Awesome / Hunter: The Parenting

Hunter: The Parenting

WARNING: UNMARKED SPOILERS AHEAD.

Main Chapters

Chapter 1: Adorable Family Trip

• Markus manages to subdue a vampire with a stake jacket. He does this by angering it and luring it into a hug.
  • Screw it, the whole family gets one in the big fight. Door going full Papa Wolf with a Shotgun, Kitten with a flintlock-on-a-stick: Those vampires chose the wrong cave to hide in.
• The Great and Mighty Kevin takes Big-D hostage, and then successfully dominates others. If not for the following, he could have won.
• Big-D unwittingly turning the tables on Kevin by being high on DMT, allowing Kitten to toss his stake in the latter's eye once his guard is down.
• The family blocking out Kevin's Dominate by wearing sunglasses, plugging their ears, and screaming at the top of their lungs until they can get into staking range.
  • Points to Big-D for finding a way to negate Dominate.
  • Another layer of awesome? Fans of If the Emperor had a Text-to-Speech Device might notice that the family's screams sound very familiar. Somewhere, Sly Marbo is smiling.

Chapter 2: If the Vampires had a Tortured Wrestling Match

• Markus, initially, seems tempted by Pyotr’s offer to be turned into an immortal vampire. But, at the end of their conversation, he drops this gem:
  Markus: Well, It is tempting. You know what's more tempting, though? Having everything we do from here on out be morally justified.
  Pyotr: YES! Exactly! Liberate yourself-
  Markus: Because...
  Pyotr: YES!
  Markus: We'll be doing it against a bunch of vampire fascists!
• For as horrifying as it was, Pyotr letting Apeboy and Shitbeard wear themselves by capitalizing on his Nosferatu nature to avoid detection before swooping in and diablerizing both of them was a stroke of malicious genius. Now he's back to full strength, has the strength of a Brujah, the animalistic ferocity of a Gangrel, and his own Nos Perception Filter, and he's loose in the house.
  • On top of that, thanks to Kevin spilling the beans with Big-D, we know Shitbeard is actually two generations lower than Pyotr. The lower the generation a vampire is, the closer they are to Caine, and the more potent their blood and abilities are, and diablerizing a lower gen vampire than yourself artificially makes you of the victims generation. Pyotr just managed to scheme and slaughter his way up the proverbial pecking order of Cainite society, which ain't bad for a backwater Nosferatu who was living in a cave in rural England just hours beforehand.
• At first, Apeboy beating Shitbeard doesn't seem out of the ordinary, but the second audiolog and episode 3 revealed that the Brujah both was of a lower generation and had been a vampire longer than Ape, making his victory in a straight fight that much more impressive.
  • On top of that, Ape won by fighting smarter. Instead of going for pure brute force, he used a DDT to take advantage of gravity and Shitbeard's greater weight to secure the victory by smashing the Brujah's skull open.

Chapter 3: Hunter's Hunters Hunted

• Kitten's attempts to escape Pyotr are extremely nightmare-inducing, especially when he falls into a trap hole dug behforehand by Pyotor where he will be Buried Alive by the Nosferatu himself. In a hilariously awesome way, Kitten manages to escape his fate by living up to his name — climbing out of the hole on all fours like a cat, hissing at Pyotr, and then scurrying away to safety.
• Kitten's "The Reason You Suck" Speech against Pyotr, full-stop.
  Kitten: You are truly as pathetic as they come.
  Pyotr: Thanks, luv. I try.
  Kitten: NO! You're truly pathetic! You talk a big game, but you're nothing and you know it! Back in the tunnels, your first target was a child. And while you were getting your shit pushed in, your friends did all the hard work. How did you repay them?
  Pyotr: MORALISING OVER THAT DEATH GAUNTLET!?
  Kitten: YOU WERE THEIR LEADER! IF YOU GAVE A SHIT, YOU COULD HAVE STOPPED IT! You didn't even TRY! Instead, you hid! You had something to gain, so you ran away while your friends tore each other apart!
  Pyotr: It was survival of the fittest!
  Kitten: BULLSHIT! They were your comrades! And you smiled, you bastard! You smiled while you murdered people dumb enough to accept you!
  • Bonus points that it manages to enrage Pyotr, something he himself mentions wishing to avoid.
  • All of this being said, Pyotr deserves credit where it's due, he gives back as good as he takes.
    Pyotr: Gentlemen! You seem to have difficulty understanding that I'm the goddamn Sabbat. Mercy? Shame? Human weaknesses! I am beyond human! I see what I want, and I take it! If I can take it, it belongs to me! I AM THE SWORD OF CAINE, you wretch! And I fall where I please!
• Pyotr attempts to kill Kitten and Markcus by the road, only for him to learn the hard way that the family set up a freaking MINEFIELD!
• Pyotr, after recovering from having his leg blasted off, gets his attention grabbed by Door, in a full Explosive Ordnance Disposal suit and wielding a revolver, revealing that when he said that he was a "Miner", he meant something else entirely in an unorthodox description. Door proceeds to give a chilling back-and-forth between him and Pyotr and manages to shake the Nosferatu so badly that he genuinely starts pondering what his chances are. The light from Pyotr's eyes briefly starts reflecting in Door's, giving him his own menacing, almost supernatural glare. The final standoff is like something out of a western.
  • The editing really makes it. As Door calls out Pyotr, the Aspect ratio changes to widescreen, the soundtrack starts up with guitar strings straight out of the Dollars Trilogy, and the camera pans up to reveal him fully suited up with a .45 revolver pointed at the rampaging Nosferatu. And then there's the speech itself, which would make Dirty Harry proud:
  Door: I know what you're thinking. You know with that busted leg you can't reach me in time. But you're thinking maybe. Maybe. Maybe you can jump over. Jump over these mines. Get to me before I pull the trigger. Maybe you can. But maybe you can't. Maybe my gun finds you. And maybe the force of a .45 caliber bullet sends you plummeting straight to hell. Me? I like those odds. But you? You've got an eternity to lose. So the question is... You wanna live forever, son?
• After Pyotr manages to knock down Door by throwing a shovel at him and then jumps at him, Boy shoots him, and he falls right on a mine. Again.
  • On top of that, Boy even says, "It'll all be over soon" to Pyotr the moment he lands the shot.
  • Pyotr has just diablerized a Brujah, a clan that happens to have Celerity as a passive trait they can use. Boy manages to hit that.
• Despite being defeated, Pyotr manages to abduct Big D, and nearly killed Kitten, Marcus and Door. Really an amazing vampire.
• Though a post-credits gag, the video ends with one of the series' animators, Karl the Deranged in the role of the fucking Devil, personally dragging Pyotr kicking and screaming off to hell.
  • Props to Karl for leveraging his animation chops to enhance his performance too, subjecting his actual recorded body to the same sort of deformation as the models to make himself look like a legitimately intimidating depiction of the Devil in spite of his pitchfork being a wooden fork.
• The animation! While previous episodes did have momentary bumps in animation quality from the previous series, this episode drastically increased the quality, allowing the creators to really flex their creative muscle.

