Penny Dreadful was a term coined in the UK in the Victorian Era to describe fictional stories published weekly in serial parts, each part costing a penny. The stories quite typically featured the sensational derring-do of detectives, criminals and supernatural beings.
Coming up on May 1 of 2016, we return to the third season of Penny Dreadful, a story set in the Victorian Era, aired weekly in serial parts and featuring the sensational derring-do of detectives, criminals and supernatural beings. For those of you who have not been following Penny Dreadful, think a very much darker “League of Extraordinary Gentlemen” on steroids, but with the advantage and luxury of time for character and plot development.
Showtime consistently airs quality shows: Dexter, Homeland, Ray Donovan and Weeds to name a few. It is, I will admit, one of my favorite subscriptions, although the cost is significantly more than a penny! Penny Dreadful is no exception to the rule, and I am anxiously awaiting my fix. An introduction to the show is in order at this point. It was created and is written by John Logan who is doing a bang up job of bringing classic literary Victorian characters to life to interact with characters original to his series. Oscar Wilde and Bram Stoker would be proud. The series is shot on location in Ireland.
The Main Actors and their Characters:
Eva Green as Vanessa Ives, a Clairvoyant and Medium
Timothy Dalton as Sir Malcolm Murray, an Explorer
Josh Hartnett as Ethan Chandler, an Old West Gunslinger on the run
Danny Sapani as Sembene, Sir Malcolm’s able assistant
Harry Treadaway as Victor Frankenstein, a Scientist who wants to cheat death
Billie Piper as Brona Croft, a prostitute who becomes Lily Frankenstein
Reeve Carney as Dorian Gray, a beautiful, hedonistic philanderer
Recurring Characters in Seasons One and Two:
Helen McCrory as Madame Kali/Evelyn Poole, a World Renowned Medium
Simon Russell Kane as Ferdinand Lyle, an Egyptologist at the British Museum
Rory Kinnear as John Clare/ Caliban
Douglas Hodge as Inspector Bartholomew Rusk
Olivia Llewellyn as Mina Murray-Harker, Sir Malcolm’s Daughter
SEASON ONE
In Season One, we meet Vanessa Ives, a medium living in the house of Sir Malcom Murray, in Victorian Era London. They have formed an uneasy alliance to find and save Sir Malcolm’s daughter and Vanessa’s childhood friend, Mina, who has been turned into a vampire. Mina was turned by the Lord of the Undead specifically to capture Vanessa who is the real deal psychically speaking, and who is slated to be the Devil’s bride. Aided by Sembene and Ethan Chandler, the season is mostly centered around their hunt for Mina.
Victor Frankenstein, who is attempting to build his second creature, is recruited to examine captured vampires or their corpses, and to perhaps come up with a cure, so that Mina can be saved once found. Along the way, Ethan meets and falls in love with Brona Croft, who is dying from consumption. She is a prostitute, and numbers among her clientele the eternally youthful Dorian Gray.
Vanessa and Dorian meet at a party for the renowned medium Madame Kali hosted at the home of Egyptologist Mr. Lyle. Some pretty spooky stuff occurs during an impromptu séance, where Vanessa accidentally and rather vulgarly channels the spirits or perhaps demons.
Dorian gets around, sleeping with not only Brona, but also with Vanessa and near the end of the season Ethan as well. When you have a portrait that takes on all of your age, sins, diseases and disfigurements, STDs are not to be worried about.
Dr. Frankstein’s first creature, Caliban, returns to him, having suffered much in his quest to track his Creator down after Victor abandoned him. In stark contrast to Victor’s second creature, Caliban is dark and twisted and wishes fervently for a companion. He kills the second creature, and hounds Victor to make him a female. Ethan eventually asks Victor for help with Brona’s illness. A little judicious application of pillow to face, and voila! Lily is begun.
By the end of Season One, Mina is found and put down by Sir Malcom, Vanessa wants to be exorcised, and Sir Malcolm accepts her as his daughter. We discover that Ethan has a dark secret, as he transforms under the full moon into a homicidal werewolf, leaving his father’s bounty hunters ripped to shreds at the Mariner’s Inn. Unfortunately for him, there were also innocents in the Inn at the time. Their deaths weigh heavily on his soul. Sembene knows that Ethan has a secret, although he is not certain what it is. Sembene himself is a bit of an enigma, but I did get the impression that his relationship with Sir Malcolm probably has one hell of a back story.
