Helstrom's first, bloody season is available on Hulu and we've had the chance to watch
all ten episodes. While the first season purposely ends with some pretty big questions, we're
getting the jump on the season's conclusion to answer as many of those queries as possible.
In "Mother's Little Helpers" – Helstrom's premiere episode — Chris Yen wants as little
as possible to do with the darker side of his employer's life. Ana is his boss, and
while Chris seems to know about Ana's abilities and the fact that she uses them to execute
violent men too rich and powerful for the law to constrain, he seems very happy sticking
to the more mundane side of Ana's business.
"Do you have any idea how much damage control I've been doing? Five times, I've texted you."
"Five times, I didn't answer."
Unfortunately, due in no small part to Chris' curiosity, by the end of Helstrom's first
season he doesn't have much of a choice. Chris is possessed early in the series, and by the
penultimate episode "Vessels," he believes he's been freed of all mystical influence.
However, when Chris removes his bandages after noticing the blood leaking through them, he
sees symbols carved into his arm and — even more disturbing — a giant eyeball emerging
from his throat. A panicked visit with the Caretaker reveals that Chris' experiences
have turned him into a Keeper — a guardian tasked with the guardianship of demons.
"You… call the home office. Tell them Chris Yen is no one's Keeper."
In the season finale, Chris knows important things without knowing why. He's able to give
Ana the knowledge that helps her save her brother, though as we'll see, he doesn't know
quite as much as he thinks.
"Keeper's intuition." "Okay, you've been a Keeper for like two seconds." "And I'm not
happy about it!"
Now that he's become a Keeper, Chris tells Ana the only way to save her brother Daimon
— who's been possessed and is working with the other demons — is to reforge her father's
mystical knife.
No one gives the weapon a name, but we know that it's the same instrument that scarred
Daimon's chest, and the only weapon that's succeeded in leaving any kind of mark on him.
Taking the relic with them into one of the padded cells of St. Theresa's, together Ana
and Victoria embrace and use their power to remake the blade.
Once we see it in use, we see it's Helstrom's version of the fiery trident Daimon's comic
book counterpart is almost never seen without. While tussling with the possessed Daimon,
Ana is able to extend the knife into its true, powerful form. With it, Daimon and Ana are
able to achieve something rarely seen on the show — stabbing a possessed person with
the trident exorcises the demon from them without killing the person. Daimon and Ana
are both able to do this on their own in the series, but at a greater physical cost to
themselves and not nearly as quickly.
You wouldn't be blamed for assuming Dr. June Hastings wouldn't make it to the end of Helstrom's
first season. Not only is she part of a team making war with the forces of darkness, but
early in the series we get hints that she's not well. Eventually our suspicions are confirmed
when she reveals that she's dying of lung cancer.
The writers play with our expectations, setting Hastings up as the obvious sacrificial lamb,
particularly in "Vessels" when she tells the Caretaker that she has changed her mind and
decided to undergo the difficult treatments necessary to fight the cancer.
It comes as little surprise when, in the series finale, she's stabbed from behind with a fireplace
poker. She survives the stabbing but scares everyone when all of the devices surrounding
her hospital bed start their alarms and doctors and nurses rush to her bed.
Surprisingly enough, she pulls through, although she's far from unscathed. After she wakes
up in the hospital, the Caretaker tells her the doctors had to remove one of her kidneys
and part of her lung. But she survives, possibly to once again help the Helstroms battle demons
in future seasons.
In "Hell Storm" — the Helstrom season 1 finale — Ana is forced to fight her brother
in order to save him. Taking their cue from the Joker, the possessed Daimon and the other
demons use an abandoned carnival as their base of operations.
It's there that they bring the pregnant Gabriella, hoping she'll soon give birth to the demon
Mother and die herself soon afterward.
Wandering into an old haunted house, Ana finds the possessed Daimon waiting for her. With
similar telekinetic abilities and strength, the two are evenly matched, though the possessed
Daimon has the advantage as — unlike Ana — he's looking to kill, not to save.
"Come on, Daimon! Fight it!"
While neither Ana nor Daimon's comic book counterparts are the most visible of Marvel's
heroes, usually if one of them is saving the day in a comic book, it's Daimon.
But here, the tables get turned. It's Ana who saves her brother, by unveiling the mystical
knife in its full glory, extending it into a fiery trident and stabbing her brother with
it from behind. Nothing about Daimon's reaction seems very pleasant, but thankfully the weapon
drives the demon from him and gives him back control of himself.
