First Kill season 1, episode 4 recap – “First Date”

This recap of First Kill season 1, episode 4, “First Date”, contains spoilers.

You know, First Kill is quite an interesting show. On the one hand, it’s an LGBTQ+ romance, a coming-of-age drama, and a lightly fantastical adventure. But here in the opening of “First Date” it really leans into a lot of action and bloodletting, finally getting into that “horror” label that IMDb applies to it. It’s hard to say who the show is for, really, so fluid is it with genre and tone. But at least it’s interesting, and that’s more than you can say for a lot of stuff these days.

First Kill season 1, episode 4 recap

Anyway, we pick up where we left off with Cal’s family raiding Juliette’s consecration, but a whole flurry of things happen at once. At first, it’s a little uncomfortable to see how much the hunters are relishing skewering the fleeing vampires with their silver-tipped weaponry, which a previous episode explained as having dated back to the first and only successful kill of a Legacy. But then all the Legacies begin resurrecting anyway, turning the tables on their attackers. You think you’re being asked to sympathize with the vampires until Oliver and Elinor skewer Mike and Sarah against a tree, leaving Tess to discover them (even though she probably deserves it for ratting out Cal). The twins also help Cal and Juliette to escape, but they’re accosted by Cook, who is trying to recapture Cal. In the struggle, Cal axe kicks him into the shadow realm, so she and Juliette need to dispose of his body.

Naturally, they turn to Ben (we also meet his hilarious, pretty drunk mother). But when Juliette tries to explain the situation to him, Cook’s missing. He attacks Ben from behind and in the process of defending him, Juliette feeds on Cook, which both Ben and Cal watch in horror.

In the aftermath of the attack, Oliver has been taken hostage by the hunters, who’re in complete disarray, Juliette’s father is mortally wounded and not healing because he’s not a Legacy – there’s a surprisingly touching moment when Margot encourages him to feed on her wrist, though for a split-second I did admittedly think she was going to breastfeed him – and Davina is ready to burn the whole place down. But we also get to see another side of Elinor here, who is ready to offer her hand in marriage to one of the Davenport sons – the family that Margot jilted at the altar – just to save her father’s life.

Ben, meanwhile, doesn’t take the revelation that Juliette and her entire family are vampires especially well, but he eventually swallows his pride and gets his Taylor Swift blanket for the trip, which is progress of a kind. The blanket is to wrap Cook’s corpse in, but problems arise when Noah and Phillipa discover them in the woods, and Cal’s cover story of them sneaking off to mourn Ashley results in cans of beer being pulled out for a bit of a remembrance picnic, right next to the body.

We also get to spend a lot more time with Oliver in this episode, since Talia interrogates him about Cal’s location, and he’s an intriguing guy. He’s funny, smug, kind of charming, and gives off the vibe that Elinor conspired to have him ostracised. He has shown he isn’t afraid to skewer someone to a tree, but the descriptions we’ve heard of him so far don’t seem to align with what we’re seeing, and I think there’s going to be more to his story, including the fact he’s apparently magically bound to a witch. Either way, Talia calls Margot so she can listen to her plunging a screwdriver through his neck, so they agree to meet on neutral ground to figure out where Calliope is.

Meanwhile, Juliette and Cal are getting a lot closer, in more ways than one. But their illegal bonfire is interrupted by a newly rejuvenated Sebastien, who Davina saved by allowing the Emerald Malkia to enter his body through his wound. He’s not best pleased with the situation and tries to take the girls back to Margot, but they’re interrupted by what seems to be the witch that Oliver is bound to. At the same moment, Margot meets with Jack, Talia, and Oliver himself, who claims to have done this for love before throwing himself backward off the roof of the multistorey car park. When everyone looks over the edge, he’s gone. What exactly is everyone up to?

You can stream First Kill season 1, episode 4, “First Date”, exclusively on Netflix.