Penny Dreadful 3.03
May. 16th, 2016 11:57 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakIn which Victorian travellers make air planes look like suckers in terms of speed, and several people make their pitch.
Seriously, though: the Creature gets back from Antarctica to London in about two or three days, and Malcolm & Kaetanay manage to get within the same time from Zanzibar to the Wild West? I realise it would have been boring to show lengthy travelling, but that's what "a few weeks later..." time jumps are for. Ah well, I suppose John Logan was in a fix because of the Ethan storyline, which since it's about rescue/kidnapping/escape needs to come across as speedy, hence only a few days.
The Mad Scientist Duo has only one scene this week, in which Victor is the most cooly collected we've seen him since eons while he tells Henry that some electricity would make his personality changing potion permanent. Unfortunately, "self-possesed" in Victor also comes with "completely deluded and entitled" in regards to Lily, whom he still wants to force a personality makeover on. "An angel" indeed. If Dracula weren't in town, I'd say: You're the worst, Victor.
Lily is busy pitching her plan to Justine which entails recruiting an army of oppressed women and leading them to vengeful victory. Justine interrupts the All Men Are Bastards speech with asking about Dorian, as well she might, and Lily says Dorian is something else, though he's not her personal exception from the Bastards rule: that's Ethan, whom we hear her speak off for the first time since she was Brona. Lily and Justine also observe a group of demonstrating suffragettes, and Lily says that while they have the same enemies, they don't share the same goal, since she doesn't want equality, she wants mastery. This reminded me how horribly this storyline could go wrong. (Cue most recent Sherlock Christmas special.) I hope Logan knows what he's doing. Anyway, Justine getting intiated via killing her earliest rapist/oppressor and having a blood bath orgy with Lily and Dorian later was gloriously over the top, as per usual on the show, but I'm still waiting for Dorian to stab Lily in the back as soon as he gets bored and/or isn't catered to anymore.
In terms of "what does Dr. Seward make of Vanessa's story?", it turns out she at first sees it as fictions Vanessa's mind has constructed to deal with terrible pain, which is real enough (hence Dr. Seward's tears last week), which makes sense of what a sympathetic Doctor with no previous experience with the occult WOULD think. But Vanessa uses her mind-reading witch-fu via physical contact on her that Joan taught her, so Dr. Seward might be less sceptical now. Their first scene together also reveals that Vanessa thinks Dr. Seward isn't just a descendant but the reincarnation of Joan Clayton. I was wondering whether that was in the cards, though given that Joan died only three or so years ago (directly before Vanessa came to Malcolm with the Mina news), I wonder how that's supposed to work.
The second scene comes at the end after Vanessa has had a chat with Dracula's minion in the mirror cabinet. BTW, I cried out loud "what?!?" when Dr. Sweet/Dracula and Vanessa entered the mirror cabinet, because Dracula practically INVENTED the "Vampires don't show in mirrors" rule. Though I suppose we haven't seen anything in the Penny Dreadful verse so far that says they don't. Anyway, the minion inadvertendly makes Vanessa conclude that she needs to break it off with nice Dr. Sweet lest he becomes endangered by hanging out with her, since the vampires are back. This, not surprisingly, does not make Dracula a happy camper. (I found it hilarious. Must be the first time an Evil Overlord gets dumped to protect him from danger.) The minion thus ends up as vampire food in the nastiest way. But his stalking and attempt at a menacing chat has alerted Vanessa to a possible hole in her memories from her time at the asylum, and so she asks Dr. Seward to hypnotize her so she can remember. (And btw, I suppose that explains the images of Vanessa in a straightjacket from the season trailer - not something that happens in the present, but flashbacks.) Which is how we end up with a cliffhangery revelation, not, as expected, of Dracula showing up in Vanessa's memories.... but the man who later will end up a corpse resurrected by Victor as his first Creature, who, it turns out, was one of the guards in the asylum.
