Then I remembered there are currently three groups of mercenary jerks mercilessly hunting Ethan through the damned desert. Four if you count Hecate.
The episode begins with the threat of pursuit and the threat of dehydration. Again, this desert is a real dick of a setting. Ethan knows the terrain well; after all he grew up in it. But where he expects there to be a river, there is just dry dust. Their pursuit just got more perilous. And Hecate just won’t stop with the questions and the badgering about rolling over to the dark side.
And speaking of the dark side, Victor has apparently fully embraced his in his effort to de-activate Lily’s new anti-heroine status. He’s completely sold on his method, egotistical in his manner, and offensively eager. Gone is any sort of bedside manner or even professional camaraderie with or courtesy to Henry.
Henry and Victor keep antagonizing one another through their patient’s recovery, but I miss their unresolved sexual tension from episode one. They work better as probably-totally-ex-lovers not adversaries.
It seems like all of our heroes are suddenly ok with their darker sides. While we are suddenly summoning empathy for Hecate (she was purloined into Satan’s service as a small child), we get to hear a little more of Ethan’s origin story. We’ve always known he did terrible things in the war, but the details he gives Hecate are so tragic that he can’t even relate them at full volume.
Kaetenay fills us in on the rest: that Ethan came to him wanting redemption or death. Seems like not much has changed. Except … Ethan is ready to allow Hecate’s connection with Lucifer to be used to his advantage. The men following him need to be stopped, and as they sleep, she summons night creatures with Ethan’s blood to slaughter them while he looks on impassively.
Curiously close by, Kaetenay and Malcolm are running their own little operation … K’s taking scalps while Malcolm takes horses. Not sure which one of those was the short straw, but I think they are both playing to their strengths. And while Malcolm gets scotched by Mr Cute Jr Detective, Kay is stymied by a different sort of face-off.
In an awesome bullet-time move, KayNay decides to kill two snakes with one swipe, but gets bitten by Snake #2 immediately after. A blurry battle of bullets and bites ensues, while Ethan and Hecate look on like they have all the water in the world and no worries. Malcolm takes advantage and kills the Cute Dick, while Marshall Perm and Inspector Rusk rush in to aid their compatriots. But they lose their men and their horses, and Rusk … well he loses every single one of his fucks, and decides to just slaughter Ethan and “all of his kind” when he finds him.
Meanwhile, Ethan and Hecate have lost a horse to dehydration and are holed up in a cave … and despite being able to summon snakes, Hecate still just sits around asking questions while Ethan makes fire. She apparently can’t keep herself alive by summoning water either. Super useful. She can’t even read ancient cave drawings (even though she’s totes a ParselMouth), so Ethan explains to her the Apache origin myth of the boy who won back the day, and she casually remarks: oh, that sounds like how the world ends to me. Subtle.
Kaetenay tells his own version of the vision of the end of the world … it includes Ethan, London, the creatures of the night. It has not escaped us that all of these visions and versions – Ethan’s, Kay’s, Lucifer’s, Dracula’s – they all sound eerily similar. If Ethan embraces his dark side it will come to pass, but likewise if Vanessa embraces the Master it will as well. Looks like we are going to see those two embrace anything but each other this season. Unfortunately who will they embrace? UGH.
Let me just take a minute to say that I am not climbing aboard this ship. While I enjoy the idea that Ethan can embrace his misdeeds at this point because he thinks (not naively) that he won’t have much longer to be doing ANY deeds *ahem*, I don’t love the push toward accepting this woman as a viable love interest. Let’s not forget everything she did to Vanessa last season. DO YOU HEAR ME, ETHAN??? DO NOT FORGET IT.
Thankfully, all those fluids they lost in the cave (seriously who can muster up the necessary stuff when they are severely dehydrated) kind of turn Hecate into a dying mess, but unfortunately, Ethan still has a thing for damsels who might need his paltry assistance. Malcolm finds them as they finally collapse and moves to shoot a barely breathing Hecate, but Ethan won’t let him. UGH.
The Talbot men find them all, and bring them to Ethan’s real daddy … who’s not exactly everything evil you thought he was going to be. Not only does he have the good water … TENNESSEE WHISKEY with AN E … but he recognizes the similar paternal pull in Malcolm. The face off with Malcolm and Talbot doesn’t end with pleasantries over whiskey. They threatened one another but Talbot has men on his side. And he put Hecate in a doll room, so I’m down with his brand of throwing shade.
Ethan finally faces his father (after a bunch of heavy handed Prodigal Son parable references) and Daddy-o takes him to the macabre chapel where a years-old slaughter had taken place, and nothing had been moved since. The story wrecks us just as we watch it wreck Ethan, honestly terrified that we were going to see rotted corpses on the altar. His father demands repentance, but despite his emotion, Ethan has given it all up. He belongs in hell and his dad is ready to send him there. CLICK …. boom???
I guess we’ll find out next week. Because this show is the MASTER at ending an episode that requires the audience to come back for more. I’ll be there.
What did you think of This World Is Our Hell? Are you ok with EthanxHecate? Can you forgive Ethan for embracing his inner wolf?
