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PENNY DREADFUL, SEASON THREE:
AND YET HIS GLORY SHINES THROUGH
by Thomas M. Sipos,
managing editor [December 27, 2020]
[HollywoodInvestigator.com] Rumors abound that
Penny Dreadful creator John Logan outlined four seasons, but that
at the end of Season Two, Showtime decided the third would be the
last. Thus Logan condensed two seasons into one. He denies these
rumors, yet, like the last season of
Game of Thrones, the third season of
Penny Dreadful feels rushed and incomplete. But despite its flaws,
Season Three has its moments -- and a closure that is both beautiful
and profound.
We open several months after Vanessa Ives (Eva Green) defeated Satan
by speaking the Verbis Diablo. Feeling that she has forsaken God, she
is an emotional wreck. She lives in darkness, windows covered. Months
of dirty dishes, pots, and utensils lay strewn about the mansion, upon
tables and floors, crawling with insects. She sits on the floor,
eating like an animal.
Ferdinand Lyle (Simon Russell Beale) pays a visit. Seeing Vanessa's
broken state, he urges her to see Dr. Seward, a
"doctor of the mind" who
helped him come to terms with his homosexuality.
Vanessa is shocked to discover that Dr. Seward looks identical to her
deceased witch mentor, Joan Clayton. (Well, they are both
played by Patti Lupone.) The widowed Seward confirms that her family
name was Clayton, and they did live in Devon, but that was centuries
ago.
(Vanessa later accuses Seward of being Clayton, which Seward
denies, but the resemblance is never explained. One senses that had
Penny Dreadful lasted four seasons, we would have learned more.)
Seward is cold and robotic, resembling Ayn Rand in both appearance and
manner. Barely having met Vanessa, Seward asserts, "Do you
understand that you are ill? Not bad. Not unworthy. Just ill."
As the Apocalypse nears, rationalism
is ascendant. Seward has no way of knowing whether Vanessa is bad or
unworthy -- they just met -- but Reason asserts there is no sin, only
sickness. Seward believes that Vanessa's struggles against vampires,
witches, and Satan are the delusions of a troubled mind. When Vanessa
says, "Everyone has sinned,"
Seward skeptically replies. "Have they?"
Seward is a parody of the Randian hyper-rationalist. After a brief
interview, she claims to know everything wrong with Vanessa, giving a
short speech detailing Vanessa's psychological state. Seward's
analysis has some surface accuracy, but misses the supernatural and
moral forces shaping that surface.
Prompted by Seward, Vanessa visits a museum just to get out of the
house, where she meets Dr. Sweet (Christian Camargo), a zoologist.
Sweet is impressed by Vanessa's knowledge of scorpions. Sensing a
budding romance, Vanessa is happy for the first time in months. Having
rejected God, she now seeks happiness in self-actualization; in
reason, feminism, individualism, and modern pop psychology. "The
old monsters are gone. The old curses have echoed to silence. And if
my immortal soul is lost to me, something yet remains. I remain."
Scientism challenges Christianity throughout Season Three, offering
itself as the solution to all moral and mental problems. While Seward
practices the new "science" of psychotherapy, Dr. Henry Jekyll (Shazad
Latif) seeks a biochemical solution to sin. Believing that good and
evil are matters of brain chemistry, he hopes to cure men of sin with
a simple injection.
Jekyll and Vanessa share similar
goals; both seek to suppress their natural dark desires. But whereas
Vanessa had used prayer to help her adhere to God's moral code, Jekyll
uses science to conform men to secular morality. "[W]e must
be that thing the world demands of us. We must take the lust and the
avarice and the ambition and bury them. All the alien, ugly things.
All the things we really are. The other one. The other man. We cannot
allow him."
Recalling his friend's theories from medical school, Frankenstein
(Harry Treadaway) reconnects with Jekyll and explains how he created
Lily, who has turned malevolent. Frankenstein wants Jekyll to
transform Lily into a loving, traditional wife. Jekyll says that his
experiments have reached the point where he
can transform a sinner into a saint, but the transformation
only lasts a few hours. Frankenstein suggests that with his knowledge
of electricity, he can improve upon Jekyll's work.
