Series / Van Helsing (2016)

aka: Van Helsing

Van Helsing is an American-Canadian television series created by Neil LaBute and starring Kelly Overton. The show is inspired by the Zenescope Entertainment graphic novel series, Helsing, itself loosely based on the character of Abraham Van Helsing from Bram Stoker's Dracula. It first premiered on September 23, 2016 and can be seen on Syfy in the U.S and Netflix in Canada and the United States.

In the wake of a catastrophic volcano eruption, most of the United States becomes blanketed in ash, blocking out the sun and allowing vampires to run free. However, the sudden resurrection of Vanessa Helsing, who has miraculous healing abilities and whose blood can reverse vampirism, offers a hope of resistance. Together with a group of survivors, she tries to make her way through a post-apocalyptic wasteland and find her missing daughter.

Bears no connection to the 2004 film of the same name other than both of them drawing some inspiration from Dracula.

In December 2019, Syfy renewed the show for a fifth and final season, which premiered on April 16, 2021.

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This series contains examples of:

• Abandoned Hospital:
  • The first portion of the first season is set in the hospital Vanessa's comatose "dead" body was taken to just prior to the Rising, which Axel's squad fortified over the following months. The group is eventually forced to abandon it when Dimitri's Elite Mooks come for Vanessa and overrun the defenses and Axel blows it up to kill them all.
  • The episode "Super Unknown" features Renfield House, an abandoned mental hospital now being used as a vampire nest. The Season 3 finale reveals that it's built above the labyrinth where the Dark One was sealed away.
• Abusive Parents:
  • Susan's dad sexually molested her as a kid and then threw her out after she tried to tell her mother about it. She is actually overjoyed when he turns out to have been turned during her absence, as it allows her to kill him without any guilt.
  • Sam's dad beat him with a cane and hit him on the sides of his head so hard that he went deaf in both ears.
• Action Mom: Deconstructed with what we see of Vanessa in the second episode flashback. While she is a loving mother to Dylan, having "kick ass for great justice" be your first instinct is clearly not helping provide a stable environment for raising a child.
• Affirmative-Action Legacy: Season 4 introduces two new members of the Van Helsing family - black Violet and lesbian Jack.
• Afraid of Needles: Julius had his fill of shots when he was young, since he was a sick child.
• After the End: The series starts three years after Yellowstone erupted, blocking out the sun with ash and enabling "The Rising", vampires coming out of hiding and taking over the world.
• Air-Vent Passageway: A mutated Daywalker breaks into the Sunshine Unit bunker this way. Notably, her partner needs to tear off her legs and one arm so she can fit.
• Amazon Brigade: The vampire faction known as the Sisterhood.
• Ambiguously Bi:
  • While staying at the farm, Vanessa and Susan share a bed and The Big Damn Kiss. However, the very next episode has Vanessa hooking up with a male character, and both Vanessa and Susan previously had relationships with men.
  • At the beginning of the second season, Doc has a flirting scene with another woman, Jolene. Unfortunately, she has to leave that community soon after. However, they're reunited at the end of the season, and by midway into Season 3 have a Relationship Upgrade.
• And I Must Scream: As we find out late in Season 5, the Dark One's host, Olivia, is still conscious and trapped within her own body.
• Anyone Can Die: In the first season alone, most of the cast gets killed off.
  • Well, so it seems, anyway. Most of them actually show up again in season 2, though Axel and Sam are vampires now.
• And Show It to You:
  • Ivory and Scab do this when they kill Scarhead and his lieutenant.
  • Julius does this to his opponent in "Graveyard Smash".
• And This Is for...: In Season 4, Episode 11, Ivory says this to Michaela by killing her.
  Ivory: This is for my sisters !
• Arch-Enemy:
  • Sam eventually becomes this to Vanessa, due to their repeated encounters and the very personal reason of Sam killing Susan.
  • Scab becomes this to Julius after Julius becomes human and Scab no long has to serve him.
• Aristocrats Are Evil: Averted with Count Dalibor, who is very generous and protective towards his subjects and ultimately dies fighting the Dark One.
• Artistic License – Physics: There's just so much wrong with the episode about the irradiated bunker, it's hard to know where to even start.
• Artistic License – Military: The nuclear "football" is shown as a computer that could fire off nuclear missiles easily. In reality, the "football" only connects to the Pentagon with a series of codes to work the process.
• Ax-Crazy: Sam is an insane Serial Killer who cuts off fingers as trophies when he kills his victims. He seems fixated on Mohamad, even confessing to being the murderer when Mohamed is accused.
• Back from the Dead:
  • Vanessa herself was technically dead for the three years between the Rising and the start of the series, being revived after being bitten. Happens to her again in the last scene of Season 2 (having been shot several episodes earlier) when she's revived by the First Elder's bite.
  • Flesh is blown up alongside Lucky in the penultimate episode of Season 2, only to be resurrected in the Season 3 premiere thanks to the Healing Factor gained from Scarhead's bite.
  • Lily Van Helsing, Vanessa's turn of the century ancestor, is revived in the Season 3 finale after some of Vanessa's blood is spilled on her corpse during Vanessa's fight with Sam.
• Badass Preacher: The shotgun-toting priest from "Graveyard Smash".
• Bait-and-Switch Lesbians: In "Help Out", Vanessa and Susan share a bed and a prolonged kiss... and then the next episode has Vanessa hooking up with a male character. And then the episode after that sees Susan getting killed off.
