Hemlock Grove season 3 is now available in its entirety on Netflix. Here’s what we think of the beginning of the end for this show.
Hemlock Grove: The Final Chapter starts off by giving us what we love and hate so much about the show — those weird, taboo, awkward, gross, but somehow entrancing moments that make you cover your eyes and peer out between your fingers. Ah, it’s good to be back.
Peter purposefully gets hit by a truck in order to team up with his fellow gypsy werewolves to steal it right out from under the driver’s nose. We’d feel kind of bad, except for the fact that he had a doll in the front seat that he was using to, well, distract him from his wife’s inadequacies.
Worried about Peter’s current state of affairs, we were relieved to learn early on that he had changed on the full moon. We doubt this means he’s shaken off his vargulf tendencies completely, but it’s nice to see him enjoying at least a slice of normalcy.
And speaking of normalcy, Olivia seems back to her old ways. She has Michael Chasseur chained up in her bathtub (the state of which would have season 1 Olivia cringing), and she’s feeding from a tube attached to his thigh. It’s clean and as humane as possible, but Olivia doesn’t seemed too concerned about his well-being. She takes a final sip and lets the rest of his blood pour out into the drain. Is this the last of Chasseur? We doubt it’ll be that easy, but one never knows in Hemlock Grove.
Peter gets word about his mother in Romania, and it sounds like she’s doing well — surrounded by family, and coping the best she can. She even sent along a little present in the shape of an engagement ring. Andreas wants to ask Destiny to marry him, and both Lynda and Peter approve. Destiny later accepts after a beautiful, slightly awkward, but incredibly romantic proposal.
It’s too bad Destiny can’t stop Andreas from being stupid all the time. He decides to run a con on his own people and another gypsy family that has Peter wishing he didn’t know Andreas at all, let alone just give him a ring with which to marry his cousin. Andreas convinces Peter to join his con, despite Peter wanting nothing to do with it.
One person who is definitely not doing well is Dr. Pryce. He’s at his wit’s end after losing all his hard work in the season 2 finale. He’s popping pills, barely sleeping, and keeps losing focus. The usually effluent and succinct Pryce can barely string a sentence together, let along grow a new body to replace Priscilla.
But perhaps Shelley is worse off than anyone else. She’s had a psychotic break after seeing Priscilla’s lifeless body covered in blood and having her future as a new person taken from her by her own mother. She’s in a fragile state, and Pryce is worried that if anything upsets her, she could become the monster everyone fears she is. We hope this never happens, as the best part about Hemlock Grove is that the worst people hide in beautiful bodies, while those like Shelley tend to have the biggest hearts.
Related: Everything you need to know ahead of Hemlock Grove season 3
But we’re not holding onto too much hope. A judge decides Shelley must return to her mother’s custody instead of Roman’s, which just continues the battle of wits between mother and son, each promising to protect Shelley from the other.
At the moment, however, Olivia seems to be winning. She’s on the warpath, and Pryce is right in her way. She tells Pryce she called the FBI and told them about all of his secret experiments. He rushes to destroy all of the evidence, only to later find out they’re just looking into his finances. It’s a warning shot, Olivia tells Pryce. He needs to play nicely, or she will ruin his life with every breath she takes.
Olivia’s terms are simple, after all. She wants to find Nadia, offering Pryce the chance to keep lizard-man Dr. Spivak for whatever experiments he wants. Pryce agrees, albeit reluctantly. Olivia isn’t about to put all her dragon eggs in one basket, however, and we see her discussing the case with the same private investigator Roman hired to track down Spivak, Nadia, and Miranda.
Pryce, fairing worse and worse as the episode continues, manages to put his consciousness into another body. But after he berates himself for being an idiot incapable of doing anything of significance, Johann hits him(self) rips the plug away. It’ll be interesting to see how this process plays into later episodes.
The last thing Pryce needs is to deal with Roman, but that’s exactly what he gets anyway. He had to destroy Roman’s source of nutrients to feed his upir appetite, so Johann not-so-kindly tells him to go about feeding the old fashioned way. Roman visits a priest to confess his yet-to-be-carried-out sins, but when he leaves the church, Roman turns down an easy meal in the shape of a beggar sleeping on the street.
At home, Roman drinks from what we can assume is the dregs of an old stash when he’s attacked by a hooded, clawed monster. He doesn’t get a chance to fight it off before Camille de Pazzis’ character does it for him. Roman encountered her earlier in the episode, but until now knew nothing other than her preferred drink. Now, though? He knows her name is Annie and that she is also upir.
We’ve already been promised that this season has no happy endings, so we’re bracing ourselves for the worst. Only nine more episodes to go!