Yes, so I realize that I am waaay behind on Sanctuary reviews. I got a little, um, sidetracked with another show (and more on that later).

But even though I haven’t posted every review, I am caught up with the current episodes and have been looking forward with great anticipation to the premiere of Sanctuary Season 3.5. Dear show: Please don’t ever take an extra long hiatus like that again. Sincerely, a fan.

The writers spun out a WHOLE LOT of plot threads within the first half of this season, all of which really needed to be resolved in order to move this story along. So how did they do?

First off…Hollow Earth

The big question that’s been hanging over us for months now: what is it, exactly?

Amongst the gobs of exposition we got in this episode, we learned that Hollow Earth was formed over eight thousand years ago as a refuge from vampires (which explains their need for vampire-detecting technology). Evidently a large group of [White, English-speaking] humans living topside decided to just let the vamps keep the surface while the rest of creation retreated underground.

Now, obviously, there were still pockets of human populations left on the surface, which means that the Hollow Earth folks basically left them behind as vampire bait. It also means that while they were advanced enough to create one of Earth’s greatest civilizations from within the planet, they weren’t advanced enough (or just not at all inclined) to find a way to combat the vampire menace. Instead, the little cave-dwellers they left behind would eventually rise up and completely defeat an entire superior race without the benefit of Hollow Earth’s bountiful technology. That fact alone should afford the surface-living folks a lot more respect than the outright contempt that they’re given. It’s not as though Hollow Earth is unaware of the goings on upstairs. But I digress…

The holomap left to Helen by her father was in fact a miniature model of Praxis, the major city in Hollow Earth. Aside from being just a really big underground metropolis – the logistics of which I still don’t quite get – it turns out that the ruling powers in Praxis play a critical role in maintaining the balance between humans and abnormals by keeping the biggest and the baddest of the abnormals under close control. Or so they claim. I think it’s fair to say that they’re not entirely altruistic or entirely straightforward.

Big Bertha/Kali and the other Super Abnormals

Who are they?

We weren’t given whole lot of information in this episode, at least not much more than we already knew. What exactly the avatar chamber is, how the super abnormals (or “hyper-species”, as Ranna calls them) interact with each other or with certain humans within the chamber, or why they would choose to do so at all, is still entirely unclear. We did meet the super abnormal responsible for the counterwave that mitigated Kali’s little temper tantrum: a giant salamander-looking creature called Kanaan. But poor Kanaan has a bit of a parasite problem, and when the powerful being that controls the Earth’s geothermal vents is sick, it’s just bad news for everybody.

Kanaan turned out to be remarkably tolerant of human hands fishing around in his arteries, and the day was saved. Go Team!

Helen’s Illness

Helen was dying from radiation poisoning. And then she was killed. And then she was revived…but the radiation poisoning was still killing her. And then they fixed her. The End.

Helen’s Dad

One of the biggest questions hanging over us since last season: what is up with Helen’s dad? He’s a doctor and researcher who in his free time built a phenomenally complex puzzle within the labyrinth beneath the abandoned vampire city of Bhalasaam. The man was not only involved with The Cabal from the very beginning, but he’s been in on this whole Hollow Earth thing for well over century, given the clues he’s been leaving for Helen since her 26th birthday.

Really, it’s no wonder that Helen’s a workaholic.

Turns out that Gregory Magnus was a resident of Hollow Earth for some 65 years before he ‘disappeared’. I’m guessing that disappearance coincided with his being kidnapped by The Cabal? I’d love to see a timeline of Gregory’s life, just to have a clearer picture of how and when he did all this stuff.

At some point after his whole beetle-in-the-brain incident he returned to Hollow Earth, and the next time we see him he’s infiltrated the avatar chamber with Kali and the other super abnormals. He gives Will a cryptic message that leads Helen to find the hidden map to Hollow Earth, and his actions have him branded as a traitor. And yet he still managed to retain some allies, because when Helen finds him in the tunnels outside the city, he refers to “his men” being killed during the recent geothermic instability.

In the end, little is explained but all is forgiven for Gregory Magnus. He remains in Hollow Earth as an ambassador to the surface.

Adam

Dr. Jekyll. Mr. Hyde. Adam Worth.

Adam was shot by Helen in 1908. He was found in the river and brought into the city, where he lived for almost thirty years. His experiments with anti-matter led to the death of hundreds, and as a result he was executed/placed in stasis for several decades, until he was revived by Fallon. When the government found out that Adam was alive, he was forced to flee the city and sought out Helen Magnus in order to find a way back into Hollow Earth. Adam claims to be a champion of the oppressed, but as Will points out, his actions are motivated almost solely by his ego and desire for recognition. Though it’s never made clear what he truly intended to use the calorem device for, it probably wasn’t anything good.

