Yes, the next episode is Heart of Fire, and maybe George RR Martin would be riled to hear it, but I’m betting these two are going to be more boring misogyny and baffling conflict-for-the-sake-of-conflict that comes outta nowhere. But let’s find out!

Vicki’s looking for an accountant who just stole $15 million. Cellucci’s hanging with her, because we start almost every episode at stasis: everything is fine with everyone, and we’ll get angry for no reason later. I appreciate the episodicality, the effort to make it a “drop by whenever!” sort of show, but I don’t know if it works so well here.

She goes through his cell records and finds a girlfriend, so case closed! Which is good, because Vicki needs to get paid. Cellucci offers to buy dinner, then invites her to Dylan’s birthday party on Saturday. Dylan is turning the big oh-seven, and he asked for “Aunt Vicki” to come to the party. Cellucci was over at Molly’s house, and Dylan overheard him talking about “seeing” Vicki again.

But Molly’s always liked Vicki, which is nice, but Vicki passed on the birthday party.

Cut to a group of unhoused people, including Francine, who thinks the shelter can “keep their damn salty soup” and then is quickly murdered by something that growls and sees in black, white, and orange – like a FLIR infrared, but not, like, really. Artistic FLIR.

Francine’s friend Annie shows up to Vicki’s office, since Tyrell and Linda have also disappeared in recent weeks. Vicki remembers Annie from working the beat; Annie says Vicki was the only decent cop she ever met.

Cellucci and partner whose name I cannot remember show up to a different crime scene. There’s no blood, so we can definitely look forward to another unhinged Cellucci rant about Henry. 1 victim, a pretty young woman, fang marks on her throat. Cellucci scans the crowd and sees a guy who doesn’t belong: JULIAN MOTHERFUCKING SANDS.

I mean, that can’t be right, and also how sad, because he was just found dead on Mt. Baldy in California. He’d been missing for a while, but weather and other conditions prevented a big search.

In any case, Cellucci tells the crime scene photog to get pics of the guy, but he’s already bolted. Dave, the partner whose name I should remember because it’s the same as my house skeleton, says it’s fine, they’ve been taking pics for ages, they’ll have him.

Vicki goes with Annie to the encampment and searches Francine’s space. No one new around the camp, no one had a beef with Francine. A lot of her stuff is gone already, which is to be expected, but doesn’t give Vicki any clues. She follows some drag marks to a culvert, and they find Francine’s bag.

At the precinct , Captain Lady is going through Cellucci’s desk and haranguing him about going through cold cases. He thinks it’s a copycat or repeat of a “vampire” killer; she’s a bitch for no reason, as usual. Do you not, like, have your own job to do, Cap? You just spend your days and taxpayer funds micromanaging Cellucci 40 hrs a week?

Henry is working while Vicki wants help with her case. Henry’s mad about it before Vicki says she wants to use his nose like some sort of fanged bloodhound, and then Vicki bounces, so the point of this scene is…absolutely nothing. Excellent!

Vicki takes Annie and the bag to Cellucci, who hates the unhoused and thinks their problems aren’t worth investigating. In other words, a “good cop”. Vicki badgers him, and finally he says he’ll help her if she helps him.

Oh! Henry goes to the culvert where the bag was and starts sniffing. They should have put this right after the other scene, because otherwise it looks dumb and pointless, but I don’t know why I expect these people to know how to write. (Credit where it’s due: this episode is much better than the last couple, but they don’t get a free pass just because they managed to follow the rules of procedurals for 15 minutes.) He hears the growling and does his little black-eyed vamped out routine.

Cellucci shows Vicki his vic. She tells him that Henry doesn’t kill, and Cellucci doesn’t buy it. She also alibis Henry, which he also doesn’t buy. Cellucci says if Henry didn’t do it, he’ll help Cellucci solve it. Sounds fun.

Henry runs into what is obviously a human who says he’s hunting a “windigo”, according to the captions, so I assume a Wendigo, which is the usual spelling.

So Henry brings the guy back to Vicki’s, where he (guy) describes the Wendigo as “pure hunger”, which will crack and gnaw one’s bones. Guy maintains it killed Francine, and he knows because he’s met the Wendigo before. It killed his dad, but never came at him, so he’s been hunting it ever since. Anyone who sees the Wendigo is marked for death; it’s followed him here. Oh, he’s unhoused, too. Huh. Didn’t look it, weird.

Henry says the cops can handle this, and Vicki agrees, especially since her deal with Cellucci. Henry refuses to help, though, so who knows.