• The Baroness: Rebecca, Dmitri's second in command.
• Battle Couple: In Season 3, Axel and Scarlet become one of these, as do Scab and Ivory.
• Beethoven Was an Alien Spy: The Marquis de Sade was either a vampire himself, or at least served them.
• Better to Die than Be Killed:
  • Nicole decides to eat a bullet when she becomes trapped in a room with one of Dmitri's vampire assassins.
  • After being bit, Lucky blows herself up with a grenade rather than be turned or finished off.
  • As shown in a flashback, Jack's sorta-girlfriend Shelley threw herself off a roof after being bit rather than turn.
  • Colonel Nicholson shoots himself in the head after being bit by a Daywalker.
• Big Bad Ensemble: For the first two seasons, Dmitri is the primary antagonist, but even there's still the matter of Rebecca and Julius plotting against him. There's also the matter of the Serial Killer (Sam) running around, who becomes even more dangerous after becoming a vampire. Season 2 adds in Doctor Harrison, the head of the Government Conspiracy to experiment on and weaponize the vampires.
  • Season 3 changes things up, since by that point Dmitri, Rebecca, and Harrison are dead and Julius is rendered human. Dmitri's former lieutenants Scab and Ivory emerge as a new major threat, especially after they take over the Daywalker horde. Meanwhile, while Sam is still running around, he soon becomes a pawn of the Oracle, who is manipulating him and Vanessa in order to bring about the creation of a new Elder.
  • Season 4 technically streamlines things, as the Brides unify all the other vampires under themselves in their quest to free the Dark One. However, each Bride has their own agenda, and they're constantly plotting against each other.
• Big Brother Instinct: Mohamad is looking for his sister Sheema. He's even willing to sell out to the vampires for her sake.
• Big "NO!": Vanessa lets one out after finding Susan's body.
  • She lets another one while cradling her daughter's burnt and rapidly disintegrating body, though it soon turns into an unintelligible scream.
• Bittersweet Ending: The series ends this way, leaning more towards sweet than bitter. On the down side, Vanessa has gone into another coma to trap the Dark One in her body, and Ivory leaves Jack to hunt down other surviving Sisterhood members. On the much brighter side, however, all vampires appear to have been made human again, allowing society to safely rebuild; Olivia has been freed from centuries as the Dark One's host and is being helped to adjust by Jack and Violet; Ivory promises Jack she'll return; and Vanessa's mind is reunited in an apparent afterlife with Dylan and Susan.
• Bluff the Imposter: When posing as Avery, the Oracle keeps insisting to the President on her identity. Even if she hadn't already been shown the real Avery's decayed corpse, the President just smirks as she asks the woman to identify where she was born, what year, her social security number and, oh yes, "what's the name of your husband and daughter?" The imposter just smirks with the game up.
• Book Ends: The series begins and ends with Axel guarding Vanessa's comatose body. He even lampshades it with a short speech about things coming full circle.
• Boxed Crook: In season 3, Doc is blackmailed into working for the government of Denver under threat of Jolene being killed.
• Bring My Brown Pants: In "Wakey, Wakey", a teenage Scarlett pulled a knife on a boy who wouldn't keep his hands to himself, causing him to wet himself.
• Bury Your Gays:
  • Poor Susan gets killed off by Sam in "Last Time".
  • A flashback in Season 4 shows that Jack had a girlfriend before the Rising, but she got bitten and killed herself so that she wouldn't turn.
• But for Me, It Was Tuesday: Ivory barely remembers all the horrible things she did as a vampire. She is genuinely horrified when she finds out that one of her surviving sisters was, in fact, turned by her and not Michaela.
• But Now I Must Go:
  • Early on in Season 5, Doc parts ways with Julius and Axel so that she can finally be reunited with Jolene.
  • In the series finale, Ivory leaves Jack to scour the Earth for other survivor members of the Sisterhood.
• Classy Cane: The Dark One wields one in the Season 4 finale, the head of which is styled like a demonic skull.
• Cliffhanger: Every season except the last ends on one:
  • Season 1: In the middle of the resistance's attack on Dmitri's citadel, Vanessa discovers her daughter has become a vampire.
  • Season 2: The Elder bites a seemingly-dead Vanessa, reviving her with red eyes.
  • Season 3: While the human forces in Denver face off with the Daywalkers, Vanessa and a resurrected Lily Van Helsing have a showdown with the newly-made Elder Sam.
  • Season 4: Axel and Julius are exposed to something which nullifies their Healing Factor and sends them into shock. Dracula kills and impersonates the President, then frees Bathory and leaves for the safe zone, with Violet and Ivory being attacked by soldiers when trying to stop them. Jack is shown to be trapped in a coffin in the Dark Realm.
• Cloudcuckoolander's Minder: Part of Mohamad's role in the group is interpreting for Sam.
• Companion Cube: While stuck alone on an island for most of a month, Scarlet carves a face into a stump and dresses it up to look like a person, just so she has someone to talk to. For bonus points, she calls it "Wilson".
• Co-Dragons:
  • Ivory and Scab serve as Dimitri's chief minions in Season 2.
  • The Brides (the Oracle, Mikaela and Willem) are the most powerful and devoted of the Dark One's servants.
• "Could Have Avoided This!" Plot: In season 3, Scarlett has been stuck on an island for twenty-seven days and her attempts to create a makeshift boat to escape are Epic Fail to say the least. While mulling over her options at the lighthouse, she looks under the bed for something...and discovers she's been literally sleeping on top of a life raft with oars this entire time.