That was a sensation novel worthy twist, and also ties in the Creature's storyline with Vanessa's again, since he, too, finally has accessed some of his pre-death memories, only in his case they are of a wife and child. (Incidentally, showing us these memories was a good way to show the audience how he looked like in non-Creature shape without giving the later twist away.) I don't think he can recall much more yet, including his original name, otherwise he would have used that when trying to find out what became of them, but eventually find them he does, and we get another bit from Frankenstein the novel when after seeing they're even poorer now than in his memory fragments he proceeds to deliver some (stolen) worldly goods while remaining hidden. (In the novel, the Creature for a while anonymously helped a family of exiles while remaining hidden.) Now of course he could simply ask Victor to a) provide his medical services to deal with the son's tubercolosis (of course the kid has tuberculosis), and b) help out in general, but given the state of relationships between them, I doubt he will. (Then again: Victor is the only medical professional he knows, so he might, at which point I wouldn't put it past Victor to avenge himself for the previous menacing and try out Henry's wonderdrug on the Creature, just to see whether it would work on his scientific children.) Earlier, the Creature spotted Vanessa and wanted to say hello (their unexpected friendship was a delightful and surprising aspect of s2 for me) but then saw Dr. Sweet arriving, realised she was on a date and remained away. This briefly made me wonder whether he'll see Dr. Sweet doing something that would reveal Sweet's true identity and attempt to warn Vanessa, but due to the final twist of this episode Vanessa might not believe him. After all, she doesn't know he used to have zero idea about his pre-Victor past, and has now to assume he lied to her when introducing himself as John Clare and treating her as a new acquaintance. Grrrargh! As I said, I enjoyed their friendship. So I hope I'm wrong.
Meanwhile, in the Wild West: Inspector Rusk continues to be Scotland Yard's finest by immediately spotting one of Ethan's kidnappers wasn't killed werewolf style, and the way he's unimpressed by the US Marshal's approach of pursuit (read: firing many guns from too far away at Ethan and Hecate) and delivers his point that British police doesn't carry arms ultra-drily amused me. I continue to root for his survival.
Hecate explains her presence to Ethan by basically giving him the same pitch Vanessa keeps getting from various Evil Entities (and that Malcolm got from Evelyn last season): she wants him to give into his inner wolf so completely that they can rule the darkness together. Ethan looks less than thrilled at this prospect but keeps travelling with her anyway, not least because her point about him not having any moral superiority because she kills deliberately and knowingly while he kills far more in his wolf state seems to hit home for him. BTW, it's a false equation: what Ethan is guilty of is taking a long while to consider taking security measures for himself during the full moon, when he could have arrived at the right conclusion of what happens to him then earlier. He did end s2 by deciding to atone by surrendering to Rusk. But alas, going on the run with Hecate is definitely a step back. Otoh maybe he thinks he needs her against bio dad, which is where he's heading?
Seems we're about to get a showdown of the fathers, since superfast travellers Malcolm and Kaetaney have nearly caught up with Ethan. I hope this means they'll get more than one or two scenes per episode; not that these scenes aren't fine, but I want more. Oh, and I think Kaetaney is still fibbing in his reply to Malcolm's very good point that Kaetanay could have tracked Ethan on his lonesome and didn't need Malcolm for this, so why did he go to all the trouble (and Zanzibar) and for what exactly does he need him for? "Ethan will listen to you" is a less than good answer, not least because it's not true. (When, exactly, has Ethan ever listened to Malcolm? Vanessa, sure. But not Malcolm. Though the reverse - Malcolm listening to Ethan - did happen at least once.) Current theory, based on Kaetanay saying that if Ethan is too far gone to be retrieved, they'll have to do something about that, too: Kaetanay knows Malcolm killed Mina, and isn't sure whether he himself will be able to kill Ethan, but killing your own children (or sort of children) is something you want to get Malcolm Murray for.
Lastly: Malcolm making verbal mincemeat out of that guy in the train was glorious.
Seriously, though: the Creature gets back from Antarctica to London in about two or three days, and Malcolm & Kaetanay manage to get within the same time from Zanzibar to the Wild West? I realise it would have been boring to show lengthy travelling, but that's what "a few weeks later..." time jumps are for. Ah well, I suppose John Logan was in a fix because of the Ethan storyline, which since it's about rescue/kidnapping/escape needs to come across as speedy, hence only a few days.
The Mad Scientist Duo has only one scene this week, in which Victor is the most cooly collected we've seen him since eons while he tells Henry that some electricity would make his personality changing potion permanent. Unfortunately, "self-possesed" in Victor also comes with "completely deluded and entitled" in regards to Lily, whom he still wants to force a personality makeover on. "An angel" indeed. If Dracula weren't in town, I'd say: You're the worst, Victor.
