This episode was everything I could have asked for: darkly funny, scary, and twisty-turny, with an ending that made me stop breathing for a second. Based on the title, I originally planned to begin this review by joking about the episode showing the good, the bad, and the ugly of Blood Ties...except that I couldn't find any bad. "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly" was awesome!

All the characters were understandably on edge and the wonderful acting gave the episode a tension that had me on the edge of my seat. Their attempts to be civil made the breakdowns even more poignant, accentuated by the flashbacks of Mike and Vicki acting as partners in every sense of the word. (For the record, the first flashback scene might possibly be the sexiest thing I've ever seen on television.)

What a contrast between the happy Mike and Vicki we see four years previously and the Mike who tells Vicki to "stay on your side of the police tape." Ouch! And Mike and Vicki's fight in the morgue showed just how bad things have gotten. Even Dr. Mohadevan is looking stressed, which is a bad sign, I would think. I had a feeling she'd be less than impressed at being put in the middle of their fight, and boy, was I right.

I'm very glad the show hasn't used flashbacks before, because it gave them power here, especially when the final flashback morphed into a vision of Mike warning Vicki about her actions. And in the previous flashback, Vicki gripping Mike's pinky outside the interrogation room was so perfect--restrained but just a little giddy. And it contrasted beautifully to her waking near the end to Kelly/Sidney stroking her neck, which made me shudder.

I also enjoyed the details leading from the end of "Wrapped," from Mike being so very angry with Vicki to Henry's unwillingness to believe Vicki's actions will have no consequences. The writing and acting did an excellent job of showing us that Vicki is not forgiven and Mike and Henry have definitely not forgotten.

Because of the fallout from last week's black magic, the writers even managed to pull off something I usually can't stand: the scene where the heroine walks into danger all alone, without telling anyone what she's doing. Normally I'd have been yelling "You idiot!" at the screen the entire time, but here it made sense. Mike and Henry are angry and distrustful and Vicki truly believes at this point that they're not going to back her up, so her ego (oh, that word) sends her into danger alone.

But Vicki has underestimated the men who love her. They're mad as hell, but that doesn't mean they won't try to help. I loved Mike's phone call to Henry, and how, in the end, he has to trust in the spooky stuff in order to save Vicki. Especially poignant was Mike and Henry's agreement on what they have in common ("She drives us insane." "Consistently.") combined with Mike's understandable anger about having been vamped.

We learned a lot about how Henry and Mike feel about Vicki in the episode, in fact, as well as a few things about how she feels about them. I thought Vicki's comment to her vision of Mike was especially telling: "You were always there to pull me back." Vicki's subconscious is smarter than her conscious mind, it seems!

This episode's mystery was just twisty enough to be thoroughly enjoyable. I didn't predict most of the turns (although it was clear that Charles was telling the truth about not being the killer) and the idea of the mother experimenting on her sons, along with the slow revelation of the brothers' nature, made for a scary ride.

And the ending...wow. Even though it wasn't a surprise that the three minds had integrated into Charles, the reveal and Vicki's growing understanding somehow made it surprising anyway, and Charles' little smile was the creepiest thing ever.

Oh, and the take-home message this week was obvious, I think: Working together is better than working separately. Hey, it's as true for serial killers as it is for cops, PIs, and vampires.

(P.S. What do you think of Vicki as the emotional ego, Henry as the urges of the id, and Mike as the social morals of the superego? Hmm. I'll keep working on my theory.)