Carmilla – Act I: Episodes 11-14

By starrymag | September 19, 2016

By: Kathryn Trammell

 

At the end of Episode 10, Carmilla (Natasha Negovanlis) and Laura (Elise Bauman) are interrupted in the middle of a conversation about Laura’s possible decision to save herself by going back home with her father when the voice of the Dean/Perry (Annie Briggs) fills the air inside the Library. Once Laura and Carmilla recognize that the voice is coming from the computer, they also recognize that hearing it was made possible thanks to JP (Aaron Chartrand), who ensures them that only they can hear the Dean – not vice versa.

 

Episode 11

 

Laura rushes upstairs to get LaFontaine (Kaitlyn Alexander) and all three listen as JP explains how he was able to find a way to hack into the Dean’s firewall, thus projecting himself onto Laura’s computer screen and serving as means of eavesdropping in on the Dean’s current conversation. While his conscious is very much alive, his body (which he says has been tortured and enchained) may not be fairing as well.

 

It soon becomes obvious after listening to both the Dean and JP that the Dean isn’t just planning on keeping and broadening her rule over Silas. She is planning on ending the world and with every Gate she opens, the closer she gets to that goal.

 

Given this new information that the world might be ending soon, it’s no surprise that once her bags are packed Laura reconsiders her decision to leave the library. The truth is that the Dean shouldn’t be able to dictate her or anyone else’s happiness. She deserves to “graduate and get a crappy job and to go to Comic Con with the girl I love,” and when she says this, she says it to Carmilla with the same brazen determination she had in Season One. She can’t go home. Not now. Not when so much is at stake. So, she tells her father that she’s made up her mind to stay and he concedes.

 

Lauronica Mars is back and so too is Carmilla’s smile!

 

Episode 12

 

In true Season One fashion, Laura’s first action as the new World-Wise Hollis Who Cares is to make public the videos she’s been recording and editing ever since they arrived in the library in the hopes that her friends and followers can help her save the world.

 

After she ends the feed, her father (Enrico Colantoni) enters the room to go over some ground rules since his daughter is bound and determined to be a heroine, specifically that she can no longer withhold secrets from him and that she must include him on all safety assessments before going on dangerous missions. The mention of biohazard suits is a bit too much for Laura to handle and she storms out of the room leaving Mr. Hollis and Carmilla alone together.

 

At first, Carmilla tries to quickly escape what she can sense is certain to become and uncomfortable and awkward situation, but for all her vampire speed she isn’t fast enough to dodge his belief that Carmilla’s “sex, drugs and rock’n’roll attitude” undermine his concern for his daughter. Thankfully, their conversation soon falls onto common ground when both begin to elaborate on the outlandish ways they would like to keep Laura safe that include (but are not limited to) a castle surrounded by a moat and a dragon to guard it. It becomes apparent to him that both he and she only want what’s best for Laura, which is her safety.

 

In a scene that is made sweet and light by exceptional chemistry, Papa Hollis lets down his guard and begins to do that thing that parents and guardians do best – completely humiliate their kids by relaying to their partners the photos and stories that highlight just how cute and precocious their children used to be. Laura walks into the room just as Mr. Hollis leans in to show Carmilla a picture of her in a ladybug costume and Laura appropriately feigns an aneurysm. She all but kicks her father out of the room pretending that he is needed upstairs and settles in to pick a bone (or a fight) with Carmilla.

 

That bone, it turns out, is Laura’s perception that Carmilla wanted her to leave the library. Carmilla pushes back and tells Laura that she was only wanting to keep her safe. They begin to sling insults at each other using names and titles such as “smug” and “hypocritical” and “condescending” and “Nihilist” to neither of their detriment. With every insult hurled at each, the other gets closer and closer until the two crash into the kind of kiss that makes your stomach ache and your head spin because the only thing worse than anticipating its beginning is knowing that it will eventually have to end.