SEASON TWO
In Season Two, the focus is on Vanessa’s backstory, Ethan and Vanessa’s doomed relationship, Ethan’s secret, Lily’s transformation and Sir Malcolm falling under the spell of witches led by Evelyn Poole/Madame Kali.
Vanessa takes up ministering to the patients in the cholera tunnels in an effort to stave off the torment of the disturbing occult images sent to devil her by Evelyn Poole. Here she meets Caliban, as this is where Caliban stays when he is not at work or checking in on Victor’s progress with Lily. Caliban hides his face in the shadows as they converse about literature, poetry and man’s inhumanity to man during her visits to the clinic. Their connection to each other is not known to either. She eventually leaves London with Ethan to return to a piece of property that Vanessa’s mentor, the Cut-Wife, a master of the dark arts, has left to her. This works out well for Ethan who wants to leave London. He is being hunted by Inspector Rusk in regards to the massacre at the Inn where Ethan had been staying with Brona before her death. Ethan and Vanessa realize that although there is potential for a relationship between them, they each have too much baggage to allow such a relationship to bloom.
Meanwhile, Dorian takes up with a gorgeous cross-dressing woman, introducing her to society at a ball he has thrown for her. Angelique eventually finds out Dorian’s secret, for which she pays the ultimate price.
The Egyptologist, Ferdinand Lyle, has been blackmailed by Evelyn Poole into spying on Sir Malcolm’s group and is found out by the group. But he and Victor have done some invaluable work on a relic named the Verdis Diablo. They have learned how this relic pertains both to Vanessa, and to the plans that the Devil has for her.
Evelyn Poole, aka Madame Kali, is revealed to be the powerful head of a witches’ coven, working to bring Vanessa to the Devil’s side, literally. Her particular brand of magic involves freshly killed baby bits and dolls, which is just gruesome, and yet has the right feel for this series. She has a room full of dolls which includes her newest addition, a life sized doll of Vanessa powered by a baby’s heart.
Vanessa and Ethan return to London, where Vanessa defeats Madame Kali, shatters the doll by using the Verbis Diablo thus mastering the Devil. Sir Malcolm is released from the spell that he has been under.
Sembene and Ethan bond over the course of the season. Ethan learns that he is not the only one with guilt and a dark secret. Sembene was in the past a slave trader, making a living selling his own people into slavery. He tries to teach Ethan that his wolf curse is more a divine gift. Unfortunately, Ethan wolfs out and kills him while the two are trapped in a stairwell inside Evelyn Poole’s mansion. Ethan, a broken man, determines to turn himself in to Inspector Rusk.
Caliban spends most of the season as a captive in the basement of a wax museum, after losing his job backstage at the theatre, and finding a new job as a caretaker at the wax museum. His bosses become his captors when they realize that they could make huge sums of money displaying him. Being betrayed by yet another human being restores his non-faith in humanity. At the end of the season, he escapes, kills his captors and heads for parts far North, first stopping at the cholera tunnels to collect his things. Vanessa finds him there packing, and tearfully says goodbye to the most human man she has ever known.
Throughout the season, Victor has come to love Lily, but is brokenhearted when she reveals that she is not the loving companion that he thought, and that she has merely been using him throughout, being fully cognizant of who she was and what she now is. She has taken up with Dorian again, and they seem to be heading towards becoming an immortal and immoral power couple.
Inspector Rusk has been working quite hard to connect the dots in the Mariner’s Inn massacre and is coming to believe that though the victims were ripped to shreds in an animalistic fashion, a seemingly normal Ethan was somehow involved. However, when Ethan confirms this by turning himself in and confessing, instead of handing him a death sentence, the Inspector hands him an extradition order.
So at the end of Season two, Ethan is captive on a ship bound for America, Sir Malcolm is on a ship bound for Africa to take Sembene home, and Caliban is on a ship bound for as far away from humanity as he can get. Victor sinks deeper into his long standing drug addiction, and Vanessa throws her crucifix into the fire, acknowledging that she is truly and completely alone.
Showtime has released the full episode of the Season Three Premiere to YouTube. Unfortunately for me, it won’t play where I am, so I will have to wait for the official airing on May 1. Depending on where you are, you may be able to see it. Meanwhile, here’s an official trailer to whet your appetite. Enjoy!
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