Review of the second season of the series “Pishcheblok” by Alexei Ivanov

Online cinema “Kinopoisk” shows the second season of the TV series “Pishcheblok”. Now he is completely free to interpret the novel of the same name by Alexei Ivanov about vampire pioneers. Shares impressions from the first series Julia Shagelman.

The first season of Pishcheblok, which was released on Kinopoisk in 2021, quite faithfully followed the original source. Its action took place in the summer of the Olympic 1980 in the Burevestnik pioneer camp located somewhere near Kuibyshev, the entrance to which was overshadowed by a plaster statue of a bugler. During a shift rich in mystical events, pioneer Valerka Logunov (Petr Natarov) and counselor Igor Korzukhin (Daniil Vershinin) made an unpleasant discovery: it turned out that vampires really exist, moreover, they managed to fit into the Soviet system without any problems. Firstly, the red color of flags, pioneer ties and badges serves as a talisman for them, so they can not be afraid of garlic and sunlight, and secondly, having drunk blood, boys and girls turn into exemplary Soviet schoolchildren, without reasoning following the rules and obeying adults. True, after the “initiation” in the pioneer camp, they die within a year, which happened to Valerka’s older brother, who had been to Burevestnik before him. Only the supreme vampire remains alive and immortal – the stratilate, which turns the young pioneers into bloodsuckers. In the season finale, Valerka and Igor still managed to defeat him and remove the spell from the newly converted vampires, who had forgotten everything that had happened to them. But only at the cost of a terrible sacrifice: Valerka had to become a stratilate himself.

Masterful, although not among his best works, Ivanov’s novel was a strong cocktail of Soviet children’s folklore (all those horror stories about a black hand and a red sheet), a carefully designed setting with all the signs of a late stagnation, when the entire party-Komsomol-pioneer ideology had finally degenerated into a set of meaningless rituals, and not so much nostalgia for that time as a parody of it. From the series, filmed by horror director Svyatoslav Podgaevsky based on the script by Alexander Talal, the last component has disappeared almost completely, but a fair amount of eroticism has been added. Both main characters found their love in “Petrel”, but if Valerka got only innocent children’s kisses with the same age as Anastasia (Maria Abramova), then Igor – night swims in the river with naked pioneer leader Veronika (Angelina Strechina) and sex under the moon with her.

The events described in the novel were enough for one season. The script for the second is a completely original story, written by Sergei Kaluzhanov, but approved by Ivanov.

The director has also changed: now it’s Eduard Bordukov, who previously filmed mainly sports dramas (perhaps that’s why in the first episode everyone runs a lot, jumps and kicks someone in the face with a roundhouse kick).

Three years have passed since the fateful shift in Burevestnik, and the city of Kuibyshev itself is now the scene of action, although the authors promise other locations in the future. The grown-up Valerka became the headman of the 9th “B” class, and his tender friendship with Anastasia is still strong. But Igor lost his Veronica, who nevertheless married the nasty Komsomol leader Plotkin (Denis Paramonov), who had advanced even higher up the party career ladder. We also get to know new characters: the evil headmistress Martynova (Ravshana Kurkova), repeater Alyoshin (Semyon Kozlov), and Valerka and Anastasia’s new classmate Rita Sharova (Ksenia Treister).

This is clearly not an ordinary schoolgirl: she fights great and at the same time does not say where she learned so, and most importantly, she quickly finds out Logunov’s main secret, being nearby during the secret “feeding” that they arrange every full moon with Korzukhin. After all, the stratilate must regularly “eat” so as not to die, but Valerka does not want to bite anyone and turn into a vampire, so Igor expresses his blood to him. In addition, Rita promises to become Anastasia’s free or unwitting rival for Valerino’s heart: the lovers quarrel over her in the very first episode.

But the most interesting thing that this episode promises is the appearance of some more terrible supernatural entities that the heroes will have to face.

If the first season was sort of our “It”, then the second one seems to be turning into our “Twilight” with love ups and downs and the struggle of vampire clans or monsters of different origins (maybe there are also werewolves, what the hell is not kidding). The background for them, according to the promises of the creators, will be the ongoing decay of the Soviet system and the approach of a radical change of eras. It is still difficult to judge whether they will be able to interest the audience in all this or the fate of the Game of Thrones showrunners left without the texts of J. R. R. Martin, but the month has already come out of the fog and flooded the streets of Kuibyshev with an otherworldly light.