Summary
Drops of God Season 2 introduces a bit of unexpected danger and drama in “The Origin”, which reaches the end of the road wine-wise but uncovers a whole new conflict to focus on.
No dog chasing a car ever stopped to consider what it might do if it caught it, and similarly, Camille and Issei never really thought beyond their international quest to determine the origin of their father’s favourite wine. It was about the journey as much as the destination, and Season 2 of Drops of God had that feeling of an epic quest to it, with the leads ping-ponging across Europe to determine the provenance of Alexandre’s ambrosia. Episode 3, “The Origin”, brings the quest to an unexpected end, at least insofar as figuring out where the wine came from, but it turns out there are bigger issues to consider.
You’ll recall that in the previous episode, a Georgian beekeeper living in Greece revealed that he sent his very specific beeswax to a monastery in his home village of Kartli, so that’s the setting for this chapter. It’s a picturesque location, but the tone is soured somewhat by lingering animosity between Camille and Issei after the latter’s attempted abandonment of the former. They sit miles apart at breakfast, and when Camille tries to learn more about Issei’s relationship with Dai, who has arranged them a local contact named Gocha, he shuts her down immediately. Awkward.
The sense of mystery establishes itself immediately in Georgia. A monk at the monastery literally runs off instead of talking to them, and Gocha has to explain that decades of oppression under Soviet rule have given the Georgian people a deep sense of privacy and paranoia. But there’s still joy to be had. Irakli, a local whom Gocha stops when Camille inquires about finding somewhere to eat, introduces Camille and Issei to his family, who are celebrating his parents’ wedding anniversary with a traditional feast full of dancing and merriment.
This, at least, lasts about as long as it takes Irakli’s mother, Tamar, to receive a phone call which tips her off about Camille and Issei’s interest in the local wine. She assumes they have been sent by a man named Davit and unceremoniously sends them on their way, introducing us to the core predicament that will underscore the remainder of the episode (and, one assumes, a good chunk of the season). Just before that, though, we have to briefly clarify that we’re in the right place, wine-wise.
To do this, Camille and Issei, having slightly reconciled after a very frank conversation in which Camille essentially told Issei to put up or shut up, sneak into the monastery to inspect the Herbemont. While there, they witness Vasil, another of Irakli’s relatives, being assaulted by some goons. They drag him back home, where he’s patched up by Tamar, who explains that Davit is her brother, a ruthless businessman with whom she’s in a pretty bitter and longstanding conflict. Davit is trying to sell the land and the vineyard out from beneath the rest of the family, much like how the secretive wine was stolen and auctioned off, eventually finding its way to Alexandre.
Of course, Camille and Issei were only trying to determine where the wine came from, which means as of Drops of God Season 2, Episode 3, they’ve technically accomplished their quest already. But Tamar would rather they didn’t move on quite so hastily, since the wine is deeply entangled in both the family’s history and spiritual beliefs, so Davit planning to sell it all off is not just a personal blow but also the erasure of an important chapter of wine-making history. Camille and Issei can’t in good conscience allow that to happen, so they decide to extend their stay in Georgia and help out. This gives the season a consistent setting and a clear central plot, both of which are useful, though I must say I enjoyed the jet-setting tone of the wine mystery.
Luckily, Camille has some contacts. Through Talion, she learns that Tamar can prevent the sale by enlisting one of the best lawyers in Tbilisi, but Issei is sadly sidelined, since, after having a swig of the local wine, he collapses. He still isn’t fully recovered from his near-death experience, and he’s continuing to have eerie visions of the moon and his own death by drowning. It’s Tamar who diagnoses this enigmatic condition – he’s sad. Not like he’s a loser, just that he’s nursing deep-seated insecurities about having lost to Camille in Season 1 and felt adrift in the aftermath, not to mention some serious mommy issues. Maybe this will be a breakthrough for him.
In the meantime, Camille finds the lawyer to be generally useless, too afraid to take on Davit head-on, so she instead plans to ambush the latter at a swanky restaurant. She does a fairly good job of this until it transpires that the lawyer had already tipped Davit off about who she was and what she wanted, so she’s rumbled. Davit has no interest in doing business with Camille, and his enmity with Tamar obviously runs exceptionally deep. When she gets back to the car, Gocha tells her that the entire family is stubborn. It’s a feeling she knows well, and it’s clear that she’s declaring her own personal war on Davit.
