Hemlock Grove - The Angel

The conclusion of the pilot for Hemlock Grove opens The Angel with very little headway. I kind of looked at this as two main characters introduced to each other officially. Patrick tells Roman that he didn’t kill Brooke and sidesteps the question of if he’s a werewolf. Patrick asks Roman if he believes every rumor that goes around the school and everything he hears. This is more or less the show putting the two in the same vicinity of each other. It feels as if they are linked to each other. The meeting is brief. Roman knew Patrick’s uncle and Patrick sees that Roman has some sort of hypnotic control, evidenced when two deputies arrive to confront the teenagers for congregating at the murder site of Brooke.

A detail that seems to be re-iterated is this fixation Roman has with blood. He is in class, noticing a tampon protruding from the purse of a hot student in his class. He proceeds to get a pass to the bathroom, accompanying the girl to the bathroom to perform cunnilingus on her! At the bottom of the bathroom stall, as she is announcing pleasure quite vocally, Roman wipes some blood on the floor! Patrick hears the girl approaching orgasm as he passes the bathroom door, after class, listening on as Letha walks by.

I don’t know what to think of the Letha pregnancy. Supposedly this Angel arrives at Letha’s bedside to visit. It seems the Angel impregnated her! Or is this all some sort of hallucination as her dad, Norman, suggests, perhaps stemming from a rape she doesn’t want to address? I have no idea.

The show continues the peculiar affair of Norman and Olivia. He’s absolutely miserable, feeling total guilt, and the way Dougray plays Norman, you’d think sex with Famke Janssen was the worst experience ever. Olivia is waltzing into a bar looking all hot in the tight-tugging white dress, catching the eye of the younger bartender. Cut to the very next scene as the two of them are shagging in the back seat of her SUV. He mentions “her husband”, Norman, and the naughtiness of it all immediately halts and Olivia wants him out of the vehicle. A tear even breaks from her eye, seeming to relay to us that her feelings for Norman are significant. Her son can’t stand to see his cousin, Letha, being supposedly “courted” by this younger student, during this homecoming costume dance. Freshmen girls speaking about sex candidly and casually might remind us old farts of how we thought we were all adults ourselves as pre-teen kids. Christina (Freya Tingley) is among the girls, both of whom are ballerinas (yep, ballerinas talking all dirty, as the sheriff father tells them to be home at ten). Christina tries to assure them she isn’t all goody-two-shoes. She has a crush on the kid talking to Letha, Tyler (Landon Norris), while Roman sees his cousin away from him, truly overcome with jealousy. Tyler and Christina go off to stalk, with a snake let loose by Roman to ruin the dance. Roman pulls Letha away and the two leave in his car, heading off to get away from the dance so he can be with her alone. The drive has Letha informing Roman she is pregnant with the baby of an Angel. He doesn’t respond with a real sense of shock and horror, but instead appears rather calm and reserved. I don’t know what to make of Roman. He’s just kind of apathetic for the most part. The most you see emotionally out of him is with Letha. Roman even registers little on the emote-o-meter when watching Patrick transform into a werewolf. He’s simply an observer, studying the process as it happens. There is Patrick, the wolf just bursting out of him, and Roman just glares at him. I just don’t know what to make of him.

I will say this, I think it has a very attractive aesthetic. I enjoy looking at it from a visual standpoint. The characters just mean absolutely nothing to me. One development I consider a nice surprise is the giant daughter of Olivia with the deformed face (I guess her eye that is covered by her hair appears alien), Shelley (Nicole Bolvin) being favorably treated by Patrick who flirts with her and speaks to her gently. We hear her narrative voice, writing to Norman, and there is this sweet, highly intelligent young woman speaking from the heart and mind, baring her soul. Norman encouraging her to do this is quite therapeutic and allows her to escape from living completely in her own head. With Patrick addressing her humanely while the mean girls in school consistently bully her is so refreshing. I would hope this is continues. Because it shows me a side to Patrick that is comforting, and considering the students label him a freak as well, they are kindred spirits in a way. I think a lot of students/teenagers can relate to them.