Hemlock Grove - Hello, Handsome

I did fail to mention in the previous episode that Dr. Clementine of “fish and wildlife” had visited this oddball priest associated with her somehow. They have ambiguous conversations about her past, and she calls out prayers in earnest when it appears she’s at her weakest. Like in this episode after visiting Dr. Pryce to discuss the killer of the girls. He records their conversation, eventually crushing the machine with his one hand to display his power due to a peculiar condition that provides superb strength. Clementine and Johann (Pryce’s first name) are on first-name basis now, but their back-and-forth is a bit tense and evasive, both trying to get the other to slip just one clue behind the whole point of their meeting. She needs to find out if it is possible the beast was a guinea pig in Pryce’s lab while he emphatically denies such. They speak of his flower and its particular properties, the pheromones and what they might possibly accomplish. If anything it involves Pryce more, letting us peak at how he reacts to questioning. Clementine retreats to her SUV and can’t resist a swig from a flask in her glove compartment. It appears she’s an alcoholic. The show also takes us back five years earlier where Clementine is tossed in some border town prison along with a pregnant Mexican girl, seemingly stored away for being an illegal although she insists she has her appropriate papers. Clementine reveals her status as a Marine when she pulls off her shit to try and sets out to sharpen a piece of metal.

The show reveals a bit about Clementine’s true “occupation”, her real “purpose”…the order of the dragon. The pregnant girl is revealed to be something beyond human, as if possessed by an evil that must be stopped. Pryce, upon meeting her, sees her as intriguing and suspect. As Clementine butchers the girl five years earlier in the cell and is greeted by a member of the “dragon order”, we see that she is not just some fish and wildlife investigator…there’s a lot more to her. Pryce visits Shelley, hoping to convince her not to reveal everything to Dr. Norman, his chief adversary. Pryce is backed by Olivia and would love to rid himself of Norman, but his rival won’t give him the pleasure of being bought out by others wanting to support the scientist’s work.

Roman is at odds with his mom over Patrick due to the gypsy heritage. She considers Patrick’s “kind” filth although Roman clearly sees him as a real friend. Roman clearly also desires Letha but she’s pregnant and there is still odd sexual tension she has with Patrick. Patrick assures Roman that she pities him and it isn’t about anything  more than that. Patrick and Roman meet up with his cousin, taking Willoughby’s guts so that they can “extract information” from her “spirit”. Roman doesn’t stay long, told by her that the lines in his hands reveal quite a bit. Her not willing to share just enrages him. He is not used to not getting his way. With Olivia preparing this dinner in honor of her husband, she expects Roman to behave himself and be obedient…especially after learning of the Willoughby grave desecration. In protest of how Olivia treats him and just how everyone talks about him and the family, he slits open his chest with a razor while taking a blow job from the wife of a colleague of his father’s! That is indeed quite shocking enough to conclude the episode for sure.

Of angels and ouroboros, this show still invests a lot in ambiguity. This isn’t about revealing all its mysteries in one fail swoop. It is about just bits and pieces.

So Roman’s cousin takes a maggot and drops it in the jar of guts while Patrick and Roman  leave until it can fatten up. Roman doesn’t return, but Patrick does. She pulls the fat maggot out of the jar, drops it in her mouth (YUCK), and requests Roman to tie her down. Then comes Willoughby, but the details are a bit enigmatic, not of much help. Black eyes and flustered cooperation, Patrick is left with even more questions than answers.

Olivia is running out of a drug that she drops in her eye. You can tell as her supply dwindles that her addiction will become a major nuisance eventually. Patrick and his mom realize this. But will Olivia allow her pride keep her from going to the gypsies for her fix?

And while I’m thinking about it, the show introduces some small details about Shelley. That she was seemingly dead and her daddy couldn’t accept it, going to Pryce for help. It appears Pryce’s work was still quite new and unrefined, which might explain why Shelley’s face and hands are distorted. Her heart and intelligence aren’t dysfunctional…so those who bully and ridicule her strictly take aim at her appearance which explains a lot about how much worse inner ugliness is that outer.