Posts tagged: Penny Dreadful

Penny Dreadful S30E09 “The Blessed Dark” REVIEW

Airing in the UK on Tuesdays on Sky Atlantic

Writer: John Logan
Director: Paco Cabezas

Essential Plot Points:

• A lot happens in this series finale, so we’ll get through it all as quickly as possible:
• John’s son breathes his last. His mother, grieving over the corpse, begs John to take him to Dr Frankenstein and bring him back to life. If he doesn’t, she never wants to see John again.
• Dracula hears about the two wolf men who attacked his vampires and fears that Ethan’s wolf is “the wolf of God” who is foretold to defeat him. Vanessa, who is settling very nicely into the role of being a badass vampire queen, tells him that he should let Ethan come to her: “He and I shall write the ending in blood, as it was always going to be.”
• Dr Seward and the others continue interrogating Renfield until they find Vanessa’s location. As they leave to rescue her, they bump into Victor, who has just said goodbye to a very angry Dr Jekyll (now Lord Hyde, as his father has just carked it).
• Dorian and Lily say goodbye. He tells her how being immortal makes him the same as one of his paintings: “Beautiful and dead, a perfect, unchanging portrait of yourself.” She doesn’t want to live her life like that, unloving and unloved, so leaves him. “You’ll be back, and I’ll be here,” Dorian Gray says. “I’ll always be here.” Let’s face it, he lives forever, so he’s probably still standing there right now.

• The gang go to an old slaughterhouse in Chinatown and meet Dracula. Sir Malcolm finds out the truth about Mina: Dracula turned her just to get to Vanessa. Even though Dracula gives him and the others a chance to leave – as Vanessa doesn’t want them dead – Sir Malcolm is so outraged he stays, and the others follow suit.
• An epic rumble begins, in which waves of vampires attack our humans and their two wolf-men pals, but are slaughtered by the dozen.
• In fact, while the fight is very exciting and contains all sorts of heroics (is Cat actually Spider-Woman, climbing up the building like that?), it’s obvious that the vampires are completely and utterly shit at fighting, and therefore there’s not much tension.
• Dracula eventually decides to get involved, but he’s not that great at fighting either, as the humans distract him for long enough for Ethan to go and find Vanessa in a giant Room Full Of Candles.

• Their reunion is heartbreaking and poignant, as he tries to convince her that she’s really not evil and there’s still hope for her soul. But she’s given up on everything good and thinks God has deserted her. She begs Ethan to kill her, as it is the only way to stop her. And he reluctantly agrees.
• They kiss, but before he shoots her, he recites the Lord’s Prayer – and she joins in. BANG! As she dies, she tells him she can see the Lord. She has been redeemed.
• Dracula is mid-throttle with Sir Malcolm. He realises Vanessa is dead and flares up in a towering rage to kill all those who defeated him! Er… wait, no, he doesn’t. He just scarpers.
• Everybody sits around being sad and miserable. Sir Malcolm doesn’t know what to do with himself now, but Ethan tells him they’re family, so that’s something.
• John dumps his son in the Thames, therefore dooming himself not to go back to his wife.
• Vanessa’s funeral is bleak and sad. And the series ends with a shot of John, Frankenstein’s monster, laying a hand on the mound of earth covering her coffin and weeping. The dead, mourning the dead.

• The End.

Review:

“Penny Dreadful is about many things,” says creator John Logan, “but for me it’s always been about one really simple thing, which is a woman’s journey of faith – a deeply religious woman who loses her God and then finds Him again.”

It’s a simple summation of three seasons of this bonkers supernatural gore-fest, but it’s also a perfect one, because that is exactly what Penny Dreadful has been about from the start. And how very, very satisfying it is to see Vanessa get the redemption she deserves in her final, deeply moving scene – a scene that seems wholly inevitable now that we’ve watched it. After all, can you imagine Vanessa conquering evil (maybe that should be Evil with a capital letter) and then going on with her day-to-day life, doing the shopping, going for walks, sitting by the fireplace as mentioned in this episode, and actually being happy? She’s seen too much and done too much. A glorious death was the best we could hope for, and she got one.

As always, Eva Green is stunning, and Josh Hartnett also rises to the challenge in their final moments together, making this a real tear-jerker. A few episodes ago Ethan couldn’t say the Lord’s Prayer without twisting it, but here he says it and he means it, and he gets Vanessa to mean it too. It’s a profoundly moving, incredibly satisfying moment.

And so Ethan has fulfilled Kaetenay’s prophecy, saving humanity, and now he can live his life. It’s the perfect conclusion for him, although we hope he doesn’t spend the rest of his days mourning Vanessa instead of moving on. We’d suggest he spends some time with Cat, but that’s assuming that (a) she’s straight; and (b) she’s not more interested in Sir Malcolm, because she definitely seemed warmer towards him than Ethan… although given the age difference, perhaps it would be better if she just left them all alone and kicked ass somewhere else. And hey, we know Ethan is bisexual himself, so perhaps that final hug between him and Victor could lead to something? Who knows. We just don’t like to think of him alone, poor chap.

