Pretty disappointed with that chapter. The bad guys were such caricatures that you knew what was happening from the very beginning and that made the whole thing pretty needless. Even worse, it cheapens the storyline by making use of unnecessary facile clichés.
I haven't been a fan of the direction the story has been going since the crystalokids have popped up, and this really doesn't help.
What part makes any of the villains cliches? There are already plenty of people in real life who discriminate based on race, gender and other harmless characteristics just because they’re different.
So it stands to reason that quite a few would be scared of and detest a hybrid that not only reminds them of the creatures that killed their friends and family, but whose existence also carries a deadly disease.
I’m not defending any of their actions, but the fact that in actuality there are plenty whom, given the opportunity, would do worse for much less, makes the bad guys realistic characters rather than “caricatures”.
