Tagged Megalyn E.K.

Damien – Season 1 Finale: “Ave Satani”

A&E’s Damien
Season 1, Episode 10: “Ave Satani”
Directed by Nick Copus
Written by Glen Mazzara

* For a review of the penultimate Season 1 episode, “The Devil You Know” – click here

Disclaimer: I was invited to the Damien Season 1 finale screening in L.A. tonight, which includes a lunch, plus Q&A with Executive Producer Glen Mazzara and star Bradley James. Unfortunately travel/time constraints would not permit me being there. However, the people at FOX were kind enough to send me a personal screener. Something for which I was very grateful.
SO… if you’ve not yet seen this finale, DO NOT KEEP READING! You will be spoiled. Otherwise, if you want to be spoiled, dive on in.
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Here we are – the finale of Damien‘s first season. It’s been a great ride, getting better with each chapter. “Ave Satani” is upon us, and with the end of last episode, Damien Thorn (Bradley James) may finally have slipped into full-on Antichrist mode!
We start as Damien leads Simone (Megalyn E.K.) out from the woods. They run up on some big military-style vehicles, men with red dotted sights freeze them in their tracks. Ah, it’s Lyons (Scott Wilson). Of course. Now he’s revealing more of Armitage’s involvement with his supposed future. “You‘ll rule for a long, long time,” he tells Damien. But the young Antichrist is not happy with any of the explanations and the bullshit.
When Lyons orders Simone shot, then Damien taken in, the power of the Antichrist emerges, as he turns the men and their guns on themselves. While Damien and Simone make off, you can see Lyons is very pleased with how things are going. God damn psychotic. This opener assures us, though – Mazzara and the crew have readied us a properly horrific finale.


Ann (Barbara Hershey) and Amani (Omid Abtahi) take the now dead Veronica back. But Amani makes it clear, mother is to blame. While that’s obvious she clearly doesn’t want to hear that. And downstairs, Amani gets ziptied to a chair. Things are definitely breaking down. Lyons arrives and starts to convince Ann they need to begin action. For her part, she seems ready. Because Ann is one hell of a bad ass lady, no matter if she’s a bit evil and freaky.
Poor Sister Greta (Robin Weigert) finds herself in the hands of Lyons and Armitage. No telling what her fate will be. They’ll keep her around, a while. Then, who knows. The rest of her crew meet a terrible end on their knees in the forest.


Ann (to Lyons): “Blood will spill. Hers, yours, mine.”
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Meanwhile we’re privy to the terrible creepiness of Damien’s Antichrist presence and how it affects others. When Simone and Damien track down a car, the woman inside confesses her love for him – “It‘s all for you, Damien!” – then tries to kill herself before Simone intervenes. This was honestly one of the most unsettling scenes for me in the whole first season. Just how quickly the sentiment overcame her. Chilling.
Ann comes face to face with Sister Greta, after the awful death of her daughter. She promises the nun a similar end.
Cut to Vatican City – the remaining daggers of Megiddo are packed up and carried off. All sorts of blades and weaponry are likewise packed, and a gang of holy men are off on a mission. Yowzahs! Love this brief moment, really had dark energy. Then there’s Bear McCreary’s eerie score, which only serves to consistently make the atmosphere of this series creepier and creepier.
Out in the woods again at the old trailer where he and Powell used to meet, Damien brings Simone to lay low. Plus, he washes off all that nasty earth and blood from his resurrection the night previous. He even sees a little flash of the old woman from Damascus. All the evil of his life is crowding around him. And that adds more weight to the woman in the car who tried committing suicide, immediately pledging her life to him: it’s as if all those old evils he’d previously experienced, unknowingly the coming of his place as the Antichrist, are coming back around again, now that his eyes are wide open.


The debate about who’s worse rages between Sister Greta and Ann. They’re each hard, tough women. Although, I can’t help but believe they’re equally as stubborn. If in their world both God and the Devil/Antichrist exist, then the label of “cruel Lord” that Ann gives the former is perhaps most relevant. God has been responsible for quite a bit of pain and suffering, under the guise of his supposed plan. At least the Devil revels in what he does. Even after Greta pleads her case passionately, there’s no selling that old chestnut to Ms. Rutledge: “Satan is God,” proclaims Ann, “Long may he reign.”
Now Lyons is interrogating Amani about Damien’s whereabouts. This doesn’t end the best after Amani gets violent, but as Lyons puts things for him there’s no loyalty left that can save Damien. He is becoming something else now.
Doing her best, Simone sticks around with Damien, who insists she go. But she stays, readily admitting she is part of what’s happening. Then Damien says that he killed her sister Kelly, and that the same will only happen to her, as well. Likely true. Still doesn’t make her love, though. She is one tough character. At first I wasn’t a fan of Simone, but over the course of this first season she has truly grown on me. Now she’s really getting good in this finale.


