Bitten S1 Ep2: Prodigal

When we last saw Elena, Bitten‘s werewolf protagonist, she had just returned to the pack’s home base, Stonehaven, where she was greeted by the brooding Clay. Within the first few minutes of Episode 2, we’ve got confirmation that Clay is, in fact, Elena’s ex (not sure we really needed a flashback to put it together).

Elena is all business, ready to track the mutt who killed the woman in the woods. The stakes have been raised: despite a ban on wolf hunting, there is a bounty out for the killer wolf, and local hunters are out in force. After brushing off Clay, who follows her like a puppy, Elena meets with Jeremy, the  pack’s Alpha, who doesn’t seem to be in a hurry to get her out there tracking. We get to meet members of the pack, including the flirty Nick, the charming Antonio, and the grungy rocker Peter. There are few boundaries in the house — she wakes up from a Clay sex dream to find Nick in her bed, with no sex between her and Nick implied. They’re close enough that casual intimacy is the norm, yet not so familial that open flirting comes off as incestuous. I imagine the pack is a common female fantasy: being the only woman surrounded by men who adore her.

While we learned in Episode 1 that the pack doesn’t kill humans, we learn in Episode 2 that there are exceptions. If a human witnesses a werewolf changing, they are to be killed (which is a really big exception that reduces the value of human life in the story by a lot). Peter, it turns out, killed a groupie in a drug-induced haze and was protected by Jeremy. And we learn that Elena herself murdered a human the year before (around the time she left Stonehaven). He had not only witnessed a werewolf turning, he cut off his half-turned arm and planned to use his “trophy” to expose the wolves. Elena was sent to purchase the arm and hush him, and when he didn’t agree, she ripped the heart out of his chest. The killing was within the laws of the pack, and Jeremy insisted that she’d done the right thing, but she was wracked with guilt.

Elena is also aware that the hunt for the mutt will end in killing, and, with her guilt bubbling up again, she starts having second thought about the whole thing. She decides to leave, to the despair of the pack, but her mind is made up — until the another victim is discovered on their property. This time, it’s a child.

What do you think of Bitten so far?

Watch “Prodigal” on Amazon Instant Video.