SGRoA: Blood Ties, S1 E17: The Devil You Know

...is Christina, Henry's dame. It's Christina. I hope this episode doesn't move us from Halloween right into the FEH-stive season, if you know what I mean. Anyway, let's get started!

Henry is on the phone with Augustus

read my books, you'll get more jokes

... trying to find Christina, I assume. All these vampires are referred to with weird little titles: The German, The Tall Man. These people don't have names? (Then again, Augustus is a title, too, and he would looooove Henry's ilk.)

Vicki comes by to yell at Henry for leaving her out of the loop and refusing to let her help him They're interrupted by another model's death-by-vampire, and head off to the crime scene. Mike immediately goes in on Henry about Christina, and therefore Henry goes in on Vicki about telling Mike it's Christina.

But Henry doesn't think this was Christina: it's too lurid, attracting too much attention. Henry leaves, announcing his departure because he's "the only one interested in solving this!" Flounce, queen! Flounce us right into the horrible theme song!

Ooh, rare treat: Flashback Time! It's not a big one, just Henry remembering Christina before she turned him, his insistence he was ready for it, hers that he wasn't, and then her feeding him her blood - which I assume in this lore means starting to turn him. That's usually how it goes; I have the slightly-less-usual trope of vamp blood healing humans, but not doing much otherwise. Maybe get you a little high.

Mike swings by Vicki's office with Chinese food, so she can tell him (and us) about how vampire territories work. No shade: this is actually pretty well done. Mike has questions, Vicki has answers, we get exposition. (We're doing much better this week!) Vamps in this lore can't be anywhere near each other, hence the strict territories. And apparently it's weird that Henry and Christina were lovers previously, because of that? Like, because you would want to keep being lovers, I assume, barring extenuating circumstances. But beyond that, Vicki doesn't have any more explanations.

Mike says fine, that's enough, but what really worries him is that Henry is acting unpredictably - like stealing things from crime scenes.

Turns out there was a brooch of Christina's - we see it in the flashback - that the latest victim was photographed in, and was on the body at the scene, but was never catalogued. Henry had lied about the crime scene not being Christina's style. Henry is actively working against them in this case.

Christina is waiting for Henry in his apartment, and she's Laura Mennell, who has been in roughly one episode of everything ever, but also was one of the Alphas on Alphas, a show that was unceremoniously canceled on a cliffhanger. Poor Gary. Whatever happened to you?

Anyway. She makes some good points about the downsides of digitization, and then says she needs Henry's help. They do some lame vamp posturing to justify the show's makeup budget, I guess, and then some even lamer quip-trading, if you can call them quips. Finally, a point! She's being followed by another vampire, Alexander, who's trying to ruin her life wherever she sets up shop. If the next vampire mentioned is an India or a Marie or an Oscar, I'm going to have questions, honestly.

Henry says she'll have to play by his rules while she's in his territory, and she begrudgingly agrees to answer some questions for Mike. At another time, though: right now she has to go harass Vicki by showing up at the office and saying she "wanted to meet the competition."

Emma Stone on SNL saying "ew"

Ew.

a fuzzy orange cat with text reading "excuse me while I barf in my mouth"

I - whatever, that's why God invented memes, so I don't have to put that into words. The whole scene is like this, Christina threatening Vicki, but just by, like, calling her ugly. She leaves, and Vicki reaches into a drawer to remove a comfort item, a talisman - that fucking sun thingie from the Julian Sands Inquisition episodes!!!!!!!!!!!

I did not see that coming. I thought they got rid of that, that they destroyed it or put it in Henry's safe or his walls or something! I wonder if Vicki's cold enough to actually use it - or if Christina is going to be such an awful bitch that we'll be hoping Vicki's cold enough. Damn. Okay, last week is forgiven, I'm hella invested in this shit.

So Henry had told Vicki about Alexander on the phone before Christina came in, and Vicki has Coreen look into him next day. He's a model, one of the references on his CV is Christina. She calls Mike to update, and he invites her to the morgue to take a look at the last vic.

While there, Vicki asks if there's any way to tell if the attacker is male or female. Mohadevan says not really, but there is one difference in the two models' deaths. On the first girl, there are signs of hesitation - not remorse or anything emotional, but more like incompetence. Like someone started to claw her throat, and someone more experienced finished it? Okay, that's my editorializing, but I'm gonna limb it here and say that Christina is using Alexander to get in contact with Henry and she's gonna throw him right under the bus at every opportunity. Already calling him a stalker. Bet she just wants the boys to fight over her, weird little pick-me.

Oh, hey, Dave's back! Hi, Dave! Mike gives Dave Alexander's name for some further digging; Dave makes several remarks about enjoying interviews with models. Ah, Dave. You can go away again, thanks, that's fine. Oh, and Mike's unhappy about 3 vampires in his city, and, uh... nah, let's not tell him. The Raven gang doesn't seem to be causing any problems.

Henry and Christina have some bite sex on the street? Okay, sure, and then they have a lore conversation. Most of this is to show they're being followed - a lot of shots of them from a camera lens, zooming in and out. I assume this is Alexander, who "doesn't follow code" and "wants to make his mark" by "taking out an old one". Yup. Sure. I wouldn't believe this woman if she told Henry her name is Christina, honestly. She's not very well hinged, which we knew, but I had no idea she was such a weird pick-me about Henry.