"We
will create a choir of angels!"The two form a scientific partnership.
Unlike in Stevenson's novel, the Jekyll of
Penny Dreadful is biracial. His father, Lord Hyde, was a prominent
British colonialist in India who took a native mistress. She became
pregnant. He returned to England. Left to raise the half-English
Jekyll as a single mother, she was despised by her Indian family.
After she died, Jekyll's father paid for his English boarding schools,
but otherwise ignored his son.
Jekyll seethes with resentment and hate. At the Indians who mistreated
his mother as an "untouchable" for birthing an English bastard. At the
English who call him a "wog" and worse. Split between two races,
rejected by both, he feels unwelcome anywhere. But the rage born of
his dual identity also inspires his work.
Frankenstein asks, "You remember late at night in our room, over
the hookah, listing the names of all the boys who had insulted you?
The recitation of your potential victims. Your nightly prayers. That
anger inside you, all that rage. Have you lost it?"
Jekyll replies,
"I have learned to control it. That is the essence of my work now. The
neurologic chemical reactions of the brain. Taming the beast within."
And so Jekyll personifies two distinct themes; two modern trends.
Scientific hubris. And the social costs of colonialism and
imperialism.
(Penny
Dreadful's conceit of a biracial Jekyll is innovative and
promising. A classic literary character who embodies moral bifurcation
is here also racially bifurcated. Unfortunately, Jekyll spends Season
Three mostly assisting Frankenstein, whereupon his father dies and he
becomes Lord Hyde. We sense that Jekyll's story is finally
about to begin -- or would have, had there been a Season Four.)
Season One made vaguely critical references to Western imperialism.
Season Two was more explicit. Ethan Chandler related how, while in the
U.S. Army, he helped wipe out an Apache tribe, women and children
included. In Season Three this theme -- the sin of colonialism and its
corrupting blowback on Western civilization -- is prominent.
As if paralleling their growing presence in the West, each season of
Penny Dreadful gives greater space to people of color.
Season
One's most significant POC was Sembene, a very African African.
Born in the Dark Continent, brought to England by Sir Malcolm Murray
to serve as a domestic servant, never integrated to life outside of
Sir Malcolm's household, and eventually returned "to lie in his
native soil."
Season Two introduced the transwoman prostitute, Angelique (played by
Puerto Rican actor Jonny Beauchamp), who laughingly tells Dorian,
"If I were capable of blushing, I'd be red as an apple."
Unlike Sembene, Angelique is integrated into British society, albeit
on its disreputable fringes.
In Season Three, Jekyll is a doctor and heir to his father's title of
nobility. He still feels short-changed; he is employed at Bedlam,
England's notorious insane asylum, which (he feels) is not the
prestigious institution a man of his brilliance deserves. Still, his
privilege exceeds that of most British whites. His social status
certainly far exceeds that of a prostitute.
Ironically, the higher
Penny Dreadful's people of color rise in Western society, the more
resentful they feel. Sembene expressed only gratitude. And while
Angelique presumably endured far uglier insults than even Jekyll, the
doctor complains more often, and more bitterly, than did the
prostitute.
Furthermore, Season Three offers two
prominent characters of color. The second is Kaetenay (Wes Studi), an
Apache shaman.
After burying Sembene, Sir Malcolm (Timothy Dalton) sits in an African
bar, questioning his legacy as an explorer. "Most of the local
natives have been run off, or captured by the Germans and the Belgians
for the rubber and ivory trade, for slaves in all but name. What
romance I saw in Africa is done for me. The land is tainted now beyond
repair, and I want to be quit of the filthy place."
Outside the bar, Sir Malcolm is attacked by a gang. (Curiously, they
appear to be Arab, or perhaps Indian, rather than African.) Kaetenay
springs forth and kills several gang members. Then he scalps them.
"Old traditions die hard, don't they, Sir Malcolm?"
