Re: "Blood Ties" TV series (2006-???)

~                    Summary of "PostPartum"
Episode 1.11 of BLOOD TIES

New Characters
Mitch Lafoy ............... Bill Marchant
Marlisse Lafoy ............ Sarah Deakins
Dr Richard Hobman ......... Richard Keats
Dr Weaver ................ Colleen Winton
Mr Deskin ....................... Jan Bos
Travis Deskin ............. Brendan Mayer
Jonah ........................ David Orth
Rachel Teertstra ........... Ellie Harvie
Gabriel ............... Mitchell Duffield
The Swartalfen ........... Ryan Schroeder

Mitch and Marlisse Lafoy had been trying for years to have a
baby without success until they discovered the Hobman Clinic.
Within a short time, Marlisse became pregnant. Something changed,
however, as the pregnancy progressed. Marlisse is now living at
the Clinic and refusing to see or even speak to her husband on
grounds that his "negativity aura" is adversely affecting her
pregnancy. Mitch believes that the Clinic has some sort of
cultish hold over his wife, and he has hired P.I. Vicki Nelson to
investigate. Vicki thinks the best way to investigate might be to
go undercover, so she and TPD Detective Mike Celluci, posing as
Mike and Vicki Wheeler, are going to avail themselves of the
Hobman "Total Body" Technique.

After an initial interview with the Clinic's creator, Dr
Richard Hobman, and his assurance that he can help Vicki to
conceive a child, the first line of business is to obtain a
sample of Mike's "swimmers." After a number of kisses with "wife"
Vicki (for show only, of course), Mike is led away and Vicki is
left to fill out forms and to undergo a physical examination.
While Vicki is busy and after Mike has done his part, he is free
to leave the Clinic, so Vicki has asked him to run a check on
Richard Hobman. The profile comes up clean. No complaints, no
lawsuits, and the Hobman Clinic has a success rate twice that of
other fertility clinics. Hobman's ex-partner, Dr Weaver, portrays
Hobman as a dedicated researcher, but admits that, after Hobman
studied in vitro fertilization techniques in Vienna some 10 years
ago, he became involved with "mind-healing" and with "holistics",
which Weaver characterizes as just a euphemism for "untested."

Meanwhile, Vicki has also charged Henry and Coreen with
interviewing the Deskins, successful Hobman clients whose
testimony is featured on the Hobman website. Mr Deskin is happy
to speak with them, although his wife passed away a few years ago
after falling off a ladder. When Travis Deskin, the
much-sought-after son, comes in the front door, Henry smells
animal blood on him, and shifty-eyed Travis also seems wary of
Henry. Coreen does a websearch and finds that a large number of
pets have recently disappeared in the Deskin neighborhood. When
Vicki hears about it, she tells Coreen to interview other parents
of children conceived at the Hobman Clinic and to take Henry with
her on the chance that Henry can detect anything similar in their
children.

The next morning, Vicki is presented with an herbal drink
that head nurse Jonah describes as consisting of black cohosh,
red clover blossoms, dong quai, Chaste tree berry, and some other
things that are all part of Dr Hobman's "patented treatment" and
that serve the purpose of increasing the uterine lining and
moistening the mucous membrane. As the day goes on, Vicki meets
some of the other expectant mothers, such as Rachel Teertstra who
is a relative newcomer to the Clinic but can't say enough about
the spalike atmosphere. Marlisse Lafoy, the wife of Vicki's
client, is on bedrest in the secluded wing for high risk
pregnancies, but Vicki is allowed a short visit with her.
Marlisse is elated that the birthdate is near, and when Vicki
expresses her concern over being sequestered and her worries for
the health of the babies, Marlisse proudly allows Vicki to feel
her bulging abdomen. Expecting to feel a kick or two, Vicki is
horrified when the entire outline of the baby's face and body
starts pressing through the skin. Vicki reveals to Marlisse that
she is a private investigator hired by Marlisse's husband, but
something in the herbal cocktail Marlisse just drank is causing
her to fall asleep.

That evening, when the herbal drinks are again passed out,
Vicki dumps hers in a potted plant just as Rachel begins to
scream with excitement. She's been informed that her HCG levels
have doubled, meaning that she is pregnant. When Vicki gives her
a congratulatory hug, Rachel assures Vicki that she's going to be
next because Jonah likes her, and Jonah is seen as a lucky charm
with an instinct for who is going to get pregnant. When Mike
comes to visit after dinner, Vicki gives him a sample of both her
and Marlisse's herbal drinks and asks him to get Dr Mohadevan to
analyze them.

