Scene 1: Seattle, 2016. Men in suits crossing streets at high-speed, reminiscent of Koyaaniqatsi, "life out of balance." Van getting blood drawn; the phlebotomist, Aidan Kahn, flirts with her, then asks her out. She rejects him. You could do worse, girl. Out in the waiting room, her preteen daughter is watching the news: a volcano has erupted in Wyoming.
Uh-oh, turns out that Van is not giving blood, she's so desperate for money that she's selling it.
The phlebotomist brings the bags of Van Blood to the store room. A vampire has broken in, and is emitting "feral growls." But it doesn't attack him. No fair! A vampire story has to have somebody bitten on the neck!
Scene 2: The vampire sits in a car parked under the freeway, sniffing and slurping its blood bags. It pants, roars, and explodes! So Van Helsing blood makes vampires explode?
Scene 3: A vampire Bigwig, Dmitri -- Paul Johansson -- tells his group that they have survived only because of the shadows. But: "The mystery of existence is not only in staying alive, but in finding something to live for." Wait, the last vampire was feral, like a zombie.
Turns out that the exploding was a misdirection -- the feral vampire just threw up. And the feral part was a misdirection, too. He's perfectly civilized, just an addict. He arrives with a metal suitcase, which contains "Everything you asked for," presumably blood, and complains that he's not feeling well. They taste his blood: he's turning human!
This has never happened before, but it is terrible news, a threat to all vampires, and must be stopped before it's too late. Without apocalyptic urgency, be lousy story.
Dmitri comes close and hugs the courier with homoerotic tenderness, singing about how he is "my love, my family," but he's actually planning to eat him. The vampire Balthezar is assigned to find the source of the tainted blood.
Scene 5: In a coffee shop, single Mom Van assures her daughter that the volcano is nothing to worry about, because it's "100 miles away in Wyoming." Look at a map, writers -- more like 1,000. Besides, they have a birthday party to get home for. Then why stop for coffee?
They point out the black ash falling outside the window
Scene 6: Back to their horrible, run-down apartment. Next door neighbor Tommy is just leaving after beating up his girlfriend, who asks Vanessa to not say anything. But she decides to pummel him anyway. Girl, with those pummelling skills, you could get a job as a bodyguard or bouncer easily.
Inside the apartment, they have what I guess is a touching mother-daughter romp. Deadbeat Dad Gary face-times them. He's played by Kirby Morrow, who died in 2020 after a long struggle with alcohol addiction and mental illness.
The girlfriend from next door wants to hookup, but Van says it's Daughter's birthday, so no thanks. Is there a point to any of this?
Daughter is still hiding in the closet. Carrying the birthday cake, Van snoops around, looking for her The scene is choreographed like a psycho-slasher movie.
Is Van going to turn vamp and kill her daughter? No, Balthazar the Vampire has discovered that she has the tainted blood, and has come to kill her. Their fight takes about five minutes of screen time. I'm fast-forwarding.
Wait --Van is killed. But I thought she was the star of the show?
More after the break
Scene 7: Van's body in the hospital morgue. She was a crime victim, so she should be at the coroner's office for an autopsy, but it's already swamped. People are acting crazy and killing each other.
Doc tells the Intern, Donald Heng, that the body isn't cooling, no rigor mortis...and her stab wounds are gone. But she's dead....
Doc calls her sister, a Very Important Person, for advice, and hears that the Pentagon has issued a secret warning, but "it's nothing to worry about." Yeah, right.
Scene 8: On the TV in the hospital cafeteria, they are advising everyone to move farther away from the volcano, as a new super-volcano caldera is opening up. The military arrives to take Van's corpse into custody. So they're swamped with bodies that don't die, but they can afford to send eight soldiers to pick up one?
They are interrupted by dark clouds swirling through town, and a wind so strong that it breaks the windows. And the lights go out.
Scene 9: As they rush down the hall, soldier Axel tells the Doctor that the supervolcano erupted, causing earthquakes, nuclear power plant meltdowns, and communication outages. Suddenly everyone out on the street starts screaming or growling, as some turn into zombies and attack the others. Some of the bodies in the morgue rise up and attack, too.
The orders are to protect Van's body until it's safe to transport, so everyone has to stay.
Plot alert: Axel, played by Jonathan Scarfe, left, will become a main character, and fall in love with the Doctor before she is zombified.
Scene 10: Three years later, Vanessa is still on the examination table, dead but not dead, and the doctor and the military people are still there, playing chess and looking bored. How have they been eating? They discuss throwing the Doctor a birthday party. Then they discuss trying to reach their base, but it's 40 miles away through zombie-infested territory. So, they do it on The Walking Dead all the time.
They head out any, turn zombified, attack each other -- and the Doctor is bit and gets zombified inside the hospital!
Meanwhile, in another part of the hospital, the vampires are conducting experiments. Wait -- how are they eating? Surely the blood bank is empty by now, and they aren't feeding on the humans.
that involve cutting up a human boy, disembowling him, listening to his screams, and wondering why he's still alive. They suggest experimenting on Sleeping Beauty Van. The end.
Beefcake: None. One of the guys in the top photo is Chad Riley, who plays Vampire Bob.Heterosexism: Van rejects all potential suitors in this episode, but I assume that she and Axel will fall in love.
Gay characters: A viewer on Reddit complained that Van Helsing becomes "a rainbow shit show," where 100% of the characters are gay and straight guys have to be endure constant gay sex scenes, but I'm sure he was exaggerationg. The Van Helsing fan page lists six lesbians and two gay men: the human Sam, played by Christopher Heyerdahl, who has an "unhealthy obsession" with Mohammed, and the vampire Hansen, played by Neal McDonough.Vampire Apocalypse: The vampires have not taken over the world; they're in hiding just as much as the humans. This is a standard zombie apocalypse.
Will I Keep Watching: Doubtful. I've seen a lot of zombie apocalypse tv shows.
Besides, the episode guide uses the dumb phrase "in the clutches of" too much.
See also:
David Boreanaz and Friends: A tortured vampire, a fundamentalist FBI agent...and a j/o video.
The Dead Don't Die: By-the-numbers zombie apocalypse, with some gay subtexts
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