That said, Adam is a great villain. He’s smart, he’s funny, he’s slightly unhinged, and incredibly skeezy. Ian Tracey is just fantastic in this role, and he brought a truly nuanced performance that none of the other guest actors in this episode could match. The only other actor that gave me actual chills was, of course, Christopher Heyerdahl. Druitt was as Bad Ass as he’s ever been, and Adam and Druitt together are just magnetic. I know Adam was evil and all…but I was kind of sad to see him go. If he is really gone.

Which just leads me back to…

Hollow Earth

When you bring back a contemporary of The Five, you better have a damn good explanation for how they’re still living and breathing, or else I’m just going to believe that there was something in Oxford’s water supply circa 1885.

Are we meant to assume that the underground dwellers have some kind of life-extending abilities that were not at all touched upon in this episode? Adam was an Oxford student in the 1880′s (since Gregory Magnus was still around on Helen’s 34th birthday, we can assume that The Five’s experiments occurred when Helen was in her 30′s). Whether or not he graduated is unclear, but at some point he left school and became a father. The death of his daughter drove him to madness and in 1908, Helen shot him and he floated downstream to the great underground city. Even if we ignore the fact that he doesn’t appear to have aged in the over 20 years he spent above ground, he then went on to live for almost 30 years in Hollow Earth. Which makes Adam at least 70 by the time he is (temporarily) put to death.

Then there’s Gregory Magnus who was born in 1829, making him over 50 years old at the time of his disappearance. It would be at least 120 years before he reappeared looking none the worse for wear, but barely half of that time was spent living in Hollow Earth. As has been explained to us previously, Helen’s alive because of the Source Blood and Druitt’s alive because of Helen’s blood. Tesla was immortal, and Watson was just a genius with a steampunk suit. So how, exactly, has Gregory Magnus managed to defy aging?

Memory Stealing Invisi-People

Adam’s little albino warriors.

Yeah, I’m still not sure what’s happening there.

Tesla

Okay, I’ll admit, I just wanted to see Tesla. In fact, I would have loved a whole montage of clips featuring Tesla and the Big Guy holding down the fort back home while everyone’s off dying in Hollow Earth.

Sanctuary, you let me down.

In Conclusion

To borrow a phrase from one Samantha Carter: Holy Hanna, that was a lot of exposition. Tunisian serapods. Tabors. The calorem device. This episode had entirely too. much. terminology. And for all the build-up, I’m not entirely sure that the pay off was worth it. We had way to much explanation and way too little action, and all in all, I’ll be glad when this Hollow Earth business is over and our heroes can go back to their crazy lives as usual.

Stray observations…

- “I know that smell.” Nice little nod to Henry’s latent wolfey abilities.

- An internal parasite that matches its coloring to “blend in”. Really?

- I swear, I won’t harp on the crazy biology lessons (*cough*positive ion wash*cough*), but how easy would it really be to cauterize the skin of a creature that swims in molten rock? Wouldn’t he have some kind of built-in defense to, say, heat?

Helen: “They need our help.”

Will: “Look, I’m not one to hold a grudge or anything, but…they killed us.”

Henry: “Yeah, and they won’t cure you.”

Kate: “Right. Grudge.”

Henry: “Holo-data transfer. Virtual sim chambers.”

Will: “Death by force field.”

Kate: “Protein shakes that taste like diapers.”

Henry: “I know. Awesome, right?”

Ranna: “Are you certain that you can remove it safely?”

Helen: “Well, I’ve never encountered either of these creatures before, so…no. Let’s get started.”

Gotta love Helen’s can-do attitude.

I’ll tell you one thing: you do not want to piss off Dr. Helen Magnus.

All those weeks of searching paid off and they finally found Ashley, only to have her nearly eviscerate the lot of them. Helen can’t even bring herself to say just what the Cabal have turned Ashley into. Kate – either from sympathy or fear for her limbs – puts Magnus in touch with her contact at the Cabal: Mizz Evil Monologue herself.

She tells Helen that Ashley can still be saved if, and only if, the Sanctuary network is totally surrendered. “Your daughter, or your work. You choose.”

Magnus puts Henry and Tesla at work together (which is about nine different kinds of awesome) to create a weapon that can ‘reset’ the super-abnormals DNA rendering them just, well…normal. The dynamic due try testing it on a Furby Tribble Nubbin first.

Poor Damian.

But while they’re trying - and failing - to perfect the device, Ashley and the super-abnormals hit the Tokyo Sanctuary, crumbling it within a matter of minutes. Helen orders the other Sanctuaries to evacuate their staff and residents, but in just a short time Bejing, New Delhi and Moscow are hit as well, and the London Sanctuary seems likely to be the next target. Magnus and Co. go to London with a weapon prototype, hoping to stop the super-abnormals before they can cause any more chaos. “I hate to use this terminology, but we are at war. And one that we are ill-prepared for.”

