Bill Skarsgård in a scene from Netflix’s “Hemlock Grove” Season 2. Credit: Steve Wilkie for Netflix.
It’s another “Hemlock Grove” recap day!
Pryce (Joel de la Fuente) conducts the upir-ectomy on Roman (Bill Skarsgård) and explains the terms in what Pryce describes as simple: his organs and tissues will be reverted to stem cell status, one by one, and then re-differentiated into healthy human organs, purged of the bonded retroviral fragments that dictate upir-ism.
Yeah, those are very simple terms, Pryce. Just tell us the procedure will get rid of the thingies that make him into a upir and make him human. The procedure requires him to be awake and have needles injected into his body and his eyes. It was just as painful watching it.
Good thing there are only five more procedures to go.
Who is Dr. Galina Aleksandrovna Zheleznova-Burdukovskaya?
That name is a mouthful and it’s funny that both Pryce and Olivia (Famke Janssen) can pronounce the name of the doctor, who is creating the enzyme inhibitor for Pryce, perfectly without stuttering.
Galina (Shauna MacDonald) meets Olivia and tells her that she knows about Olivia and Roman’s upir lineage and about Roman’s upir-ectomy. Olivia offers to give her hush money but Galina simply says that she will scratch Olivia’s back if Olivia scratches hers in return.
After meeting with Galina, Olivia confronts Pryce about what he’s doing to her son. But Pryce knows how Olivia found out. The mad doctor confronts Galina and threatens to reveal her true identity: Alyona Ivanovna Potyomkina-Zosimova. Try saying both her real name and fake name 10 times fast now.
It turns out Galina is actually a war criminal named Alyona Smertelnaya Sterva because we need another complicated and long name in the mix. Pryce threatens her and even shreds Galina’s fake passport so she will never be able to use it again.
Our doctor with the complicated name looks like she has a few tricks up her sleeve though and it should be entertaining to see her future conflicts with Pryce.
Madeleine Martin in a scene from Netflix’s “Hemlock Grove” Season 2. Credit: Brooke Palmer for Netflix.
Shelley finds her voice both literally and figuratively
Shelley (Madeleine Martin) continues to bond with Jason by having him read a book to her. The two eventually fall asleep and Shelley is sad when she wakes up and learns that her Uncle Norman (Dougray Scott) never came for her.
After Jason leaves, Shelley decides to go outside and she sees Norman’s van. She’s about to leave with a smile on her face until she hears Jason getting beaten with a belt by his father. Shelley breaks the door down and screams her first word.
“No!”
The man pulls out a shotgun and tries to shoot Shelley only to accidentally shoot an older woman, likely Jason’s grandmother, instead. She then pushes Jason’s dad out of the way, resulting in him getting his head impaled on a piece of furniture. From behind, another woman stabs Shelley in the back with a meat cleaver. Shelley pushes the woman into a table and accidentally kills her.
After pulling the meat cleaver out of her back, Shelley tells the despondent Jason that she’s sorry before walking out of the house. What’s creepier is when another older woman comes into the house to investigate all of the noise. She is immediately disturbed by the scene and notices Jason just sitting in a corner playing a game on his parents’ phone.
Norman puts Shelley into his van and gives Pryce a call. The mad doctor promises to take care of Shelley in the White Tower while shutting down the surveillance system and moving her into a top security suite to ensure she isn’t found.
While in the hospital, Pryce tells his little Glowworm that Norman is gathering up the rest of the family. With a look of apprehension, Shelley says that she is happy.
The big question is what will Shelley say to her family now that she has a voice? It looks like she may get a chance to tell her mother how she really feels.
Bill Skarsgård (L) and Madeline Brewer (R) in a scene from Netflix’s “Hemlock Grove” Season 2. Credit: Brooke Palmer for Netflix.
What is up with Miranda?
The old woman who normally takes care of Roman’s child has not been very nice to Miranda (Madeline Brewer) and even tells Olivia that Miranda is street trash.