  Scarlett: You gotta be fucking kidding me.
• Cradling Your Kill : In Season 3 finale, Sam does this by killing Mohamad, in order to achieve his transformation as the Elder.
• Crippling Overspecialization: Axel has rigged up numerous defenses for the hospital. The final one is a corridor filled with UV lamps, something no vampire can pass. A human, specifically a former vampire turned human by Vanessa, however can easily walk down the hall and smash the lights, allowing the vampires to safely advance behind him.
• Cruel Mercy: Instead of killing Sam, Vanessa and Mohamed choose to cripple him and leave to die in the wilderness. Backfires BIG TIME, when he comes back as a vampire which also cures his deafness.
• Les Collaborateurs:
  • In exchange for being left alone, Micah and his followers at Eden signed a treaty with Magdalene promising her a regular supply of blood. Unbeknownst to the others, Magdalene was Micah's wife, and he was also slipping her the occasional newborn, who she gave to Julius as a delicacy.
  • Numerous humans also serve the vampires in return for being left alive. They can generally be identified by red bands around their arms. Dr. Sholomenko is one prominent example, working with the vampires to find a way for them to procreate.
  • It's eventually revealed that at least some members of Blak-Tech were working in service of freeing the Dark One all along.
• Daywalking Vampire:
  • Dylan, thanks to Dr. Shlomenko's experiments. Which inversely makes her a sunlight-vulnerable human upon being turned back.
  • Near the end of season 2, one of Harrison's experimented on vampires (nicknamed Scarhead) is revealed to have been rendered this as well. And he spreads it to anyone else he turns ultimately including Ivory and Scab.
  • The Elders, the Brides, and the Dark One seem to be immune to the effects of sunlight.
• Death Seeker: Flesh becomes this in Season 3 after Lucky's death, but is hindered by the fact that by this point he's gained a Healing Factor of his own and can't die.
• Died in Your Arms Tonight: Dylan.
• Dirty Coward: Doc, though to her credit she's at least ashamed by it.
• Double Agent: It's revealed that Hansen has been plotting against Dracula for centuries, with the creation of Jack and Violet as living weapons against her being the culmination of his plans.
• The Dragon: Dimitri has his sister Anastasia, while Julius has his minion Scab. After Anastasia's death and Julius being turned human, Dimitri recruits his forces, with Scab now reporting to him.
• Driven to Suicide:
  • Jack's girlfriend Shelley was bitten by a vampire during the Rising, and killed herself before she could turn.
  • In "Sisterhunt", poor Mira beheads herself after becoming possessed by the Vanator. Already nearly suicidal after remembering her past life, the fear that she could be forced to kill again pushes her over the edge.
  • After being made human again but realizing that Dracula can still control her, Bathory jumps off a building to her death.
• Dwindling Party: Oh boy, is it ever.
  • However, an unlikely-seeming number of those "dead" and missing turn out to have survived into season 2 after all. But the party remains shattered and scattered into the four winds.
  • In "Sisterhunt", the last surviving members of the Sisterhood get picked off one by one by a Vanator.
• Dying Moment of Awesome: In "Graveyard Smash", Julius intentionally overdoses on the healing serum Doc gave him, turning himself into a berserker in order to kill the Solicyte-enhanced vampire threatening him and Violet. Even without being impaled by his opponent, this would have killed him due to the OD, and he passes away shortly after winning.
• Early-Bird Cameo: The Oracle first appears in the Season 2 finale as a random vampire mystic, but returns in Season 3 as a member of the Big Bad Ensemble, ultimately revealed to be The Dragon to the Dark One, a role she keeps for the remainder of the series.
• Elite Mooks:
  • The Reapers, Dimitri's cadre of assassins.
  • In Season 2, he gets even more elite minions when he allies with the vampire warriors known as the Sisterhood.
  • Season 3 has the ninja vampires who serve the B'ah. They actually give Vanessa and Scarlet a run for their money.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones:
  • Julius's mother is the only person he cares about.
  • Dimitri and his sister Anastasia are... very close.
  • The First Elder refers to Dimitri as his favorite servant and is clearly upset when Scarlett makes him kill him.
  • Sam loves Mohammed, in his own twisted way. Which is why he's required to kill him in order to extinguish the light in him and become an Elder.
  • Scab and Ivory fall into a romance of sort over the course of their time working together.
  • The Brides all love the Dark One though Hansen also loves his adopted daughters, and ultimately chooses them over Dracula.
• Even Evil Has Standards:
  • The Sisterhood has enough respect for the dead to not fight in a cemetery.
  • When he was still human, Dimitri loved BDSM, but wouldn't involve his sister, due to her being too young.
• Evil All Along: Sam is revealed to be the Serial Killer.
• Evil Cripple: Sam, a deaf person, is revealed to be the Serial Killer.
• Evil Is Not a Toy: As seen in Season 5, when Mikaela first conjured the Dark One, it was to serve her. One Psychic Strangle later, she was the one who got Demoted to Dragon.
• Evil Uncle: The Third Elder turns out to be a distant, indirect Van Helsing ancestor.
• Explain, Explain... Oh, Crap!: In Season 4, Hansen is ready to clear his troops out of the vampire overrun Denver and orders the deployment of bombs.
  Hansen: Nerve agent. Weapon of last resort.
  Doc: But that won't harm the vampires...oh my God.
