VAN HELSING – Episode 401 – Dark Destiny – SPOILERS ⁓
Ivory
Denver, Colorado is attacked by modified vampires who are nearly impossible to kill and are unaffected by sunlight. The so-called daywalkers are led by Ivory (Jennifer Cheon Garcia) and Scab (Rowland Pidlubny), and the two seem to care about each other, something else new about this vampire variety.
Violet (Keeya King).
Hansen (Neal McDonough), the former Blak-Tek boss who made his first appearance in “Loud Love” (episode 309) finds out that Doc (Rukiya Bernard) arranged for her co-worker Caitlin (who was blackmailing her) to be killed. He also discovers that Julius (Aleks Paunovic) has rapid-healing abilities.
Now in charge of Denver’s defenses, Hansen abandons the Denver Safe Zone, taking Doc and Julius with him. He then orders nerve gas deployed to destroy the remaining humans there to prevent them from becoming daywalkers or daywalker food. Hansen originally planned to force Doc to use Julius as a lab rat to research rapid-healing, but when he sees Julius fight he changes his mind and makes Julius his daughter Violet’s trainer/sparring partner.
Sam and The Oracle
Sam and The Oracle
Sam (Christopher Heyerdahl) is about to kill both Lily (Julie Lynn Mortensen) and Vanessa (Kelly Overton), when The Oracle (Jesse Stanley) tells him he must leave one of them alive. She explains that in order to make the Dark One live again, it is necessary to perform a ritual involving three things: a live Van Helsing, the blood of the Dark One, and a black pentagram. Sam does not take orders well, but The Oracle uses her telekenetic power to hurl him against a wall, and when that just makes him more combative, she tries a softer approach, explaining that long ago she had been drawn to his darkness and had chosen him for greater things.
Though he grew horns in the previous episode, Sam is not yet an Elder.
“Why me?” he asks, and the Oracle replies with an interesting choice of words. “Salvation of the Dark One, through you, entwined in you,” she tells him. “Let me show you what you can become. But first, you must surrender your will to me and do as I say.” Sam starts to get enthusiastic about the entwining thing, and it appears the two of them are about to kiss, but they don’t. “Let me guide you, be yours until the end,” she says, and Sam responds with surprising zeal: “Tell me what I must do.”
The Oracle speaks in Latin, and her words are received by Ivory some distance away, who translates them into English. “Return to the beginning. Prepare for the awakening. Mother of your sisters, bride of my beloved, bear witness and bow down as the darkness consumes the light.” Sam asks for clarification.
SAM: “Who is she, the mother who will arise?”
ORACLE: “Beloved of the Dark One. The second of three.” [meaning the second of three brides of the Dark One]
SAM: “Teach me everything.”
ORACLE: “I can give you the greatest gift you have ever known. The ability to be more than you ever thought possible. Perhaps to become the Dark One yourself. But your loyalty must remain with me always. Can you make that pact? [The Oracle takes on a more human-like appearance] And in return I can teach you to be anything you wish; have anything you desire. Would you like that? Then come, my love. Our fates must become entwined.”
They drink one another’s blood. Lily and Vanessa take advantage of the vampires’ preoccupation with one another, and escape.
Lily and Vanessa
Lily and Vanessa with the book containing the Van Helsing family history.
Vanessa looks for the body of her sister at the spot where Scarlett died, but finds only a sword and a pile of her clothes where the body should be. She is the right age to be Lily’s great-granddaughter, but she is not. “I don’t think I’m a true Van Helsing like you,” Vanessa tells Lily. “Somehow I was made with the blood of the Dark One. Not naturally. By some kind of science. I was an experiment.”
They locate the book containing the Van Helsing family history, and Lily finds a drawing in it of the “ceremonial place of Incarnar”, which is the “boundary between Earth and the Shadow Realm where the Dark One was exiled”. The drawing shows gates with the initials “VH” above them. In front of the gates is a pentagram. The letters at the points of the pentagram are different, but it is otherwise similar to the Sigil of Baphomet.
The phial containing blood of the Dark One, which belonged originally to Jacob Van Helsing.
The amulet containing the Dark One’s blood refills itself if emptied, and Lily suggests that some sort of spell is responsible. Perhaps a spell prevents the blood inside from decomposing despite being at room temperature for so long. No explanation for these phenomena is advanced, but it seems possible that replacement blood is teleported from inside the Dark One.
Vanessa admits to Lily that it made no sense for her accumulate the totems of dead Elders instead of destroying them. (She wanted to use them to resurrect the Dark One, so she could kill the creature.) Lily is then killed by attacking daywalkers. The last time Lily was killed, she didn’t stay dead (see episode 313, “Birth Ritual”). Vanessa suggests that Lily allow a captured vampire to turn her. Once she is a vampire, Vanessa’s bite could make her human again, and give her rapid healing abilities as well. Lily declines the procedure, and expires.
Lily Van Helsing – possibly the last of the family’s naturally conceived line.
Nelly Andreeva of Deadline, reporting on the show’s renewal for a fourth season by SyFy, said: “The pickup comes with a change at the helm as the drama’s writer-executive producer Jonathan Walker takes over as showrunner from Neil LaBute.” and quoted Walker as saying in a statement: “Season 4 will delve deeper into the iconic lore of the vampires and their ultimate goals for this world. New villains will rise along with unexpected heroes joining the fight. We have a fantastic build planned for this season and I’m thrilled to share it with our dedicated fans.”
** — Revised. Originally posted on 1 October 2019
