Hey Dreadfuls, welcome back! The emotions this episode brought out in me were sentimentality (yeah my eyes got a bit wet), anger, betrayal and even disappointment. I saw somewhere that someone (I’m sorry, don’t recall where or who) said Penny D is so bloody good because of the “emotional sandbox that the cast gets to play in”. This is such an apt description of this episode.
In the opening sequence, we see Lily watching an unnamed woman who is burying her baby girl in a pauper’s graveyard. She makes an impassioned speech to the woman, promising that ‘We will rise’. There is empathy in Lily’s eyes, but also something else. Something that skirts around the edge of fanaticism. She places flowers on the grave of her own child.
Vanessa:
While Vanessa sleeps in the museum, that loathsome creature Renfield creeps in for a taste. Ugh! Sweet catches him, and sends him packing. He wakes Vanessa, and tells her that they should probably clear out before the museum opens.
When Vanessa arrives home, she finds John Clare waiting for her, in need of a friend. He confesses that he is afraid to make contact with his family because of what he is. Vanessa tells him that ‘people are better than they think’. Vanessa, now having full knowledge of her time at the Banning Clinic, asks if he remembers her. He does not, so she tells him that he was very kind to her once, and she loved him for it. She assures him that the man she knew deserves to be loved. On the question of her happiness ‘it is like a strange tune, unknown to me. I’m sounding out the measures.’ She thinks that they have been unhappy long enough. As for rejection ‘Can we be any more lonely than we are now?’.
There is an interlude where Vanessa meets Kaetenay’s spirit form, but I will deal with that further in, from his point of view.
Miss Hartdegen comes to the house with new info on their friend “the dragon”. Vanessa shows her what she has been researching, but Cat tells her it is a waste of time. “May as well read the Bible for its history”. Vanessa wonders how she is to find out who he is. Cat advises her to start with what he has given her. When Vanessa relates that he presented himself as a ‘fallen angel, brother to Lucifer’. Cat tells her to take that as truth. She tells Vanessa that all the cultures that have ever trod the Earth have foreseen the Apocalypse. A healthy slug of whiskey later, Cat tells Vanessa that Dracula in human form can be killed as any human can. She was raised in a Highland clan, as a warrior, and knows that this job is not for a soldier, but for a spy. “You must get close enough to look in his damned eyes, and have the grit to do it. He’ll seduce you, not attack you. He is said to dwell in the House of the Night Creatures”. Vanessa is shocked, and Cat realizes that Vanessa knows who he is.
Ethan, Kaetenay and Sir Malcolm:
Kaetenay is determined to go with Ethan on his journey to defeat Evil. Ethan thinks that his journey is done, but Kaetenay knows better. ‘You may be done with Hell, but it is not done with you.” Ethan just wants to go home, back to London, back to ‘the woman who offered her heart, a woman I love. I walked away, and I have to try to make that right’. Kaetenay asks him if he can let his people go so easily. ‘My people? Those bloody ghosts back at the ranch? The tribe on the reservation in Oklahoma? No. My people are in London now. That man inside there, that woman I told you about, my friends, that is my tribe.’. Kaetenay says that he cannot escape his future. Ethan tells Kaetenay that he will always be his father. Switching to the Apache tongue, Kaetenay tells Ethan ‘and you are the son I have chosen. But a darkness is coming over all the lands of the earth. I have seen it in a vision, and it was foretold by our ancestors that one Apache can save us all. You are that Apache my son.’ Ethan denies that he is Apache, but Kaetenay says simply ‘You are. I have claimed you’. Sir Malcolm exits the ticket office, having bought 3 tickets to New York, just in time to see Kaetenay overtaken by a vision. In his vision, he sees Ethan returning to Vanessa, but that it is too late.
