Penny Dreadful 2.05.
Jun. 1st, 2015 09:15 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakIn a phrase: I’M SO FRUSTRATED.
I mean, if I must, John Logan, I can fanwank the continuity mistake of Vanessa not recognizing Lily as Brona – it was just one brief encounter (at the Grand Guignol theatre), different hair, different accent, the conviction that Brona is dead -, but that was a perfectly good opportunity to expose the truth and instead we get more Lily-adores-Victor scenes (which make me cringe, not because they’re badly acted but because of who these people are) culminating in the sex, which yet again had me hope Lily would access Brona’s memory at last due to the act, but no such luck.
The other frustrating thing is that I’m not quite clear how witch magic is supposed to work in this universe. If Evelyn can drive Gladys into hallucination and suicide via doll despite not owning any physical part of her, a) why didn’t she do that with Ethan since she wanted to get rid of him, and b) why all the trouble with Vanessa’s hair strand? I know why she didn’t kill Vanessa in-universe, since Vanessa’s supposed to marry the devil and bring on darkness and what not, but Ethan? There’s only the Doylist explanation that he’s a main character and Gladys is not. Unless that’s where the ring comes in and the point wasn’t to transfer some chemicals (aphrodisiacs? Hardly necessary at this point?) into Malcolm but to get Malcolm’s blood to work the spell on Gladys. Given that Malcolm and Gladys had two children together, my fantasy novels tell me that could count as a physical connection useable for magic. But then again, Evelyn started the spell against Gladys, using the doll, BEFORE getting Malcolm’s blood. Argh.
Re: Gladys’s death, I was afraid that would happen since the season opener reintroduced her and gave her a personality while also making it clear Evelyn had her sights on Malcolm, it was all but inevitable. The final hallucination driving Gladys into suicide being her dead children rising from the grave was incredibly creepy and well done.
Inspector Rusk, I’m rooting for you, but your sidekick has to learn to tail a suspect better, and also, I’m baffled as to why your policemen didn’t unearth the fact Ethan is currently lodging with (and getting his salary from) Sir Malcolm Murray, given that this was hardly treated as a state secret until now. Otoh, you did bring up the interesting fact that “Ethan Chandler” is a stage name, which should have occurred to me before. Well, “Ethan” must be the real first name, since the pilot episode had him looking at a pocket watch inscribed “To Ethan” from his father, but otoh if Logan wants that out of the way, he can always declare our Ethan pinched that watch. Now I’m curious - is there a 19th century American pop culture character, first name Ethan (or not), with a father rich enough to afford Pinkerton agents, whose story doesn’t contradict him also being a werewolf?
We got more about Ethan’s guilty Indian Wars background than we did since season 1, which briefly made me wonder whether he’d turn out to be Custer after all, who instead of dying became a werewolf, but Vanessa in the pilot pointed out the age doesn’t fit (Ethan was a child during the relevant battle), and as opposed to vampires, werewolves do age. Incidentally, giving Inspector Rusk a backstory in the Boer War which comes up during his conversation with Ethan was inspired, because if the treatment of Native Americans is the classic example of US guilt during that period, the Boer War (during which the term concentration camp was invented) is certainly a British one.
Current reason for assuming John Logan was watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer: the late season 7 episode ending with a montage of couples having sex, with one exception, Buffy and Spike, but their not having sex due to their backstory and relationship development signaled actually great emotional intimacy. Obvious parallels are obvious, as the final sequence of this Penny Dreadful episode includes two couples having sex and a third (Ethan and Vanessa) not having it (due to Vanessa’s fear of what happened the last time – weeks of devil possession) yet among the couples having the greatest emotional intimacy.
Vanessa and Caliban have another scene together and I’m really charmed by their odd couple developing friendship. Now complete with dancing lessons. Caliban, my boy, the reason you can talk with Vanessa and Lavinia but not with Lily is because you don’t see Vanessa and Lavinia as objects of adoration and potential solutions to loneliness but as people.
