It’s a case of Astrid and Raphaëlle, Vampire Slayers, as the duo tackle a case in which the blood is the life – but who’s the sucker, and what happened to the blood?
A photographer is found dead with a stake through his chest by his agent, and, as Astrid suspects, all the blood has been drained from his body. There are also puncture wounds on his neck, and rope marks on his wrists and ankles – so was he the vampire, or the victim?
Fournier and Nico tease Raph mercilessly at the scene of the crime – the room is blacked out and smells of garlic. But he was a photographer, and this is France, so… Raph’s accepting no tall tales, but can’t explain where the victim’s blood has gone.
Meanwhile, the photographer’s work, pictures of kissing mouths, is having a strangely stirring effect on Astrid. She’s told Tetsuo that he may not kiss her, but what if she were to kiss him…?
The vampire/victim’s blood turns out to be a rare type, vital in certain transfusion cases – has he been drained by a tattooed Russian gangster? Not so, the mafioso claims – the victim owed him money, but the market in his ‘golden blood’ was too tightly controlled to be exploited.
So who would have the means and motive for making off with the blood? A woman doctor treating a little girl, it turns out – though it was sheer luck that she found the victim dead, just in time to drain his blood. So who killed him, and why with a stake through the chest? Ah, that was the result of a fall from the roof of his building, after a fight with his agent. It was just bad luck that he happened to fall into a skip full of pointy sticks.
The writers have a good deal of fun in this episode, with a family called the Brams (as in Stoker), characters called Jonathan and Mina (as in Harker, from Bram Stoker’s Dracula), and most tellingly, a medical supply company called Helsing. But in fact they could have done more with it – they miss a chance to have Raph say ‘I never drink…wine!’ (in fact she’s back on the fags).
Astrid, though, does get her kiss, after Tetsuo organises a violin recital for her. She’s so transported by hearing a real violin for the first time that she becomes practically orgasmic and tentatively kisses Tetsuo in a way that suggests she might be back for more. We’re continually astonished by Sara Mortensen’s performance as Astrid, and never has she been better than here, portraying oceans of emotion with every twitch of a facial muscle and twist of a finger.
Raph, meanwhile, is having no luck romantically – she thought Nico was about to split with girlfriend Emma, but in fact, he’s asked her to move in with him. Raph is disappointed, but hang on, isn’t she about 10 years too old for Nico anyway?
As we often find with Astrid: Murders in Paris, a spooky set-up turns out to have a prosaic explanation, which maybe doesn’t quite hang together – how did the victim drag himself out of the skip with a stake through his chest? How did the doctor manage to hoist him upside down to drain him single-handed? Why puncture his neck twice? And why did his agent alert the cops to his death when she had in fact killed him?
Nonetheless, this episode had plenty of bite – see what we did there? – and in advancing Astrid’s relationship with Tetsuo, it’s a significant one. In the following episodes we expect Astrid to drink deeper from the well of human relationships – perhaps that will put some colour in her cheeks.
Chris Jenkins
The Killing Times 
Sara Mortensen is SO good as Astrid. From day one I’ve been emotionally engaged with the character and this episode was top drawer as she again showed her ability to process and overcome her fears. She’ll be getting more physical contact than Raph by the end of this run (not that that’s much of a challenge it seems!)
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