Christina rn, cringe alert

Coreen, meanwhile, has found Alexander's sister, right there in Toronto. She hasn't had contact with Alex in roughly 6 months, and she reported him missing, but of course the police didn't do anything, and now he's involved in murders? She says he's kind and harmless, that he basically raised her after their parents died. He met a woman roughly 9 months ago, and was smitten. Said she was going to help with his career. And she has a picture of him, taken just before he disappeared - a picture taken before sunset, with Alex bathed in light.

Funny. PickMe said he'd been stalking her for a whole year! That he was a vampire that whole time! That he's trying to make a name for himself!

Oh, but wait, Henry gives us a full-on retcon of everything in this episode. Vamps don't turn enemies, only friends and lovers. Vamps stay with their parents for a full year, and the newborns are devoted to their parent. So if Christina had turned Alex, they'd be together and he wouldn't be stalking her, and if he had been stalking her for a year, she wouldn't have turned him. No, it doesn't matter that Alex is a baby, he's trying to expose Christina, not just kill her, and he could do it to any vampire, and that's really dangerous. That's why she needs Henry's help! It's all so obvious!

Christina offers to see Mike at her midnight couture shoot at an arts center. Seems pretty public, to both Vicki and Mike, and Vicki wonders if Christina is trying to draw Alexander out. She also mentions that it's strange he went from leaving bodies on doorsteps to elaborately posing them - are they missing something?

Henry's walking the streets, having a flashback. (Next thing you know, it'll be gravy boats and puffy shirts.) Christina is teaching Henry not to kill, and how to hypnotize victims to forget. Henry's a dick about it, because she's said it all before. Don't worry, Hank, I didn't think you were any more likable than you have been.

Vicki heads to the morgue to see Mohadevan. Were there any other weird things about the first body that weren't on the others? Yeah, says Mohadevan, actually, the first vic was completely drained of blood by two punctures on her wrist. She didn't bleed out at all, but someone very much wanted it to look like she was drained by someone who didn't know what they were doing.

Henry finds Alex while he's wandering, but Alex runs, and then... they have a ... thought conversation? This is incredibly weirdly done, but basically, Henry says - out loud - that Alex shouldn't have involved him. Alex says - offscreen somewhere? with a weird growly voice? - that Henry can save the girl he was chowing in the alley or he can chase Alex. Henry says he'll have to face him eventually, and Alex retorts that Henry can save Christina, or his other loved ones, but not both. Henry says, "Watch me."

Vicki brings Alex's sister to the photo shoot, because again, this is a pretty standard paranormal procedural, and putting family members in danger without telling them anything is pretty standard paranormal operating procedure. (She knows she can talk to him. She's his sister!)

Mike is questioning Christina with Dave, so standard shit. What was Alex like to work with, what was her relationship with him, when did things change. She has all the answers, even if Mike is a little sharp with the questions. She mojos them into giving it up, and Dave just wanders away, but Mike looks like he might know something is wrong.

Alex is in a hoodie, setting up lights, lingering on the fringes of the shoot. Vicki and Sister show up, but Vicki insists Sister stays backstage for safety. Henry shows up and has some words for Christina: namely, he's figured out she can't feel Alex because her body doesn't consider him a threat. Because it's been less than a year. Because she turned him.

She turned him and abandoned him, but that shouldn't matter. Henry has to protect her, because if he doesn't, he's next. Vicki's next. Vicki, up in the catwalks, finding another body and the boxes for the "TrueSun" lighting.

She kills the lights, of course, yelling down to the stage and running in and knocking shit over. Henry and Christina are fine, wrapped in the velvet stage curtain. Vicki finds them with Christina chowing down on Henry's wrist to heal her burns. She runs off, Henry says he's going after Alex, Vicki's like, yeah, fine, whatever. I am also tired of Henry's relationship drama.

Sister finds Alex first, though, obviously. Alex takes her hostage against Henry, but Henry says he can make her forget, Alex doesn't have to kill her just because she saw him vamped out.

Oh, I see, Alex has not taken dying well. He ran away, he's freaked out about hunger, says Christina "did this to" him, he hates vampires, begs Henry to kill him. So Henry obliges, and then I send Henry Nick Knight's address, and.... No, just kidding, Nick's already dead, but they could have made a whole series about Alexander whining! For centuries!

Lestat from the movie saying, "still whining, Louis"

Lestat knows

Vicki has headed back to the office, so she apparently just completely forgot about Sister? Like, just straight up left that woman at the arts center. Damn, Vicki, what the hell?

Or maybe better she did, because Christina has followed her. She threatens to kill Vicki ("I'm still hungry"), and then Vicki tells her she knows about the first victim, that all of this was to manipulate Henry into killing that kid. Vicki brandishes the Illuminacion del Sol - the sun thingie - but before she needs to decide whether to use it, Henry is here to save her and tells Christina to get the fuck out of his city, and if she ever comes near him again, he'll kill her. She protests, and there's some lame relationship talk, but she ultimately goes.

Henry also goes to tell Mike that he killed Alex, and they get into a little spat about vampirism and justice, so it's back to Mike and Henry status quo.