Later, Miranda visits Peter (Landon Liboiron) at his place where a party is being thrown by Andreas (Luke Camilleri) and Destiny (Kaniehtiio Horn). Before going to bed with Peter, Miranda tells him about how her parents kicked her out of the house when she was 16 and how she used to do weird stuff to get by, such as selling her blood.
But if Destiny is correct, Miranda may actually be doing more weird stuff. The psychic gypsy confronts Miranda after she leaves Peter’s room the next morning. She knows Miranda slept with Roman and even believes Miranda’s car accident didn’t really happen. Destiny threatens to inflict pain on Miranda unless she packs her bags and leaves town.
Later, Destiny shares her concerns with Peter and tells him about Miranda sleeping with Roman. Peter goes over to Roman’s house to find her.
After telling Roman she slept with Peter, and not surprising him in the slightest, Miranda takes the still-unnamed-baby to the park where she sees a truck drive by with the words, “Hemlock Gospel Mission, Feeling Hopeless? We can help.” At this moment, Miranda tells Roman’s daughter that when she’s with her, Miranda doesn’t feel hopeless. Foreshadowing alert!
Meanwhile, Olivia keeps a close eye on Miranda the entire time.
Peter bursts into Roman’s house while looking for Miranda and the two of them get into a fistfight before realizing neither of them know what they are fighting for. This is when Miranda walks in, baby in tow.
Roman tells Peter the baby was Letha’s and, of course, leaves out information about being the one who impregnated his own cousin. Peter is happy to see a part of Letha has survived and asks what the baby’s name is because even the baby’s own father failed to give a name. Miranda says the child’s name is Nadia which is a translation for….can you guess it?…Hope.
Peter and Roman reconnect in the most bromantic way when Roman tells his old friend how much he wanted to confide in him about Letha’s child but was unable to since Peter left town. It looks like the two of them are becoming close again.
But wait…it looks like the two get closer than that at the end of the episode.
After endlessly complimenting the two men she has slept with about how broody they are, Miranda utters the ultimate double entendre as she walks upstairs: “Well…are you coming or not?” Roman and Peter follow her as the episode ends.
There’s always been sexual tension between Roman and Peter but maybe this could be the moment where the tension is relieved and amateur fan fiction writers can lay their work to rest.
Bill Skarsgård (L) and Landon Liboiron (R) in a scene from Netflix’s “Hemlock Grove” Season 2. Credit: Brooke Palmer for Netflix.
Other fun stuff
Chasseur is still showing Peter where he stands
While it was teased in the previous episode that Chasseur (Demore Barnes) and Peter may become allies, the new sheriff pays the werewolf a visit to show him how things are really going to go down.
Peter pretends he has no idea how his mother escaped but Chasseur knows the truth and makes the agreement an agreement with Peter. He must come to Chasseur with information regarding his sister and if he is withholding anything, Chasseur will ruin him.
Leticia may learn the truth
After Olivia drives away from her house in a golf cart (why she is driving away in a golf cart, we may never know), Leticia (Lisa Marcos) goes into the house and collects a cup Olivia was drinking from. It should be fun to see what she learns from Olivia’s DNA as long as the private investigator lives long enough to not only learn the truth, but expose it.
White-masked men
We catch another glimpse of a white-masked man as he intimidates another young boy with a German Shepherd. While it is implied the young boy is killed for awhile, it turns out he is actually alive and well.
The same cannot be said for the white-masked man though. He sits in his jeep, lets the German Shepherd go and decides to cut his own legs open resulting in him bleeding to death.
Later on, a few men approach the scene and an older blonde man sits in the passenger’s seat and calls the fallen man weak. He then rips a necklace off of the man and throws a grenade at the jeep causing it to explode.
The most mysterious part of the scene was when the blonde-haired man uttered the Latin phrase, “ego te absolvo,” which translates to “I absolve you” before throwing the grenade. What religious activity are the white-masked men taking part in?
Conway and the old lady have sex
Nice work!
Grade: C+
Check out the recap of the last episodehere.
Follow Jeremy Rodriguez on Twitter:@RodriguezJeremy
