Blood Ties: Love Hurts

[norwich36]

Of the meh

Visually, this ep was very different that previous eps: lots of bright colors and daylight. I hadn't realized they had already established a "look" for the show until I saw this, and found it rather jarring.

I was not thrilled by the whole "sexually frustrated career women" plotline, even if it was just to draw attention to Vicki's ambiguity over the men in her life. And while I'm glad they gave the whole "they're all having an affair with the gardner" thing not just one but two twists--he's an incubus! but he's a good incubus!--I still find the class and racial politics of that setup a little sketchy.

I still think they're forcing the Vicki/Henry relationship (the sexual part, I mean) way too fast. SLOW buildup for more believable chemistry, please. And they either need to teach the actor who plays Henry to enunciate more clearly or loop his lines, because I have to turn the closed captioning on to understand him half the time.

Of the good

Mike is quickly outpacing Henry in the sex-ay department, as far as I'm concerned. He just seemed very competent in this episode, during the police parts, and other than the territorial battles about Henry (which I'll get to in a minute), I loved all his interactions with Vicki. In fact, in this episode I thought Mike's banter with Vicki was better than her banter with Henry: I loved that bit where Vicki questioned him on whether his concern over Henry was sincere concern for her safety or just a caveman complex, and he asked why can't it be both. Though the hands down best line of the ep actually goes to Coreen: delicious until proven guilty. Hee!

Getting back to Henry: normally the amount of jealousy and hostility between Henry and Mike would drive me crazy if it wasn't the most slashtastic thing I've ever seen, especially when they start shoving each other around. Please tell me someone has already written the scene where it turns out the incubus' effects on males is, um, uncontrollable sexuality so Vicki comes out of a very erotic dream to find Mike and Henry going at it on the floor.

I do love Vicki's complete (external, at least) indifference to their testosterone match as long as they're not actually hurting each other; her line about how she was thinking of maybe getting a dog was great, as was telling Henry that the way to her heart was to take out her trash!

I really liked all of Vicki's scenes with Mike, too: talking about the case, talking about the dinner, talking about the concept of partnership--not to mention the fact that Vicki basically told Henry Mike was a good lover. Mike and Vicki have real chemistry together that I'm not really seeing yet between Henry and Vicki--or I should say, I see the spark between Henry and Vicki, but like I said, I think they're pushing too fast. And I love the fact that Mike is really researching Henry, and connecting him with possible murders.

They're actually making Henry nicely ambiguous--I took that end scene, where he was bonding with the incubus (hee!) as more than just humor, but as suggesting there might have been a time when Henry wasn't such a good guy as a vampire (like, say, 1932?) That's setting up some interesting plot developments along the way, I think.

Comments

[transtempts.livejournal.com]

It amused me that Vicki and Henry had that discussion about biting people. It was just v. cute.

And Mike's concern was touching. His continuing research into Henry's past, and the way that he is gathering facts=good detective. He is good at his job.

Yes, slastastic is a good descriptor for those two. :)

[norwich36.livejournal.com]

Oh, yeah, the discussion about biting was cute. I don't know if it's fair of Vicki to get Henry to use his vampirism for her benefit while putting those kinds of strictures on him, though.

[transtempts.livejournal.com]

I agree. It's in his nature to bite women, and if he's going into that social setting and using his vampirism for her, he should be able to.. ::waves hand:: pick his perks? Dunno.

Although him golfing made me giggle.

Mmm, on the subject of slashiness, I thought the way that Mike and Henry reacted to the threat was interesting, them moving around each other, and yay for yanking Coreen out of the way of something pretty and dangerous. :)

Also, other than lifting Mike off his feet and snarling at him when he was being insulted, Henry has not gone after Mike. The cop is investigating and being watchful, but the vampire is not. Is possible that either Vicki and he had a talk, or Henry is aware of just how badly Vicki would react to actual violence being done.

I'd like it if the incubus was someone that stuck around for Henry to converse with. So long as he's not hurting anyone it couldn't be a bad thing for some shop talk.

[transtempts.livejournal.com]

And by women I meant 'people' lest you think that I am excluding a gender that Henry finds..um..what's a good word that applies?

::thinking::

::is distracted by imagery::

Er...

[(Anonymous)]

Didn't really think the gardner was cute, or really believe that an incubus even if he was friendly wouldn't be drainging the women he was involved with therefore eventually killing them. The husband with the minerature scupltures wasn't a good actor. But as for the rest of it jealousy demon hot vicy & henry interaction and mike 's jealousy awesome!! Read the 1st volume of the books for the first time. Liked tony as a character, but kind of glad they didn't put him in the show. I like how coreen was converted into an assistant in the show.

I first read the following series of huff's books that just focus on tony and really enjoyed them.