Speaking of seeing each other as people: of course Dorian takes Angelique out to see Wagner. Or, to be precise, The Valkyrie, and I recognized the conclusion of act 1 (Siegmund and Sieglinde’s triumphant “incest yay!” duet before Angelique commented on it. This leads to a scene where some oafs ridicule Angelique for her trans-ness and Dorian in his most sympathetic moment yet plays out Caliban’s invented fantasy memory for Lily to the letter, complete with handkissing in the face of ridicule and demonstrated acceptance. My speculation that Angelique will discover the portrait and that this might not end up in a catastrophe after all but in a counterpoint acceptance scene to this one remains strong. Then again, this is mainly a horror crossover series, so…
(BTW: Dorian’s subplot still has not yet intersected with the main plot – unless we count Evelyn and Malcolm also visiting the opera the same night – but I like Angelique a lot, so I don’t mind. )
And lastly: Ferdinand Lyle turns out to be secretly Jewish and continues to flirt adorably with Ethan. Do tell the truth, Lyle, the longer you don’t, the more I’m afraid you won’t survive the season, and I like you more with each episode! Re: secret religion, the most famous prominent Victorian of Jewish origin was probably Disraeli, who despite being religion-wise Christian got enough digs for it in an era where antijudaism became modern style anti-Semitism (meaning changing religion did no longer matter) that I can believe Lyle keeping this secret.
I mean, if I must, John Logan, I can fanwank the continuity mistake of Vanessa not recognizing Lily as Brona – it was just one brief encounter (at the Grand Guignol theatre), different hair, different accent, the conviction that Brona is dead -, but that was a perfectly good opportunity to expose the truth and instead we get more Lily-adores-Victor scenes (which make me cringe, not because they’re badly acted but because of who these people are) culminating in the sex, which yet again had me hope Lily would access Brona’s memory at last due to the act, but no such luck.
The other frustrating thing is that I’m not quite clear how witch magic is supposed to work in this universe. If Evelyn can drive Gladys into hallucination and suicide via doll despite not owning any physical part of her, a) why didn’t she do that with Ethan since she wanted to get rid of him, and b) why all the trouble with Vanessa’s hair strand? I know why she didn’t kill Vanessa in-universe, since Vanessa’s supposed to marry the devil and bring on darkness and what not, but Ethan? There’s only the Doylist explanation that he’s a main character and Gladys is not. Unless that’s where the ring comes in and the point wasn’t to transfer some chemicals (aphrodisiacs? Hardly necessary at this point?) into Malcolm but to get Malcolm’s blood to work the spell on Gladys. Given that Malcolm and Gladys had two children together, my fantasy novels tell me that could count as a physical connection useable for magic. But then again, Evelyn started the spell against Gladys, using the doll, BEFORE getting Malcolm’s blood. Argh.
Re: Gladys’s death, I was afraid that would happen since the season opener reintroduced her and gave her a personality while also making it clear Evelyn had her sights on Malcolm, it was all but inevitable. The final hallucination driving Gladys into suicide being her dead children rising from the grave was incredibly creepy and well done.
Inspector Rusk, I’m rooting for you, but your sidekick has to learn to tail a suspect better, and also, I’m baffled as to why your policemen didn’t unearth the fact Ethan is currently lodging with (and getting his salary from) Sir Malcolm Murray, given that this was hardly treated as a state secret until now. Otoh, you did bring up the interesting fact that “Ethan Chandler” is a stage name, which should have occurred to me before. Well, “Ethan” must be the real first name, since the pilot episode had him looking at a pocket watch inscribed “To Ethan” from his father, but otoh if Logan wants that out of the way, he can always declare our Ethan pinched that watch. Now I’m curious - is there a 19th century American pop culture character, first name Ethan (or not), with a father rich enough to afford Pinkerton agents, whose story doesn’t contradict him also being a werewolf?
We got more about Ethan’s guilty Indian Wars background than we did since season 1, which briefly made me wonder whether he’d turn out to be Custer after all, who instead of dying became a werewolf, but Vanessa in the pilot pointed out the age doesn’t fit (Ethan was a child during the relevant battle), and as opposed to vampires, werewolves do age. Incidentally, giving Inspector Rusk a backstory in the Boer War which comes up during his conversation with Ethan was inspired, because if the treatment of Native Americans is the classic example of US guilt during that period, the Boer War (during which the term concentration camp was invented) is certainly a British one.