Kaetenay is of the tribe that Chandler massacred. Chandler felt so
guilty, he killed his commanding officer, then went to the Apaches,
asking to be scalped. Instead, Kaetenay had Chandler switch sides,
which led to Chandler's "great sin."
(What that is, we don't yet know.) The two men had a falling out and
Chandler left for England. Only to be extradited back to the U.S. at
the end of Season Two.
Kaetenay knows this because he
is a shaman. He sees things. Recently, he saw that Chandler is Lupus Dei,
God's champion in the coming Apocalypse. Kaetenay wants
Sir Malcolm to come with him to America, so they can free Chandler and
return him to London to fight Amun-Ra and Amunet (Vanessa). "You know you have a further
destiny. Let this be it. Our son needs us. Where is your heart,
Malcolm Murry? Be who you are."
Should
one be who one is? This theme informs all three seasons. In Season
Two, Sembene helped free Sir Malcolm of Kali's spell by shouting,
"Know who you are!"
Good advice for Sir Malcolm. Yet Jekyll seeks to suppress his hateful
side. Vanessa also resists who she is with good reason; she has a dark
side drawing her to sexual sin -- to her inner Amunet.
In Season Two, John Clare (Rory
Kinnear) tells Vanessa, "Good
Christians fear hellfire, so to avoid it, they are kind to their
fellow man. Good pagans do not have this fear, so they can be who they
are, good or ill, as their nature dictates. We have no fear of God, so
we are accountable to no one but each other."
"That's
a profound responsibility,"
Vanessa responds.
Is it? Their exchange raises questions. Do all
Christians strive for good merely from fear of damnation? Are
pagans accountable to each other -- or to no one at all? If the
latter, it's not really a responsibility, profound or otherwise, is
it? Clare's pagan philosophy -- to embrace one's nature, to follow
one's bliss -- evokes modern New Age thinking. No one in
Penny Dreadful
is free of sin, as is often stated, thus such modernist ideas pave the
road to the Beast.
Ethan Chandler (Josh Hartnett) also struggles against his nature --
against who he "really" is. Season Three finds him in shackles, aboard
a train in New Mexico Territory. He is being escorted by Scotland Yard
Inspector Bartholomew Rusk (Douglas Hodge), and a contingent of U.S.
Marshalls, to face trial for the murder of his commanding officer. But
more bloodshed is on the horizon. Over the next several episodes,
Chandler will witness or participate in five massacres.
First, a band of brigands massacres the Marshalls (and many civilians)
aboard the train. They capture Chandler, intending to return him to
his father. That night, Chandler turns into a werewolf, and with
Hecate's help, massacres the brigands (and many civilians) and
escapes.
Yes, Hecate (Sarah Greene) has followed Chandler to America, still
hoping to recruit him for Satan. And just as Satan tempted Christ in
the wilderness, so Hecate tempts the Wolf of God as they trek through
the desert. She mounts several angles of attack, probing for weakness.
She describes Satan's rewards. She tries to fill Chandler with
despair, suggesting that his sins are unforgivable. (Much like the
despair that burdens Vanessa.) And like Seward, Hecate offers a
contrition-free release.
"There is only one way to free yourself of guilt. Embrace your sins."
Just like
Satan (and later Dracula) urged Vanessa, Hecate urges Chandler to be
true to himself. "I
want to liberate your truest self. The beast that prowls around your
heart. And when you are truly yourself, and we are painted with blood,
I want to rule the darkness at your side."
Hecate
also makes a play for sympathy. Perhaps sensing that Chandler is a
White Knight who is drawn to damsels in distress, Hecate explains that
she didn't want to become a witch. While still a child, her mother
Kali offered up Hecate to Satan. Her mother was so cruel, much like
Chandler's father, so perhaps he can understand?
Hecate tries to undermine
Chandler's faith in God's goodness. "Whatever you did in the army,
whatever the Indians made you do, know this. God watched it all unfold
and laughed. This is the world he's made. We can create a world of our
own, Ethan."