Lily is busy pitching her plan to Justine which entails recruiting an army of oppressed women and leading them to vengeful victory. Justine interrupts the All Men Are Bastards speech with asking about Dorian, as well she might, and Lily says Dorian is something else, though he's not her personal exception from the Bastards rule: that's Ethan, whom we hear her speak off for the first time since she was Brona. Lily and Justine also observe a group of demonstrating suffragettes, and Lily says that while they have the same enemies, they don't share the same goal, since she doesn't want equality, she wants mastery. This reminded me how horribly this storyline could go wrong. (Cue most recent Sherlock Christmas special.) I hope Logan knows what he's doing. Anyway, Justine getting intiated via killing her earliest rapist/oppressor and having a blood bath orgy with Lily and Dorian later was gloriously over the top, as per usual on the show, but I'm still waiting for Dorian to stab Lily in the back as soon as he gets bored and/or isn't catered to anymore.
In terms of "what does Dr. Seward make of Vanessa's story?", it turns out she at first sees it as fictions Vanessa's mind has constructed to deal with terrible pain, which is real enough (hence Dr. Seward's tears last week), which makes sense of what a sympathetic Doctor with no previous experience with the occult WOULD think. But Vanessa uses her mind-reading witch-fu via physical contact on her that Joan taught her, so Dr. Seward might be less sceptical now. Their first scene together also reveals that Vanessa thinks Dr. Seward isn't just a descendant but the reincarnation of Joan Clayton. I was wondering whether that was in the cards, though given that Joan died only three or so years ago (directly before Vanessa came to Malcolm with the Mina news), I wonder how that's supposed to work.
The second scene comes at the end after Vanessa has had a chat with Dracula's minion in the mirror cabinet. BTW, I cried out loud "what?!?" when Dr. Sweet/Dracula and Vanessa entered the mirror cabinet, because Dracula practically INVENTED the "Vampires don't show in mirrors" rule. Though I suppose we haven't seen anything in the Penny Dreadful verse so far that says they don't. Anyway, the minion inadvertendly makes Vanessa conclude that she needs to break it off with nice Dr. Sweet lest he becomes endangered by hanging out with her, since the vampires are back. This, not surprisingly, does not make Dracula a happy camper. (I found it hilarious. Must be the first time an Evil Overlord gets dumped to protect him from danger.) The minion thus ends up as vampire food in the nastiest way. But his stalking and attempt at a menacing chat has alerted Vanessa to a possible hole in her memories from her time at the asylum, and so she asks Dr. Seward to hypnotize her so she can remember. (And btw, I suppose that explains the images of Vanessa in a straightjacket from the season trailer - not something that happens in the present, but flashbacks.) Which is how we end up with a cliffhangery revelation, not, as expected, of Dracula showing up in Vanessa's memories.... but the man who later will end up a corpse resurrected by Victor as his first Creature, who, it turns out, was one of the guards in the asylum.
That was a sensation novel worthy twist, and also ties in the Creature's storyline with Vanessa's again, since he, too, finally has accessed some of his pre-death memories, only in his case they are of a wife and child. (Incidentally, showing us these memories was a good way to show the audience how he looked like in non-Creature shape without giving the later twist away.) I don't think he can recall much more yet, including his original name, otherwise he would have used that when trying to find out what became of them, but eventually find them he does, and we get another bit from Frankenstein the novel when after seeing they're even poorer now than in his memory fragments he proceeds to deliver some (stolen) worldly goods while remaining hidden. (In the novel, the Creature for a while anonymously helped a family of exiles while remaining hidden.) Now of course he could simply ask Victor to a) provide his medical services to deal with the son's tubercolosis (of course the kid has tuberculosis), and b) help out in general, but given the state of relationships between them, I doubt he will. (Then again: Victor is the only medical professional he knows, so he might, at which point I wouldn't put it past Victor to avenge himself for the previous menacing and try out Henry's wonderdrug on the Creature, just to see whether it would work on his scientific children.) Earlier, the Creature spotted Vanessa and wanted to say hello (their unexpected friendship was a delightful and surprising aspect of s2 for me) but then saw Dr. Sweet arriving, realised she was on a date and remained away. This briefly made me wonder whether he'll see Dr. Sweet doing something that would reveal Sweet's true identity and attempt to warn Vanessa, but due to the final twist of this episode Vanessa might not believe him. After all, she doesn't know he used to have zero idea about his pre-Victor past, and has now to assume he lied to her when introducing himself as John Clare and treating her as a new acquaintance. Grrrargh! As I said, I enjoyed their friendship. So I hope I'm wrong.
