Duck Fox

Credit: Syfy

So I missed a lot. Since the 4th episode in the series Bitten has continued to deviate from its source material, a move which is yielding steadily more impressive returns. Much like The Vampire Diaries, Bitten chooses to expand on the parameters of its source material by delving deeper into the characters who already existed within this world. Where as Zachary Cain was a brutish maniac in the books, the writers gave Noah Danby a more involved character to play by creating a human love interest. In a lot of ways, Amber's (played by Eve Harlow) relationship with Cain is a cautionary tale for Logan, and a powerful reflection on just how wrong things could have gone for Elena and Clay. Of course, both Elena and Clay reflect on their discovery of Amber differently.

Clay is immediately determined to kill her, and while Elena understands the necessity of maintaining secrecy, she isn't so eager to kill an innocent woman. And Elena is the one who confronts Amber while Clay stays behind to do the dirty work of torturing Cain for information, hoping to find a cure for the poison Jeremy was exposed to during last episode's knife fight. Oh, and in case you missed it, Antonio also got cut up in the Mutt ambush last episode and died. So.... I really should have reviewed last week....

The rest of the Mutts eventually confront Elena at the diner, shooing Amber away, and Elena gets to have a nice chat with Karl where she finds out he's secretly Heisenberg, cause there was hella ricin on the blade that cut Jeremy. Luckily for wolves, a blood transfusion will allow them to survive the otherwise fatal poison. The moment where Elena hurriedly begun the transfusion, noting to Jeremy she wasn't sure of their compatibility but being rebuffed by Jeremy's simple "We're the same," was almost adorable.

The rest of the episode looks like wheel spinning, but I'm not considerably more confident in this series' ability to tie together loose threads into the main storyline. Logan remains absent for much of the episode, probably out shopping for his impending child with Rachel (yeah, I missed a lot). Perhaps the most impressive bit of adaptation improvement Bitten is doing, however, is actually making Phillip relevant and almost... interesting! He's getting more and more suspicious of Elena, but his suspicions are mostly on the backburner until he can figure out who uploaded the wolf video. To do this, he enlists the help of an old techie ex-girlfriend, Sylvie. Sylvie (Natalie Lisinska) is putting the moves on Phillip at just the right time to start making him question his commitment to Elena. Naturally, the episode continues to run with this theme and wraps everything up with Clay confronting Elena and sorta apologizing for not telling her what he was before biting her, but mostly leaving it up to her to determine if they were "the real thing."

In the end, it feels much more like the prisoner referred to in the episode's title wasn't Zachary Cain, but instead the relationship between Clay and Elena. They've both been locking their feelings for each other away behind Elena's relationship with Phillip and Clay's respect for Elena and fear of losing her in the war with the Mutts. Now that the series has claimed three major characters and created some relevancy for the peripheral humans, the rest of the season is shaping up to be fantastic.

Getting Our Ducks in a Row:

• But seriously, the sheer amount of female characters escalated to relevant positions is nothing to sniff at. I quite like Sylvie. 
• Clay also has a tense conversation with the sheriff. Of course, most of her conversations end up becoming tense. Tis the life of a small town sheriff. 
• I'm beginning to suspect that Diane is in on it with the Mutts. She's been in way too many episodes to justify otherwise.... Okay, I just want more Diane.

Grade: 8.0/10