Current reason for assuming John Logan was watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer: the late season 7 episode ending with a montage of couples having sex, with one exception, Buffy and Spike, but their not having sex due to their backstory and relationship development signaled actually great emotional intimacy. Obvious parallels are obvious, as the final sequence of this Penny Dreadful episode includes two couples having sex and a third (Ethan and Vanessa) not having it (due to Vanessa’s fear of what happened the last time – weeks of devil possession) yet among the couples having the greatest emotional intimacy.
Vanessa and Caliban have another scene together and I’m really charmed by their odd couple developing friendship. Now complete with dancing lessons. Caliban, my boy, the reason you can talk with Vanessa and Lavinia but not with Lily is because you don’t see Vanessa and Lavinia as objects of adoration and potential solutions to loneliness but as people.
Speaking of seeing each other as people: of course Dorian takes Angelique out to see Wagner. Or, to be precise, The Valkyrie, and I recognized the conclusion of act 1 (Siegmund and Sieglinde’s triumphant “incest yay!” duet before Angelique commented on it. This leads to a scene where some oafs ridicule Angelique for her trans-ness and Dorian in his most sympathetic moment yet plays out Caliban’s invented fantasy memory for Lily to the letter, complete with handkissing in the face of ridicule and demonstrated acceptance. My speculation that Angelique will discover the portrait and that this might not end up in a catastrophe after all but in a counterpoint acceptance scene to this one remains strong. Then again, this is mainly a horror crossover series, so…
(BTW: Dorian’s subplot still has not yet intersected with the main plot – unless we count Evelyn and Malcolm also visiting the opera the same night – but I like Angelique a lot, so I don’t mind. )
And lastly: Ferdinand Lyle turns out to be secretly Jewish and continues to flirt adorably with Ethan. Do tell the truth, Lyle, the longer you don’t, the more I’m afraid you won’t survive the season, and I like you more with each episode! Re: secret religion, the most famous prominent Victorian of Jewish origin was probably Disraeli, who despite being religion-wise Christian got enough digs for it in an era where antijudaism became modern style anti-Semitism (meaning changing religion did no longer matter) that I can believe Lyle keeping this secret.
no subject
Date: 2015-06-01 03:10 pm (UTC)I'm so glad someone else is wondering if/when Dorian's storyline is going to intersect with the main one. It looks like next week maybe with the ball? But it's still unclear if he'll have much of a role.
This episode really made me think of True Blood tonally but mostly in terms of the sex, except PD actually showed the gay sex (despite TB having plenty of queer characters).
no subject
Date: 2015-06-01 04:30 pm (UTC)re: Dorian, guess we'll find out. I must admit he's the most expendable member of the cast to me anyway, but I find myself surprisingly charmed by the Angelique story so far, so I'm not tempted to fast forward through his scenes.
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Date: 2015-06-01 06:54 pm (UTC)I didn't recognize Gladys, so her scene made no sense to me until I read this. Possibly I need to pay more attention when I watch television. :-)
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Date: 2015-06-02 12:32 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-06-02 08:35 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-06-02 08:37 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-06-02 08:43 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-06-03 07:38 am (UTC)Maybe Angelique will turn out to be connected to Evelyn? Her child?
no subject
Date: 2015-06-04 08:42 am (UTC)re: Lyle's secret(s), well, the show already established he's gay and that's what Evelyn is blackmailing him with (which is another rl Victorian issue), so him being Jewish didn't strike as a reveal as something like Malcolm's crimes or Ethan's and Vanessa's supernatural problems (or for that matter Ethan's past Apache killings), but in tandem, as it was presented indeed in the montage, with "what do these characters take refuge in when they feel threatened/want to protect others?" - Ethan fell back on the Catholic prayers of his childhood, Vanessa created another blood scorpion sigil/ward, Sembene used something obviously intended to signal Swahili protection from sorcery, Malcom of course went for the guns, and Lyle, like Ethan, took refuge in the prayers of his childhood.