By: Brandon Wolfe
The television version of ‘From Dusk Till Dawn’ introduced itself last week as a stop-and-smell-the-roses remake of the film it is based upon, filling in the gaps from the film in a tediously drawn-out fashion. The second episode doesn’t exactly shake off that bloated faithfulness, but it does give us some hints that this ‘Dusk’ does indeed plan on deviating from its source material in some significant ways.
In the aftermath of last week’s disastrous armed standoff, the Gecko Brothers are on the run attempting to figure out their next move. Richie once again plays peek-a-boo with his brother through the bullet hole in his hand before wrapping it with masking tape. With their bank-teller hostage making a load of racket in the trunk of the car, we flash back to the bank heist that set the story in motion. The heist was merely alluded to in the film, but here we see it play out entirely, something I have to think no fan of the film ever felt compelled to see, but this show figured it would eat up a big chunk of an episode, and so here it is. Again, the film had it right the first time because the heist is pretty routine as far as these scenes go. The biggest surprise we’re given is that this Seth is much more of a Chatty Cathy than the film’s cool cucumber, as he proudly regales his hostage with tales of Richie’s safecracking prowess.
This week, we finally meet the TV version of the Fuller family, and one thing you have to give this show is that it’s no slouch with casting. For as our Michael Parks replacement last week was no less than Don Johnson, now we get Robert Patrick subbing in for Harvey Keitel as Jacob Fuller. Not too shabby. The Fullers’ story only undergoes some minor tweaks in this episode. The mother of the family is still recently deceased, Jacob is still a preacher with lapsed faith, and the family is still on an RV vacation. However, this Jacob’s demeanor is more upbeat than his predecessor’s and his intentions for taking his family out on the open road are left mysterious to his children, Kate and Scott. Also, Kate now has a bible-thumping boyfriend, Kyle, on their trail to take her away from this lame family excursion.
Where this ‘Dusk’ finally begins to part company dramatically with its forebear arrives most significantly with Kyle. We learn that the drug lord Carlos whom has been Seth’s contact south of the border (and who was played by Cheech Marin in the film, one of three roles he had) is now a vampire, who is picked up by Kyle as a hitchhiker and drains his blood. Not only does this break significantly from the film, where there was no indication that vampires were a part of the story until the characters had reached Mexico late in the game, but it also gives us an idea of how the TV ‘Dusk’s’ vampires will be unique. When Carlos transforms into a vampire, his fangs resemble that of a rattlesnake rather than traditional vampire teeth, and he also is capable of assuming Kyle’s form in a meeting with the Fullers near the episode’s end (a meeting that, frankly, did not seem to have any purpose), traits the film’s vampires did not exhibit.
The vampires’ influence on the earlier stretches of the story does not end there. We are given further evidence that Richie isn’t merely crazy in this interpretation, but that he’s also some kind of supernatural conduit, under the thrall of vampire seductress Santanico Pandemonium (Salma Hayek in the film), whose voice and face he constantly receives flashes of. The indication seems to be that when the Geckos and the Fullers finally arrive at that bar in Mexico, it won’t be the chance encounter that it was in the film, but rather that forces conspired to bring them there for reasons that haven’t yet been made clear.
‘From Dusk Till Dawn’ is still a pretty rough television series. It’s handsomely produced (the one aspect where it might possess an edge over the film), but it drags incessantly and does not offer great writing (Seth on his tied-up hostage: “She’s a little tied up right now”). But it is encouraging that it does plan to travel a different road in some respects. We already have the ‘From Dusk Till Dawn’ this show has been trying too hard to ape. Being its own ‘From Dusk Till Dawn’ is the only way it will have a chance.
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