• Failure Knight: Axel protects Vanessa for three years and resists the urge to kill when he becomes a vampire because he has an exceptionally strong sense of duty. This is because when he was 13 years old, he was responsible for his sister because of his implied dysfunctional family. He lost her at the park and she was never seen or heard from again. He is determined not to fail Vanessa like he feels he failed his sister.
• Fake Defector: In "Metamorphosis", Vanessa pretends to pledge loyalty to the Dark One so that she can get close enough to tackle her back into the Dark Realm.
• Fallen Hero: As we find out in Season 5, Bathory was once a vampire hunter before being turned herself.
• Fallen States of America: At the very least, the West Coast has been overrun by vampires. Season 4 reveals that other parts of the country, though, are still operating in pre-Rising conditions.
• Fantastic Drug: Solicyte, an artificial compound developed to repel vampires, is also highly narcotic.
• Fighting from the Inside: In the final episodes of the series, the Dark One's host, Olivia, starts fighting for control of her body. During the Final Battle, this creates an opening for the Van Helsings to defeat her.
• Fingore: Sam cuts off one finger from each of his victims as a memento.
• Fish out of Temporal Water: During her Mental Time Travel trip to turn of the century China, Vanessa consistently fails to blend in.
• For Science!: When asked why would create a breed of Daywalking Vampire, Harrison says it was because he could.
• A Form You Are Comfortable With: Abaddon, the First Elder, shapeshifts into Susan so that Vanessa is more comfortable talking to him.
• Freudian Excuse: Axel's protective nature comes from his younger sister going missing under his watch when they were children.
• Game Face: Normally averted, as vampires tend to be permanently in their monstrous appearances, which vary from unnaturally pale to looking like Orlok. But played straight with the Elders and Brides, who are able to use a glamor to make themselves look like normal humans, only dropping it when preparing to fight.
• Gentle Giant: Sam seems like a harmless old goof. He's actually a serial killer.
• Government Conspiracy: It's implied that the government knew about the vampires prior to the Rising, due to how rapidly Axel's squad was sent to retrieve Vanessa. This is confirmed in Season 2, as it's revealed that Vanessa's mother was involved with a secret project to study and experiment on vampires, which is still ongoing even though the government is now gone. Season 3 reveals that this group is also running the Denver safe zone. It's ultimately revealed in Season 4 that Hansen organized this group in order to find a way to kill Dracula.
• Great Big Book of Everything: The Van Helsing family's grimoire, containing generations of accumulated knowledge about vampires.
• Groin Attack: The Sisterhood does let male vampires join, but only if they allow themselves to be castrated.
• Handicapped Badass: Sam is deaf, but manages to outlive most of the group... because he's been secretly killing off the "weaker" members.
• Have We Met Yet?: When Jack goes back in time in Season 5, she encounters both Bathory and Michaela, who have no idea who she is or how she knows them.
• Heel–Face Turn:
  • Julius becomes a remarkably loyal and kind follower once Vanessa bites him in the second season.
  • The same happens with Ivory after Violet bites her in Season 4.
• Healing Factor:
  • Vanessa has a Wolverine-like ability to heal any wounds rapidly.
  • The vampires can recover quickly from all but the most fatal wounds. The ones experimented on by Harrison can regenerate even from those.
  • Flesh and Julius gain similar healing abilities after being bitten by Scarhead.
• He Who Fights Monsters: The more time goes by, the more Vanessa starts acting more like a vampire herself, especially by Season 3 due to the First Elder reviving her with a bite.
• Hitler's Time Travel Exemption Act: In Season 5, Jack goes back in time to kill Olivia van Dracula before she can become the Dark One. While she succeeds, Past!Michaela gloats that doing so changes nothing, a point she proves by resurrecting Olivia and completing the ritual.
• Horned Humanoid: Sam, after becoming the Fourth Elder.
• I Am Spartacus: When Brendan's group is holding everyone else hostage he demands to know who the serial killer is. Mohamed says he is. Seconds later, Sam insists he is. Brendan sees through it and ignores him. Turns out to be an Ignored Confession.
• I Warned You: In Season 5, it's revealed that in his very first month in office, President Park was given a briefing revealing the existence of things like vampires. At the time, he ignored it, thinking more important things to deal with than a low-level thread most never knew existed. Then Yosemite blew...
• The Immune:
  • Vanessa is not only immune to vampire bites, but her blood can actually turn them back human. Scarlett later turns out to be the same.
  • Anyone who Vanessa or Scarlett cures also becomes immune from ever being turned back. The exception to this is the Elders, who aren't affected.
• Implacable Man: Sam when he becomes a vampire.
• Important Haircut: Sam gets one in the episode where he reveals himself as the serial killer.
• Improvised Armour: In "Wakey, Wakey", after initially dismissing a lot of money he finds as useless, Axel uses duct tape to cover his arms and vitals with the wads of cash. It works well enough to stop knives.
• In Name Only: Despite supposedly being "inspired" by Zenescope Entertainment's comic series of the same name, the only thing those two have in common is that they feature a female protagonist with the surname van Helsing. That's literally it. This show otherwise has nothing in common with the comics, which were an Urban Fantasy series about a famed vampire hunter named Liesel van Helsing (the daughter of Abraham van Helsing born in Victorian England and transported to the modern day through dimensional shenanigans) who travels the globe fighting vampires and other monsters using steampunk devices she built. A reader of the Helsing comics watching this probably wouldn't even be able to tell it was inspired by those comics without either already knowing beforehand or having learned it from browsing the Internet.
