"Long live the King! Long live the Queen!"
Hello everyone!
It's a sad reality we live in at the moment, but work unfortunately must come first.
However, having said that, I HAVE now finished, and wanted to share my thoughts about the six pretty much feature length movies that they released!
Spearheaded under the Passionflix studio, which I never really knew existed until this show was announced, the project has been crafted rather lovingly, all things considered.
I mean, you see people around the world complain about adaptations on the daily.
There isn't that much to complain about this one.
Because when you draw the line, it's pretty much page-to-screen with The Black Dagger Brotherhood.
I'd very strongly recommend reading Dark Lover if you plan on watching this show, or this season at least, because that's the book season one is based off of, telling the story of Wrath, the vampire King, and Beth, the half-breed he takes as his Queen ... after trial and tribulation.
See, Wrath doesn't feel like ruling. He's a fighter in the Black Dagger Brotherhood, a group of vampires that are basically a sub-species within their own race because they're so strong, such good fighters, and basically as many superlatives you can add in here, but each one of them is somehow cursed to offset those superlatives. For Wrath, it's a kingship he doesn't want, and the fact he's almost fully blind at this point, and getting closer every single day.
That's when Darius, his brother-in-arms, asks him to help his daughter Beth go through her transition.
As Wrath is the only pureblooded vampire left on the planet, her chances of survival grow by leaps and bounds if he's the one to offer her his blood (oh yeah, these vamps feed from the opposite sex of their own species, not humans, by the by).
Wrath peaces out so fast he leaves skidmarks, but I have to give credit where credit is due here, the actor playing Darius manages to snag the screen in just the short amount of time he's on it. I think we get him for a grand total of maybe 10 minutes, but I could feel his pain as a father, so kudos to him.
Anyway, a car bomb takes him out about two seconds after Wrath leaves, and the Brotherhood retaliates by going on a hunting spree, while Wrath is like: well shit, now I HAVE to keep my promise.
So he goes to meet Beth, who's a journalist that's feeling stuck in her life, has almost been raped that same night, and honestly? She's not feeling too hot by the time the almost-seven-foot leather-clad beast pops up at her backyard door.
This is when it's lucky Passionflix is the one adapting this story, although maybe Netflix could have gotten it done too, because we swerve from paranormal to soft p*rn within a heartbeat, though the depiction of their first meeting is very accurate. Books back in the day didn't bother with slow burn, least not in the BDB series LOL.
Beth is convinced Wrath is one of Butch's buddies, so colour her surprised when Butch - homicide detective extraordinaire with a mean streak who gets suspended for handling her would-be rapist roughly since he lurves her - tells her he didn't send anyone to her for protection or ... well, anything LOL.
That means Beth pulls away from Wrath, and while he's trying to convince her to get with the plan, Butch arrests him, then finds himself hanging by his neck when the vampire has enough of his BS.
Beth promises to go with him when he reveals he knew her father - she'd been in the system all her life, never knowing her parents, so this is a massive draw, but never did she imagine that her daddy-o came with a plethora of secrets of his own. Namely, the vampire one.
But considering Wrath physically shows her things that shouldn't be possible, Beth has no choice but to accept reality, hard as it might be, while Butch puts out an APB on her and Wrath both, convinced the guy has to be some kind of new drug dealer who's moving into town. Considering prostitutes are being found murdered left, right and center, that's not a bad assumption to make.
Only, they're connected to the Lessening Society, the anti-thesis to the vampires who hunt them and want them gone, smell of baby powder and generally look like walking chalk faces, but that's a story for another day.
Wrath organizes a dinner date with Beth, where it becomes clear he's got the social skills of a car accident, and Beth's two seconds from walking away when he finally relents and explains that hell, this should have all gone so much differently ...
She also finally learns about her father, and starts meeting some of the other Brotherhood members (listen, Rhage sewing himself up after getting sliced will never not be funny to me), not to mention the butler, Fritz, can tell her just about anything she wants to know, since he'd been the one to follow her around so Darius always knew where she was and what she was up to, even if he couldn't come to her personally.
While her emotions are doing loop-the-loops, Wrath and his brothers continue hunting, and it's during one of those fights we get to see Rhage's personal flavour of curse when Wrath gets shot, and the brother turns into an ugly ass Godzilla rendition.
The CGI for this is ... bad, I can't lie, even Hallmark sometimes does stuff like that better, however, it conveys what it has to, which is to say that Rhage is screwed any which way you look at it, although him groaning out 'Didn't like seeing you shot' says SO much with just five simple words.
The Brothers will lay their lives on the line for Wrath, no questions asked and no prisoners taken.
Beth helps nurse Rhage back to health, literally singing him to sleep after making sure he takes something for his stomach (this is an even longer story, but suffice to say coming back from being the ugly Godzilla is ... hell). She thinks all's well, but Wrath now needs to feed, and he can't feed from her - yet - so he sends her away while he calls for his current wife.
