Episode 11 in the third season of SYFY’s Van Helsing really dives into Axel’s backstory, showing us how his sister went missing as a child. Lucky for Axel, he actually finds his sister and her captor when he returns to his hometown. ‘Been Away’ was written by Jackie May and directed by Jacquie Gould.
Left Behind | The episode kicks off with Axel (Jonathan Scarfe) journeying back to his hometown. There he finds an old feed store he used to work at and got the generator working again. Inside are old photos of him and the owner when he was a kid along with a Missing poster for his sister, Polly. We see a flashback of the day she disappeared. Axel left her at a park for a few minutes, and when he returned she was gone. The bench that was named after her still sits in the park, and Axel cleans it off.
Together Again | Axel hears an alarm go off in the distance and goes to check it out. He sees tons of Day Walkers going towards the noise, then he sees a group of humans using the distraction to raid a nearby house for supplies. Unfortunately a few vamps catch them and end up killing one of the group, but with Axel’s help the rest survive.
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They go to where the group is living and the leader, Carter (Sara Canning) turns her gun on Axel, she’s obviously wary of him. But the old man Lorne (Fred Keating) and Kelly (Chelsey Reist) want him to stay, so he does. He goes off and talks to Lorne alone and reveals who he is and that he used to work for him at the feed store. Lorne remembers Axel and his sister Polly briefly, but then he re-introduces himself and it’s obvious he suffers from Alzheimers or Dementia. Axel just tells the old man that his name is Bob so they don’t have to go through that conversation again.
At dinner with Lorne, Kelly, and Nelson (Lincoln McGowan) Axel tells them more about the Day Walkers, but Lorne doesn’t want to hear about them and gets upset. Nelson has to convince him that it’s their turn to clean up so he would leave the room and calm down. Carter enters and Axel asks Kelly about her, but doesn’t learn much, so he goes to Carter. There, they plan to distract the Day Walkers so they can get more supplies from the store. Axel plans on taking off after that. He goes inside and gets hit on by Kelly, but he politely turns her down because of Scarlett.
The group makes a plan where they get the supplies they need and they take out the whole pack of Day Walkers currently in their area. The plan goes great at first, then they realize there’s still 2 unaccounted for vamps when suddenly Lorne comes running down the street shooting at one with Kelly hot on his heels. But Kelly wasn’t prepared to go running after Lorne and doesn’t have a weapon when she’s jumped on by a vamp. Axel kills it, but not before it bites Kelly and we get to hear Chelsey’s famous scream. Kelly begs Axel to kill her before she turns, and he does.
Lorne yells at everyone to get inside, and that sets something off inside of Carter and she snaps at him inside, but blames it on getting nicked by a bullet. That’s a lie, she was definitely shot, then she says something that Axel’s dad used to say before running off.
Axel finds her outside drinking, and she knows who he is. She knows he’s Axel Miller because she’s Polly Miller, his sister. She explains what happened to that day so many years ago, and then reveals it was Lorne who kidnapped her. She’s with him now because she forgave him and he doesn’t remember what he did anymore.
Axel realizes how badly she’s injured and knows she’s going to die. He holds his sister in his arms as she dies, it’s quite sad. Axel goes after Lorne and punches him a few times and was going to leave him, but Lorne called for Polly to help and Axel unloaded his clip into the old man.
Not There | Sam (Christopher Heyerdahl) returns for Mohamad (Trezzo Mahoro) and is shocked to find that Mo has escaped.
Sam comes across Mike (Phil Burke) and Tabby (Cassidy Nugent) berry picking. Mike sends Tabby back to warn everyone, then turns to Sam and asks about Felix. Sam goes on about how love sucks and is a cancer he needs to get rid of, then he tells Mike that Felix is dead. Mike shoots Sam a couple times, but that only angers the vampire more. Sam pulls Mike’s heart from his chest, and Chad (Donny Lucas) shows up just in time to watch his love die.
Sam walks away and the Oracle (Jesse Stanley) meets him. She tells him he must “extinguish” his love, and that Mohamad is with Vanessa on their way to the crypt.
Catch the next episode of Van Helsing Friday night at 10pm on SYFY!
Christina is a SoCal native who enjoys spending her spare time catching up on all of her favorite television shows, especially those with badass female leads. Favorite shows include: Wynonna Earp, The 100, Quantico, The Shannara Chronicles, Game of Thrones, The Walking Dead, Fear the Walking Dead, and countless others.