“He will rise!”
The title of this episode is fittingly repeated throughout as we open with Rook, fifteen years previous, telling a vomiting colleague in a vampire lair that he’ll go far in the job if he takes the attitude of, “No care, All responsibility” and then discovering and saving a young girl from a vampire attack; A statement which holds more weight as the episode continues. Now all grown-up Natasha (Kathryn Prescott) seemingly coincidentally runs into the path of Tom after he saves her from a man chasing her. Feeling an instant attraction Tom takes full advantage of his new assistant manager position and hires Natasha at the hotel. A decision he could come to regret and the new arrival is set to divide the trinity.
After drinking human blood in last weeks episode, Hal’s press ups and routines are failing to keep him clean. Natasha offers Hal the option to drink her blood, however he’s unaware of Tom’s growing affection for her. Meanwhile his own relationship with Alex is finally getting somewhere, that is until she realises he’s on the blood again and his interest fed by his desire. Disgusted by his actions and finding out he’s been feeding on Tom’s crush (to which he unhelpfully tries to explain he’s “feeding the monster to keep it from taking a lot…everything”), the relationship hits just as big as stumbling block as the day she died. Alex is most hurt though as she realises Hal didn’t ask for their help “you didn’t ask us for help because you would have got it – you don’t want to be clean!” She tearfully tells him.
Kathryn Prescott as Natasha puts in a brilliant performance as the likable character getting used as bait by Rook to set the friends against one another. Telling Alex she was asked to, “charm the werewolf” and “feed the vampire.” However, she wasn’t expecting to actually like either of them. The moment when she realises her and Rook are no “sort of family” after all makes Rook’s statement of “No care, All responsibility” even more poignant and quite ironic when you realise he could have had a family but instead sacrificed it for the job that no longer wants him.
As usual we get a mix of humour and gore; Hal and Alex both feeling the need to protect Tom (Michael Socha) taking on the parental role. They’re even faced with every parent’s awkwardness at realising they need to have ‘the talk’ as the penny drops that due to his puberty being overrun by, you know – being a Werewolf, Tom hasn’t grasped the fundamentals of sex. Tom as always, is his naive but sweet self – a quality which eventually makes Natasha see the error of her ways – unfortunately too late before the damage is done though. The man of many faces, Phil Davis as the devil, repeats “He will Rise” and so he does at the end, but not before whispering in Natasha’s ear to release Hal from his shackles and kill herself, leaving Tom and Alex to think he’s committed her murder and a devastated Hal believing there’s no point pretending to be human as he’s lost the trust of his friends.
This is no run of the mill episode, it’s easily the best episode of the series so far and with one episode left it leads us into a great segway to the finale. The writing of the episode perfectly makes you empathise with each of the characters, bar Hatch, even though you know you probably shouldn’t. Alex Bracken not only gets some of the best lines, albeit childishly, as she teases Tom about his crush and Hal about his “show tunes.” As Alex gets more suspicious of Captain Hatch as she delves more into the hotel suicides and their connection, her investigations lead to a chilling finale to the episode. Will the friendship, trinity and conscience’s of the group (if they survive or pass over) ever be the same again?
