Tuesday, April 10, 2007

Blood Ties—Love Hurts













A man, Gary, comes to Vicki asking for help finding out if his wife, Marcie, is cheating on him. Elsewhere, we discover the wife is indeed cheating. With something that makes her scream, and not in the good way. Vicki arrives on the murder scene. The cuckolded husband is, of course, Suspect One, especially since he made a crack to Vicki about hiring a hit man. Bad move.

Vicki meets with Henry at a bar and they chat about the case. Henry does some kind of vampire mojo on her martini. I didn't know vamps could do martini mojo. Henry goes off in a snit when conversation turns to Mike. Men. They're all alike. In this case, jealous. Remember that because it's important.

Marcie's friends share a hottie-pants gardener, Emmanuel, who may have talents other than gardening. Vicki's conversation with him includes a lot of double entendre involving flowers. Cheryl's husband has a collection of old artwork, much of which is fairly explicit. Sort of anthropological statue-porn. Remember that because it's important.

Vicki has a very naughty dream, which she thinks might not have been a dream. Is anybody else thinking Incubus here? While Mike likes Gary for the murder, Vicki is more suspicious of Emmanuel, the gardener. She enlists Henry to question Marcie's friends, thinking they'll respond to his vampire charms. But they all ditch him. Corrine lands on the Incubus idea (she heard me typing). They hear screaming and interrupt a hooded figure attacking Isabel, one of Marcie's friends, in bed. It's in robes and sucks the life force out of her. It looks like the Striga from "Something Wicked" (Supernatural). Later they find Henry golfing and mock him. Then they mock him some more about the women ditching him. I like Henry, but I still find the mockage funny.

As it turns out, Emmanuel is indeed an Incubus, accidentally summoned via one of the idols. But the Incubus isn't the killer--it's a Fury that responds to jealousy, summoned by Cheryl's husband with another of the idols. The last-minute twist isn't badly executed, although the overall jealousy theme is hammered home rather non-subtly. I found it interesting that the Fury gravitated to Henry rather than Mike--they seemed to be equally jealous of the other. One might think that Henry would be less jealous because he's had a longer lifespan to learn to deal with it, but maybe instead he's just gotten better at it over the centuries.

Mike finally seems to be starting to accept the paranormal part of Vicki's new life, but he's using it mostly to snark at Henry. At least he's starting to accept the truth of what she's telling him instead of summarily dismissing her, which makes him less annoying. I'm glad they didn't drag that out any longer than they did, and I hope he doesn't revert. I also really enjoyed the bit at the end between Henry and Emmanuel, as they traded seduction tips.

Blood Ties on iTunes:
Blood Ties - Blood Ties, Season 1