 

When it does end – when the phone rings and Laura answers it to hear the voice of her once missing roommate from Season One on the other end – Carmilla can’t help but touch her lips and smile the smile of someone who’s punch drunk with endorphins and with the memory of what that kiss tasted and felt like. Beside her the plot continues to thicken with every word Laura and Betty (Grace Glowicki) say to each other over the phone, but in this moment your eyes can’t help but be drawn to Negovanlis’ performance, which is the most honest and real portrayal of the kind of high that love can induce I’ve ever seen.

 

When the fog of endorphins does finally lift and Carmilla begins to listen in on what Betty has to say, we find out that Betty has broken the code that Mattie left finger painted all over the evidence board. We also learn that the second talisman is “the light-eating butcher knife Drusilla dropped in the Anglerfish pit.”

 

Episode 13

 

The only problem with the Blade of Hastur being located somewhere deep inside the Anglerfish pit is that this is also where the Dean and her Corvae minions are currently trying to unearth the Gates to Hell. To say that getting the Blade will be difficult is an understatement. But while Laura and LaF rack their brains to try and devise ways to get into the pit undetected, Carmilla instead prefers the plan to go in berserker-style eviscerating anyone who gets in her way.

 

After reviewing some potential means of exercising whatever demon the Dean might be from Perry, LaF excuses themselves to go upstairs when the sounds of Mr. Hollis’ newest project reveals that LaF’s “applied genius” might be needed. They leave Carmilla and Laura alone to apply some genius of their own to figuring out a plan on how best to retrieve the Blade.

 

Laura says she knows Carmilla would rather get the sword on her own, but only because working as a team might mean that Carmilla has to discuss the intricacies of overcoming her mother. Unfortunately, this might in turn mean she’d also have to confront whatever feelings she harbors for her mother especially if her mother is killed.

 

Carmilla tries to brush off Laura’s insight, but Laura continues saying that Carmilla has never been one to admit how she feels about anything – not about her anger, her willingness to forgive Laura or how scared she is that she might never be free from her mom. Not about what the kiss that happened moments ago meant to either one of them. For all the nails that Laura might have just hit on the head, it is the last that she seemed to miss because Carmilla is convinced she knows why Laura kissed her and says, “You think nobody’s ever kissed me to make themselves feel better?” It’s a gut-wrenching way to perceive a kiss that clearly meant more to Laura than just a boost to her self-esteem, but she stays silent nonetheless letting Carmilla believe what she wants to believe.

 

Later that day Laura tries to avoid all further thought of Carmilla and their confusing relationship by introducing her audience to her new source of Anglerfish Pit Intel by showing us a live feed of Mel (Nicole Stamp) who has been documenting her own experiences form inside the pit via podcast. While the two discuss their intent to rescue Mel and the other Corvae captives from the pit, LaF walks downstairs with the news that they’ve figured out what kind of evil the Dean actually is and I think for those of us who’ve seen Buffy a few too many times we knew exactly what was coming before LaF even says it: the Dean is a god.

 

Episode 14

 

LaF explains that she was able to figure this out because The Book of Lives kept referring to a story in which all of the other gods became afraid of one particular goddess, Inanna, whose obsession with the Descent to Hell caused them to bind her by using four talismans in order to protect themselves. With the situation more dire than ever, they talk to Mel and determine that the best time to retrieve the Blade is when the excavation shift ends for the day and the Dean’s goons retire to get beer and to harass the female prisoners. She also tells them the location of the Blade, which the Dean instantly had her prisoners wall up the moment they came across it so that no one could get near it. While she’s speaking, we see Carmilla walk into the back of the library and take a spear from the wall and leave.

 

It isn’t until Mel brings Carmilla’s dramatic exit to their attention that LaF and Laura realize what Carmilla intends to do and “exactly one broody gay rescue later” LaF and Laura return to the library with both the Blade of Hastur and Carmilla in their arms. The library celebrates their success by giving Laura a cupcake, but its not something that can really be enjoyed where your father lumbers down the stairs and uses your full name to ask if you’ve actually decided to pick a fight with a god.