Amanda Tapping and Robin Dunne are joined by Peter DeLuise and Emilie Ullerup for Webisode 3 of Sanctuary.
The third webisode of Sanctuary opens with Helen Magnus (Amanda Tapping) stitching a wound in her daughter Ashley's (Emilie Ullerup) shoulder, sustained while they were trying to capture the mysterious boy in the subway tunnels at the end of Webisode 2.
To be frank, Tapping is a little courtly to be entirely credible, even for someone over a century old, while Ashley is a little too feisty. It’s likely that this is as a result of the compressed 15-minute per episode format forcing them to effectively overact.
Will Zimmerman (Robin Dunne) picks up a test-tube full of a glowing green liquid full of secretions from the boy’s tentacle, which he hastily drops when Helen tells him that it contains “significant amounts of weapons-grade uranium.”
Giant Tentacle
After the credits, the viewer cuts to a table on which the boy is strapped, a multi-jointed tentacle at least eight long cracking like a whip from what looks like an open wound in his stomach. Zimmerman enters the lab, shielded by Helen’s mutant butler. Zimmerman allows the boy to sit up and his shackles to be undone.
Down in Helen’s hi-tech lab beneath her apartment building, she tracks a computer search across the world; it settles on a place and the word ‘Chernobyl’ flashes up, together with the words ‘98% match.’
Helen picks up an old flyer, for a performance of Twelfth Night, at Drury Lane Theatre; the name Queen Victoria is embossed on it, indicating its provenance. Helen flashes back to attending the performance, and to John thanking her for helping with his condition, and asking her to marry him. This is clearly a very different Druitt from the current one, setting up an intriguing sub-plot.
Feeds on Fear
Back in the examination room, Zimmerman has worked out that the boy’s symbiote feeds on fear – literally eats the victim’s brain. The boy – Alexi – has tried to stop the creature, but the more those around him fear him, the more the creature feeds. It is a defense mechanism.
Meanwhile Ashley Magnus has arranged to buy fresh weaponry from dealer and fellow monster hunter Ernie Watts (Peter Deluise) – but just as Ernie proposes that he will discount the price in future if she will agree to work together with him in tracking the monsters, they are attacked. Ernie is gravely injured, and the tall man – who introduces himself as an old family friend – abducts Ashley.
The tall man tells Ashley that she is his daughter.