Oh yeah, see, his parents - before they were brutally murdered right in front of him - tied him up to a vampire named Marissa, but he's never wanted her and she's been pining forever, though once this last feeding goes through, she realizes it's Beth he wants, and basically divorces him in vampire fashion. Her brother's been rip-shit pissed about how Wrath's treated her for centuries now, and as he's a doctor, he's trying to figure out how vampires could live without feeding.
He thinks he has a cure ... sadly he does not. This will have consequences later.
Anyway, Butch finds Beth, thinking she OD-ed, and brings her to Wrath, who manages to kickstart her transition while the rest of the Brotherhood entertain their ... visitor. It's only AFTER Beth survives that Butch is told vampires are real, and that only because he's freaking out after Marissa suddenly disappears right from under his nose.
Yep, our cop takes one look at the gorgeous blonde who comes to give Wrath a piece of her mind, and he's a goner, not to mention she is, too. But her brother still thinks she's hanging around Wrath, and since he won't let her tell him what's happening, he takes matters into his own hands.
Just as Beth is accepted by the Brotherhood in the BEST representation of the daggers-in-the-floor-show-of-loyalty scene they could have come up with, Havers approaches Zsadist, the most volatile of the members after Wrath and Beth are formally mated, to order a hit on Wrath.
Listen, the mating ceremony is cute and all, and getting to meet Wellsie, a fan-favourite, Tohr's wife and all-around gorgeous person (although the direction to have her obnoxiously palming her pregnant belly was over-the-top, I'll give them that; oh and before I forget, Tohr spent a full night babysitting Beth one time watching a Godzilla marathon, solidifying their friendship) is fantastic, but the scene where Tohr overhears the good doctor make his request and books it outta there is priceless.
The look on his face is just ... LMAO.
Plus, at this point, he and Wrath are having a thing, because Wrath insulted Tohr's marriage, and Tohr didn't want to accept Wrath's offer of physical apology (since Wrath's the king, you kinda can't hit him without repercussions, obviously), but he's still going STRAIGHT for Wrath, which tells you how loyal these guys are.
And in case you're wondering, no, Zsadist doesn't accept the offer: he tells Havers that he'll kill for free, but only if it's the doctor himself, sending him screaming into the night.
Right into the hands of the Lessers, who he sells the King out to.
He pisses me off, he really does.
Because the direct result of that entire cluster is that Beth gets kidnapped, and because it's during the day Wrath can't do squat, though Butch hightails it after the SOB, and while the Brotherhood is tasked to burn down the Society's HQ, Wrath heads for Beth as soon as night falls.
He ends up badly wounded, and Marissa - who dragged the story out of Havers, telling him he's an idiot - comes to feed him one last time so he can make it to the OR.
He wakes up, don't worry, but the important scene to me afterwards is when Beth finds the Brotherhood outside the hospital room, in the hallway, sprawled out asleep like a living wall between the two of them and the world, and has a little chat with Zsadist.
The actor they got to play this guy is absolute perfection. The way his shoulders keep curving inward to make himself smaller, how he respectfully barely meets Beth's eyes, how he in general conveys the message of an utterly broken, if deadly male ... he deserves an award. I want to hug him so bad, but knowing Zsadist would literally eat me if I tried kind of kills that impulse. It's there though! So kudos.
Side note: did the guy ACTUALLY sing when Zsadist was singing???
Wrath proclaims he's taking the throne for real this time (I have a bone to pick with Tohr's actor who hears the news first in private, because his reaction doesn't bring the emotions as well as the book scene did even though this is basically word-for-word; I think it has to do with his rather lethargically acted response), Tohr will be leading the Brotherhood from now on, and they're all moving in together, even Butch, so that they can consolidate their resources, circle the wagons, and rebuild.
We never get to see the Society HQ get torched though, which I find a massive missed opportunity to reveal more of Vishous, probably one of my only real complaints for this show that should have any merit.
Because this is where we leave them - they're happy, they get to keep Beth's pet cat, a found family has been revealed, and it's all just the beginning, bby!
Despite the fact that it's obvious the production could have used some more money on things like wigs and some of the props, not to mention the CGI, this first season of the Brotherhood lays the groundwork for all that's to come. I think the casting is spot on - although I'm a little worried how they'll buff up Butch's actor by the time season 4 arrives, if we're so lucky, considering, but we'll cross that bridge when we get there, I suppose.
I can excuse a heck of a lot if the casting is done well, and for the most part this was. The Brothers have been brought to life in front of our eyes, and I'm actually super thankful for that. This series has been one of my favourites for a while (I've fallen off the bandwagon by now, but still), and I appreciate that Passionflix really worked hard to adapt it, rather than try pretending they're smarter than the book author by changing things THEY thing would be better.
For better or worse, J. R. Ward is the brains behind this, and her decisions need to stand.
So here's hoping for season 2 so we get to see Rhage and Mary's story!
xx
*images and video not mine
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