Chapter 4: The Feuds of our Fathers

• Occam O'Connell proves himself a calm and methodical planner, able to keep a level head and - more importantly - put any sense of pride aside when it comes to protecting his staff by putting the place in lockdown until he's finally managed to get everything under control. And that's not getting into the fact that he is a very skilled sorcerer who's able to rattle someone's brain with a flick of their nose, perform solar magic, and bring Big-D and both Blacklaws to heel effortlessly.
• Remold - sadistic and classist as he may be - proves himself to be every bit Big-D's match in physical might and skill, able to parry the patriarch's sword with his cane.
• After being overcome a few times in the previous three chapters, Big D finally gets to show off his combat prowess, and it turns out he lives up to his own hype. He does spend a lot of his physical energy squabbling with Remold, but he later proves that his skill isn't just played for comedy when he helps Markus rescue Grimal. He sucker-punches Brok so hard that he's sent hurtling into a nearby wall, which buckles under his weight, and he maintains a steady advantage as they continue trading blows.
  • Credit where it is due, Brok not only manages to take a punch like that, but he gets back up and is ready for more within seconds. Even D is impressed.
  • The fight then continues with Big D casually sidestepping Brok's punches while holding Kitten under his arm, and delivering two more staggering punches. To Brok's credit, he keeps on fighting, seemingly by sheer force of his Unstoppable Rage.

Audiologs

Kitten and Big-D's Primer on the Supernatural and Local Folklore

• Despite his silly and deranged nature Big D demonstrates his Hunter of Monsters credentials by sharing in-depth knowledge of not just vampires, but a variety of supernatural creatures like ghosts, witches/wizards, and werewolves, with the clear implication that he's fought and bested all of them on multiple occasions. He also mentions having a run-in with a mummy, and may have encountered a demon as well.

