You can’t help but enjoy a good continuation, and Van Helsing is the descendant of Brahm Stokers Dracula story. We get to see the somewhat inevitable result of a world where vampires and vampire hunters are real and at odds. In this strange new world, the vamps don’t play nice or hide in the shadows. Instead, they chose world domination. Vanessa is the savvy yet somewhat broken Vanessa Van Helsing. She is the child of the famous Abraham Van Helsing. As the sole inheritor of a vast and burdensome legacy, she’s subject to all the expectations and demands that come with her famed heritage whether she’s ready and willing or not. This is one show that has been through more changes than most in the three seasons it’s already been on the air. Now that we’re into the fourth season, and hopefully looking forward to many more, it’s time to get a good look at the evolution of the show thus far. There’s a lot of ground to cover, but like Vanessa herself, we’ll find our way through the world and seasons of Van Helsing.
WARNING: SO MANY SPOILERS AHEAD!!!
The Story Begins: Season One
There’s nothing like waking up from an extended coma and discovering a ravaged world full of monsters to mess with your head. It’s a plot device that’s been used before quite successfully with zombies. Both The Walking Dead and Resident Evil play off this trope. At least in a world full of zombies you can run or climb away from trouble as often as not. For Vanessa, waking up in the middle of her own vampire attack is not so fortunate. She doesn’t get a second to think or get her bearings before she has to kill or be killed.
The first season is all about Vanessa realizing who and what she is, to some extent. She uses her powers to help the people around her and try to fight vampires. In the process she gets severely injured and doesn’t seem to heal, forcing her companions to desperate measures to help her. They discover a very human serial killer this season. In the process of dealing with that problem, he becomes a vampire instead and begins hunting Vanessa as an immortal serial killer with even more power than before.
Adapting to the apocalypse all over again isn’t easy for Vanessa Van Helsing. Yet with her unique vampire curing blood and incredible skills, she becomes the reluctant mascot/leader of a group of survivors. Over and over they seem to find a place where they have some form of safety only to have it yanked out from under them by radiation, crazy cult leaders and other troubles.
Making Connections: Season Two
Though the apocalypse problems never go away, especially after her late-season capture by the vampires in the first season. Vanessa is starting to learn more about her past. In season two, we see a whole lot of flashbacks revealing the backstories of various characters, Vanessa included. She manages to accidentally, or subconsciously find her lost sister Scarlett who’s been training her whole life to fight the vampires.
Vanessa loses her Dylan once and for all time. Though she does eventually find the turned Dylan and even tries to turn him back into a human, she fails. He ends up burnt to ash, which sends her into a rage. She goes on a killing spree of her own, murdering every vampire she can lay hands on. More changes point to serious problems. Up until this point, there have been two kinds of vampires. The organized and intelligent vamps are more dangerous because they’re capable of logic. Alternately the feral vampires seem only to care about eating. Toward the end of this season, the ferals start showing some alarming signs of intelligent thought. This causes a whole new set of problems for the survivors.
After first being captured by BlackTec, Vanessa eventually discovers her mother hiding among them. Though she believed her mother died giving birth to her, it turns out a third VanHelsing woman is still around. She won’t last though. At the end of the season, she’s forced to sacrifice herself to open the final door to the Elder vampire. That creature emerges and ends up biting Vanessa. As the season comes to an end, she awakes with blood-red eyes.
Make it Work or Die Trying: Season Three
Vanessa and Scarlette manage to stay together through a series of hallucinations and a host of other problems. The sisters kill more vampires, but eventually, Vanessa is forced to admit she’s been craving blood. She asks Scarlette to kill her if she ever turns. The hunt for a cure is on. Time seems to be running out.
Fortunately, Vanessa has the usual main character, plot-immunity, and they manage to kill B’ah and use his blood to cure her eventually. Left with the family book, it’s time for the sisters to embark on a journey to find the past. Perhaps their ancestors knew something that can help them save the world. In addition to this, the daywalkers have become a part of the story and can now bite and infect people without making them into sun-resistant vamps of a sort.
Perhaps far stranger is the story of Lily, an ancestor of Vanessa’s. By the end of season three, her preserved corpse is discovered. However, due to a fight, Vanessa gets blood on her body, which revives the dead vampire hunter. She joins the battle but is in shock over the apocalypse she wakes up to discover. With Season Four just beginning, we can’t predict what will happen yet except that the Van Helsing women will battle anything that gets in their way.
Final Thoughts: What Does it All Mean
Things have certainly changed a lot since we first met loner Vanessa lying unconscious in a hospital. She has a past, a family of sorts and plenty of skills. Her kill count keeps growing, both from friends and foes. What remains to be seen is whether the Van Helsing women will save the world from a vampire apocalypse. There’s still the issue of the Dark One who Sam and the Oracle are attempting to awaken. While we don’t doubt they’ll succeed, we also have faith in the Van Helsings. Doubtless, they’ll destroy whatever the vamps throw at them. The big question is, how much more will they lose before they do?
Whatever comes next, a Van Helsings work is never done. Apparently, even death doesn’t excuse these ladies from the roster of supernatural creature killing baddies. We feel a little bad for Lily, but like her descendant and hunting partner Vanessa, she’ll find a way to survive and thrive in the fallen world. The sense of certainty and unity of purpose more than anything is the most significant change since the series began.
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