Episode Recap: Veritas Vincit

It’s a week of reunions and flashbacks as the various teams begin their hunt for the mysterious Red Door. And we don’t have to wait long to find out exactly what it is, either. Vanessa’s dreams are really detailed and in them a not-dead Susan offers the answer: it’s back at the underground lab, right under their noses the whole time. That super creepy skeletal vampire from a few episodes ago also makes an appearance. We don’t get any more info on him, though.

Vanessa and Julius nearly run headfirst into Doc and Axel. It’s about time folks started running into each other, and this was the logical first reunion. Doc and Axel want Vanessa to fix him, but ever since the last time – which ended with her daughter during into a pile of ash – she’s not so keen on turning vamps these days. She and Doc argue about their many sins before settling on Vanessa heading off to find the door while Julius takes Doc and Axel to find some wheels. Julius listens, Axel not so much.

Doc and Julius, for all their differences, make a valiant effort to keep Axel alive, using Julius’ blood this time. It’s still terrible, though, and not sustaining him. Doc panics for a moment that Axel might be dead, but he’s not, picking himself up and staggering after Vanessa.

Doc literally trips over some very poorly constructed trip wire, which does not detonate even though she’s all tangled up in it. Of course, she panics when she hears the oncoming vamps and yanks her leg out of the wire, detonating the bomb. Julius makes an effort to throw it away from them, but we don’t know how successful he is.

Dimitri also seems to be having dreams of the Red Door variety. Unlike the others, though, he’s got special vampire knowledge, and talks about how Vanessa has apparently awakened an “elder” and has changed the course of her destiny, whatever that means. He dispatches one of his new minions to find a brand new group of terrifying lady vampires with white masks, but we don’t know very much about them yet.

Vanessa finds the underground lab surprisingly quickly and immediately runs into the Forest Ninja who is 1. Not a Ninja, 2. A woman, and 3. Apparently named Scarlett. Oh, and 4. She’s ready for a fight so when Axel jumps her out of nowhere, she stabs the crap out of him before she and Vanessa begin their own round of fisticuffs. They reach a stalemate due to choking and grenades and decide to get on with the business of finding the door.

When they find it, it turns out the password to the door is "Van Helsing" so that's not ominous or anything.  Of course, when they enter they don't seem to find anything but an empty room and more hallways. As they investigate further, Vanessa asks Scarlett about her family who were basically doomsday preppers and trained her as a kid to hunt and kill and fight. She was actually attacked by a vampire long before the Rising ever happened.

Conversation is cut short, though, when they finally make it to the next room and it's made to look like a nursery in a hospital. Probably has something to do with the fetus in a jar. Vanessa thinks it's a human/vampire hybrid and starts to wig out but Scarlett stops her from bailing entirely.

Next stop on the Vanessa and Scarlett House of Horrors is a functioning server room where Vanessa realizes she has, in fact, been here before as a little kid. She's now convinced that she was created in that nursery and she is pissed. Finally, they end up in an office with an observation room where a trip down memory lane let's us know that this is where Vanessa grew up. Her mom (also a Van Helsing) wanted to keep her safe and place the "key to everything" in a mural in the playroom.

The whole time Vanessa is remembering so is Scarlett because DUN DUN DUUUUUNNN … Scarlett and Vanessa are sisters! Scarlett does not take this as well as Vanessa does, but then, Scarlett has a family and a history of her own.

The key, by the way, is far less metaphoric than you might think. It's a literal key; a really big, very real key hidden in the wall behind the mural. Also real? The super creepy phone in the office, which rings and delivers a message from a strange voice.

Of course, now is the perfect time for all hell to break loose. Howling and alarms and broken glass signal some visitors. Axel is nowhere to be found, so Vanessa thinks he's made it out on his own. Meanwhile, Dimitri has reached the lab, and it's time for a vampire on double Van Helsing showdown.