Sister Greta is shown the rest of her people, shot in the head, thrown in a mass grave. Nasty. She and Amani are given the real, brutal view. Lyons tells Amani he must put Greta in the grave, or else – in a roundabout way – he says they’ll kill his mother. HOLY FUCK. That is some hardcore madness right there.
What does the nun have to say? “God‘s will be done,” she sweetly, calmly tells Amani. What follows is a dark, emotionally disturbing moment. That includes Lyons putting Amani down there, too. We finally see how deceptive Lyons is, having completely fooled Amani to the end. Watching the two of them start getting dirt rained down on them is so sad, so brief, it stings.
The Antichrist side of Damien is really breaking through. He is gradually accepting his darkness and his vicious power. Further than that the danger to Simone is getting greater almost by the second. And not far outside lurks the woman from Damascus, coming closer to Damien all the time.


There’s a possible rift between Ann and Lyons now, after he effectively executed Amani. She didn’t want him to die. Most of all Lyons wants to get Damien under his control. He saw a fraction of what could be, and can’t wait to use that terrible power inside the Antichrist to bend the world to the will of Armitage.
AND YES, YES, YES! A hand emerges from the mass grave after it’s all covered up. Not all hope is lost.
Poor Detective Shay (David Meunier) is having a worse time of it, too. He thinks he see his boy on the road, then believes he runs him down. Only to discover it’s the powers of the Antichrist out in the world, the evil, sucking him into the downward spiral. On a side note, Meunier is killing it in this role. Very happy with his performance over this season and I keep wondering what will happen next in his story.
Back to the Vatican City assassins. They’re now in the same city as the Antichrist himself. What will come of this? A wild showdown is coming. Especially considering most everybody is heading for Damien, including Shay, Rutledge, Lyons, all of them, and they’re all converging on that old trailer in the woods.
Then Damien reveals he is headed to Megiddo. He figures all the answers are there, the apparent location of Armageddon. But before he can do anything, all forces rain down on the nearby field, just as Dt. Shay creeps up.


An intense little sequence here before Damien and Simone ends up confronted with Ann and Lyons. “I will kill all of you,” the Antichrist rages at them. He then finds out what Lyons did to his best friend, as Ann lays bare the truth. And of course Lyons finds himself being chased down by a pack of Rotties. Nom nom. All the while, Simone pleads him to stop, and Ann gets aroused.
Then a shocker: trying to shoot Damien, the detective puts a bullet right through Simone’s head. Wow. And just as was saying her character got more interesting to me. MAZZARA, WHY DON’T YOU LET ME HAVE NICE THINGS?
Well this is really setting Damien off. You can feel his heart breaking more. Then the woman from Damascus arrives, Damien pleads to be taken. He speaks in a language we’ve never heard of him, to his ‘father’ and then the forces of evil really start to take hold. Blood from the 666 in his head starts seeping out. It drops onto Simone and breathes life into her again. Whoa. Not only can the Antichrist take life, he can give it, too. Shay watches on and sees the power.
And from the darkness come Damien’s legions, the Antichrist’s followers, his fan club. They’re all there. For him. Kneeling, along with Ann. Even Shay. Towards us, the audience, Damien turns with a knowing, devilish smile subtly across his face.
The Antichrist has risen!Screen Shot 2016-05-06 at 4.10.57 PMThis was an exceptional finale. I’m hoping A&E realizes the potential for it to grow, as there are already a dedicated base of fans, particularly online that always seem to be watching, tweeting along with Glen Mazzara and the others live. Personally, I wasn’t sold immediately. The pilot was decent, but I didn’t like the large amount of clips from the original Omen. Then after the second and third episode, I was sold. The whole thing progressed magically, so dark and exciting throughout its first season. And the finale spoke volumes to how wonderfully devious this show can get.

Give Mazzara and Damien another season, A&E! The ratings will get better alongside the quality. Hopefully the finale will pump some decent numbers up. Stick with me and we’ll try to make sure the network knows how much we, the fans, enjoyed this show in its initial season. Here’s to hoping for more Antichrist badness!

Damien – Season 1, Episode 6: “Temptress”

A&E’s Damien
Season 1, Episode 6: “Temptress”
Directed by Nick Copus
Written by Richard Hatem