In London, Will, um, reconnects with Clara, and we meet the new head of the UK Sanctuary, filling in after Watson’s demise in India *sniff, sniff*  I do like Declan, though.

Pretty soon it’s battle stations, because the super-abnormals are at the front door. Literally. And hey, look! The Sanctuary has a troll.

OH MY GOD, I’m not sure I could possibly love Druitt more than I do RIGHT NOW.

And this? Also very cool.

But their combined efforts don’t do much more than annoy the super-abnormals, and when they finally get Ashley within close range, they find that Tesla’s weapon is almost entirely ineffective. In a desperate last-ditch attempt, they try setting the super-abnormals on fire.

And even that doesn’t so much kill them as just slow them down a little.

In the end it’s a draw. The Cabal extract their soldiers and regroup for a hit on the main target: Old City’s Sanctuary. The Sanctuary crew is left to pick up the pieces and hope that, somehow, they can stop the attacks before the entire network has fallen.

And did I mention?

It’s been an all around bad week for our heroes.

In the interlude before the coming battle, Helen finally admits to Nikola that she’s asked him to do the impossible. The weapon will never work, not without killing Ashley and the other abnormals, and of course, Tesla knew that. But he tried to do it anyway. Magnus gives Tesla a sample of Ashley’s blood and tells him to finish it.

By the time the Super Ashley Gang attacks the weapon is ready, and Magnus is able to stop nearly all of the super-soldiers. But when the moment arrives, Magnus can’t do it. She can’t kill her own daughter. So Ashley makes the choice for her: in what is probably her strongest moment as a character, she sacrifices herself for the safety of the Sanctuary, and the episode ends on Helen Magnus’ grief-stricken sobs.

Geez.

Season Two has certainly opened with a bang. Good storytelling, great effects and strong acting. They really didn’t pull any punches, did they? Will’s girlfriend has been killed (a loss made even more painful when you realize that it was Will who convinced her to come to the Sanctuary in the first place). The Sanctuary network, Helen’s life work, has been compromised and very nearly crippled; no doubt they’ll be picking up the pieces for months to come. And Ashley, Helen Magnus’ only child and our resident Action Girl, is dead. Or is she? You can never be sure in sci-fi.

I’ll just say it now: I am completely and totally stoked for this season.

Stray observations…

- Henry’s ringtone is a wolf howl. Love. It.

- That black stuff kind Will released on the super-abnormal of reminded me of the black symbiote that attached itself to Spiderman.

- It’s probably the only bright spot from this week, but at least the Big Guy is better now.

- Christopher Heyerdahl absolutely brings it in this episode. Druitt is tormented by his past and his inability to make things right for Helen. The look on his face when he stabs his daughter is just heartbreaking. The Big Guy is conflicted, caught between his ties to his people, and his loyalty to Magnus and his adopted Sanctuary family. Heyerdahl, who has played no less than four different characters in the Stargate franchise (and one incredibly creepy stint as the demon Alastair on Supernatural), is a sorely underrated chameleon of an actor.

- I know I’ve made some joking comparisons between this show and the Buffy-verse, but these two episodes have cemented what I’ve been feeling for awhile: in the world of Sanctuary, while Helen and Buffy are not so much alike, it’s rather obvious that Druitt is Angel and Tesla is Spike. I mean, seriously. Even the characterizations are similar: Druitt is tall, dark, handsome and broodingly quiet, while Tesla is the deadpan snarker. They’re both old aquaintances and they both love the same girl, but she has very different feelings toward the two of them.

One guy did some terrible things under the influence of something beyond his control and the girl understands that it wasn’t his fault, but is still hurt by his actions and his apparent betrayal. They love each other but they realize now that their relationship will never return to the way it was.

The other guy’s done some bad things, too, operated with only his own goals in mind and relentlessly scoffed at her gang of loyal friends. But this guy loves the girl, and for all he’s done, he’s never hurt her like the other guy has. For her he is willing to do almost anything, including attempting the impossible, because he can’t stand to see her heartbroken. But even so, deep down he knows: she doesn’t really love him. 

Why is it that our heroines are so often doomed in love?

 Nicknames: Henry is “Tiny Tim”

“Nikola, did I ever tell you why my father founded the Sanctuary network all those decade ago?”

“Because he was a crappy doctor?”

Hannah’s Notes

- Ashley’s powers don’t make a whole lot of sense. She’s got teleportation powers from her dad, but where did the vampirism come from? Tesla’s only part vampire because he already had the genes from an ancestor – if Helen or Druitt had those genes, the Source Blood should have turned them into vampires too. So why would their daughter react to the Source Blood that way?

