The Rise Of The Fallen – Tyson Walker (Rob Collins) sings a song while looking up at the stars. He asks Shanika “Neeks” (Shantae Barnes-Cowan) to join him, but she is doing homework. He walks over, pulls her tablet out of her hands, and points up to the sky. The darkness between the stars is a beautiful dark emu. After 80,000 years of staring at the dark emu, a white man deemed it “negative space.” Tyson disagrees with the term, negative space because it has nothing to do with dark negativity. He suggests they deem it “Tyson Walker space.”

He was recently scratched by a bloodsucker. She questions if it is a firebite. He goes on a tangent about stabbing a firebite through the heart, even if it is him. She repeats what he says, “Kill a firebite fast.” He describes them as “dark and deadly.”

Tyson, a firebite, is chained to a wall when he wakes up frantic. Eleona (Yael Stone) rushes over to comfort him. She encourages him to listen to her voice, saying darkness is running through his blood veins. He grabs a bag of blood from Lucas (Sam Dugmore).

A metal door is a barricade to the bloodsucker tunnel. Shanika pulls out what looks like a grenade. Within seconds, an explosion can be felt in the bar. Unbothered, the patrons are more concerned about protecting their beers from falling debris. Spud (Jai Koutrae) protests when Shanika walks through the bar and out the front door without glancing at him. When she jumps into Tyson’s car, she has a flashback of him checking the vampire traps.

Eleona leads Tyson through the tunnel with a chain. He gets anxious when exposed to sunlight. She switches the chain around his neck to his hands. He crouches while walking through the tunnel. She encourages him to follow mummy. She orders him to wait while she checks out a room, with bunkbeds. Razz asks her if she is bartending today. She places three large fire opals on the countertop. Razz is amazed by the size of the fire opals, saying you may be able to buy the entire place.

Shanika arrives at Tyson’s bloodsucker traps. She discovers the Vampire King (Callan Mulvey) in a trap. He pleads with her to give him blood. Placing her boomerang on his chest, she demands to know where Tyson was taken. She ties him to the front of her car.

Aunty Maria (Tessa Rose) and Kitty Sinclair (Ngaire Pigram) gather up weapons to fight off the bloodsuckers if there is another attack. Smokey (Greg Tait) is watching Shanika’s mum, Rona (Natasha Wanganeen) who has a long way to go. Kitty asks if she has heard from Shanika. Aunty Maria informs her about Tyson’s firebite before giving her an explanation. Kitty admits to loving Tyson. Aunty Maria assures her that Tyson knew she loved him, along with half the women in town.

Shanika arrives with the Vampire King outside the community.

Eleona encourages Tyson to drink blood. She scolds him for snatching a blood bag out of her hands. Lucas alerts her that the place is spacious and empty, suggesting they utilize it for a new colony. She threatens to show him her fangs before accusing him of getting others to do the bad work to avoid the repercussions. She says some people would call it cowardly. He agrees, other bloodsuckers would never follow him, but they will follow a bloodsucker with power. They would refuse to follow a vampire who doesn’t kill.

Matthew (Adam Ovadia) disagrees with Lucas, calling him pathetic. Eleona demands him to leave. He refuses to leave without Tyson because he tainted the bloodsucker bloodline. He threatens to find the Vampire King and restore him. He orders another bloodsucker to attack Eleona. She kills him in seconds. Tyson lunges at Matthew. She rushes over to comfort him. Matthew warns her, the vampires will not stop coming until Tyson is dead. She promises to get him some blood. He calms down.

Shanika chains the Vampire King up in Jalingbirri’s (Kelton Pell) truck. She slashes her palm, placing the blood on his neck wound. He gurgles until he is strong enough to speak. She hits him with her boomerang before reminding him how he traveled there by ship. He claims the kings from distant lands sent him there. The bloodsuckers are far more superior than the blackfellas who are nothing but food. She tells him about Tyson. He says Eleona turned him into a bloodsucker. She asks where Eleona took him. He agrees to tell her, but not before she removes his chains. She says you will kill me. He promises to not hurt her.

Tyson pants for breath while staring at himself in a mirror. The Vampire King warns Shanika, there is little time left for Tyson to lose his human identity and memory. They have a few days or a week, depending on his strength. She threatens to take them all out. He suggests she stop acting like a child. When she places her boomerang on his heart, he snatches it, knocking her to the ground. She struggles until he finally releases her. He reminds her of what he said earlier about not hurting her. She will need to embrace her darkness to be strong enough to get Tyson back. He promises to help her, holding up his chains.