• Join or Die: In Season 5, the Dark One starts gathering all the vampire broods together for a larger plan, with those who refuse being hunted down and killed.
• Joker Immunity: Sam simply will not die, surviving things that it's stated even a vampire shouldn't be able to. Possibly justified by The Reveal in the Season 3 finale that he's a potential Elder.
• Kill and Replace: In the Season 4 finale, Dracula kills the President and then takes on her form.
• Klingon Promotion: Ivory takes over the Daywalker horde by killing Scarhead.
• Kryptonite Factor: Black-Tek develops a compound called Solicyte which acts as a repellent for vampires, and can be used to temporarily neutralize a Daywalker's Healing Factor. A possibly upgraded form appears in the Season 4 finale, which completely shuts off the healing and induces death.
• Laser Guided Tyke Bomb: Hansen created Violet and Jack as the next stage in Vanessa and Scarlet's hybridization, designed to be capable of killing Dracula.
• Last of His Kind: Ivory is ultimately the sole survivor of the Sisterhood, as all the rest are killed either as vampires or after becoming human again.
• Lobotomy: In "Big Mama", a group of redneck survivors have resorted to catching and eating vampires. They take a chained up vampire and use a power drill on her head until she stops screaming and thrashing. Then they throw her into a oven and she starts screaming and thrashing again, until a horrified Julius gives her a Mercy Kill.
• Looks Like Orlok: Abbadon/the First Elder, and some of the more feral vampires.
• Lotus-Eater Machine: In "The Prism", Bathory and Mikaela trap Violet in an illusion of safely traveling with her boyfriend, both to interrogate her for information on the missing pages from the Van Helsing book and keep her stationary while Ivory and Scab move in to capture her. Hansen interferes, sending images to Violet that both help her realize the illusion isn't real and to tell her where the pages are.
• Love Is a Weakness: After falling under the Oracle's sway in Season 3, Sam starts expressing this belief, seeing love as merely something that causes pain and holds people back.
• Love Redeems: Ultimately, Hansen's love for his daughters causes him to betray the other Brides and Dracula.
• MacGuffin: Season 4 has the missing pages from the Van Helsing book, which are key to releasing the Dark One.
• Malevolent Masked Men: Well, not "men" per se, but the Sisterhood all wear creepy skull face masks.
• Mama Bear: Vanessa is driven by her desire to find her missing daughter Dylan. When she learns that Jack and Violet are technically her children (by means of being test tube babies), she immediately becomes protective of them.
• Man Bites Man: Vanessa adopts this tactic against vampires, as her transformation ability works when she's bitten or when she bites them. It can either turn them human or kill them, but either way they're out of the fight. Also, feeding on human blood gives her an energy boost.
• Martial Pacifist: Vanessa becomes this in Season 4, taking a vow to no longer kill but still being more than willing to fight to defend herself or others.
• Meaningful Name:
  • The Oracle's name is revealed in Season 4 to be Bathory.
  • Jack's almost-girlfriend's name is Shelley, which may be a nod towards Mary Shelley, author for Frankenstein.
• MegaCorp: Blak-Tech, the company behind Harrison's experiments and the Denver safe zone, and which seems to be the only major organization left standing in post-Rising America.
• Mental Time Travel: In "I Awake", Abbadon sends Vanessa's mind back to relive some memories of her ancestor Lily. Though it's unclear if it's illusion of if she's actually been sent back in time.
• Mercy Kill:
  • Mohamed smothers Sheema after she's crushed by debris.
  • In "Big Mama", Axel, Scarlet, Doc, and Julius become guests of a group of survivors and find out they are catching and eating vampires. The survivors take a tied up vampire and give her a Lobotomy with a power drill and then throw her in an oven while still alive. Julius is so horrified that he opens the oven and slits the vampire's throat.
• Mind over Matter: The Oracle and the Dark One have the ability to move people telekinetically.
• Misplaced Retribution: Julius blames Dimitri for his mother's murder, when the actual culprit was Sam.
• The Mole: Mohamed has been working for the vampires all along in exchange for his sister's safety. He seems to regret it, but she is actively helping them.
• Monster Lord: The Ancients, like Dimitri, are leaders among the vampires. Beyond even them are the Elders, who are the actual rulers of the vampire race.
• Monster Progenitor: The Dark One/ Dracula, the original vampire.
• Mook Carryover: Scab starts out as Julius's Mook Lieutenant in Season 1. In Season 2, he's recruited alongside Ivory to serve as Dimitri's Co-Dragons. In Season 3, they become their own masters and serve as part of the Big Bad Ensemble, but in Season 4 are brought into the service of the Brides.
• My Beloved Smother: Julius has this relationship with an older vampire woman who appears to be his actual mother before she's killed by Sam.
• My God, What Have I Done?: After getting turned, Flesh murdered his whole family. When he becomes human again, he is filled with remorse over what he's done.
  • Doc also screams in tortured anguish due to a combination of telling Magdalena that people were coming to kill her, before discovering the pile of bones from all the babies that had been given as sacrifices to the vampire. Though perhaps this is because she's also learned Vanessa curing her means she can't become a vampire again.
• Mysterious Watcher: Season 3 reveals that a mysterious woman in a black shroud has been viewing Vanessa and Sam from a distance for their whole lives. She turns out to be the vampiric Oracle, who states that she's keeping an eye on people with "potential", meaning those who are capable of becoming the Fourth Elder.
