Hemlock Grove season 3 airs tonight, and ahead of the final premiere, we’ll catch you up on what happened in season 2.
True to its nature, Hemlock Grove gave us plenty of gore, shocking twists, and weird creatures in season 2. We can only imagine what that means for the final chapter, which will air in its entirety tonight on Netflix beginning at 12:01 a.m., but before we get there, let’s break down what happened to all of our favorite (and least favorite) characters last year.
Roman
Roman Godfrey died and was reborn an upir, much to his mother’s delight. He tried to fight the urges as long as possible, but when he started really going off the rails, he called in Johann Pryce and began getting treatments for what the good doctor called an upirectomy.
Though worried about the person he was becoming, these treatments were also to spite his mother. It worked for a while, until Roman decided to forgo the final stage and claim his upirism once more in order to help his friends and his daughter.
Peter
Peter returned to Hemlock Grove because his mother was arrested on trumped up charges to set an example for other law-breaking gypsies. Peter got a job, crashed at Destiny’s, and tried to mend his ways with Roman — to no avail. In the end, he turned on the wrong moon to make some quick cash to hire a lawyer for his mother.
Unfortunately, Peter’s actions had severe consequences. On the one hand, he and Roman made up and bonded over their mutual love for Miranda and baby Nadia (in more ways than one). On the other hand, Peter slowly began descending into the madness that comes with turning into a vargulf. The only person Destiny knew who could help was the man killed in the raid by the masked men.
Olivia
Thanks to Roman’s upir venom coursing through her own body, Olivia began to turn human. She balked at living for only a few hundred years more, but it was much worse than that. Not only would she only survive for a single human lifespan, she developed brain cancer and probably only had a few more years to live. Karma, anyone?
Olivia momentarily accepted her fate and tried to become a better person, a better girlfriend, and a better mother. Norman wouldn’t hear of it, though. He found out what she was and what she had done to his ex-wife, and Olivia realized it was over between them. After that, there was no going back. She killed Priscilla, the so-called “unicorn,” in order to save herself from the cancer, and in doing so completely ignored the consequences her actions had on Shelley.
Norman
Though he initially stuck by Olivia’s side after her supposed seizure (read: after her own son bit the tongue out of her mouth), he later discovered she murdered Marie. After he found out she was really an upir, he decided to kill her. That is, until he discovered she had cancer. He’d rather see her suffer than kill her swiftly, and so he walks away from her forever.
But they meet face to face one final time. After Norman resuscitated Shelley, he went after Olivia to finish her once and for all. Having just feasted on the unicorn, however, Olivia overpowered Norman and ripped out his heart, sending a text message to Michael Chasseur and promising him that he’s next.
Shelley
Having been on the run for a good portion of the season, it was a relief to finally see her jump in a car with her Uncle Norman. She hid away in the White Tower, knowing she could never show her face in Hemlock Grove again, having been blamed for all of the deaths in season 1 caused by Christina Wendall.
Dr. Pryce had a contingency plan, which he had been working on for the last 20 years. This was the reveal of Project Ouroboros and of Priscilla, which would become Shelley’s new body. Pryce lied to Shelley and told her the body was a blank slate, completely devoid of life, and Shelley agreed to undergo the procedure. After her mother killed Priscilla, however, it was only Norman’s quick thinking that kept Shelley from the same fate. Shelley is still stuck in her own body, but worse yet, she lost the person who shared her consciousness, her twin not in body, but in mind.
Lynda and Destiny
After being broken out of jail by Peter, Destiny, and Andreas, Lynda jumped on a plane to Romania. She wasn’t too happy about it, having few friends and little understanding of the language, but knew it was necessary. She gave Peter a cryptic message about the people of Hemlock Grove needing him, and then left. Whether or not it was for good, we don’t know.
Destiny, meanwhile, reluctantly helped Peter understand his dreams and keep baby Nadia safe. Her boyfriend, Andreas, seemed like a carefree addition to the household, but when he showed up in the finale with a gun, it raised some serious questions as to who he really is.
Miranda and Nadia
Miranda definitely got the short end of the stick in Hemlock Grove season 2. All she wanted to do was start over in a new place, and she landed in Hemlock Grove — and not by accident, either. After spontaneously lactating and eventually becoming a mother to Nadia, she visited with Arnold Spivak, who turned out to not be anything like the genial doctor we thought he was when we first met him.
When Miranda started bleeding from her nipples, Spivak revealed that it was all his doing — the car crash, Nadia’s terrifying telekinetic powers, and even the blood oozing from Miranda’s breasts. Miranda eventually gets away from Dr. Dragon (or whatever the hell that was), but it’s only for the moment. She climbs to the roof of the White Tower and jumps to save Nadia from becoming a monster, only to be saved by Spivak’s true reptilian form. (No, but seriously. What the hell was that?)
Dr. Pryce
Johann is a bit of a wild card at this point. His plans to rid Roman of his upirism have failed. He handed Norman the weapon to kill Olivia, which never came to pass. And Project Ouroboros died with Priscilla. He still has Shelley, but with no body to put her in, will he even continue to care about her? Did he ever really care about her to begin with?
With no allies, no research, and his most brilliant scientist gone, Dr. Pryce will have to be very careful. He may have super strength, but even that might not be enough to take down a now crazed and reckless Olivia Godfrey.