Meanwhile, Coreen and Henry are following up on some of the
other parents who have gone through the Hobman Clinic, but Coreen
isn't having much success. In fact, one set of parents actually
hung up on her when Coreen phoned. Henry and Coreen talk again
with Mr Deskin, who is more forthcoming this time. Deskin shows
Coreen a photo of another Hobman baby who looks just like his son
Travis, and he admits that he has questions about whether or not
Travis is his, or even whether Travis is totally human. Seeing
Travis riding around outside on his bike, Henry decides to follow
him. Travis leads him to a secluded woods where he meets up with
his friend Gabriel. When Travis makes Gabriel blindfold his eyes
and then picks up a large butcher knife, Henry steps in. He sends
Gabriel home after planting the idea that he will not play with
Travis again. To Travis, Henry plants the suggestion that Travis
will not harm any person or animal again. However, as Henry later
reveals to Coreen, he's not sure how long that suggestion will
hold. There's something dark and evil inside Travis, he feels,
and it's ancient.

Time is getting short before Vicki's conception therapy is
about to begin tomorrow. So, later that night, she goes snooping.
She comes upon the hydrotherapy room and sees a patient seated in
a hydrotub, chanting a mantra while Jonah massages her shoulders.
Before Vicki can notice the darkness spreading from Jonah's hands
into the water, Vicki is led away by Dr Hobman, who admonishes
her for peeking in on another patient's privacy. After everyone
has settled in for the night, she goes snooping again. She makes
her way into the records room and looks up the charts for
Marlisse, Rachel, and several other women, noticing that the one
thing they all have in common is hydrotherapy, evidenced by a
blue flag on their file folder. Vicki concludes that something is
happening to them during their waterbaths. She also notices that
her own folder bears a blue flag.

Dr Mahadevan has determined that the herbal drink Vicki
provided contains simply what Jonah said it did, however, the
other sample contains a drug that would make a person feel happy,
sleepy, and compliant. When Vicki and Mike exchange information
on the telephone in the morning and Vicki learns about the
compliancy cocktail, she confronts Marlisse in her bedroom, warns
her that her baby is in danger, and advises her to get out of the
Clinic. Marlisse, having seen her baby's face pressing through
her skin just as Vicki saw it, realizes that Vicki is telling the
truth and agrees to leave. As Vicki wheels Marlisse out of her
room, she is stopped by Jonah. Jonah knocks Vicki to the floor
and locks her in Marlisse's bedroom.

Henry and Coreen spent the night searching for information
about the "blackness" that Henry felt inside of Travis Deskin.
Coreen thinks he may be a swartalfen (black elf), legendary
creatures known to switch their own "twisted, unwanted offspring"
for a more desirable human child. In another book, Henry learns
that the swartalfen of Protogermanic myth is an evil elf who
impregnates women with his demon seed. As the children of these
dark elves grow older, they begin to spread death and destruction
wherever they go. Coreen thinks that Travis may be one of these
alfenkinder, and Henry is concerned that Vicki is in their den,
so he rushes to the Clinic.

Mike has done some more searching on Richard Hobman's
background as well as on Jonah. He's learned nothing
incriminating about Hobman, but when Jonah turns up as having
been a general physician practicing medicine in the 1940s,
looking the same as he looks in 2007, Mike heads for the Clinic
albeit not before Coreen stops by to tell him about the
swartalfen and to give him a bag of iron swords, pokers, and tire
irons on the chance that the swartalfen can be killed with iron.

At the Clinic, Henry has found Vicki and is trying to talk
her into leaving with him, but Vicki wants to stay in order to
finish off the swartalfen. They head down the hall looking for
Jonah just as Marlisse is wheeled into the birthing room.
Suddenly, a cloud of fog fills the hallway, and Vicki and Henry
are separated. They stumble around in the fog until Jonah in his
swartalfen form appears and grabs Vicki. Henry wrestles with him
just as Mike shows up and knocks out the swartalfen with one of
Coreen's tire irons. The fog clears but Jonah is nowhere to be
seen, so they all three go looking for him.

Jonah is in Marlisse's room, watching as Dr Hobman hands her
a baby boy. Jonah asks to hold it. As he takes the baby in his
arms, he reverts to his swartalfen form. Henry and Vicki rush at
him, but Vicki drops her iron sword. Mike steps forward to swing
his tire iron, but Marlisse stabs the swartalfen with the iron
sword that Vicki dropped. Henry grabs the baby as the swartalfen
disintegrates until he is just a small pool of blood on the
floor. As Dr Hobman is led away in handcuffs and Marlisse, Mitch,
and their baby are reunited, Mike and Vicki wonder whether the
baby is a swartalfen. Henry says that the connection was broken
when Jonah was killed but that he could still feel a darkness
inside the child. "Let's just hope it takes after its mother's
side of the family, says Vicki.

Meanwhile, as two young boys walk their dog, Travis Deskin
watches them from across the street, his pointed little ears
clearly visible under his cap.
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