• Naked Freak-Out: Vanessa has a minor one when Axel walks on her showering. He tells her not to worry since he's seen everything she's got over the years and joins her in the shower in order to save water. The uncomfortable Vanessa then quickly exits the showers covering herself.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero:
  • Vanessa and Mohamad deciding to leave Sam alive instead of just killing him outright leads to him being turned into a vampire and curing his deafness, making him far stronger than he was before, definitely counts as this.
  • Attempts by the Sunshine Unit to make Solicyte more effective against Daywalkers instead creates — and mass disperses — a bioweapon that's just as deadly to humans, and makes 5% of infected Daywalkers even harder to kill.
• The Night That Never Ends: The ash cloud from Yellowstone has been blocking out the sun for three years as of the start of the show, though it starts to break up by the start of Season 2. The Dark One's ultimate plan is to bring about a more permanent version.
• Non-Indicative Name: The Dark One's three closest servants are known as Brides, but one of them is a man.
• No Ontological Inertia: When the Dark One is sealed, seemingly all vampires become human again.
• Offscreen Moment of Awesome: Axel vs Nina in "Carpe Noctis". They're about to face off, when the scene suddenly cuts to him and Julius driving away, indicating that he won.
• Off with His Head!: The only guaranteed way to kill a Daywalker. In particular, this is how Scab is killed.
• Oh, Crap!: Vanessa and Mohamad's reaction when Sam turns up alive and shouts "I CAN HEAR YOU!" after they previously left him for dead is very much this trope.
• The Oner: In the Season 3 premiere, during the fight with Harrison and his goons.
• Oppressive States of America: Denver — and it's implied other safe zones — are borderline police states in order to keep the remaining human population safe from vampires. In Season 5, Dracula disguises herself as President Archer and declares martial law in the remaining vampire-free areas as part of her overall plans.
• Our Vampires Are Different: A single bite can turn a regular human into a vampire within seconds. There are roughly two main types: ferals, which are more like zombies than vampires; and feeders, which are more intelligent. It's implied that a vampire might become feral if it isn't able to feed soon enough. They do have a Healing Factor but can be killed by conventional weapons. Vanessa also encounters a more bestial vampire in the sewers that apparently feeds on its own kin as well as humans, though it's not clear if this is an actual sub-type.
  • "Super Unknown" introduces a type of vampire with psychic abilities, which feeds on life force instead of blood.
  • "I Alive" presents vampires called "shadow walkers", which can move faster than the human eye can follow and can blend into shadows.
• Outliving One's Offspring: Poor Dylan.
• The Paralyzer: The Oracle and the Dark One are capable of telekinetically freezing people in place.
• Police State: The Denver safe zone is run like this in order to support the fragile safety of the area.
• Praetorian Guard: After replacing the President in Season 5, Dracula surrounds herself with vampire Delta Force commandos.
• Precision F-Strike:
  • From the season 2 premiere, as Vanessa is trying to retrieve her daughter from the heart of Dimitri's citadel:
  Mohamed: You don't know the kind of shit that happens here after dark.
  Vanessa: Fuck the dark!
  • From "Metamorphosis", right before Vanessa reveals her fealty to the Dark One is false:
  Vanessa: No one fucks with my family!
• President Evil: In Season 5, Dracula impersonates the President after killing her and takes over what's left of human-controlled America.
• The Promised Land:
  • Throughout the first two seasons, mention is made of Denver being a safe zone totally protected from the vampires. When the heroes reach it in Season 3, this turns out to be true... except it's also a Police State, and woefully unprepared to face the Daywalker breed.
  • Season 4 starts making mentions of some unnamed location that people claim is completely free of vampires.
• Psychic Strangle: The Oracle is capable of this thanks to her telekinesis. It's how she kills Hansen.
• Psychological Torment Zone:
  • A non-paranormal example (probably) in "Outside World". Vanessa, stuck impaled on a hook and chain, spends the whole episode being visited by visions of loved ones and enemies playing Good Angel, Bad Angel, either reminding her of the good she's done, or mocking her that the horrible things she's also done have left her no better than the vampires.
  • A definite supernatural one appears in "The Doorway", where Vanessa is trapped in a part of the Dark Realm where she's forced to relive the memories of all the loved ones she failed to save. It ultimately turns out to be an Epiphanic Prison that she's only able to leave after learning to accept her own inner darkness.
• Put on a Bus to Hell: Midway through Season 4, Vanessa is trapped in the Dark Realm in the process of stopping Dracula's escape. She doesn't appear again until midway through Season 5 (barring a cameo in the season premiere where she was in shadow the whole time).
• Recap Episode: "The Doorway" reuses footage from several past episodes (interlaid with narration from Vanessa) regarding all the events that Vanessa feels are her greatest failures. Pretty justified in this case, as she's in a Psychological Torment Zone.
• Reduced to Dust: The fate of Sam after he's used as a portal to free the Dark One.
• Relocating the Explosion: In "Veritas Vinci" Doc steps on a booby trap that pulls the pins out of a bundle of grenades. Julius throws them away in time but the shrapnel still catches his leg.
• The Remnant:
  • Portions of the US government and society still exist in safe zones at high enough altitudes to be above the sun-blocking ash clouds. Denver is the most prominently mentioned, finally showing up in Season 3.
  • Season 4 eventually reveals that a large swath of America is in fact vampire-free, with Season 5 confirming that the White House is still occupied and Congress is still functional.
• Renegade Splinter Faction: Season 4 reveals that Harrison's operation in Season 2, which created the Daywalkers because they could, was rogue of the main Blak-Tek organization.
