made up his mind about what to do with the problem: Find them and kill them. This motive becomes amplified once Jim (Sean Astin) confesses that he was responsible for letting the "coffin" through the blockade and into the city. This puts a strain (see what I did there) on Eph and Jim's friendship with Nora even calculating if she wants to forgive Jim for what he did. But when there are monsters out there, it is not easy to make excuses for someone who let them in. And it is only getting worse
Ansel, one of the four original survivors from the plane incident, has mustered enough strength to keep himself chained in the shed to protect his family from what he's becoming. His religious wife is definitely in shock and does the smart thing by taking their kids to her sister in law. After seeing the monster her husband has become, she can't help but still want to care for him even though he is a monster. This brings back the recurring theme that was mentioned in The Pilot episode. Love. Love is what keeps people together, but it could also be what destroys us. This is shown here as Ansel's wife sees an opportunity to leave him or kill him but decides not to. Instead she leaves him locked in their shed and decides to keep him alive by doing whatever it takes.
That phrase "whatever it takes" also seems to be another recurring theme as we see Gus does whatever it takes to keep up a living. Even if that means stealing SUVs. But Gus' little character development in this episode was merely just meant for him to cross paths with vampire hunter Setrakian (David Bradley). This meeting obviously will signify a future between the two of them, as it seems anyone Setrakian has encountered becomes entangled with doing, "whatever it takes."
It becomes almost a relief once Eph and Nora investigate another possible vampire metamorphosis only to walk into Setrakian's hunt. It is the moment that this show has been building up to and the pay off is not as strong as one might hope. But it doesn't stop the fact that we now see just how efficient and ruthless Setrakian is when dealing with Vampires. Eph has fully accepted the facts that these people can't be saved, while Nora tries to cling on the human need to help people. She believes there can be a cure, even in the face of monsters, she still believes there is hope. Which is admirable but in the scheme of things, it is completely logical why Eph has fully committed himself to the hunt. It is completely in Nora's character to act this way, though it does reveal the obsessive nature Eph has towards his work. If his work means he has to kill monsters, he will kill monsters. Like I said, even though it seems quick for him to change at first, his motive for doing so is in character.
One might notice that I haven't really talked much about the villains in this episode. That's mainly because all of a sudden I find them the least interesting part of the episode. A complete reversal of my way of thinking from The Pilot to the last episode. They did something, one of them talked to someone, but I did not care for what it is. I'm sure whatever it is will be explained next episode. But for now, I did not care. Mainly because the horror element dominated this episode, and it dominated beautifully.
SCORE: 8/10 - FINALLY!
STATUS: Continue to Watch - It has reached the point we've been waiting for
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