Dracula Episode 1.06 “Of Monsters and Men”

Well Dracula has just wrapped up its mid-season finale and this episode was a good one, but not as good as the previous. I still think the show is trying to find its footing.

One of the more prominent sections in the show’s storyline is Dracula’s (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) obsession with walking in daylight, most of the city folk (mainly The Order) have started to take notice of the fact that Dracula doesn’t make appearances during the day. Too bad this is not Vampire Diaries where witches exist; he could have had a daylight ring in the very first episode.

Browning (Ben Miles) is one who has taken notice and devises a plan to find out whether Alexander Greyson is who he says he is. Browning sets up a shareholders meeting during lunch time, forcing Dracula to attend since he does have majority control of the coolant company that he took from Lord Laurent from earlier episodes. This forces Van Helsing (Thomas Kretschmann) to speed up his tests on the serum that would enable Dracula to walk in the daylight.

Dracula takes the serum and knows that he has about 3 minutes before he starts to feel the effects of the sun. He shows up to the meeting, much to people’s surprise as he was actually very late and kept the meeting extremely brief with the help of Renfield (Nonso Anozie). As he is leaving he gets stopped by Lord Davenport (Robert Bathurst), asking some sort of question in regards to the company. I felt as though that section of the scene should have been left out as I felt it was unnecessary, even if they wanted to show his face starting to turn red, they could have kept it out and just show his painful carriage ride home.

Although his time ran out it did prove to The Order that he is just a “normal” man and nothing more. This move also makes Lady Jayne (Victoria Smurfit) quite happy as she was threatened by Browning previously about her relationship with Greyson. On top of this Jayne has also made a new friend in Lucy (Katie McGrath) after witnessing her affections towards Mina (Jessica De Gouw). She provides Lucy with advice on approaching her best friend and telling her how she really feels about her.

The scene between Lucy and Mina was wonderfully set up and everything about it was great. Lucy’s interaction with Mina almost made you believe that they would actually get together, however Mina did not reciprocate making Lucy feel betrayed and upset. I for one am interested in seeing what happens next with this storyline and where this will lead Lucy’s character down the road.

Out of all the characters on the show I do believe that Mina is probably the most interesting one, it almost seems as though the show centres on her and not Dracula. Everybody seems very infatuated with her in one form or another, which makes her storylines very interesting. Mina has a confrontation with Van Helsing over some slides that she found in his office, containing vampire blood, and discovers that it can reanimate the dead. Van Helsing simply tells her that what she found was a parasite and nothing more, further discussions lead him to ask if she wishes to cure diseases, however Mina replies, “I want to cure death.” She may very well soon discover that cure through some pretty harsh methods from Dracula.

“Of Monsters and Men” was a good episode and continues to propel the narrative along. The show was rocky in the first few episodes but has now really picked things up and I believe that is the case with a lot of new shows on TV today. I think that Dracula has the potential to truly become a great show if they continue on this path that they are on. Well since this was the mid-season finale episode we shall see Dracula in action once again on January 3rd.