• La Résistance:
  • There's a network of rebels fighting to overthrow the vampires' rule.
  • Late in Season 5, the heroes start putting together a resistance cell in DC in order to combat Dracula who has taken over the White House by posing as the President.
• Rewarded as a Traitor Deserves: After a lifetime of betraying and killing anyone who ever helped him, Sam finally gets his when Bathory tricks him into sacrificing himself to summon Dracula.
• Right Behind Me: In "Deep Trouble", a vampire appears behind Axel, which he only notices when he sees the rest of the group staring at him in shock.
  Axel: Goddamn apocalypse. (cocks shotgun and spins around)
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Vanessa goes on a week-long one of these (mostly off-screen) after her daughter, once turned back "human", burns to death in the first rays of the sun that break through the clouds.
• Safe Zone Hope Spot: Denver is long spoken of as being a safe place free of the vampires. But it's unprepared for Daywalkers, who march right in and start slaughtering everyone.
• Samus Is a Girl: The Dark One, Dracula, is a woman.
• Scifi Writers Have No Sense Of Scale: In this case, no sense of the scale of agriculture it actually takes to feed people^note In reality, about an acre per person, with most of the space going to and calories coming from grain and pulses, neither of which are grown in greenhouses., even if we ignore that plants wouldn't grow well under a constantly overcast sky anyway. This leads to nonsense like a community of a dozen supposedly self-sufficient survivors apparently just having one jury-rigged greenhouse for food - in the middle of a pine forest, no less, meaning crappy acidic soil, too much shade, and not even the possibility of grain fields nearby.
• Sealed Evil in a Can:
  • Long ago, the Van Helsings locked the First Elder, Abbadon, away in a crypt hidden within a mountain.
  • The Dark One, the original vampire, was sealed in tomb in a shadow realm by Abraham Van Helsing, which can only be accessed by someone with Van Helsing blood (or a ritual using their spilled blood).
  • The Third Elder, Jacob Van Helsing, was locked inside a cage in a sealed building hidden on a remote island.
• Sealed Evil in a Duel: When Abraham Van Helsing sealed away the Dark One, he had to imprison himself as well to make it happen. When the Dark One briefly escapes in the Season 4 episode "Metamorphosis", Vanessa tackles her back through the portal, repeating Abraham's sacrifice.
• Sealed Inside a Person-Shaped Can: In the series finale, Vanessa absorbs the Dark One into herself and then goes into another death-like coma, trapping the darkness inside her.
• Secret Legacy:
  • Dimitri reveals to Vanessa in the Season 1 finale that she comes from a lineage of vampire hunters that he's encountered before. This is expanded on as the series progresses.
  • Another layer is added to this in Season 5, when we learn that the first Van Helsing was the child of the woman who became Dracula.
• Senseless Sacrifice: In the Season 3 finale, Scarlett gives her life to try and fuel Vanessa's light so that she can become the Fourth Elder and thus prevent Sam from taking the role. It doesn't work; the Oracle tells Vanessa that she already gave up any hope of becoming the light when she killed Dylan, and thus Sam becomes the Fourth Elder anyway.
• Set Right What Once Went Wrong: In Season 5, Vanessa sends Jack back in time to prevent Dracula from becoming the Dark One. She ultimately fails.
• Shower Scene:
  • In "Help Me", Vanessa takes a shower to wash off the blood. It turns into a Shower of Awkward when Axel joins her, saying they have to take double showers to conserve water.
  • In "Big Mama", Axel and Scarlet get one after the local redneck survivors take the group in.
• Slap-Slap-Kiss: After Mohamad embarks on an ill-advised attempt to find his sister, and comes back alive, Sam treats him to a platonic version of this trope, angrily shaking him before embracing him in relief.
• The Slow Path: Jack puts herself in a death-like sleep when trapped in the 18th century and has herself secured in a tomb, so that when Violet tracks her down in the present via the clues she left behind, Vi can revive her with a bite.
• Stable Time Loop: Jack's attempts to alter the past. While she changes some details, the overall picture stays the same, with her presence inspiring a new name for Olivia's baby, who becomes the first Van Helsing.
• The Starscream:
  • Julius and Rebecca are both plotting to supplant Dimitri.
  • In Season 4, Bathory tries to cut the other Brides out of the ritual to summon Dracula. This backfires spectacularly, as Vanessa manages to overpower Dracula and force her back through the portal, while Vi manages to steal the amulet needed to create another Elder, sending the Brides' plans back to square one.
• Storming the Castle:
  • In the first season finale, the Resistance assaults the factory that serves as Dimitri's fortress.
  • In the series finale, Vanessa, Jack and Ivory storm the White House in order to confront Dracula.
• Super Window Jump: In "Save Yourself", Sam throws himself out a window to escape when he realizes he's losing his fight with Vanessa.
• Sympathy for the Devil: Despite utterly hating him, Vanessa still sheds a tear when Sam dies upon being manipulated into freeing the Dark One.
• Take That!: Old vampire movies. Mohamad called garlic and crosses "Hollywood bullshit".
• Thou Shall Not Kill: Vanessa takes a vow of this in Season 4, after nearly succumbing to He Who Fights Monsters in Season 3.
• Throwing the Fight: As shown in his Start of Darkness flashback, Julius was a boxer who reluctantly took a dive for some gangsters who bet on his opponent, all to raise money for his ailing mother. Unfortunately, when he demanded his payment, the gangsters stabbed him in the stomach and left him to die instead. The vampire Dimitri, who found the endurance he displayed in the match impressive, then showed up and saved him by turning him into a vampire.