* For a review of the previous episode, “Seven Curses” – click here
* For a review of the next episode, “Abattoir” – click here
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After the emotionally devastating “Seven Curses”, Damien Thorn (Bradley James) is being transported to the hospital following his suicide attempt. He wakes to Simone (Megalyn E.K.). She genuinely cares and wants to help. Also kicking around is Ann Rutledge (Barbara Hershey) trying to make things go smoother for the Antichrist.
Except for now he’s under observation. Detective Shay (David Meunier) is on his way. So Damien slips out, nice and quiet. He heads off to meet Amani (Omid Abtahi) in some sketchy alley, heading down into a below ground club. Someone wants to meet Damien. Very secretive. They meet with a tattoo artist who says two men came and roughed him up, asking for a tattoo to be done on someone who’s passed out. Turns out it was Damien. He apparently tattooed the 666 on his scalp. Or so he claims. Is this true? I don’t think it is. Could it really be the case?
This is one of the best openers of any episode yet. Dig it, hard. Makes it all quite exciting.
Love the whole aesthetic of this show. Dark, dreary, though vibrant.
Amani is shown the tattoo. He explains the artist came looking for him, after seeing Damien at the VA hospital. Too convenient. Everything around Damien’s becoming more and more slippery, in terms of reality. He sees people in the distance, a hooded figure. Now all this about his supposed birthmark being faked. He has no way to latch onto anything real, so the world only becomes further confused.
Doesn’t help that John Lyons (Scott Wilson) muddies the waters. He’s in league with Ann, yet there he is telling Damien all about her, the danger he’s in because of her presence. John gives over a big file filled with countless bits of information.
Damien discovers, from a doctor at the hospital, he was given a dose of some incredibly powerful psychedelics. Wild shit. But Lyons is quick to keep things silent. The doctor wants to let police know. Lyons would rather handle it himself. “We don‘t bring in outsiders to clean up our messes,” he tells Damien.
As the unknowing Antichrist walks the streets, a hooded figure hovers not far away. He ends up meeting with Ann who says she wants to chat. With all the belief instilled by Lyons about Ann waging “psychological warfare” on him, Damien has got his back up. If only he knew. He’s being played on all sides. It really is a setup for complete mental breakdown, as well as the possible emergence of a vicious evil. For now, he rips Ann a new one, even going so far as to verbally threaten her. Yikes.

 


So Damien goes ahead and tosses out all his food. Until Amani arrives. He captured the meeting with Ann as planned. Then he followed her to a meeting with Lyons. Now Damien’s world, his reality, all those truths are slipping even faster. He manages to sneak his way into Lyons’ office under the pretense of a forgotten phone. He locates a file with his name on it and gets it out undiscovered. Inside is everything from pictures to documents and tons of other things. Including pictures of a woman, which intrigue him.
And then he meets her: his mother, Mrs. Thorn (Bess Armstrong). She’d been in hospital when her husband tried to kill Damien, then under the impression they’d both died.
Although, is this all too convenient? Would Lyons really keep a file on Damien with such important, damning evidence right in his desk? All of a sudden, his mother pops up and claims there was nothing ever wrong with him, that she was sucked into thinking all those Antichrist-like things about him by Mrs. Baylock and the like. This feels like an elaborate scheme. Because nothing good can ever come to the Antichrist, can it?
Of course Ann arrives. Then she and Mrs. Thorn have a pretty tense argument. An accident, on Damien’s part, causes his mother to fly down a staircase, cracking her skull along the way. Too good to be true. Ann says she’ll keep his actions a secret, pissing him off enough to strangle her. He ends up having to wrestle her henchmen. We get to see Damien kick some ass here, too. He’s pretty tough when he wants to be, taking them down and getting the hell out of Dodge.
But what did Ann mean when she asked if Damien’s mother would tell him who she really is? Who is she truly? Another ruse on Lyons’ part?

 


When Damien goes to see Simone, something is not right. Everything feels wrong. He heads back out to the streets, and sees smoething even stranger: Amani meeting with Ann. They sit together at a fancy restaurant outdoors. Or at least that’s what Damien thinks he sees. Detective Shay comes out of nowhere and picks him up, wondering exactly what happened with Damien’s mother, wondering what the hell is going on at all; especially after the events he experienced at home a couple episodes. Pleading to be taken seriously, Damien brings Shay to meet the tattoo artist. Problem being the man is dead, murdered, driven through with a bunch of daggers. The plot thickens.
Things are very complicated for Damien. Everything he says is like a dead end because there are too many questions about his mental health involved. He seems absolutely crazy. Right down to a bit of blood Simone smeared on his shirt, actually from a steak, which does him no favours. At all.
And life only gets stranger. Shay drives Damien in a cop car, they stop in the dark and then Lyons gets in. He doesn’t seem too happy with Damien and what’s been going on. But what is it that’s happening here? Is this reality? Outside, something attacks both Lyons and Shay. A bunch of somethings. They climb inside the car, terrorizing Damien.

 


Then he wakes up in an ambulance right after his suicide attempt. The EMTs look like the two henchmen from earlier. Was it all a dream?
He’s awake again, for real this time. In the hospital, Ann waits by his side, comforting him. The whole dream crushes him. He’d hoped none of the Antichrist business was real. And he really hoped Ann was actually dead. Too bad, so sad. He drives her away for now. The emerging Antichrist in him is causing everything to crumble. How can he ever be sure what’s real and what isn’t? His waking life is filled with nightmares, so is his sleep.
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Solid, creepy episode. Very excited for the next episode to see what’s about to happen, as more revelations, more nightmares, more truths come out of the woodwork. Next up is “Abattoir”, so stay tuned with me!