From Dusk Till Dawn: Place Of Dead Roads Review

El Rey keeps us frustrated and wanting more again at the end of the road in this week's From Dusk Till Dawn.

Before the credits rolled on this week’s episode of From Dusk Till Dawn, I almost thought I was watching the wrong show. It turns out that Richie looks way different with a long beard, half-starved and full-on-crazed. He’s looking ragged as he finds a single bullet and attempts to hunt a deer to cook in his hunger, though his nerves make him miss. Apparently, this is when the ‘Goddess’ first called him, and when he first got news from Seth about the job. He cleans up good, that’s all I have to say on the subject.

From Dusk Till Dawn prolonged the suspense a bit more this week, while helping to make our Ranger friend look a little more bad ass. It starts with everyone going into the bar, though Seth has a little altercation with the guy up front and breaks his node. Once they’re inside Seth, Scott, Kate and Jacob (mostly Seth really) start doing confessions along with shots around a table. Jacob tries to keep his kids in line, though only God knows why at this point. Let them drink the shots the guy with the gun wants them to drink. They might realize shots don’t taste great and decide not to drink. This isn’t his tack, though, which in the long run is making Scott drink just to be contrary.

Our ranger friend, after conferring with some talking heads (nope, not a metaphor) finds his way to a bakery which is one of Carlos’ fronts. He gets duped by a kid into getting caught and tortured, and this is where the bad-assed-ness comes out. He breaks his way free, kills one of Carlos’ guys with the remnants of the chair he was tied to and decapitates the other with a machete. He then makes that same kid tell him where to find Carlos. Yep, the bar. Carlos owns it.

Seth, trying to be careful when he finds out Carlos OWNS the bar, so it’s not neutral ground, goes out to hide the bonds somewhere other than the Winnebago. I think he chose an old Volvo or something. On the way back in, broken-nosed dude tries to ambush Seth with mixed results. On the one hand, he totally had him in the end and was about to pull Seth apart with a couple of chains tied to a couple of choppers and they were about to make a wish. On the other hand, Seth was holding his own pretty well, and he ended up being waved safe by one of the 9 vampire higher-ups, Narcisso.

Ad – content continues below

Not that he actually knows this, but we do.

Seth and Narcisso get to talking inside, where Narcisso is basically asking why he’s working for a piece of crap like Carlos (good question, right?) and Seth finds out from him the ‘tickets to El Rey’ is a line Carlos has been using for a while… meaning Carlos planned on double-crossing him and Seth now knows this. Richie, in the meantime, was throwing knives for fun and profit against some bikers, and doing some impressive throws I might add.

As Kate goes looking for Richie to try and convince him to let the family go now that they’re at the bar, Jake Busey hits on her and we find out he’s actually an old name from the movie: Sex Machine. Kate puts him down the most fun way possible: by telling him his crotch-gun (no, really. He has a gun on his crotch) probably shoots blanks. Anyone else hearing Kelso yell “Burn!”?

Kate finds Richie getting a lap dance from a brunette after his knife throwing and while she’s trying to talk sense into him, they sort of end up kissing a couple of times. No, I’m not making it up, and no I’m not sure what’s going on there at the moment. Seth walks in right after, trying to get Richie to leave but he’s in total “I’m home” mode, and refuses to even discuss it. Seth challenges him to a knife toss to decide. Richie wins, which means they stay, but right at the end Kate jumped in holding the final target saying if Richie wins they’d get the keys and be able to leave… And they almost did.

Almost.

Everyone is told to sit down and suddenly Carlos is up on stage telling everyone they have a special show, because it’s a special night.

Ad – content continues below

Richie IDs him as the guy who gave him the ritual dagger (which is now back in Richie’s possession), Seth recognizes him as the guy who gave them the job, Gonzalez walks through the doors of the bar, and the ‘Goddess’ steps onto the stage as Richie can only say “She’s Real” to himself a couple of times.

So we’ve got Richie in deep ‘goddess’-worship la-la land, Seth trying to survive Carlos’ double-cross, Jacob just trying to get his family survival in hand, Gonzalez ready to go off on Carlos as well as the Geckos, old vampire family grudges that may help or hinder our felonious fratelis, and only the original movie’s gore, guts and vamp-staking glory as a clue of what’s to come… 

Yeah, everything’s poised for the fit to hit the shan.

Rating:

4 out of 5