OMG, IT IS JULIAN SANDS!!!!!! Holy shit. How did they get an actual name in this fuckin show?!?!

His name is Javier Mendoza, pronounced like a Castillian. He says he’s hunting for Cellucci’s killer, and they both know who it is: Henry Fitzroy.

Coreen is telling Vicki the history of Wendigo myths, that they all stem from people not wanting to believe how fast other people turn to cannibalism in the wilderness, and I’ll tell you what, I don’t like thinking about it either. There was some thread I ran across on Twitter during the Titanic submersible debacle that discussed it, from some sort of expert, and, like, do not go looking for facts if you are easily squicked. People like to eat people, it’s weird.

Javier Mendoza is an officer of the law – CANON LAW. He’s working for the Church, trying to bring Henry down. Delightfully unhinged. Catholics would try to hunt mythical creatures before pedos, wouldn’t they. Makes sense!

Mendoza says he has a way to neutralize vampires so they don’t kill again; he offers them “salvation”. Please. He wants Cellucci to turn Henry over, after claiming that Henry killed a woman around 50 years ago, after “seducing” her. I’ll put real cash money down that she’s related to Mendoza in some way, and that Henry isn’t responsible. I know how narrative works, and I’m pleasantly surprised that this episode seems to as well.

Cellucci, Vicki, and Henry get together to discuss the vampire cases. Henry maintains he didn’t do it. Cellucci asks if there are any other vampires in town he should know about –

– to which Henry replies, “We’re not all in the same book club.”

Y’all, I cackled.

Cellucci has brought every cold cases he thinks Henry’s involved in and starts badgering Henry. Henry recognizes the woman Mendoza brought, and says that yes, he killed her. No further details, and Cellucci knows he can’t bring charges for a 1944 murder, so Henry and Vicki leave, heading back to the encampment.

They go down into the sewer to look for more clues and run into Indigenous Guy from before. There’s growling, and all three of them head further in to hunt the thing. Which they find, and which attacks Henry and Vicki, but lets them go in favor of Guy. Henry ends up injured, and Vicki offers to feed him, but he refuses and says he’ll drop her off. They won’t be catching a Wendigo tonight.

There’s a little montage, and then Cellucci has a “hypothetical” conversation with another detective. If you knew who the killer was, but couldn’t make it stick, and another agency said they could deal with it and put the killer away – would she turn it over, even if the other agency maybe wasn’t as on the up-and-up as the regular cops?

She says she’d hand him over, because the important thing is to get the bad guy off the street. Even if that means no due process.

Coreen is still researching how to kill the Wendigo. She’s got silver bullets and hearts made of ice, and Vicki connects Guy hiding by the fire and Annie being near the fire to the ice heart, so they’re gonna try fire to kill it. Henry doesn’t think it’s their job, and he’s stayed alive by “picking his battles”, but Vicki rightly points out that there is no one else. Guy died, and he was the only one to even know what it was. Cops aren’t gonna touch this. Henry gives in.

Cellucci meets Mendoza at a dumpster, nice place. Mendoza maintains that Henry is just running around seducing and killing women all over the place for the last half-millennium. he says he needs Cellucci’s help, needs him to use some weird object on Henry to sap his power so Mendoza can kill him. Cellucci is hesitant, so Mendoza throws in a little misogyny to get the job done: it’s the only way to save Vicki from Henry’s clutches.

Vicki has a super soaker flamethrower, which is a choice on the prop master’s part. Explains why it was only a hundred bucks, though.

Oh, look at that: Mendoza has his “murder victim” imprisoned, and he’s going to let the sun kill her, because she’s a vampire. He tells her that he’s going to “save” Henry, too. Yup. That’s a canon cop.

Cellucci goes to find Vicki, but runs into Coreen, who presses some silver bullets on him. She describes them as “supernatural penicillin” – even if they don’t kill a creature, silver will almost always hurt one, or weaken it.

Vicki and Henry find the Wendigo, but Vicki’s flamethrower craps out at the last minute. Cellucci saves them with the bullets – yay! But then puts the object on Henry and reveals Mendoza – boo!

Mendoza takes Cellucci’s gun and locks him and Vicki out of the room he’s got Henry in. (Why the sewers have rooms with gates and locks, I have zero idea.) Vicki and Cellucci leave Mendoza to it, and the episode ends.

TWO-PARTER! I would have preferred a more drawn out battle with the Wendigo, then, but I guess we have to leave a full 40 minutes to defeat poor Julian Sands. See ya next week!