Anyway, we digress. What of Lily and Dorian? We don’t know where she’ll go now, but it would seem she wants to find love and happiness, so let’s hope she does. Dorian, meanwhile, got the perfect ending for a man who lives in such gloomy ennui: he feels nothing, he learned nothing, he’ll do nothing. Oscar Wilde would have approved of this treatment of his creation.

John, meanwhile, by not resurrecting his son, has turned his back on his wife and faces an uncertain future: the last shot of him weeping over Vanessa’s grave is poignant, but where will he go now? What will he do? Oh dear. This is one loose end we’re actually not happy about, come to think of it.

Other than that, though, this is a wonderfully satisfying finale, with characters slotting into their final destinies with aplomb. There are a few issues, mind you: such as the awkward anticlimax of bringing in Dr Jekyll and not really doing much with him (Shazad Latif did a damn fine job of smouldering, but never go the chance to catch fire, more’s the pity).

And what the hell happened with Dracula? He took one look at Vanessa lying prone in Ethan’s arms and ran for it – this, from one of the oldest, most dangerous creatures in the world? Why didn’t he attack Ethan? Why wasn’t there a final showdown? He didn’t even say a word, just buggered off! This is without a doubt the worst move from the writers all season – and they’d been doing so well up until now. When your lead villain just gives up and goes home without a murmur, he needs to hand in his Bad Guy Union Card.

The Good:

• The new opening credits and song – moody, beautiful and full of foreshadowing.
• Vanessa and Ethan. What a goodbye.
• Seeing the team back together after a season apart is a joy.
• The fight choreography is exquisite – Cat in particular seems to be auditioning for Kate Beckinsale’s role in a new Underworld movie.
• This final shot of Dorian, forever alone.

• A passing reference, but by revealing Kaetenay to be a wolf, we find out how he survived that snake bite earlier in the season. Tough to kill, these wolves.
• Speaking of Kaetenay: “You would have made a mighty Apache,” he tells Sir Malcolm. “I had a mighty teacher,” he replies. These two really need to be friends for life.
• “I’m a New Yorker, Sir Malcolm. We know our way round random gunplay.” As does Dr Seward.
• Oh, and her “Fuck him,” when asked if she wants to leave Dracula is priceless.

The Bad:

• After all the build up with Dr Jekyll, we don’t even get to see him lose his temper big time as Mr Hyde? Really? What a swizz!
• Given how powerful Dracula is, it’s ludicrous to think that Malcolm, Victor, Dr Seward, Kaetenay and Cat kept him busy for the huge amount of time it took for Ethan to have that sad goodbye with Vanessa. What were they doing down there for all that time? And how come nobody was even hurt?
• A small niggle, but we don’t get to see the Kaetenay’s vision from a few episodes ago play out – remember Ethan arriving at the house and Vanessa telling him it was too late? Visions can be dodgy like that, we suppose.
• The last time we saw Dorian’s banqueting hall, it contained an enormous table with food all over it. This week we get a completely empty room and a dead Justine on the floor. Who put the table away? Did he empty it all, do the washing up, put the table back in the attic and come back to stare at Justine some more?
• The same goes for the wolf in Vanessa’s bedroom and all the blood all over the floor. Do these guys have very understanding cleaning staff?

The Random:

• The poem recited over the end credits is by William Wordsworth and is called “Ode: Intimations Of Immortality From Recollections Of Early Childhood”. You can read it here.
• Best Quote: Vanessa’s final words: “Oh Ethan, I see our Lord!”

Review by Jayne Nelson

• Read our other Penny Dreadful reviews

Penny Dreadful S30E08 “Perpetual Night” REVIEW

Airing in the UK on Tuesdays on Sky Atlantic 

Writer: Krysty Wilson-Cairns
Director: Damon Thomas

Essential Plot Points:

• London is enveloped in a scary pea-souper fog.
• Dr Seward braves the fog to go to work, where she finds Renfield listening to her recordings of the sessions with Vanessa. Holding a toad. As you do. And then he eats it. As you do. (Insert “toad in the hole” pun here.) When Seward challenges him, he attacks her and she barely defeats him.
• Sir Malcolm, Ethan and Kaetenay disembark from the ship and find the docks deserted – other than one worker who tells them London is like a graveyard, and lots of rats.
• They go to Sir Malcolm’s house to find Vanessa, but she’s not there. There’s a symbolic dead wolf hung over her bed, though, which was obviously meant for Ethan.
• Vampires attack them! Sir Malcolm is bitten, while Ethan only manages to survive his attack by the intervention of Cat, who pops up from nowhere with a gun.
• Cat also saves Sir Malcolm by cauterising the wound on his neck, and tells them what’s been going on: Vanessa is missing, and 7,000 people have died across London thanks to the weird fog, which contains chlorine gases from London’s factories. (“It is not a fog, Mr Chandler, it is a plague.”)

