Hemlock Grove - Children of the Night

I personally feel Children of the Night is the best episode of the first season of Hemlock Grove. I haven’t felt particularly satisfied with the show since I started to follow it midyear but it has progressively drawn me in. Still not convinced as of yet I truly really like it, but this episode was really good, leaving a very alluring hook for the first season finale.

Peter requested bacon grease. It was a peculiar request and Roman responds quizzically as any of us might except those in that world. But Destiny had told Roman that it would require Peter’s “face” in order to change into a werewolf. And his face smeared in bacon grease, Peter doing so as he faces the vargulf answers that odd request…the sacrifice of his destroyed face will allow him access to the form of the werewolf without aid of the full moon. Letha and Roman having to stand by while it happens sure as hell aren’t exactly ideal. Letha wants to interfere but Roman halts her from doing that because the vargulf would certainly like to get a hold of her. The conclusion of this episode where Peter just bleeds all over the place from his chewed-apart face, as Roman pulls out his sword to do battle with the vargulf (and Letha can’t escape the room as the door is chained and locked), it definitely sets up the finale with a fair amount of suspense.

Christina has been a question mark to me almost the entire first season. Her eccentricities (she’s what I guess you could call a “method writer”) aside, Christina’s experience alongside a victim, attraction to Peter, starting the rumor of Peter being a werewolf, enduring nightmares, intense visions, hospitalization, and the hair eventually turning albino certainly prepared her for something big revelation-wise for the very end of the season. Well, sufficed to say, it came to pass in Children of the Night! She escapes Norman’s institution and appears at the house of Letha, friendly and requesting her not to inform her father. Letha calls Roman and Norman who take both of them to the abandoned church. This is where Christina reveals quite a back story. She researched “how to turn”, which gives Peter pause. He realizes what she means, and this sets in motion quite a complete history right before the teenage girls started to die. Prior to returning to the church, Peter wisely had Roman stop off at a service station to pick up an extension cord. That cord was to subdue a possible vargulf, and it is eventually used on Christina! She talks of looking into lycanthropy and how to become a werewolf, participating in a ritual that would allow her to do so! Peter then prepares for her to transform and Christina does so!

A body was found on the rocks near the shore on the outskirts of Hemlock Grove. I thought it was the body of Clementine but it is revealed to be Shelley’s friend, Jenny. Sheriff Sworn is determined to find Peter and “put him in the ground where he belongs”, hoping to locate Christina. Norman tries to keep Sworn calm but he’s not as much grieving as of yet as he is pissed off. He’s also a bit disturbed as his deputies find him standing guard with a shotgun at the end of the home of Jenny’s parents. The loss of his children (just the straw that broke the camel’s back after the loss of his wife already had been an albatross of grief he was contending with), Peter out there, and Christina missing just accumulates to produce a sheriff almost unhinged.

At the end of the previous episode, Dr. Clementine Chasseur’s vehicle was located, with her investigation evidence scattered near a culvert. At the opening of this episode, Clementine is shown locked in a cage inside the old Godfrey mills trying to force open the lock. Emerging is Olivia, resting with ease as she speaks to Clementine about her past involving a ritual with her people claiming she’d be eaten and torn apart by a beast. Then when Clementine does free herself from the cage, the camera cuts away as she screams in agony. So during the first season, Olivia’s past has been a bit ambiguous. The show clearly was pointing the way towards her being something dangerous but what that is was not yet explained. With some blood on her and the dying body of Clementine at rest by the cage, Dr. Pryce arrives to do Olivia’s bidding. He has the lab and his experiments but at a price that Pryce must adhere to certain demands. Olivia non-chalantly addressing Pryce about disposing of Clementine and walking away with the orders to get rid of the body, this grisly bit of business speaks volumes about the kinds of darkness going on in Hemlock Grove. When Clementine is shown with her entire chest absent skin and Pryce visually sad with his countenance withering as he knows what he must do, it does at least reveal that he isn’t a total soulless monster. When he suffocates her, it is out of pity instead of cold-bloodedness. He does tell her that he must do this because his experiments (he says will change the world…) are so close to success. The scene is gruesome in its graphic visual of a victim with her neck broken, lying helpless yet still lucid and understanding that her life was about to end as Dr. Pryce speaks to her. She could hear Olivia, too, just at ease and not the least bit bothered by her actions. Protection of her son or just not giving a shit, Olivia left Clementine for Pryce to “clean up”.

Norman visits Shelley to tell her about Jenny but also to address his frailties and how special a human being she is for how that shine emanates from her onto people, leaving a positive effect. When he does tell her Jenny is dead, Shelley rushes off, her face damn near a blueberry. What are her intentions? Norman couldn’t stop her…