General Thoughts and Recap
Well, Blade: The Series keeps up the great work in Episode 4: Descent. Building on the foundations established in the last couple episodes, last night's romp through the Blade universe introduced us to even more potentially important groups and characters.

Apparently with Fritz gone the writers decided to add another potentially main character to the plot, an FBI agent named Ray Collins. Collins is introduced to us as an agent working the murder case that looks to lead him to detective turned vampire Boone. Collins does appear to be setup as a recurring role that may have a much more important impact on the story as he is already near discovering Boone's true nature. If Collins discovers the world of vampires, he may prove to be yet another ally for Blade.

Speaking of allies, Blade's run-in with Cain showed the lengths to which Blade is willing to go to stop the vampire threat. By giving Cain the greenlight to continue "ashing" the vampires, Blade established a tentative alliance with an evil drug dealer in an effort to fight the greater evil.

Cain proved to be more than just a vampire killer, as his intimate knowledge of certain vampires lead Blade to one that had been experimented on by Marcus' doctors. Blade's search for the head doctor responsible also introduced the audience to another vampire house, the House of Armaya. Not much was revealed about the house, except that Shen mentioned how dangerous they were. It will be interesting to see if they play a bigger role in the future, especially since Marcus may have already caused a sort of war between them by kidnapping them for experiments.

While Blade attempted to track down the doctor, Krista was busy trying to obtain a sample of the Aurora vaccine. Her attempts failed and raised further suspicions with Chase. Marcus kept his own feelings on the matter to himself, though he decided her door should remain unlocked from now on. Krista also avoided feeding on some victims Chase setup for her, an act that added further doubt for Chase.

The duel storylines of Blade's search for the doctor and Krista's search for the vaccine (as well as a search for herself), continued the intriguing duality the show emphasizes. My concerns that Blade wasn't the focus of the show have been all but removed as the shared focus between Blade and Krista have, so far, proven effective and entertaining.

The Good
The humor was upped a notch in this episode and I'm glad to see it. Shen's distraction at the casino, Blade's talk with Cain, and the scarred vampire (I believe his name was Sans?), all added some levity to the dark world the show delivers to us. I'd like to see even more humor thrown in, which would likely mean more Shen and more of Blade's sarcastic side.

The Bad
The fighting gets bumped to just "bad" this episode as the fighting scenes were much simpler and didn't show Kirk Jones' weaknesses in martial arts. The fight scenes were still pretty bad, but hopefully they will continue to get better in future episodes.

The Ugly
I try not to search out plot holes in television shows, especially science fiction/fantasy related shows, but this episode had a couple things that just stuck out too much for me to ignore. The first was the old lab that the House of Armaya vampires were experimented on. Why the heck were they still there? They clearly didn't want to be there as one announced how hungry he was, so why didn't they break out? If they had been there that long you'd think they could break out just as easily as Blade broke in.

The other problem I had with the show dealt with the handling of Boone's tooth. First, agent Collins miraculously connects the tooth with the straps that Boone broke out of. Yeah, because it's clear the little hole in the strap had to be caused by that tooth. The other problem with the tooth was how it turned to ash. It appeared that it turned to ash once it was held up to the light? If that's the case, it would have turned to ash a long time ago, as it had been exposed to light already. I may be a bit picky on these two things, but they really stood out to me.

Closing Thoughts
As I already mentioned, this episode was another good one. It was a bit slower paced, which was good, as it closed in on the individuals a bit more rather than the overall good vs. evil backstory. I was suprised that I enjoyed it as much as I did with Marcus having a limited role. I'm most intrigued with him and his plans and it was good to see that the show held up with that part of the story given less emphasis.

I'm also excited that there are even more groups that could potentially weigh in on the war between good and evil. Cain and his ashing have temporarily been established as a benefit to Blade's cause, while the introduction of the House of Armaya remains a mystery. By introducing a government official, agent Collins, the writers have added the possibility of having more human involvement that will potentially be beneficial to the fight against the vampires.

In my closing thoughts last time, I mentioned that I was eager to see if Blade would ally himself with the ashers. I didn't expect to get an answer to that so soon. The plot moves along at a swift pace, which is great, and I'm eager to see what other new suprises they might throw at us.

Notable Scenes

• Blade telling Cain to keep ashing.


• Shen's temper tantrum at the casino.