• John, reunited with his family, is full of joy and hope for the future. But his son is coughing badly, and the smog is not helping.
• Dorian gets home and tells the ladies living in his house that Lily has gone and they must all leave. Justine is her usual homicidal wee self and stabs him in outrage, but Dorian barely even flinches, scaring the women so much they scatter like rats.
• Justine doesn’t want to go back to her old life, though, and Dorian breaks her neck instead. Rather sweetly, too, after a kiss, which is kind of effed-up.

• Victor and Henry are preparing to wipe Lily’s mind, but she begs for a chance to talk to Victor alone before they do. Reluctantly, Henry leaves (but not before Lily calls him “savage”, thus adding more fuel to his bubbling rage-fires).

• Lily gives a long, heartfelt speech about her previous life and the death of her baby daughter, begging Victor not to wipe her mind because she doesn’t want to forget about her. Moved, Victor releases her and she leaves – gratifyingly, and surprisingly, without ripping him to shreds first. It seems they’re all growing as people, eh?
• Ethan goes to Victor’s apartment to find him to help Sir Malcolm, but he’s at Bethlem, of course. A little boy offers to take him to him and Ethan, quite rightly feeling rather suspicious, follows.
• The boy leads Ethan to Chinatown, where Dr Sweet – okay, we should probably just call him Dracula now – is waiting for him. After a little face-off in the fog, Dracula sets his vampires on Ethan.
• Dr Seward turns up at Sir Malcolm’s, and takes him and Cat to the asylum to question Renfield as to Vanessa’s whereabouts.
• Ethan is struggling to win the battle against the vampires, but then suddenly an ally appears: Kaetenay in full-on wolf mode!

Review:

You’ve probably heard that this is the penultimate episode of Penny Dreadful – the show has been cancelled, but thankfully with the knowledge that the story has reached a natural conclusion and there won’t (hopefully) be any threads left hanging (see our next review, once we’ve watched the finale…!).

This sad news gives this episode a frisson it wouldn’t otherwise have had: after all, if everything’s coming to a head and there’ll be no more adventures in Victorian London, anything can happen! But that said, what we get here is actually just a series of scenarios of characters moving from A to B, asking “Where’s Vanessa?” and bumping into each other again after a series either spent apart or not being introduced yet. So the overall result is an episode that’s necessary but not exactly thrilling: the finale, however, should get us back on track.

There are still some lovely (if icky) moments that delight: Dorian asserting his power over the ladies after so long spent being a pushover, for instance, although we can’t help but feel that Justine’s surrender and consequent demise was a bit of an anticlimax for such a lively character. Ethan’s fall down the staircase is great, too, as is the Seward/Renfield opener.

But most of our praise this week must fall on Billie Piper, who delivers Lily’s heartbreaking monologue about her baby as though she’s on stage in front of a packed house and determined to reduce every damn member of the audience to tears. It’s a harrowing story, beautiful in places (“Holding her was like feeling the sun from both sides”), and when Victor succumbs to its power and lets her go, you don’t feel as though he’s made a mistake at all. The fact she doesn’t strike back at him proves that he’s right when he says: “It is too easy to be monsters. Let us try to be human.” There’s something in our eye…

Speaking of eyes, check out the puppy eyes on these two as they plead with each other. They almost look like manga characters.

Piper also gets to pick up the mantle thrown down by Eva Green, who tends to get all the soul-destroying soliloquies in this show. It’ll be good to see her back next episode, though… even if it is for the very last time.

The Good:

• The frog-and-toad handler this week provided some fine-looking amphibians. The pile of shiny frogs in the sink look delicious.

• Cat calling Sir Malcolm “Sir M” within two seconds of meeting him seems jarringly 21st-century, but it still made us chuckle.
• Meanwhile, Dr Seward has her own way of greeting new people: “You must be Sir Malcolm Murray. [To Cat] You, I don’t know.”

The Bad:

• It’s hard to dislike Cat, mainly down to Perdita Weeks’ energetic, assured performance. However, this week she does seem to be spouting some clunky, B-movie lines (“Who the hell are you?” “I believe I’m the woman who just saved your life”), and despite this series having such a strong feminist agenda this season, her aggression towards anybody who might undermine her for being a woman feels a little out of place. Perhaps if she was being set up to be a long-standing character it would seem appropriate, but her arguing with Malcolm about men being fools is a bit of a waste of time given that there’s only one more episode to go!
• It’s all about the weather this week: not only do the clouds part in time for Ethan to wolf out, lightning flashes and thunder sounds just as Victor is getting ready to perform the procedure on Lily, and then politely disappears again while she monologues, for fear of interrupting her.

The Random:

• While the vampire-induced smog in this episode is obviously exaggerated for dramatic effect (and we do like how they gave it a “rational” explanation for the non-supernaturally inclined, putting it down to chlorine pollution from factories), London has indeed experienced deadly pea-soupers in its time. The worst was in 1952, when a smog settled over the city that was later estimated to have led to the deaths of an astonishing 12,000 people. After this the Clean Air Act was established.
• Best Quote: Dracula quotes one of his most iconic lines: “The creatures of the night. What music they make!”
• Of course, the best delivery of this line goes to George Hamilton in Love At First Bite: