Blood Drive
Season 1 Episode 6: “Booby Traps”
Directed by Roel Reiné
Written by Ben Wolf
Created by James Roland
Starring Alan Ritchson, Christina Ochoa, Thomas Dominique, Marama Corlett, Colin Cunningham, Andrew Hall, Darren Kent, Renee Castle
Syfy
Air Date: Wednesday, July 19th, 2017, 10pm

First off, apologies on the lateness of this one, I was in a hotel with poor channel selection and no wifi. But alas, I was excited to get home and catch up on the craziness I missed on last week’s Blood Drive on Syfy. Last week, Grace (Christina Ochoa) had to bail out Arthur (Alan Ritchson) after a sex plague took over the Blood Drive party. Slink (Colin Cunningham) managed to escape torture and death several times, and as payment to Grace planned a stop on this week’s drive for her to get her sister back. Meanwhile, Christopher (Thomas Dominique) and his new $20 million machine eye are officially working for Heart Enterprises, but his cyborg-dominatrix girlfriend Aki (Marama Corlett) doesn’t realize (yet) that he’s an inside man. This week, the Drive continues…

Spoilers below.

Raceday 6 – The Blood Drive is about to head through the Savage Lands, and no brakes allowed. Grace and Arthur gas up on bloody stumps. Arthur is so cute, apologizing for coming on to Grace while under the influence of passion potion, oblivious to the fact he had sex with her back in episode 1. The plan is to get a quick lead so they have time to rescue Karma… but that all changes when a Mad Max-style horde attacks them in the desert. In a hilarious scene, the duo are nabbed due to the ol’ Wile E. Coyote trick.

Interspersed throughout, are Christopher’s misadventures at Heart with Aki keeping a close eye on him at every moment. Hell hath no fury like a cyborg scorned I guess. I have to reiterate, their “relationship” may just be the best on television, and something so ridiculous only works because Dominique and Corlett throw everything into these performances. The creative team has fun too, using Terminator style effects to show Aki’s range of possible responses: Kill, Maim, Castrate… Yes Dear was my favorite. Speaking of tremendous relationships with amazing performances we see a return of Blood Drivers, argumentative lovers, and all together looney tunes, Cliff and Domi (Craig Jackson and Jenny Stead). Like Art and Grace, they end up captives of the biker horde. Slink’s position is also put in jeopardy as the decision is made at Heart to have Blood Drive go national “next Wednesday,” and if up to head exec (Sean Cameron Michael), Slink would be DOA.

The Savage Land biker horde are women who took over a fantasy spa and live totally man free. They call it Majora! Bad news for Arthur and Cliff… depending how you think about it… is the only reason they keep men around is for… milking. This totally reminded me of one of my favorite episodes of Futurama where Fry and Zapp Brannigan are on the Amazonian planet and find out about “death by snu snu.” Their leader Carolina (Hlubi Mboya) tries to convince Grace Majora is the right place for her. Grace is not convinced until she finds out they know Karma. Unfortunately for Grace, Karma was killed in the uprising that launched the creating of Majora.

All the men are in danger, Arthur is about to be drawn and quartered, and sure enough Domi and Grace to the rescue. The final climax… is a bloody battle of the babes and in the end, shockingly enough, love wins out and Grace realizes how much she needs Arthur. Domi and Cliff are lovingly and gore-fully reunited.

Pardon the pun, but Blood Drive is as fast paced as a show on TV, a loving collection of characters connected by the macabre grindhouse galore of creator James Roland and his team of writers and directors. Six episodes in and every one produces jaw dropping, “did they really just do that?” moments. And through all the craziness, the writing is laugh out loud funny and then swings and becomes truly poignant. Christina Ochoa was tremendous, especially the last 15 minutes here. As their car speeds towards the finish line, Ochoa, soaked in blood says more in silence then most actors with their mouths open. There has never been anything like Blood Drive on regular cable TV and I will gladly add the hashtag I’ve seen on social media since Wednesday night, #RenewBloodDrive.

Blood Drive returns to Syfy with another gorefest next Wednesday night at 10:00.

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Video

BLOOD DRIVE | Season 1, Episode 6: Sneak Peek | SYFY

The Blood Drive goes brakeless. See you at the finish line! Wednesdays at 10/9 on SYFY.

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