Blood & Treasure Review: The Wages of Vengeance (Season 1 Episode 10)

Blood & Treasure Season 1 Episode 10, “The Wages of Vengeance,” barely runs 38 minutes — and yet, it is by far the busiest episode of the series, an unbelievable acceleration of narrative and character that is unbelievably jarring, in a really exciting, freeing way.

At least initially. By the time all the climactic dust settles, what remains is a lesser version of Blood & Treasure, one where Danny and Lexi are… chasing down a biological weapon?

It remains to be seen whether this hypothetical device is powered by some sort of mystical nonsense — but regardless of the eventual context, it is a rather deflating note to end “The Wages of Vengeance” on.

It starts off on such a strong foot, too: with Fabi dead, and Gwen curious about what the heck is going on, “The Wages of Vengeance” begins with an understated sense of purpose. For once, there is a sense everyone on Blood & Treasure is moving forward, rather than continuing to vacillate on their respective narrative treadmills.

Yet, as “The Wages of Vengeance” carries on, each plot development gets buried by the next: it almost disconcerting what whirlwind of plot it is, as it moves from France, to Cyprus, and finally to Russia (all strangely indistinguishable from each other, I might add) for its final big reveal.

Lexi’s heritage, Farouk’s purpose, Fabi’s investigation, Hardwick’s anger, Gwen’s discoveries: the list goes on and on until it collapses like a house of cards when Farouk dies, and Danny deduces there’s a biological weapon in play.

To call it a roller coaster of emotions is an understatement; “The Wages of Vengeance” is pure, unadulterated narrative whiplash, used to both great and detrimental effect through the (barely more than a) half-hour episode.

When it works, like revealing the identity of Lexi’s mother and the purpose of the Brotherhood, the moments are electrifying in their clarity, lifting the frustrating fog kept over the pertinent details of the overarching story.

Those moments feel like organic developments, even though they convolute the story in outlandish ways: it feels like Blood & Treasure finally giving some real definition to its rather shapeless personality, something dramatically concrete beyond “I wonder what country they are going to break laws in this week!”

There’s really a lot to like in the first half of “The Wages of Vengeance,” led by a slightly more wise-ass version of Danny, his cackling, smirking self-righteousness offering some much-needed texture to Blood & Treasure‘s most boring, reductive character. 

That shift in character lightens up a number of scenes — there’s a moment where he completely dismisses the news of Chuck the Priest’s arrest as “not that important” that is absolutely hilarious, a rare example of a throwaway line that actually serves purpose in giving some contour to one of its protagonists.

(Lexi running around with two handguns like Lara Croft is a physical version of this, a true leveling up of her badassery.)

Unfortunately, “The Wages of Vengeance” can’t completely transcend Blood & Treasure‘s incredibly strange relationship with pacing: the back half of the episode is an absolute mess of undercooked plot twists, cutting many of the show’s more intriguing stories off at the knees, in unexpectedly mellow fashion.

Though Farouk’s death is telegraphed from the moment he says “even if I die, the plan carries on,” it’s still shocking to see him disposed of in such unceremonious fashion.

Like Fabi on Blood & Treasure Season 1 Episode 9, “The Shadow of Projekt Athena,” Farouk is removed from the table the moment he becomes important, a weird miscalculation of how to develop Blood & Treasure‘s sense of mystery in exciting ways.

Ostensibly, Farouk and Fabi basically die for no reason: there’s no thematic justice really being served, as Lexi realizes when she doesn’t feel satisfied by his death. These two characters are expunged solely to further obfuscate the central elements of story, a tactic deployed to delay actual plot movement – in a way that’s kind of becoming a pattern for the series.

It also renders Gwen’s importance to the story rather irrelevant. Sure, it’s fun to see her and Danny negotiate the shared monitoring of their illegal behavior — but as the most one-dimensional character in the series, her presence in “The Wages of Vengeance” demands a lot more character development. 

Giving definition to Gwen’s motivations and desires is integral to developing her beyond Queen of Straightforwardness: but she’s never given room to develop, or even to be understood, which sucks all the dramatic air out of her steadfast dedication to finding out what happened to Fabi.

It might feel shocking and exciting when it happens the first time, but the more Blood & Treasure relies on the same trite dramatic tricks, the more it feels like a pale facsimile of the many iconic action films it is so clearly trying to emulate.

Unlike those films, the larger Blood & Treasure gets, the less effective it becomes, and the more it feels like a carbon copy of so many other “chasing down terrorists with bioweapons” story, a strange betrayal of the series’ original premise.

If Blood & Treasure is going to be more, say, Mission Impossible 2 than The Mummy, it is doomed to never realize the potential it has as a strange, horny, supernaturally-tinged buddy cop series (one with an appreciation for historical art, nonetheless). 

There are moments where “The Wages of Vengeance” feels like Blood & Treasure inching closer to perfecting its unorthodox formula: but it never completely finds its balance, teetering between thrilling and ludicrous before stumbling into pure mundanity by its end. 

What did you think of this episode of Blood & Treasure? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

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Blood & Treasure airs Tuesdays at 10/9c on CBS.

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