Landon Liboiron (L) and Bill Skarsgard (R) in a scene from Netflix’s “Hemlock Grove” Season 2. Credit: Brooke Palmer for Netflix.
We learn the intentions of the white-masked men (or should I say “white-masked people?”) as the Godfrey family is thrown into a whirlwind of drama in the latest episode of “Hemlock Grove.” More fun in your recap!
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We open in Place Des Vosges, Paris in November 1884. Olivia (Famke Janssen) is bound with chains as she is presented to the chancellor of the Order of the Dragon. A promise is made that she and the other upirs will be set free as long as they promise to kill only degenerates.
After being set free, Olivia wraps a chain around the chancellor’s neck and tells him she doesn’t take orders from anyone. He grants her safe passage in exchange for his own life.
The mission of the white-masked people
Peter (Landon Liboiron) and Roman (Bill Skarsgård) bond while doing typical “bro” things, which in their case means burying the bodies of the white-masked men they killed in the previous episode while Roman tells Peter about undergoing an upir-ectomy.
While they drag the body away from the scene, Peter and Roman learn that one of the white-masked men is still alive. Oops. Make that “white-masked WOman.” Her name is Sarah Chase from 813 Auburn Lane in Valencia, California. She hasn’t been able to identify as that for 10 years since she was kidnapped by the other white-masked man while her parents were sleeping. Since then, she has had to kill other families or else the man would’ve killed her, instead.
Peter thinks the girl is lying but Roman tries to be more sympathetic because he understands how the man became a father to Sarah and she grew up not knowing anything but to kill. Roman even tries to support her by assuring her that she will be able to go home to see the little sister she never got to meet.
However, Peter flips out and pulls a knife on Sarah after she says she’s thirsty and would like some “pop,” a phrase people from California are not normally known to say. Roman pulls Peter away and tries to help him understand that one of her friends in the cult was probably midwestern and Sarah picked up the dialect.
This is when Peter sees Sarah reaching for something and stabs her throat. In her hands was the pin for a grenade. Peter finds it in time and throws the grenade into the woods. As Sarah dies, she says, “The Caul. You can’t stop us.”
While Peter was correct in this instance, it’s hard to ignore that changing into his wolf form voluntarily is affecting him to the extreme. Let’s hope he isn’t wrong about a situation like this next time.
After the blue-haired prostitute comes forward and tells Chasseur (Demore Barnes) about how Roman bit her husband/pimp, Chasseur ends up finding Roman and Peter as they stuff the dead bodies into a trunk. He handcuffs Peter and Roman but upon closer inspection of the bodies, he notices the symbol for the Order of the Dragon on their watches. Chasseur removes their handcuffs and tells them not to speak of the incident to anyone.
Chasseur later visits Father Francis and demands information about how the Order is connected to these killers. The minister then calls up the female chancellor to inform her about a rogue element in the Order and even threatens to tell the FBI about some of the Order members’ more unorthodox practices. She tells him that she’ll send someone out to investigate.
Meanwhile, Roman and Peter have creepy visions of a man wearing a fedora and learn Miranda (Madeline Brewer) took baby Nadia.
Miranda runs into Dr. Spivak in a diner and he tells her that while Norwegians are unpleasant people, they do happen to make very ugly yet comfortable sweaters. But he also gives her relevant advice by telling her she should talk to someone and stop running away. Miranda decides to take the advice and visits Destiny (Kaniehtiio Horn).
After she is reunited with Peter and Roman, Miranda learns the truth about them. Destiny, even though she is angry with Peter about investigating his dreams, decides she has to help the cause by drowning herself in ice water. It’s apparently another gypsy spell to induce freaky psychic visions.
While almost drowning, Destiny has visions of the mysterious blonde man from the cult plotting with the other men in a warehouse about looking for a child with a membrane or caul around his or her head.
Roman deducts this cult is after his own child, since Nadia was born with a caul.
Meanwhile, Francis is confronted by the mysterious blonde man and while the minister is hoping to bring justice by raising a gun to him, his efforts were not quick enough as he is shot with multiple crossbows by several white-masked men in the room.
Chasseur finds Francis and learns his sister, Clementine, got too close to Olivia and this resulted in his sister’s murder. Francis also warns Chasseur that the White Tower will kill everyone. In response, Chasseur says he doesn’t care about the other upirs but only about the woman who killed his sister. He then kills Francis to put him out of his misery.
Will the sheriff be blinded by revenge and miss the bigger picture?
Later, Roman and Peter decide they need to take action. While Roman is terrified of what will happen to his child, Peter finds the warehouse on his own. He then strips his clothes off to most likely change into his wolf form. But his plan is foiled when the white-masked men aim their crossbows at him and pull the trigger.
Peter cheated death before but can he do it again? Probably yes because the show would be nothing without our favorite bromance.
Landon Liboiron in a scene from Netflix’s “Hemlock Grove” Season 2. Credit: Brooke Palmer for Netflix.
Shelley bonds with…herself
Shelley (Madeleine Martin) begins undergoing the procedures for her brain to be in Prycilla’s body. Pryce (Joel de la Fuente) tells Shelley this will eventually involve her old body being dumped in the woods in order for the police to find it and stop looking for her.
Prycilla visits Shelley in her hospital bed and tells her she doesn’t have to go through with the procedure and that Shelley is beautiful. Regardless, Shelley decides she will still go through with it. In a rather odd scene, Prycilla and Shelley cuddle in bed together and say that they love each other. Is Shelley talking to her new self or is it with the real Prycilla?
Norman becomes unhinged
Leticia (Lisa Marcos) shines a black light on Olivia’s floor, revealing a stain going up the stairs. Based on this, Norman (Dougray Scott) figures out that Olivia killed his wife and wants this evidence to be presented. But Leticia tells Norman that it’s not blood stained up the stairs. It’s bleach. Olivia most likely hired someone to clean the house and destroy evidence.
Later, Norman visits Roman and asks about being an upir. Roman, stressed out about everything else going on, walks off. This is when Norman decides to pull the Darth Vader-esque “I am your father,” which Roman already knows. Of course, Roman does not welcome his new daddy with open arms and basically tells Norman he should be ashamed of himself for sleeping with his brother’s wife and therefore, cheating on his own.
Obviously, all of this drama affects Norman significantly as he gets distracted while with a patient. Later, he even takes a gun out of a drawer and smashes Olivia’s picture.
What will Norman do with this new knowledge?
(L-R) Famke Janssen, Shauna MacDonald and Joel de la Fuente in a scene from Netflix’s “Hemlock Grove” Season 2. Credit: Steve Wilkie for Netflix.
Olivia tries to eat the “unicorn”
Don’t you hate it when you are trying to get a drink from your box full of bloody limbs and then a brain jams up the machine? Maybe that’s a problem only Olivia has but she soon discovers another problem anyone can face: cancer.
After climbing on a stool and trying to fix the jam in Pryce’s invention, Olivia falls and hits her head. This results in a minor examination by Pryce and she ends up learning she has acute lymphoma and has a 20 percent chance of living.
Later, Olivia meets with Galina (Shauna MacDonald) and learns the box filled with bloody limbs is actually filled with Pryce’s failed experiments, likely resulting in her cancer. However, Prycilla was actually a success and Olivia can get cured if she “eats the unicorn (Prycilla).”
When Olivia bends down to take a bite out of Prycilla, the experiment wakes up and utters one simple word: “Mother.”
Will Olivia eat her own child to cure herself?
Grade: A
Check out the recap of the last episode here.
Follow Jeremy Rodriguez on Twitter: @RodriguezJeremy