The Probing of Kevin

• Big-D gets plenty of awesome in this audiolog:
  • After a lot of torture and a lot more conversation/debate/insulting, Kevin reaches out and asks Big-D to join him in his crusade against the Camarilla. His response?
  Big-D: Why would I serve the First Murderer when I can kill him myself?
  • Big-D claims that, in his youth, he and his father and siblings somehow managed to kill a Methuselah, a 4th or 5th Generation vampire with blood so potent and power so extreme that each one is essentially a walking apocalypse by themselves. Whether it is true or not, the mere fact that he said it with such confidence was enough to give Kevin pause.
    • Big-D's personal consolation prize should he be unable to find Caine in his lifetime? Wiping out the third generation, AKA the founders of the thirteen clans.
  • The biggest moment, as well as the most subtle, applies to the entire audiolog: Big-D spent what is implied to be hours of interrogation, torture, and omelette to get Kevin to crack, all to no avail. But the instant Kevin lets slip the existence of his pet cat, D immediately switches gears. By the end, Kevin and Big-D gain each-other's mutual respect, and Big-D extends Kevin a genuine offer of friendship, decency, and- most importantly- freedom. Which Kevin accepts.
• A retroactive one for Pyotr. We learn that he was only 12th generation, while Apeboy and Shitbeard are 11th and 10th respectively. Which means giving Pyotr's strategic moves thus far it's likely he fed on both of them and in the order he did to maximize his power gain, jumping back two generations one right after the other as a result. He not only used the situation to heal himself but gain all the power he could out of it with cold-blooded precision.
  • This also acts as one for Apeboy; He managed to beat a vampire of an older generation in a straight fight.
• A couple for Kevin are shown throughout the episode;
  • He keeps up with Big-D almost the entire time. He didn't give up any information before the audiolog, and verbally gets the better of Big-D on several occasions. He also takes every chance to lord how much Big-D doesn't know over his head.
  • When Kevin was in the Camarilla, he was put in charge of managing the Prince's finances for the entire district, and was the only one who noticed (or was willing to point out) how the Prince's employee management strategy^note  which essentially boiled down to "Dominate or Ghoul your workers into giving you all their money" was not only unsustainable (as humans need money to buy food), but also a massive red flag for the HMRC due to the massive amounts of money moving around and disappearing, something that could very well break the Masquerade entirely if too much heat was put on it.
  • He snuck away from the Tremere Pyramid - a blood-bond unique to the Clan Tremere that corrupts your own inner thoughts against you to keep you subservient to your sire - through sheer grit and determination, until he eventually took the opportunity to throw his chips in with the Sabbat, as their Valderie could break the bond to his sire.
  • He deduces that Big D is a LOT more powerful and informed than he lets on just from the questions he asks, and immediately mocks him for how embarrassing it is to have been almost defeated by an inferior foe like the pack.
  • When Big D mentions that the Camarilla tends to not like loose ends like him, he claims to have survived multiple Blood Hunts. Which, as established in the prior audiolog, consists of every single Camarilla vampire in the district hunting you down.

Big-D's "Guide" to Avoiding Arrest

• The whole audio log is Big D cold reading the detective interrogating him to figure out the testimonies Markus, Kitten, Door, and Boy all gave before him and fuse them all into a cohesive, believable narrative, all while probing the detective to see if he's a Camarilla agent. For all his silliness, even in his internal monologues, he does so marvelously and shows off an incredible cunning streak.
  • For context, the police found an active minefield, a torture dungeon with two dead bodies, and a ton of illegally acquired guns. In the face of all this damning evidence, Big D convinces Chapman that he and his family are innocent.
  • As an added layer, he does this to appeal to both potentialities as to Chapman's allegiance: If he's genuinely a Camarilla agent, he'll suspect that the family just got roped into a feud between the Sabbat and the Anarchs while not having a true Masquerade breach. If he's just a mortal lawman, he'll think they just got roped up into a more mundane gang war.
  • After Chapman spots the thread by recognizing Kevin's mortal name and finding repeated concerns from his sister, he manages to poke an enormous hole in the foundation of Big-D's plan. The hunter's retort? Admit it's a lie... by posing as a member of the Camarilla who is testing Chapman to see if he's still got his wits about him and poking at the idea that Ghouls are addicted to vampire blood. The psychological game of cat and mouse draws to a close with Chapman convinced that Big-D is a fairly high-level vampire.
• Marckus, in an Offscreen Moment of Awesome, was apparently able to handle his own interrogation with a similar level of skill to Big-D himself. His version of events seemingly accounted for the other family members' own quirks and laid the groundwork for Big-D to be able to tie it all together. Even without hearing Marckus's testimony, Big D quickly realizes that his son immediately understood how D himself would spin it and must have backed him up, a fact which D is very enthusiastically grateful for.

Something Is Wrong With Horse

• Kitten explains how he first met a vampire. Without backup and with no knowledge about what he was facing, he managed to actually kill it by kicking the vampire so hard that it flew out a window and was impaled on an iron fence.

Marckus Goes Pubbing with his Weirdo Friends (and gets in a brawl)

• Marckus's plan regarding the drinking game against Brok Blacklaw really showcases the level of cunning that would be expected from the spiritual successor of Magnus, making him believe both were drinking brandy when in actuality, Marckus was drinking soft cider and Brok was drinking the brandy. Too bad Brok gets sobered up from rage.
  • The bartender deserves some credit, too. He figured out Marckus saying he wanted the drinks "nice and strong" as "one's nice, the other's strong," and went along with it just because Brok was that much of an asshole. Keeping cool when one of Brok's buddies notices that he's pouring from two separate bottles.
• Marckus getting Brok in trouble with his father. When Brok brings up his fiancé, Marckus ignores him by texting someone on his phone. Brok grabs the phone out of his hands, calls the contact named "Luv", then screams a profane, disgusting rant... at his father. Turns out Marckus renamed Remold Blacklaw's contact while fiddling with his phone.
  • He also renames Kitten's contact info to "Cat" in the same action.
• Officer Guy Chapman's Big Damn Heroes moment at the end as he calmly walks up, interrupts the fight, and intimidates Brok into buggering off with his tail between his legs with a British license joke of all things.

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