Meanwhile, in the Wild West: Inspector Rusk continues to be Scotland Yard's finest by immediately spotting one of Ethan's kidnappers wasn't killed werewolf style, and the way he's unimpressed by the US Marshal's approach of pursuit (read: firing many guns from too far away at Ethan and Hecate) and delivers his point that British police doesn't carry arms ultra-drily amused me. I continue to root for his survival.
Hecate explains her presence to Ethan by basically giving him the same pitch Vanessa keeps getting from various Evil Entities (and that Malcolm got from Evelyn last season): she wants him to give into his inner wolf so completely that they can rule the darkness together. Ethan looks less than thrilled at this prospect but keeps travelling with her anyway, not least because her point about him not having any moral superiority because she kills deliberately and knowingly while he kills far more in his wolf state seems to hit home for him. BTW, it's a false equation: what Ethan is guilty of is taking a long while to consider taking security measures for himself during the full moon, when he could have arrived at the right conclusion of what happens to him then earlier. He did end s2 by deciding to atone by surrendering to Rusk. But alas, going on the run with Hecate is definitely a step back. Otoh maybe he thinks he needs her against bio dad, which is where he's heading?
Seems we're about to get a showdown of the fathers, since superfast travellers Malcolm and Kaetaney have nearly caught up with Ethan. I hope this means they'll get more than one or two scenes per episode; not that these scenes aren't fine, but I want more. Oh, and I think Kaetaney is still fibbing in his reply to Malcolm's very good point that Kaetanay could have tracked Ethan on his lonesome and didn't need Malcolm for this, so why did he go to all the trouble (and Zanzibar) and for what exactly does he need him for? "Ethan will listen to you" is a less than good answer, not least because it's not true. (When, exactly, has Ethan ever listened to Malcolm? Vanessa, sure. But not Malcolm. Though the reverse - Malcolm listening to Ethan - did happen at least once.) Current theory, based on Kaetanay saying that if Ethan is too far gone to be retrieved, they'll have to do something about that, too: Kaetanay knows Malcolm killed Mina, and isn't sure whether he himself will be able to kill Ethan, but killing your own children (or sort of children) is something you want to get Malcolm Murray for.
Lastly: Malcolm making verbal mincemeat out of that guy in the train was glorious.
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no subject
Date: 2016-05-19 04:08 am (UTC)Or possibly the show just thinks that connecting reflections in glass with having an immortal soul is silly.
Also, I agree that if the show screws up the friendship between Vanessa and The Creature, it will be quite irritating. But Vanessa didn't recognize Lily as Brona, so maybe there is hope? Possibly she is near-sighted!
Does it seem strange to you that each season appears to have a mandatory Vanessa Ives flashback episode? I mean, I am surprisingly glad to realize that Van won't go BACK into an asylum, because that is ground that was already covered quite graphically. But every other character has such a spare and mysterious past, it seems unfair that Van always gets to unload her history for our delectation.
Lastly, I can think of one, and only one, situation in whIch Ethan would listen unreservedly to Sir Malcom: "Vanessa needs your help."
no subject
Date: 2016-05-19 01:40 pm (UTC)Point about the soul/monster definitions (or not) in PD versus Dracula.
Does it seem strange to you that each season appears to have a mandatory Vanessa Ives flashback episode?
Not when Vanessa is the character around whom Logan built the entire ensemble. Mind you, I'd love to get flashback episodes for the other characters as well (btw, we did get one for a non-Vanessa character - 1.03 gave us the Penny Dreadful version of the Creature-narrated section of Frankenstein, complete with flashbacks), and I'm still annoyed we never got a Sembene centric episode fleshing him AND HIS BACKSTORY out. However, if you've got Eva Green at your disposal, you use her.
no subject
Date: 2016-05-21 06:24 pm (UTC)D'oh! I can't believe I forgot that!
I'm still annoyed we never got a Sembene centric episode
Agreed. Sembene was the most woefully misused character in the series. I'm glad that the third season has two whole persons of color, but it would be really great if they could keep increasing the diversity. I'm getting so bored with monochromatic casting.
if you've got Eva Green at your disposal, you use her
I can't argue with that.
Ooh. I just remembered something. Remember when Dr. Sweet was talking about his wife dying? Do you think he's talking about Mina?
I think it would be interesting if the character of Dr. Sweet was also another version of Jonathan Harker, and Dracula trots this persona out whenever he needs to make contact with a strong woman. Not that Mina would necessarily need the soft approach that he offers to Vanessa, but it would be kind of fun if Dracula has honed his technique of trolling for women and knows that shy-bumbler is a sure-fire way to get the kind of ladies he's aiming for.