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Sleepers   Credits   Transcript   Images    

"Sleepers" is the tenth episode of the second season of Sanctuary, and the twenty-third episode overall in the series.

Synopsis[]

Will Zimmerman and Helen Magnus investigate a case where a number of young twenty-something adults are mysteriously disappearing. Their investigation leads them to a detox clinic run by Nikola Tesla, who intends to bring back vampire-kind. However, one of the "patients" finds a way to speed up the conversion process, which transforms them into a more powerful type of vampire than Tesla.

Plot[]

Cold Open[]

A couple stops their car when they discover a car that seems to have rolled off the street. The husband comes to the driver's aid, but finds that the man is already dead. He tells his wife to call 911, but when he turns back to the car, the dead driver is gone. Moments later, something turns up behind him and grabs him.

Act I[]

Helen Magnus is seen arriving sometime after Will Zimmerman at the crime scene. Will leads her around the area as they inspect the remains of the couple from the previous night, Thomas and Zoe Rayburn. Both have been brutally murdered by something with huge claws.

Back in the Old City Sanctuary, Magnus and Will watch a surveillance video of a young man overwhelming and abducting another man in a parking garage in New City. They find out that the perpetrator is one Chad Spencer, who is also the "dead man" Thomas Rayburne discovered in the car. The abductee is Darrin Wilson, his roommate. Both come from rich families. Will inquires why Henry Foss and Bigfoot cannot assist him, and finds out that Magnus allowed them both to go to Comic-Con.[1]

In a street, a young woman, Laura S., meets with Darrin, who drags her into a back alley. To her shock, Chad, whom she believed to be dead, is also there. She asks him what happened, to which he replies that "it all makes sense" now, and shoots her in the chest. Seconds later, she comes back to life and, like Chad and Darrin, has turned into a vampire.

Meanwhile, Will and Kate Freelander find out that Chad and his friends recently checked into a private drug rehab clinic in Mexico, under the supervision of one Dr. Heinrich Baumschlager. It is known as "La Casa de la Nueva Vida" ("the House of New Life").

In Mexico, Magnus and Will meet with Dr. Baumschlager, who turns out to be Nikola Tesla.

Act II[]

Tesla gives them a tour of the facility and explains that he redesigned the bioweapon he created to fight the Cabal's super abnormals, and has turned it into a genetic cure for all kinds of addictions. Eventually, Magnus gets him to confess that the "cure" turns the patients into vampires, and that he has treated enough young people to raise a small army of them.

In a loft, Chad kills two more of his friends, who rise as vampires moments later. They soon hack into Tesla's network and discover the true history of the ancient vampire race that once ruled over the world. Chad decides it is time to "rebuild the empire".

Meanwhile, Magnus concludes that sudden death may cause the slow mutation that Tesla built into the young people's genes to accelerate.

Chad and his friend try to get another of their friends into their group by biting him in the neck. However, the boy dies and does not come back to life. They then decide to go back to "Dr. Baumschlager" and find out how to make more of their kind.

Magnus orders Kate to find the remaining patients, but they are soon confronted by Chad and his friends. Tesla surprises them with his strength, but is eventually overwhelmed by a car that hits him. The vampires then take him away, leaving Laura behind.

Act III[]

The new vampires question Tesla about his plan: he chose young people who are the heirs of vast fortunes and positions of power, and in thirty years time, they would slowly have become a new ruling class of vampires. Now that this plan has been spoiled, he does not want to cooperate with them. A fight ensues, and the young vampires throw Telsa off the building. After smashing into a car, he decides that there may be time for some more talk.

Back in the Sanctuary, Magnus, Will and Kate interrogate Laura, but she just insults them and refuses to cooperate. Kate then threatens to shoot her with "massive silver" bullets "blessed by a priest with holy water from the Vatican". Unaware that this method to kill vampires is just a legend, Laura becomes scared and talks.

The vampires take a sample of Tesla's blood and find out more about the process that turned them into a strain of their species even more powerful than the original one.

Magnus learns that she may be able to reverse the process, but that if they do not act in time, there may soon come a new reign of the vampire race.

Act IV[]

Magnus concludes that Tesla must have created a "failsafe" to destroy or control his creations, and that he must have hidden it somewhere where it would still be safe after about thirty years time. The team soon realizes that the most likely place to do that is the Sanctuary itself.

They search the place and eventually find the failsafe in an old bottle of wine (a gift Magnus received from Winston Churchill for D-Day): it is some kind of weapon, but they do not know how to use it. Tesla and Chad quarrel about the way to do things, but Tesla eventually decides to listen to Chad's plan.

The Sanctuary team assaults the vampires' loft, but they are captured, and are left bound and gagged. Nikola seems to have taken control of the younger abnormals, and remarks how "it's good to be king again".