On the ship bound for England, Kaetenay prepares to make spiritual contact with Vanessa. He asks if Vanessa has a feeling for things not of this Earth. Sir Malcolm and Ethan answer in unison. He enters the spirit world and finds Vanessa researching. Kaetenay tells her that he, Sir Malcolm and Ethan are coming. She begs that they hurry, as ‘He’ is close. He sees that she is studying the end of things, plagues of illness and death. She quotes “and then all light will end and the world will live in darkness. The very air will be pestilence to mankind…’. Kaetenay stops her, telling her not to speak these words. Vanessa claims ‘I am no witch’. Kaetenay laughs and replies “You are a great fertile bitch. And I love you for your fertility, and your power. You are the woman of all our dreams and all our night terrors. All the night creatures are gathering around you… When night birds take wing they make you drunk with love. Don’t be deceived by them Vanessa Ives, they are false lovers. And if I know anything, it is this. You are made for the day, not the night’. Vanessa says, ‘There sir, you are wrong.’ She smiles as her eyes change, and Kaetenay is bounced out of his vision. He tells Sir Malcolm and Ethan that ‘she is halfway His already’, and begs Sir Malcolm to use his influence and money to make the Captain put on all speed.
Kaetenay can see why Ethan loves Vanessa, but tells Ethan that she is damned. Ethan says ‘Not while I walk this Earth’.
While Kaetenay rests, Ethan and Sir Malcolm talk on deck. Sir Malcom ponders that he is not made for ships. ‘Only part of the adventure that I abhorred. I should have abhorred leaving my family…. but really it was only the ships’. Ethan knows Malcolm cared for his family, but Malcolm notes ‘only when it was too late. We prize things most when we’ve lost them’. Ethan thanks him for killing Jared, saying that he just couldn’t pull the trigger. Malcolm says ‘No man should have to murder a member of his own family. This I know’. He wonders if Ethan would do it all again or walk the other way, given the chance. Ethan replies ‘You’ve seen what I come from. I’ve known very little grace in my life, but I did with her and with you’.
I’m going to get a bit out of sequence here, to visit the scene that evoked sentimentality. John Clare has evolved from Caliban, the cruel and inhuman beast, to a man who wants only to be loved and accepted for who and what he is. And really, isn’t that what we all want?
John Clare:
The workers emerge from the work house to go home. John Clare waits in the shadows, for the woman he loved and married, the mother of his son. He sees her, and calls her name, and as she tries to make the shadowy figure out, he emerges, a bit at a time, until he is revealed. ‘Marjorie? My wife? I have returned to you.’ She hesitates; as she realizes that he is her husband, she runs to him. While they sit by a burning barrel, he tells her the unvarnished story of how things came to be. ‘He had no goal beyond resurrection., at which he excelled. He created life, but had no care for its’ nurturing. A young man’s ambition. To be known, not to be good’. She is grateful that he has been brought back to them, but John cautions ‘but not how I was’. She touches his face, his hair, and gently says to him, ‘this… and this? They are not you. You were lost. And now you are home, husband’. They enter the apartment, where Marjorie (Pandora Colin) prepares Jack (Casper Allpress) to meet his father. ‘You must prepare for a shock. Quite a strange and wonderful thing has happened, and we are all going to be very happy’. John calls his son by name, and steps into the light, tentatively. He carefully walks to where Jack is working on the ship model, and offers help with the rigging. As he concentrates, Jack is unsure at first, but then places his hand on John’s. John waits, still working on the rigging, and finally, Jack reaches to his father and hugs him, crying. John cries, Marjorie cries, I cry. My better half laughs at me.
Doctor Seward:
Doctor Seward is engrossed in listening to Vanessa’s recordings when Renfield startles her. She comments that she thinks Vanessa is a genuine split personality, who has manifested at least three personas. Renfield gets nosy, but Seward deflects. She tells Renfield he looks pale, and asks if he’s feeling alright. Renfield claims to have a touch of the ague. In a singsong kind of voice, he goes on ‘I’ll be right as rain soon, right as rain, yes I will, right as rain will I be, yes.’ He leaves the office, leaving Doctor Seward wondering about him as she lights up another cigarette.