• Tomato in the Mirror: Vanessa and Scarlet Harker break into a laboratory and discover they were both apparently created there, and they are sisters. Scarlet has a freak out because she remembers having a normal childhood, but then memories of growing up in the lab with Vanessa start overwriting them.
• Toplessness from the Back: Vanessa during her Shower Scene in "Help Me."
• Trash the Set: Dimitri's citadel is partially demolished by the Resistance's attack on it.
• Undead Child: Dylan is a vampire by the time Vanessa finds her.
• Unholy Matrimony:
  • Ivory and Scab settle into a bizarre, but somewhat loving, relationship in Season 3.
  • The Dark One and the Brides. The latter are all utterly devoted to the former, whose affection in turn is genuine, if fleeting.
• Unwitting Pawn: Sam is manipulated by the Oracle into becoming the Fourth Elder under the belief that he'll become the new Dark One. Instead, he's used as a portal to free her, which kills him.
• Vampire Monarch: Dimitri is the chief vampire in Seattle, and possibly over a larger region.
• Voice of the Legion: In her true form, the Oracle speaks in a raspy, echoing voice.
• We Used to Be Friends: Axel blames Vanessa for Scarlet's death in the Season 3 finale, and swears to kill her if they meet again. When this happens, though, just managing to non-fatally take out his frustrations on her vents the grief enough that he's able to forgive her.
• Wham Episode:
  • "Last Time": Sam murders Susan, and is revealed to be the one who killed the other dead teammates. Vanessa and Mohamad leave him to die, but he gets bitten by a feral instead, and ends up with vampiric powers and the ability to hear again.
  • "Love Bites": Despite being warned that her daughter Dylan cannot be made human again, Vanessa tries it anyway and apparently succeeds. The next day, despite being physically human, Dylan burns to ashes when the sunlight falls on her. In anguish, Vanessa screams, and everyone she had ever turned human again, no matter where they are in the world, suddenly doubles over clutching their hearts in pain. Then an ancient and decrepit vampire awakens from slumber.
  • "Veritas Vincit": Vanessa runs into Scarlett and they discover they're sisters who were "grown" in a lab.
  • "Birth Ritual": Scarlet kills herself to snap Vanessa out of her downward spiral, causing Axel to swear revenge on her. Sam kills Mohammad to prove himself worthy of being the Fourth Elder, and is transformed into a Horned Humanoid. Vanessa's ancestor Lily is resurrected.
  • "Metamorphosis": Violet and Jack are revealed to be Vanessa's biological daughters, grown from ova stolen from her as a child by Blak-Tech. Bathory kills Sam to free Dracula from her imprisonment, only for Vanessa to sacrifice herself to re-imprison her.
  • "Together Forever": Scab is finally killed by Julius, while Ivory is made human by Violet. One of the viewers of Darius' gladiator games is revealed to be the still-alive President.
  • "The Beholder": Julius and Axel are exposed to something which shuts off their Healing Factor and seems to start killing them. Dracula is revealed to have escaped the Dark Realm by impersonating Jack, who was left behind, locked in a coffin. Dracula then kills and impersonates the President, freeing Bathory and leaving for the safe zone; Violet and Ivory are attacked by soldiers while trying to stop them.
• Wham Shot: In the first season finale, when Vanessa sees her daughter as a vampire.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: The group of survivors that Vanessa meets in San Francisco, whom Axel escorts to the Denver safe zone. The last we see of them, they're fleeing from the Daywalkers as the safe zone is overrun, with it never being made clear if they escape or die.
• Whole Episode Flashback:
  • After the pilot establishes the plot, the following episode "Seen You" is set three years earlier, showing the day of the Rising, and explaining how Axel came to be standing guard over Vanessa's body and the vampiric Doc.
  • "No 'I' In Team" is similarly set at the start of the Rising, showing Jack's experiences on that day.
• Why Won't You Die?: This exchange from "Save Yourself", after Vanessa gets a Heroic Second Wind:
  Sam: (annoyed) Why can't you just die?
  Vanessa: I was just thinking the same about you.
• Wife-Basher Basher: In the first episode, Vanessa violently assaults Susan's abusive boyfriend. Somewhat unusually, this isn't portrayed as a particularly good thing, as it shows her violent side and anger issues. She even later admits it was more about hurting him than helping her.
• Worst Aid: in typical Hollywood childbirth style. When the young woman in Eden gives birth, Sarah cuts the cord immediately. Cutting the cord before it stops pulsing (i.e. the blood flow has stopped) can deprive the baby of up to a third of its full blood capacity, making them more vulnerable to anaemia and other nastiness. This is possibly justified in-universe by either Sarah not being educated on Best Practice, the threat of infection to the mother (she did deliver in a greenhouse, after all), or simply the fact that there are nefarious plans for Eden infants.
• Worthless Yellow Rocks: In "Wakey, Wakey", Axel and Scarlett come across a bank's armored car full of money. Axel comments, "Remember when this shit used to mean something?" He later uses duct tape to turn the money into makeshift armor, as the wads of cash prove thick enough to block blades.
• Would Hurt a Child: As you might expect, the vampires have zero compunctions about killing children as well as adults.
• Yank the Dog's Chain: A particularly brutal one in "Love Bites". Just when it seems that Vanessa's daughter Dylan has been successfully turned back to normal, she burns to death in the sun.