After the wild ride of Episode 3, Episode 4 of Vampire Academy definitely feels like a slowed down pace. That’s not necessarily bad; to some extent, it feels like we’re slowing into a steadier space, but I did notice just a lot more dead space or dead scenes in this episode. We’re going to keep a similar structure to last time — with one exception that we’re going to catch up on a few storylines/characters that I didn’t give much attention to before, but who are getting more screen time every episode, and it's clear they’re going to be important.
We only had one new character this episode, titled "Benchmark," and it was Victor’s (J August Richards) husband, Cornelius (Robert Karp), who is introduced to us right at the beginning as he rushes home when he hears about Victor collapsing. It’s not entirely clear where he’s been for the last few episodes, and up until this point it was never even partly implied that Victor had a partner somewhere. Either way, Cornelius ends up acting as a welcome, if not a little flat, addition to the cast, serving mostly to give more depth to Victor, which is nice to see. Victor is far from the most interesting character, but certainly an important one to the development of the story, so I won’t turn down a little more illumination into his personal life.
In terms of the overall plot of the episode, we really only moved marginally through any of the storylines. The episode’s conflicts largely stem from the consequences of Episode 3, where the council is becoming increasingly worried about the diminishing Dhampir population. As a partial solution, they are intending on lowering the age of duty for Dhampirs, meaning from age 16 onward they can begin to act as Guardians. It also felt somewhat implied, though it wasn’t explicitly stated, that this might also mean the age at which Dhampirs can begin to be chosen for mating would also be lowered to 16. In any case, the motion wins a majority in the council, narrowly winning 6-5 (meaning Lissa’s (Daniela Nieves) now-lost vote could’ve made a large difference). Victor seems to be the only one horrified at the thought of sending 16-year-olds to die (and forcing them to mate), and in desperation, he comes up with a temporary solution until "more research" can be done to make an educated decision: removing guardians from non-royal Moroi to ensure the royals have protection. Though we don’t see the fallout of this immediately, it seems pretty clear that there will be some.
Victor, however, does not make this proposal with no plan; he’s found a loophole that might allow Lissa back onto the council, but it requires that she marry another royal Moroi, that they take her name, and that they have enough Dragomir blood in their family history to count as an extension of her family. Why this rule exists stumps me just as much as it stumps you, but that’s not what we’re here to discuss. What is interesting was Rose’s (Sisi Stringer) horrified reaction to Lissa agreeing to get married — because even though Rose has spent the last three episodes flirting with an older man (much older than any of Lissa’s suitors), she draws the line at marriage.
On the Christian (Andre Dae Kim) front, his parents send him a package in an attempt to get in touch with him, with coordinates to meet them at some ski lift outside the city walls. Ultimately, the scene doesn’t culminate in many developments besides getting confirmation that Strigoi seem capable of not just intelligent thought but compassionate emotions as well. There are also some marginal developments with the Spirit element; supposedly, it allows more than just compulsion but also healing powers and potentially more – though it seems to carry an inherent “darkness” as all power does in this world.
This leads us neatly into one of our character catch-ups – Sonya (Jonetta Kaiser) —who, if you recall, is Victor’s older daughter who never specialized (supposedly), was tortured because of this, and has had the theory that Strigoi have been acting intelligently since Episode 2. Well, she also has the ability to talk to birds, see people’s auras, and heal living things. This seems to be how Victor survived what was likely a heart attack. It is implied quite heavily that healing people comes at some sort of price. She’s also been slowly developing a relationship with a talented Guardian over the last few episodes named Mikhail (Max Parker), who has actually always been present during important scenes, but his impact on the show was minimal. It does, however, seem that Sonya and her relationship with Mikhail are being set up for some big moments in the future.
Another character catchup we need to do is with Jesse Zeklos (Joseph Ollman). At first, I dismissed Jesse as being the classic irrelevant douche that teen shows tend to have, but instead, it seems he may be the classic redemption arc douche? It's hard to tell at this point, but he’s been slowly getting more screentime. A royal Moroi at the academy, Jesse has a reputation for being unpleasant, rude, and sleeping with/feeding on "blood whores" — in particular, one named Silver who also didn’t seem important at first until it was clear her screen time was increasing every episode. This week, we also learned that his father is abusive towards him. It's possible this is meant to make him more likable, and while it certainly makes him more sympathetic, it doesn’t really make up for the rest of his character’s unpleasantness, but then again that’s how I always feel about these douche redemption arcs.
Episode 4, for all its filler feeling moments, creepy vibes between Dimitri (Kieron Moore) and Rose, and attempts to make Jesse sympathetic, is still a continuation of the far more interesting path that Episode 3 set us on. Coming into Vampire Academy I was looking for a classic teen vamp show, with all its trashy relationships and big speeches, and I was disappointed at first by its commitment to politics and world-building. Now that it’s finally taking off, I find myself not enjoying those aspects as much and instead being really interested in the bourgeoning political drama of the show. All that to say, I’m pleasantly surprised by the show’s direction — even if they do seem to be okay with 16-year-olds having romantic relationships with adults, but not marrying one another (weird line to draw, but okay).
Vampire Academy premieres new episodes every Thursday on Peacock.