Well, I’m frustrated. This show is frustrating me. While I’m enjoying everyone’s performance, the story itself keeps treading over the same ground. Here’s what happened during this episode: Gray sleeps with another cast member then stares at his picture (been there), Bronna Croft coughs a lot and looks sickly (done that), Vanessa acts mysterious and has sex (got the t-shirt), Sir Malcolm chases vampires and narrowly misses his daughter (ate the burger), and Emostein killed a character with great promise after two episodes AGAIN (got the original cast album).
Special thanks to 1996 for helping illustrate my point.
I’m just not feeling the originality of the first two episodes. What began as a series with great promise has devolved into typical television. Two episodes left in this first season and I’m hoping they get it together.
It was Vanessa Ives’ turn to sleep with Dorian Gray this week. As ever, Eva Green plays “mystery” to perfection but, sadly, been watching her do it all season long. She and Gray engage in prolonged verbal foreplay during a photography session with dinner afterward. I’ll admit that Reeve Carney is very, very good as a smoldering sex object but is it his performance or is it just his look? Until they give him something else to do we won’t be certain. Gray had Bonna photographed in Episode Two and now Vanessa takes a turn. We’ve never seen these photos. Gray tells us that photography essentially represents death, capturing a single moment and is gone while the painted portraits that cover his home represent life. I’m down with that but it will be nice to have some payoff. As I said, Vanessa has sex with Dorian and, just like every time Vanessa has a sexual encounter, her demonic side takes control. Next week promises a difficult time for our Ms. Ives and that should be fun. I like watching her twist.
Sir Malcolm, his manservant Sembene, and Ethan Chandler investigate a quarantined ship that sailed from Cairo. For anyone familiar with the original Dracula knows that the “plague ship” was his conveyance to the New World from his homeland. The trio find the ship infested with sleeping, vampiric women. A great fight ensues and the Master Vampire is routed from his nest, carrying a terrified and pleading Mina with him. Echoes of the first episode’s vampire fight scream pretty loudly here. It was exciting but, it feels like familiar ground. The highlight of these scenes were Sembene who does more than look “manservantish” and gives us a few hints about Malcolm’s time in Africa.
My theory about Emostein being a scared little boy gains more traction as he has an encounter with the beautiful Maude Gunneson, the star of the bloody play they perform. Like the Phantom of the Opera, Emostein watches from the shadows as Maude opens the gift he left for her. His dreams are crushed as the male star of the show enters the room and Maude reveals that she doesn’t really care for the Creature. Predicable. Boring. I’m going to make a prediction here and now; In the last episode of the season, Emostein will kill the male lead, wear his wolf costume and murder Maude onstage. He’ll then take her body to Victor so he can create Emostein’s Bride. I make this prediction not because I’m brilliant but because it’s obvious.
You read first here on Psycho Drive-In and I truly hope that I have to eat my words after the season finale.
Rounding out the episode, Victor Frankenstein and Dr. Van Helsing share a meal and a few secrets. Harry Treadaway and David Warner had wonderful chemistry during their scenes though they were largely expositional. It was nice, however, to see an actual penny dreadful in Penny Dreadful. Van Helsing uses “Varney the Vampire” to illustrate his point about the danger they face. The father figure Victor is looking for seemed to be incarnate in Van Helsing but…
… Emostein shows up and kills him! Good Lord! Allow me to harken back to my review of Episode Four where Fenton is killed after two episodes. I remarked that David Warner may be next. My predictive nature is proven true and he’s dead. Broken neck, dead. Dammit. His death is a tantrum from Emostein and, frankly, it’s getting mundane. How many times are we going to see this?
Penny Dreadful, get your crap together.