Act V[]

Tesla gets the weapon, which he calls a "de-vamper". It is an energy weapon that runs with his electric body energy. He soon removes the vampiric traits from the only female. Meanwhile, Kate and Will are in a panic and can't get free while Helen stays calm and frees herself with a pocketknife, and then rescues the other two. A fight ensues, in which the Sanctuary team soon comes to Tesla's aid. Chad however gets to Kate and threatens to kill her.

Tesla tricks Chad into letting Kate go and uses the de-vamper on him, but the younger man pulls him close enough so that the weapon affects Tesla as well: He is turned into an ordinary human.

Back in the Sanctuary, Tesla finds a way to use the facility's power to charge the de-vamper once more and turn Laura back into a human. Magnus tries to find a way to give him his powers back, but is unsuccessful. Will asks why she even tries, to which she replies that Tesla's becoming mortal would make her the last of the Five.

Magnus and Tesla have a glass of wine, saying a toast to the once mighty, and now extinct, vampire race. However, they soon discover that he seems to have developed some kind of magnetic ability, being able to move metal by will. Nikola Tesla smiles and remarks that "I can work with that".

Cast[]

Series regulars
Guest starring
Featuring

Quotes[]

TESLA: Nobody hijacks Nikola Tesla!
KATE: If we ever get out of this alive, I'll kill him!
WILL: Me first.
MAGNUS: Both of you; back of the line!
WILL: Okay, so what is that thing?
TESLA: I call it... The de-vamper!
KATE: You're a genius and that's the best you could come up with?
TESLA: It's just my soul crushing depression talking. I am not myself.
MAGNUS: On the contrary you are your real self again. Human. Mortal.
TESLA: Watch your language.
MAGNUS: I'm sorry, Nikola, but its true. I've tried everything I could think of. There is simply no way to re-vamp you.
TESLA: You see how this puts a crimp in my plans for world domination. Not to say that I won't keep trying.
MAGNUS: I would expect nothing less.
TESLA: Very well. If this is to be a wake, then lets do it properly. Join me in a toast. To happier times to those Halcyon times of blood lust now gone. Plus you got to admit vampires are just plain cool.
MAGNUS: Amen.
TESLA: Here's to the glorious vampire race. Once mighty, now extinct.

Extras[]

Notes[]

