A showdown with a mummy brings out everyone's bad side.
"Wrapped"
was a meaty episode that left me on the edge of my seat. The life-force-sucking
mummy was taken straight from the book Blood
Lines, as was Henry's recurring dream of the sun, but "Wrapped"
fit nicely into the television universe and really brought several major issues
to a head.
The episode
started with its usual humor and some of the hilarious lines that I love.
(Vicki's "Could have been someone you ate" was a runner-up, but this
week, Mike wins hands-down for his heartfelt question, "For once, why
can't we just have a god of, oh I don't know, fluffy bunnies and long walks
holding hands?")
But things got
serious pretty fast, with Kate pointing out to Mike that she can't cover his
ass if he won't cover hers, Vicki looking desperate, and Henry ready to fling
himself in front of danger with no plan. If there was anyone acting entirely
rationally in this episode...well, I'd say Kate was pretty much the only
possibility.
Mike has been
getting more and more uncomfortable with living in this world of vampires and
demons, and this week he went over the edge. It wasn't bad enough that he's
been hiding information from his partner, now he's outright lying to her and
destroying evidence.
I gasped when I
saw him destroy the woman's skeleton, because I knew the repercussions (in
Mike's own mind) would be huge. Remember back in "DOA" when Henry
commented that Mike was going to be one of those cops who dies with his boots
on? Well that cop, who was so pissed at Dirty Deeds for crossing the line, just
destroyed evidence in a murder investigation.
Yeah, Mike's not
too happy right now, with either himself or Vicki.
And then there's
Henry. The poor guy was running scared, which is something we haven't seen
often. But the mummy really got to Henry, threatening him with the sun and
using his own fears to attack him. And despite one moment of clarity, when he
used Vicki's suggestion to figure out where the mummy was hiding out, Henry
seemed unable to handle any solution other than brute force.
Brute force
probably wasn't a good answer, but calling on dark magic doesn't seem like it
was much better, especially when Henry literally would rather have died than
abet it. When Coreen and Vicki started the ritual, I found myself waving at the
screen and yelling at them to stop.
But Vicki, who
Henry believes has been sliding further and further into the dark, was no
longer thinking rationally. And that's pretty unusual for her, so that tells
you the depth of her feelings for Henry.
I thought the
most telling line of the episode was when Vicki explained that she blamed
herself and the demon marks for drawing evil to the city and the people she
loves. That explains a lot about her behavior recently, doesn't it? (Mind you,
it doesn't make a deal with the devil and drinking vampire blood any more
rational...)
As the episode
ends, we know that Vicki has been cut off from the support of both Mike and
Henry, and I'm not too sure about Coreen, who looked pretty shell-shocked herself.
The question is, what is Vicki going to do now? I'm literally on the edge of my
seat waiting to find out.
I'll bet you think I forgot about the take-home message. Well, this week
there are at least two: Mike would point out that you should look before you
leap, and Henry would add that the ends never, ever justify the means.