As promised by Julius’ actor Aleks Paunovic, Van Helsing delivers one hell of a backstory for Julius in the third episode of season two. Not only do we see Julius back in the 1930’s before he changed, we also got to see how he’s handling being human again. Flesh and Mohamad struggle with keeping the truth a secret, Sam is back, and Vanessa kills for her daughter. ‘Love Bites’ was written by Jackie May and directed by Michael Nankin.
Boxing Julius| In a flashback to his past, we see how Julius became the vampire we saw. Julius was a poor man who loved his sick mother, but could not pay to keep her in a warm bed. In order to pay her bills he threw his boxing match, but instead of paying him the man stabbed him. Along came Dmitri (Paul Johansson) who decides to turn the man. Julius knows he can save his mother now, so he goes to see her and change her too.
Flesh Gets Betrayed | Mohamad (Trezzo Mahoro) has an infection in his wounds, but he knows he needs to warn Flesh (Vincent Gale) not to tell anyone about his past as a vampire. When he keeps dodging making a blood donation, he confesses to Lucky (Andrea Ware) why. This was a mistake, because Lucky told Jolene to ask for advice, and Jolene reported it. They know the truth about him and they aren’t happy.
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Sam’s New Toy | Sam (Christopher Heyerdahl) is back and badder than ever! He finds several teenagers living in what appears to be a high school and traps them. He finds one, Felix (Bzhaun Rhoden), and notices he’s been “punished” by the other teens. Sam doesn’t like that and decides to keep Felix alive as his new friend. He uses Felix to lure another boy out and kill him. Felix promises to do whatever Sam wants, he just doesn’t want to die.
Redemption | Once again human, Julius wants redemption and to help Vanessa (Kelly Overton). When Dylan (Hannah Cheramy) refuses to drink his blood because it tastes gross due to Vanessa’s bite, Vanessa tells Julius to leave them alone. Now it’s Vanessa’s responsibility to feed her daughter. She captures a man and plans to cut his wrist and let Dylan drink a little then send him on his way. But when he shoots Dylan Vanessa slits his throat and throws him to her daughter. Then she watches in horror as her child kills the man, then she hears children calling for their father and she realizes what she’s done. Julius had been tracking them and Vanessa tells him to help the kids, and he does. When he returns he tells Vanessa Dylan did not eat enough to heal from the gunshot wound. Without more blood Vanessa’s only option is to try to turn her daughter, but the bite might kill Dylan.
The crazy doctor appears to be wrong, because Dylan changes back to human and hugs her mother. As the sun is rising we see what begins as the happiest scene of the entire series with Vanessa, Dylan, and Julius having a snowball fight. Unfortunately the scene did not end there, with the sun rising Dylan begins to burn. Vanessa rushes to her daughter and holds her in her arms as she burns away. Vanessa releases an animalistic screech that does something to all the people she has changed back to human.
What happened to everyone when Vanessa screeched? If you’re curious about Doc (Rukiya Bernard) and Axel (Jonathan Scarfe), they’re still trekking along looking for Vanessa.
Van Helsing airs Thursdays at 9pm on Syfy.