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70%
Overall Rating
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Ranked #2,624
...out of 20,736 movies
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One cannot quench his all-consuming thirst. The other cannot tame the beast clawing its way out. In the sleepy Pennsylvania village of Hemlock Grove, two young men struggle to accept painful truths: about family, themselves, the mystery of the White Tower - and a terrifying new threat so powerful it will turn them from predators into prey.
--TMDb
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Review by Crispy
Added: September 18, 2017
The second season of Hemlock Grove didn't leave me with a whole lot of hope, but seeing as the show was ending with season three, I decided I owed them to see how they wrapped things up. Once again, discussing this season will contain some heavy spoilers for the first two.
It's been six weeks since Spivak revealed himself to be some sort of dragon creature and flew off with Miranda and Nadia. In that time, Peter and Roman have been paying a private investigator to search for them. Meanwhile, the young upir is having Dr. Price work around the clock mapping out Spivak's genome, a project that is so exhausting Price has developed an addiction to amphetamines. Despite the industrious scientist's efforts, both boys find themselves distracted from the hunt. Peter and his cousin's fiance, Andreas, has begun a new capital venture; stealing stolen goods and then selling it on the black market. Unfortunately, he quickly sees that Andreas is willing to take things a lot further than he should. The fact that he's been dealing, and double crossing, the ruthless Croatian mob ups the ante even further and Peter realizes that this is a time bomb that could destroy his entire family. Roman's situation revolves, as it often does, around a woman. Annie is completely different than the rest however; she's an upir, and the only one Roman has ever known outside of his estranged mother. Speaking of which, Olivia has hired the same private investigator in a dual effort to keep tabs on her son and reclaim her granddaughter. Unfortunately, she's facing something of a time bomb of her own. She's contracted an upir virus; half cancer and half parasite, the tumors move into the host's brain and begins controlling their thoughts and actions.
Whoo, is this a mess. Season two effectively ignored most of the set-up the former left it with. Season three commits the exact same sin, compiling it with the unanswered questions from the first. The Oroboros Project was hyped up as a major plot point to-be in the first season before being mostly ignored in two and unceremoniously destroyed in three. What was the point? Not to mention, about two thirds of the way in they add in a second, unrelated meaning to 'Oroboros', just to muddy the waters. Speaking of, that second meaning had to do with Spivak. You know, the humanoid dragon that came out of nowhere to climax season 2. The same humanoid dragon that featured in maybe two or three episodes here and was given the most anti-climatic resolution possible. Yes, instead of actually telling the story they set the stage for, they piss it all away in favor of a mob war. I understand the funds may not have been there for the CGI demon but they could easily have focused on him while keeping him in human form. God knows J. C. MacKenzie was good enough to carry things. Along with his LPS minions, there was no reason not to make Spivak the central point of the season.
Even the season's few bright spots come with qualifiers and what-ifs. For example, the result of the situation with the Croats was leading to a pretty massive development between Peter and Destiny that just doesn't happen. As I'm sure you've noticed, dropped arcs are a reoccurring trend with this show. Also, Roman's new ruthless attitude was a very nice development and frequent mentions are made to how similar this new demeanor is to Olivia. Naturally, you'd think they'd pair the two up throughout the running time and give Bill Skarsgard some internal conflict to deal with, trying to come to terms with the fact that he's becoming just like the person he hates so much. Hell, Annie was even put into the perfect position to serve as a foil to Olivia, playing the two metaphorical shoulder consciences. It's a pretty obvious route to take things, especially considering it was the story they were trying to tell anyway. Instead, Roman's transformation is stripped of a lot of its impact since it has nothing to reflect off of while Olivia spends half the season slowly going insane and talking to an imaginary friend. I wish I was making that up. By the time everything was said and done, Shelly is the only character who got a satisfactory arc, even if it does involve a slightly creepy overtone. Although, I do have to say I'm not happy they once again they screwed up the size of the character. She's obviously only slighter taller than the other characters, and it's even worse because the other characters still reference her being a behemoth. Sorry Netflix, it doesn't work that way.
Hemlock Grove started out with a lot of potential, but damn did they fall apart on the follow through. I sure am glad that I didn't waste any time in February on this. 3/10.
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