Dorian and Lily:
Dorian sits at the foot of the table, listening to the fallen women chattering over dinner. Lily calls for attention, and gets up on the table to tell the women about the outlawed ritual of keening. As women who practiced this rite were hanged they died keening, earning their place in immortality. She tells the women that they too, must have that level of faith and commitment. They must prove their commitment to her by going out into the night to find the bad men, chop off their right hands and bring them back. It’s a speech sprinkled quite liberally with fanaticism and zeal, and whips the women up into a killing frenzy, Justine especially. The look on Dorian’s face is difficult to decipher. Is it concern for Lily, or himself? Or maybe it’s disgust? Later, music plays, women are dancing (& more) with each other, and there is a steaming pile of right hands in the middle of the dinner table. As Dorian walks through, Justine asks if he will dance with her. He declines, noting that she appears to be quite busy. Justine smirks “Ever so charming aren’t you? All charm and nothing but. There might come a day my lad, when that ain’t enough”. He asks her if she is the one to choose that day, to which she replies, quite smarmily, “You wanted a killer, you’ve got her. Can’t go back now.’ Dorian, ice cold, but burning underneath, loses it. ‘Listen child, I can toss you out like the baggage you are whenever it pleases me. And don’t think for one moment that your tiresome Sapphic escapades shock me. You think you’re bold? You think you know sin? You’re still learning the language. I wrote the bloody book!’ He gets her by the throat, causing a look of panic. ‘You want to play with me Kitten? Then show me your claws!’. He is PISSED!!! He stalks out, and sees Lily comforting an upset woman in another room. Lily notices him waiting, apologizes that the woman is emotional just now, and closes the door in his face. Dorian leaves.
In the evening, as Dorian and Lily walk together, Dorian wonders if they have unleashed the inmates. He wants to know if it is all mankind Lily despises, or just men. ‘And when do you turn your eye on me?’ Lily tells him not to be silly, he is her beloved. Lily believes that he is jealous, and says so. But Dorian disagrees. ‘Sadly, no. What I am is bored. I’ve lived through so many revolutions you see, it’s all so familiar to me. The wild eyes, the zealous ardor, the irresponsibility. The noise of it all. And in the end it’s all so disappointing. And you have disappointed me most of all’. Ah, we get to the heart of the matter. ‘We had the potential for true mastery, and what have you created? An army of depraved whores, a slave ship bound for ruinous shores. We’re at the ebb tide my darling. One of us needs to change our ways, and I think it should be you’. Treachery! Victor leans out of a cab and drugs Lily. They drag her into the cab, and Henry drives it away.
Lily wakes in Bedlam, chained to Henry’s chair. Victor tries to calm her, to no avail. Dorian and Henry look on from the mezzanine. Lily screams at Dorian. ‘You f***ing c**t! You betrayed me!’ She wants to know what they are going to do with her. Victor reveals that they are going to make her better, as she was before, healthy. Lily knows they mean to take her strengths away. She is told that they will take away all her anger and pain, and replace them with calm, poise and serenity. In short, they’re going to make her into a ‘proper woman’. Dorian has betrayed her, and actually seems to be enjoying it.
Vanessa Again:
Vanessa confronts Sweet at the museum, and she’s packing! And pissed. And heartbroken. And lied to. Sweet defends himself. ‘Have I lied? You met a man who marveled wide-eyed at miracles of nature. So I am. You met a man who has known pain and tragedy and so I am. You met a man who wanted to possess you for his own ends, but instead he fell in love. That’s the man I am’. Vanessa cries ‘All the assaults on myself, my friends, on my dear Mina who died with your teeth at her throat. How dare you speak of love?’ She threatens to shoot him, but he only tells her he would rather die than walk another day without her. He points out that all he wants is for her to be herself, not what others want her to be, or who she thinks she should be. With his honeyed words, he convinces her that he will be at her side until time has no meaning, and asks her to accept him. Now under his spell, (it has to be that!), she accepts herself, and bares her throat. As he feeds, she looks up to the sky, and we hear her voice narrate the now familiar words.
‘And then all light will end, and the world will live in darkness. The very air will be pestilence to mankind, and our brethren, the night creatures will emerge and feed. Such is our power, such is our kingdom, such is my kiss’.
So what did you think of this episode? There are only 2 left this season; they will be shown back to back. Rumor has it that Penny Dreadful may not be renewed for a fourth season. How do you feel about that? Let me know. Better yet let ShowTime know! Raise a hue and cry! Until next time, Dreadfuls.
Reblogged this on Forty Two and commented:
Betrayal, Disappointment and Sentimentality! Only 2 more episodes left in the season!
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