I Woke Up A Vampire is a coming-of-age tale at heart, but draped in the fabrics of fantasy elements that will leave you wishing you could be a Blended too. By you, I mean anyone in their tween-teen years. The show is everything Gen Alpha and more. The show is funny, it’s trendy, and it presents good old sentiments in a nuanced manner that’ll get the kids rolling with it. If you’re looking to watch something with a younger sibling/friend and keep them entertained while not looking stupid, I suppose this is a show that can do the trick. It can border on cringy occasionally, but for the most part, it’s got heart and interesting story-building. Let’s sink our teeth straight into the recap of I Woke Up A Vampire Season 1.
Spoiler Alert
Who Is Carmie?
On her 13th birthday, Carmie (short for Carmela), wakes up with strange powers and dreams. She quickly learns that she’s what you call a “Vampling,” as well as a Blended. Vamplings are, of course, Vampire kids; however, she’s also half human, coming under the category of “Blended.” Carmie is suddenly super strong and super fast, and she occasionally has her fangs emerge when she’s overexcited. Carmie’s adopted, so she doesn’t know who her birth parents are, and a big part of season 1 of I Woke Up A Vampire is Carmie’s struggle between her chosen family and her biological family. Carmie loves her adoptive family, which consists of her parents, a pair of twins a couple of years younger (gaming geniuses, btw) than her, and a dog, who she can talk to, thanks to her new powers. Kev is Carmie’s best friend, and he has a special fascination with comic books. Before she knows it, Kev’s got all the information she needs about her Vampling tendencies. If this were a superhero story, Kev would be Carmie’s desk guy. Anyway, Kev’s got all of his information from the “Mythics” and “Blended” comics. Apparently, any non-human creatures, i.e., vampires, werewolves, etc., are all mythics. The mythics are considered dangerous in the human world, and so they stay away. For the Blended, at age 16, they must choose between the path of humanity and the mythics. If they choose to be mythic, their human life will be forgotten forever.
Seeing that comic books are the only reliable source they have, and that the author of these books seems to know an awful lot about the Blended, Carmie decides to go see Olivia Rhodes. Olivia tells Carmie that her mother is an evil vampire trying to collect mythics and convert them into an evil force against humans. The only reason Olivia remembers everything about her Vampling life is because she journaled her experience. Olivia fell in love as a Vampling and, because of heartbreak, she started her journaling. Eventually, she learned that having a broken heart is still better than being a heartless monster (apparently so), so she chose her human side and became a popular author, spreading tales about the Blended. On the other hand, there’s a young boy named Dylan, a new kid in town, who is a Van Helsing, aka a hunter. He’s been hunting Blended and handing them over to a man named “the Collector.” Kev works at the Collector’s comic book store but doesn’t realize what’s been happening right under his nose.
In the meantime, Carmie’s one big dream is to star in the school musical. She works really hard to audition and becomes an understudy. Carmie can’t be looked at in mirrors or through a camera lens because she ends up glowing. However, she comes up with the solution of using makeup to make herself appear normal in pictures, so she can be photographed for the school play. There’s also a new girl in town named Madison. Madison seems to like Carmie the second she comes into town, but there’s something strange about her. By episode 6, Carmie learns that Madison is a werewolf and a Blended, just like her.
Why Is The Collector Helping The Evil Vampire?
At the end of I Woke Up A Vampire episode 8, Carmie discovers that her mother is none other than the shapeshifting vampire who is terrorizing the Collector in order to get as many Blended on her side as possible. Earlier, Dylan, Carmie, and Kev teamed up to help Madison escape and also learn about the shapeshifter. The Collector is a mythic himself, with Medusa-like snake tendrils around his head, which he hides with a scarf. He reveals this only after we find out that the shapeshifter has no intention of returning his daughter Jewel to him. The reason the Collector was helping the shapeshifter at all was the promise of getting his kidnapped daughter back from her. Unfortunately, evil people don’t ever keep their promises, and so, in the end, he’s left all alone, and the shapeshifter tells him that his daughter has forgotten about him. Seeing the disastrous outcome, and making friends for the first time, Dylan decides to stop being a hunter.
At the end of season 1, Carmie’s mother says she has all the time in the world to get to Carmie. It’s something she looks forward to, but she’s also hiding something from her. Additionally, Carmie’s biological father has been missing since Carmie was born, so she must figure out what happened to him as well. At the end of the series, Madison and her mother decide to leave for another town because of everything that’s gone down, but she’ll surely return in the second season for more fun. Carmie has big decisions to make, and as the show progresses, she’ll get closer to figuring out which Carmie she will choose soon enough. Maybe the whole thing about forgetting their other life is also something that can be changed. Additionally, we think we’ve been Rickrolled in the final episode, only for a cameo from the actual Rick Astley telling Carmie that she will save them all (the mythics). He’s a vampire too, and he says that they’re everywhere. So watch out, kids; you never know who might be a mythic around you.