At the end of "Underneath," Episode 8, both Daimon and Gabriella are possessed by demons
with the goal of conceiving a new form for the demon Mother. In "Vessels" and "Hell Storm"
we see Gabriella go from newly pregnant to close to labor in a single night.
While both Gabriella and her colleagues consider finding a way to terminate the pregnancy,
the baby is born to Gabriella in the season 1 finale, though thankfully Ana and Daimon
are able to intervene and save Gabriella before the demons can complete their plan by cutting
her throat.
At first it seems like no one is even sure if Mother's plan to be reborn worked. All
of the heroes, including Chris with his new Keeper abilities, seem to believe there is
nothing strange or mystical about the child, but that changes fairly quickly. While the
rest of the heroes gather for a celebratory dinner, the camera pans to the baby's crib,
but she's missing without explanation.
One month later, we see Chris about to board a ferry with a young girl he calls Lily. The
implication seems to be that this is the girl Gabriella gave birth to, that it was Chris
who abducted her from her crib, and — just as Gabriella's pregnancy happened in record
time — her aging process has sped up. Lily appears to be at least 6 or 7 years old. And
if we doubt this is supposed to be the same child, what happens next confirms it.
Of all of Helstrom's regular characters, no one is more changed by the events of the series
than Gabriella. In the beginning of season 1, while Gabriella is certainly more naive
about the world of the supernatural than veterans like Daimon and the Caretaker, she's no fool.
Even after being confronted by some of the darkest things heroes like Daimon and Ana
are capable of, she still sees the good in them. But the events of the episodes that
follow make her lose faith in her friends.
After giving birth and being saved from the demons who kidnapped her, Gabriella makes
it clear to Daimon she wants nothing to do with him. When Daimon visits her in the hospital,
she refers to demons as "your kind" and tells Daimon she believes she's being punished for
wanting to be intimate with him in "Underneath."
Gabriella is the focus of one of the more surprising scenes toward the end of the season
finale. We see Gabriella drinking with members of the Blood. When she first encounters the
organization earlier in the series and learns of how they keep possessed people in comas
for the rest of their lives to keep the demons within them imprisoned for as long as they
can, she's disgusted by their methods. Now, it looks like she's a card-carrying recruit.
Season finale "Hell Storm" opens with a flashback in which we see a young Daimon Helstrom try
to leave everything behind. Daimon, as a young boy, looks over the edge of a bridge, clearly
contemplating something serious. Predictably, Daimon leaps from the bridge, but inches from
the water an invisible force stops him. A spectral voice tells him "you'll always be
my son," and the same force that saved him throws him clear of the water.
By the end of the season finale, Daimon seems to once again feel the weight of the world
on his shoulders. He returns to the same bridge and peers over the side, presumably either
contemplating his past suicide attempt, considering a repeat performance, or both.
But thankfully, Daimon finds enough to keep living for. The scene cuts to Daimon standing
at the edge of the water where he's soon joined by Ana. They share a rare, touching moment.
As much as Daimon has been through in this first season of Helstrom — and it's a lot
— he's found enough to hold on to in order to keep going.
"I love you. You know that?" "I do."
In the closing moments of "Hell Storm," we get a look at a villain who's been with us
the whole season, though we still know little about him. The unnamed father of Daimon and
Ana intercepts Chris and the young Lily as they're about to board a ferry. At first Lily
doesn't seem to have any idea who the bald man is, but when he asks her to remember,
Lily smiles and calls him "Papa."
Though he's intimidated by him, Chris has no intention of turning over Lily. Earlier
in the episode, he has Ana mark him with her father's knife, and this appears to be why.
Chris tells Papa Helstrom that he can't hurt Chris because he's been marked by his bloodline.
The father stares at him darkly, and soon the other people waiting for the ferry — one
by one — begin to drop. Chris is apparently right that Papa Helstrom can't hurt him, so
instead he starts killing everyone else. Horrified, Chris lets go of Lily. Papa Helstrom leaves
with the girl as the people waiting for the ferry continue to drop.
In the source material, Daimon Helstrom was originally introduced on comic book covers
as the "Son of Satan." So far in Helstrom, it hasn't been made clear exactly who his
father is. But whoever he is, this final scene makes it clear he's no run-of-the-mill demon,
and he'll likely be back for any future seasons.
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