Blood Drive pours the sauce on the spaghetti western with A Fistful of Blood.
ThisBlood Drivereview contains spoilers.
They make this perfectly clear from the opening sequence.
Arthur Bailey certainly stands for good.
If this were a traditional western, hed wear a white hat.
He would never whip a horse.
He would make an honest woman of an already-too-truthful school marm.
But shes been bad a long time now.
Shes very good at it.
This doesnt make The Scholar (Darren Kent) ugly.
Hes just up against some heavy competition.
A Ken doll called Barbie and the driver of the reddest, hottest Camaro this side of anywhere.
Too bad the racing trio are on the wrong side of nowhere.
The opening shot of the sheriff captures the collective unconscious of thousands of westerns.
The only thing missing are spurs, which would make it difficult to hit the brakes.
It doesnt look like it would be past the sheriff to use spurs to slow a car down.
This guy is tough.
He takes no guff and would punch Nelson fromThe Simpsonsfor hawhawing the words usage.
Arthur is a pretty boy city cop who punches in and out like a suburban commuter to the sheriff.
He mistakes the Scholar for a woman, in spite of his week-long stubble.
Sure at first it appears hes only interested in her chassis.
The woman in the greasy coveralls uncovers a new fusion for the easily smitten Blood Drive racer.
He is on the rebound from a bad breakup.
They get a million miles to a charge.
Which means it will only take one to last a lifetime.
It is a hot commodity.
Grace burns through this whole episode.
The lethal drinking game contains a wonderfully subtle sight gag.
There are two showdowns in this episode.
Hes much more deliberate in his dealings with the more delicate sex.
He tells Grace she cant fuck the pain away, but she insists theres no harm trying.
Arthur Bailey doesnt go for it a second time.
Perfect machine Aki (Marama Corlett) is finding emotions and it is giving her feelings.
Discovering that she misses her newest recruit on a cellular level, Aki begins snooping around Heart Enterprises headquarters.
She spies with her big blue eyes all the things that make up a normal workday at Heart.
The perspective changes with the channel, asBlood Drivefollows Christopher (Thomas Dominique) outside.
This is his first trip outside Heart headquarters since Aki made his mind into mush.
Hes still holding it together, and we wonder why?
It gets a little creepy as the door Christopher steps out of disappears from sight by the brick exterior.
He emerges in a very changed world.
Los Angeles has been deserted.
It is unprotected and forgotten by the authorities.
Gangs control the city under mob rule.
At least the street cop-turned-security officer pays the deed back.
Christopher screws the bot out of Aki.
Her eyes lose that robotic green sheen.
you’re able to only imagine what happens to the rest of her wiring.
The two are now a pair on the run, vaguely reminiscent ofLogans Run.
Its not pun to say no one sees it coming.
It is a shocker, a popup and a punch line all in one.
The westerns won on A Fistful of Blood.
The episode captures the genre without losing its identity.
A Fistful of Blood was written by John Hlavin, and directed by Lin Oeding.
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Rating:
4.5 out of 5