- She’s wearing leather pants but she’s not evil. That’s just so weird. [Agreed. Somebody call Joss Whedon! - Emily]

Season Two picks up six weeks after the events of the Season One finale. Magnus has been hunting down any and all leads on her missing daughter. Druitt has been helping her out of mutual concern for their daughter, but also because he is a helluva lot more scary than she is.

Meanwhile, Ashley’s teleporting into high security facilities and stealing stuff. Was that a throwing star that Ashley threw at the surveillance camera? That is so badass. Like father like daughter.

And back at the Sanctuary…

We see that Will and Clara, the Invisible Girl, are now officially dating. It’s not easy, what with her being an ocean away at the London Sanctuary and Tesla crashing their video chat. I pretty much love everything about Will and Tesla’s dialogue in this scene. Can we please have Tesla around more often?

In an interesting twist, the Big Guy remains unwilling to undergo treatment for the Lazarus virus because a man-made cure would go against his cultural beliefs. Though it’s an obvious tension-creating plot device, I appreciate the fact that abnormals are portrayed as fully formed beings with their own cultures and traditions, and not just freaks of an otherwise human nature.

But I really, really hate seeing the Big Guy like this.

Magnus’ choice to cooperate with Druitt in Ashley’s search has lead to some considerable tension between the two. Helen wants her daughter back but doesn’t want her daughter’s dad to think that anything has changed between them. Where’s Dr. Phil when you need him? 

This is a very cool shot.

The Cabal are using Ashley for some nefarious plan involving the Lazarus virus and abnormal eradication and test subjects with perfect DNA, or something, but I kind of blanked out at this point because trying to apply logic to the science just makes my head hurt.

What it really means is that we get a lot of scenes with exposition that we can only hope will set us up for some major action.

 And the award for Creepiest Scientist in a Basic Cable Series goes to…!

While trying to track down one of the five people the fate of the entire world rests upon, Magnus and Will run into Kate, a bounty hunter with a potential connection to the Cabal. Magnus has apparently been taking lessons in Advanced Bad-Assery from Druitt and is so BEYOND playing Mrs. Nice Lady. She wants Ashley and if she has to shoot Kate to get her back, then so be it.

Will is not so much in favor of this plan.

Will and Magnus go outside to talk about her feelings and stuff. Will thinks Magnus has been spending a little too much time with Jack the Ripper and is dangerously close to flying off the handle. But Will can’t understand because he’s never lost a child, has he? What neither of them seem to consider is that they’ve left Henry alone with Kate. Shouldn’t be a problem, right? Nothing could go wrong there.

Nope, not at all.

So Kate gets away…for about twenty minutes. Turns out the Cabal like her even less than Helen Magnus does (which is saying something) and she finds her way back to the Sanctuary with information and a gaping leg wound. Looks like we’ll have a new houseguest, at least for the next few episodes.

Or maybe not, since her intel leads the team right into an Ashley ambush. The new an’ improved, incredibly powerful, and full-on evil Ashley is stronger than Tesla and faster than Druitt, forcing them to beat a hasty retreat back to the Sanctuary. The Cabal have turned Ashley into a super-soldier and created five more in her image. The fight is on.

Long-winded explanations aside, there were a lot of great moments in this episode, and the scene between Henry and Biggie has to be the most touching. Henry’s relationship with the Big Guy has been largely unexplored but we learn a lot about them here, and I found it very compelling. The Sanctuary writers have given us so many wonderful, real, and honest relationships. I don’t care what else they do as long as they keep doing that right.

Next time on Sanctuary: will Biggie get better? Can Ashley be saved? Will she kill that creepy scientist lady (because, really, she is so asking for it)?

Stray observations…

- I kind of love Robin Dunn’s British accent.

- They really love this split-screen effect, don’t they?

- “Five by five”? Is that a little Buffy shout-out?

- So why is it that Biggie can’t go home? I hope we get to find out more about his history.

- Wherever “Old City” is, it’s apparently within driving distance of Vancouver.

- One of the Montana test subjects is named “Martin Wood”, who is one of the show’s executive producers and the director of this episode.

- Nice Princess Bride quip from Henry. “Have fun storming the castle.”

You FAIL At Biology: “Perfectly flawless” DNA is kind of a meaningless idea.

Nicknames: Will is “Huggy Bear” and “Dr. Expendable”.

“Your shaggy friend is still refusing treatment, and frankly I’m insulted.”

“Oh right, yeah, because I forgot - this is all about you.”

“I have spent weeks creating a working treatment for the Lazarus virus, I spent weeks more traveling the earth disseminating it to the affected abnormals, effectively stemming an outbreak, and in the end the creep in the room with the hair doesn’t want to take his medicine! It’s personal and we both know it is.”

 Hannah’s Notes

 - It’s always with the bugs or weird food. For some reason, all abnormals can be bribed with food. That doesn’t work with real people.