Luke Owen reviews the final episode of From Dusk Till Dawn: The Series….
After showing some early promise, the small screen version of Robert Rodriguez’s cult classic certainly hit a few bumps in the road after the gang arrived at The Titty Twister. The show basically devolved into a naff Buffy The Vampire Slayer mixed with Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and it couldn’t quite get passed it. And then the penultimate episode took an odd twist with an Ocean’s Eleven style hiest sub plot. And now here we are, the final episode. Does the show head back to its roots or does it stay on its course of wackiness?
Sadly yes. Well, at times it doesn’t.
Ritchie and Seth have made it through the trials and now possess the only thing that can free Santanico from her five century slavery. However it appears as though more games are afoot, there are more twists to be had, more backs to be stabbed and more emotions to flip on a dime. Meanwhile Kate has to face up to the fact she may lose her brother and her father on the same day while The Ranger needs to make a choice – vengeance or family?
To look at the positives first, The Take does have some fairly good moments. The reveal at the end of the last episode that Sex Machine was really behind the gruesome murders does lead to some good action early on (including some great monologuing from Jake Busey) and the scenes that follow with Kate and Jacob are genuinely touching (if a little overdrawn). And while he has been a weak link in the overall story, there is some nice closure for The Ranger. But it’s really the Geckos that once again steal the show with the majority of the episode focused on them and their war with Carlos and Narciso. D.J. Catrona and Zane Holtz are brilliant in their roles, even if their characters are hugely flawed. Plus, for the first time since the arrived at The Titty Twister, From Dusk Till Dawn: The Series once again feels like the movie on which it was based on with several nods and re-doings of classic scenes and even conclusions.
Sadly though, the show doesn’t really have much of a climax and The Take whimpers to a close rather than going out with a bang. The overly sexualised “snake scene” is shot well and features some pretty darn good effects, but everything around it feels pretty weak. From Dusk Till Dawn: The Series is returning for a second season, but the show amazingly doesn’t really offer any scope for another ten-episode run. Everything ties itself together almost too nicely and while it is refreshing for a show not to cliffhanger its way out of a conclusion, it doesn’t really inspire much emotion.
Perhaps the show’s problems is that the last few episodes have featured so much back-stabbing and betrayal that you often forget who is fighting for who and who doesn’t like who. Not a scene goes by where alliances aren’t changed and in this episode alone, the Geckos go from liking to hating each other more times than Lindsey Lohan has made bad choices. The cast all do well with what they’re given, but it all seems for naught.
In the end, From Dusk Till Dawn: The Series didn’t quite match up to its great opening few episodes. Had it stayed on its gritty track of re-creating the movie while feeling fresh and new we might be having a different conversation. Where they go from here is certainly intriguing, but there is a chance that it won’t have as big of a fan base going in as it started out with. A real shame as the show had a lot of potential.
Luke Owen is one of Flickering Myth’s co-editors and the host of the Flickering Myth Podcast. You can follow him on Twitter @LukeWritesStuff.
Originally published May 27, 2014. Updated April 12, 2018.