A bar patron slaps Eleona on the butt while she tries to retrieve a bag of blood in the cooler. She reminds the man that he cannot be behind the bar. He accuses her of teasing him. He offers to pay her, grabbing a handful of her butt. She repeats, he is not permitted behind the bar. He believes she is playing hard to get. She has a flashback of her fight with the Vampire King before promising to meet him outside.

Shanika has a flashback of Tyson goofing around. When Eleona walks outside as the man is urinating. Gradually approaching him, she asks do you want me, you want it your way. The man says, “Yea baby.” She attacks him, with no warning. Lucas approaches to ask if she is ready. She orders him to take her to the bloodsuckers. A bloodsucker says they are returning to normal, with the Vampire King gone. The other bloodsuckers bow when she kills him.

Shanika and Kitty visit Rona who is alert. She says hello to Shanika. Kitty sees where Shanika gets her fight from. Shanika releases now she was wrong about going down into the vampire tunnel. Kitty assures her she did what was necessary for the family.

Eleona tells Tyson she used to be a dressmaker who wanted to live in the Australian Outback with her family. Vampires were a myth until the Vampire King found her. Dressed, she orders Tyson to follow her. He obeys, following behind her. He lays down on the pool table while she serves two male patrons at the bar. Carly (Molly Ferguson) and Luca peep around the corner as Eleona tells the men, they are just in time for dinner. The bloodsuckers attack one of the men while Eleona saves the other one for her baby, Tyson.  The man pleads for him to not attack, but Tyson does anyway.

Smokey, Kitty, and Aunty Maria prepare their weapons for a bloodsucker attack. Shanika gives Smokey a belt buckle. Aunty Maria offers to carve her some stakes. She tells her that Tyson trained her to fight bloodsuckers because she is the next blood hunter. Black Elvis (Samuel Pilot) refuses to believe it because blood hunters are men, not women. Aunty Maria reminds him that Shanika is one of the most skilled of them all. She tells him to leave if he doesn’t agree. Kitty watches over him as he angrily stomps away. Smokey picks up her boomerang, saying, “I’m with you, Shanika.” She informs them that they need to locate Eleona.

Eleona places Tyson in a catch when Spud approaches. He isn’t happy about her leaving Tyson there. She says he is too young to leave him with the others, kicking Spud up against the cage. He promises he will not be a problem. She suggests he make friends with Tyson while she goes for blood.

Shanika, Aunty Maria, Smokey, and Kitty enter the bar. Shanika fires her gun in the air, ordering the patrons to leave. Smokey grabs his gun before he has a chance to get it. Shanika demands to know the whereabouts of Eleona as Smokey holds him down on a pool table. He warns them to not mess with Eleona, she is different now.

Anxious, Tyson snarls when they approach. Shanika calls his name. Aunty Maria says they need to go ahead and do it. He tries to attack Shanika when she reaches her hand out to him. Aunty Maria reminds her that he is a bloodsucker, pleading with her to do it. Tyson stares at Shanika as she sings to him. She tells the others Tyson is still with them. Eleona alerts them that he belongs to her, promising to take care of him. Shanika says he is their blood. Eleona calms him while they fight off the bloodsuckers.

Eleona walks up, kicking Shanika in the back. A struggle ensues between the two of them. She tells Shanika about teaching Tyson things when he breaks out of the cage. Tyson pulls Shanika back after she injures Eleona. She tries to reason with him, saying you are my dad. Aunty Maria cocks her gun, but Shanika promises he is still with them. Eleona orders him to follow her. Kitty warns more bloodsuckers are coming. They drag Shanika out of the bar, screaming for Tyson. Eleona informs them, she is the owner of the town. Shanika tosses her boomerang at Elona, through the bar doors before they shut.

Shanika promises to get her dickhead dad back in a narration as the episode comes to an end.

 

Firebite Finale Review

It seems they were too caught up in creating woke dialogue than giving the audience a blowout finale, which was meh. The wokeness overshadowed Rob Collins’s and Yael Stone’s amazing performances. If the writers were trying to be subtle, they failed miserably. This explains the 5.1-star IMDB rating.

The dialogue repeatedly utilized the term, “black”. Black blood, blackfella, and black emu. When it wasn’t utilizing black, it was utilizing the term, dark.

The show didn’t always portray the indigenous people of Australia in the best light. In nearly every episode, Tyson was drunk or getting drunk. The fighting scenes, with bright flashing lights, were nothing short of seizure triggers. There should be an epilepsy warning in the description to protect those with photosensitivity.

I couldn’t imagine a second season being any different than the first. Shanika’s role would go from searching for her mum to searching for Tyson while putting the community in danger.  The finale deserves a 5.5.

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