From Dusk Till Dawn - S01E04 Let's Get Ramblin' (2014)

Review

Ranger Freddie is on the road chasing the Geckos, he seems distracted by the ceremonial knife that Richie Gecko was carrying at one stage and we learn why, Freddie starts seeing someone who is not there, but who does point him toward the township of Lagrimas, where the Geckos are currently holed up in room 106 of the Dew Drop Inn. Speaking of the Geckos, Seth is trying to clean up Richie's mess, but Richie is more concerned about some mystical nonsense of closing your eyes so your enemies will bypass you due to your energy being shielded. Meanwhile Kate is driving the RV and looking for some place to rest so her dad can get over his drinking spree, and wouldn't you know it the Dew Drop Inn comes up on her radar.

Seth decides the Fuller family and their RV might be just the thing to use to attempt crossing the border into Mexico and immediately takes the family hostage, though he has to keep Richie under control as Richie definitely has eyes for Kate. While attempting to leave in the RV the Geckos run into Freddie and three local cops with a fire fight erupting, the Geckos with their hostages the Fullers manage to escape aboard the RV leaving Freddie unconscious at the Inn.

I guess we have been waiting for all paths to arrive at the same point and this episode provides the explosive climax of that process. The Geckos now have the Fuller family under the hammer and are heading to Mexico; no doubt Carlos will help that happen in due course. While Scott remains an elusive character, is he just making up numbers? - Jacob has made it clear that if anything happens to his kids then he'll kill Seth with his bare hands, not sure if that is a pure and noble thought from a former Preacher, but considering where they are heading it's going to be all hands to the stake. Surprisingly the episode sexualised Kate, with some lingering shots over her bum etc and Richie hearing her ask for him to remove her bikini. That's probably an uncomfortable moment for older audience members but the teens would have dug the sexing up of the character. For mine it was an attempt to juxtaposition the previously seen religious Kate, supplied in flashback, to the more alluring young lady she is becoming. As stated completely bloody uncomfortable and not something I was expecting.

The episode puts us right in the original movie's flight path

A couple of flashbacks flesh out both the characters and story lines, Robert Rodriguez - here returning to the director's chair - had promised this in interviews etc. We learn Ranger Freddie is afraid of blood, which is going to become increasingly ironic, and on his first day as a Texas Ranger was thinking of quitting. One of the dudes his partner gunned down on that day keeps returning to haunt his arse in this episode, which shows the power of the knife Richie picked up somewhere. We are also getting the Fuller family fleshed out a bit more, Kate is on the path to enlightenment about what happened to their mother. As opposed to what we previously thought Jacob did not have a blood alcohol reading that would have impaired his driving ability on the night of the accident, however the Police report found it highly improbable a wild animal would have been on the road causing him to swerve the car, and he exhibit markings that indicated he had been physically assaulted by his wife. More to find out there, but for sure I'm intrigued as in flashback we learnt that Kate's mother was having a hard time of it for reasons unknown. Richie happily informs Kate it wasn't migraines as claimed by Jacob.

Freddie finally makes the scene, after some supernatural intervention, and goes gunning for the Geckos. A fairly full on fire fight develops, punctuated by enough weirdness to have new viewers confused, but surprisingly not a lot of deaths occur. I'm assuming here that the Kevlar vests worn by the police officers could stop rounds even though the wearers went down quicker than a pommie batting line up. Richie tries his shut eyes thing and it works, probably helped by the dude hiding behind a coke machine and the two cops being more intent on where they were going and less intent on what was around them. Freddie had another run in with his ghostly apparition friend, no help forthcoming from there though; the vampire/ghost/apparition actually succeeds in helping the Geckos escape while Freddie is caught up in his waking nightmare. Surprisingly the only people going down were those wearing vests, everyone else was honky dory. Seth and Freddie get it on however, and in one of those amusing moments both run out of ammunition at a crucial stage.

D.J. Controna (Seth Gecko) is letting his inner most Clooney run wild with a controlled yet somehow maniac performance. I'm not sure if this is a mistake or not as the obvious comparison is always going to be with the actor in the original movie, and George Clooney freaking nailed that. For the moment I'm happy with Cotrona portraying Seth as the swaggering take no shite bad ass, but it could get tiring by the end of season, there's only so many Tarantino style villains you can watch till they all seem pretty much the same character.

Guess we covered Richie getting some sort of control over his visions and his knowing things, loved how he wanted the RV moved round the back and then later simply knew the cops had arrived and ordered Jacob to drive around back contrary to Seth's original instructions. Turns out to be the right decision, the RV is in the exact spot to take the brunt of Seth and Freddie rolling off the Inn roof. And looks like the cult knife passes on some sort of powers as Freddie is now getting the supernatural rub, have no idea where they will take that one to be honest. Guess Richie was always slightly weird however as Vanessa, Seth's wife, surrenders to Freddie as she wants him to get Seth away from his brother.

Just a side note, if the Fuller's are in room 2007 how is it that Gecko's room 1006 is directly below? Guess it wasn't but Richie needed something to throw Jacob off balance with when the Geckos did the initial room invasion. And that there should be proof positive that here at Sminds we are going to go all geeky over this show.

While I did enjoy the show down between the Gecko Bros and Freddie, and we are finally on track with the movie plot, I was left with the feeling that this episode was slightly less dense than the previous three. We do get the sexualisation of Kate, could be in Richie's mind, and more background flesh on the bone but Let's Get Ramblin' didn't have the same satisfaction that previous episodes left me with. Sure Richie now has complete control over his mental powers, though the dude is still psychotic, and Freddie seems to be developing some mental shenanigans, but I would have liked a bit more on the "blood cult" rather than focusing solely on the Geckos and Fullers. Still superior to 90% of other offerings on television currently, as ever I can't wait for the next episode which will see us at the half way point in season one. With season two set for 13 episodes I'm left wondering exactly where we will end up this season, does Rodriguez plan to push this story line through multiple seasons or will we get new story lines each season? If you haven't caught up with the Geckos yet then its remedial television reviewing time, full freaking recommendation boys and girls.