This Van Helsing review contains spoilers.

Van Helsing Season 4 Episode 8

Van Helsing returns to the 19th century for a peek into Willem’s dark past, but it’s the pronouncement that he’s working against the Dark One that saves “The Prism” from wandering off too far into the weeds and forces Violet and Jack to make a monumental decision about their father. Should they trust the man who’s lied to them about virtually every detail of their lives?

Trips to the Victorian era continue to play an important role in understanding the current landscape, and now that we know Hansen began life as Willem, his association with Jacob Van Helsing in the pursuit of the Dark One, lends him a new sense of gravitas. Once we learn that he is not only vampire but also in league with the Oracle, Michaela, and the Sisterhood to resurrect the Dark One, his importance grows exponentially. He’s no longer simply The Boss, but a man who starts out as an innocent cog in the Van Helsing family machine and gets caught up in the dangerous game Jacob and Abraham play. Running an errand for Jacob, Willem falls prey to a vampire, but it’s not entirely clear why he chooses to turn Jacob upon returning to his mentor’s home. It would seem he’s somehow psychically compelled to betray Jacob in the name of a force he’s yet to meet.

Experiencing the genesis of the Van Helsing family’s connection to the vampire world still resonates, and Jacob confirms the family’s strength and commitment to the cause when he pleads with Willem to kill him rather than let him live life as a vampire. The importance of this scene, however, lies not in the relationship between these two, but in the fate of the three pages from the family vampire book. Jacob renders them invisible with his blood, but now we learn that Willem tears them out and then lies to the Oracle that they were already gone when he obtained the book. Returning to the present, it’s not clear whether those are the ashes of the burned pages, but it does appear that he’s released Jack, perhaps after she’s memorized the pages’ contents. She does, after all, have Van Helsing blood running through her veins.