  • Casting: Ryan Robbins and Christopher Heyerdahl do not appear in this episode.
  • Error: In the dialogue and official description for this episode, the age range of the people Nikola Tesla experiments on are labeled as being teenagers. However, that isn't entirely correct. Chad Spencer is confirmed as being 24-years-old. His roommate Darrin Wilson is also a college student around the same age. Being that the rest of the young adults featured in the episode are friends with them, it could be assumed that they were of the same age as well; otherwise, some if not all, of the remaining three characters turned into vampires would have to be teenagers to make the description not completely erroneous.
  • Anachronism: The chronological placement of this episode is contradictory. The dialogue (saying Chad Spencer is 24-years-old), paper props (listing Chad's Birthday as October 24th, 1985), and air date (mid-December 2009) indicate that the episode should be taking place after Chad's 24th birthday, presumably during the December air date. However, the writer(s)/creators explained Henry Foss and Bigfoot's absence from the Old City Sanctuary as being down at San Diego Comic Con. In real life, SDCC took place from July 23rd, 2009 to July 26th, 2009. If that were true, then Chad would be 23 instead of 24 and the props and dialogue would have been changed to accurately reflect that continuity. Being that the inclusion of mentioning SDCC on the show was added solely as an Easter Egg for the show to use the footage in a hype reel for fans at the real world 2009 Sanctuary panel, it would be safe to assume that viewers can essentially ignore this as the proper time frame of the episode.
    • Note: This episode taking place earlier in the year in late-July for SDCC rather than in December can still be a possibility as it does keep with continuity based on occurring after the previous Episode 2x08 - "Next Tuesday" which took place in early-summer during late-June 2009 for Ashley Magnus's birthday. However, this scenario is unlikely considering that it's the tenth episode of the season out of a total of thirteen episodes. Because a season correlates to the length of one year, it's unlikely that more than half of all of the episodes in a season would occur with in the first six months of a year, potentially leaving a five to six month gap between two concurrent episodes; such would happen if Episode 2x10 - "Sleepers" did occur in late-July 2009 while Episode 2x11 - "Haunted" occurred in early January / February 2010.
  • Speculation: Based on Helen Magnus's comment about Chad Spencer being on his fourth Ivy League tour, he may be 'currently' attending the University of British Columbia which has a campus located nearby to New City in Vancouver, Canada.
  • Continuity Error: When Chad Spencer recruits Laura S. in the alley in New City, he mentions they stayed for a week at the detox clinic during Spring Break. Later on, while Helen Magnus and Will Zimmerman are at the clinic, Nikola Tesla explains that he cures his patients in one week and then sends them back home to their parents. In the 'props' used by the characters however, the screen on Will's computer showing the North American Security Institute erroneously displays that the entire group of rich kids spent two weeks at the facility.
  • Continuity Error: On the same NASI screen mentioned above, it also specifies that the clinic treats alcohol addiction as well as drug addition. While realistically both addictions can run hand-in-hand in patients, Nikola Tesla only mentions that his clinic treats drug addictions, and both Chad Spencer and Laura S. were known to have been admitted for drugs only.
  • Reference: "True Blood" (2008) (TV Series) - Steve says, "What's with the eyes? They don't do that on True Blood".
  • Based on the license plate of the getaway vehicle used by the vampires to abduct Nikola Tesla, the detox clinic is located on the coast of Sonora, Mexico.
  • According to the computer screen in Helen Magnus's study displaying her examination of Laura S.'s blood:
    • It states that Nikola Tesla has treated over eighteen subjects.
    • It marks the day March 3rd, 2009 for some unknown reason.
      • Speculation: March 3rd 2009 occurred on a Tuesday. Depending on if Laura S. and the others got to the detox clinic on the previous Saturday or Sunday, this could potentially be either the third or fourth day of treatment.
      • This however may be an anachronism. In the real world, K-12 schools in British Columbia, Canada hold their Spring break usually during the second or third week of the month of March. During the 2008-2009 school year, Spring break closing occurred on Friday March 13th and post-Spring Break opening occurred on Monday, March 23rd, lasting over the third week of the month.[2] For post-secondary Canadian college/university students, this time is usually referred to as "Reading Week", held during the third week of February coinciding with Family Day for anglophone Canada (which includes B.C.). Francophone Canada typically holds theirs during the first or second week of March. The third week in February 2009 spanned from Sunday the 15th to Saturday the 21st. Closing occurred on Friday the 13th and opening occurred on Monday the 23rd.
      • There are two problems associated with this as:
        1. It means that both the college level young adults and potential high-school teenagers couldn't have been at the detox clinic together during the same week of treatment. (Unless 'teenager' means they are an 18-19 year old college freshman.)
        2. The only possible way any of the college students could have been there on March 3rd would be if they lived in French speaking provinces/territories, such as Quebec which seems highly unlikely as at least three of the vampires reside in / around / near New City (Chad Spencer, Darrin Wilson, and Laura S.).
  • Reference: "Saturday Night Live" (1975) (TV Series) - Kate Freelander mentions Debby Downer.
  • Anachronism: Helen Magnus finds the bottle of '45 Bordeaux presented to her by Winston Churchill in honor of D-Day. D-day occurred in the year 1944.[3]
  • Reference: "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" (1992) - Kate Freelander mentions Buffy, while discussing ways to deal with vampires.
  • Trivia: The episode is dedicated to the memory of Azra Young, Phoebe and Fergus Conway. Azra Young was the daughter of actor Jonathon Young (who plays Nikola Tesla). Azra, along with her cousins Phoebe and Fergus, died in a cabin fire on July 23rd, 2009.
  • Trivia: The irises of the eyes of all of the "transformed vampires" are very large & black. Although this can be achieved by using CGI, it is highly unlikely this method was used due to the high cost. Instead, the most common way to do this is by using contact lenses. These are frequently used by makeup & special effects crews on actors. Unfortunately, due to their large size, they can be very uncomfortable. Consequently, they can only be worn for brief periods of time.
  • Unresolved/Forgotten Plotline: Nikola Tesla treats at least eighteen people at his detox clinic, inserting vampire genetics into their DNA. Five of them are featured in this episode and reverted back to being normal via the de-vamper. The remaining thirteen+ patients are never discussed or dealt with onscreen by Tesla or the Sanctuary staff. It is completely unknown what happened to them.
    • Speculation: Helen Magnus may or may not have forced Nikola Tesla to recall all of his 'treated' patients to undo the procedure, however this is conjecture.

Gallery[]

References[]

  1. An obvious in-joke, as Amanda Tapping is a regular guest at Comic-Con.
  2. 2008-2009 Canada School Calendar
  3. Helen Magnus's involvement in D-Day is later explored in Episode 3x17 - "Normandy"
SanctuarySeason 2
● 01 End of Nights, Part I ● 02 End of Nights, Part II ● 03 Eulogy ● 04 Hero ● 05 Pavor Nocturnus ● 06 Fragments ● 07 Veritas ● 08 Next Tuesday ● 09 Penance ● 10 Sleepers ● 11 Haunted ● 12 Kali, Part I ● 13 Kali, Part II
Story Arc   :   Vampire Resurrection
● 1x07 The Five ● 2x01 End of Nights, Part I ● 2x02 End of Nights, Part II ● 2x10 Sleepers ● 3x16 Awakening
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