Although
she is Satan's witch, at times Hecate sounds as if she wants Chandler
to betray God and Satan -- and crown her (not Vanessa) the
Mother of Evil.
The third massacre is when Hecate kills a frontier couple to steal
their horses. Chandler still retains enough conscience to feel dismay.
Hecate undermines that conscience.
"/span>Because
I murder with will and not like a blind animal, you think me a
monster. How many corpses have you left in your wake, Ethan? When
there are bodies stretched from here to the horizon, and you can walk
across them without touching the ground, then you can weep."
When
Kaetenay and Sir Malcolm arrive on the bloody scene, Kaetenay
exclaims, "We are losing him, Malcolm."
The Apache
realizes that Chandler is defending his soul with ever less
resistance.
Then the
fourth massacre. Hecate and Chandler see an encampment of U.S.
Marshalls and Rusk around a fire. Hecate asks Chandler if she should
summon the night creatures to kill their pursuers. She would need his
blood. Chandler agrees, thus becoming complicit. Hecate casts her
Satanic spell. Rattlesnakes emerge from the soil, killing most of the
Marshalls. (Coincidentally, just as Kaetenay and Sir Malcolm enter the
camp to steal two horses.)
Hecate and
Chandler hide in a cave, gazing at some wall paintings that relate an
Indian creation myth. Their discussion culminates in Chandler
embracing his dark side. "I annihilated a tribe. I betrayed my
family. I slaughtered women, and children, and murdered my friend. And
I will send my father to Hell and laugh while I do it. I'm done trying
to be good."
As people
so often do in
Penny Dreadful, Chandler seals his acceptance of evil with sexual
sin. After declaring his rejection of "good," he fornicates with
Hecate, during which act she says, "And when you end your father's
life, whisper these words. 'Lucifer, I am your animal.' And you will
never feel guilt again."
Back in
London, Lily (Billie Piper) is raising an army for her secular
revolution. Her first recruit is Justine (Jessica Barden), a sex slave
in an underground club. Lily and Dorian (Reeve Carney) infiltrate the
club, kill the patrons, and rescue Justine. (In keeping with
Penny Dreadful's conceit of using classic literary characters,
Justine is taken from de Sade's novel.)
How to
respond to suffering or injustice is among
Penny Dreadful's themes. Some seek answers from Christianity,
others turn to Satan, science, or politics. Lily, Justine, Kaetenay,
Chandler, Hecate, Clare, and Jekyll are among those whose souls are
sickened with hate due to past injustice. Some will find redemption,
some not.
Justine is
deeply traumatized and full of vengeance. But rather than try to heal
or suppress Justine's dark side, Lily stokes her rage.
"Would you have me forgive
them?"
asks Justine.
"No,
no, my dear,"
says Lily. "We
shall have a monumental revenge."
Not only
do Lily and Dorian help Justine murder her former captor, but the
three revolutionists then celebrate with an orgy (i.e., sexual sin)
while smeared in his blood.
Lily
recruits more prostitutes, gathering a nascent army in Dorian's
mansion. Lily instructs the women on how to kill a man, using the
compliant Dorian as a stand-in.
Thus the fickle Lily shifts
ideologically. In Season Two, she advocated a sort of Nietzschean
National Socialism for immortals, first to Clare, then to Dorian. Now
she preaches angry feminism to her army. "We are not
women who crawl. We are not women who kneel. And for this we will be
branded radicals. Revolutionists. Women who are strong, and refuse to
be degraded, and choose to protect themselves, are called monsters.
That is the world's crime, not ours."
Like many revolutions, Lily's is a mishmash of lofty ideals, personal
hatreds, and justifications for carnage. To a mother grieving over her
child's grave, Lily promises a better future. "The day a good woman
will have to undergo such indignity is almost past. We will not have
to suffer our children to starve and freeze and die dishonored on cold
hills. We will not be hungry forever. We will rise."
Yet at other times, Lily sounds like Robespierre or Trotsky.
"Liberty is a bitch who must be bedded on a mattress of corpses."
She instructs her prostitutes to find clients, and return with their
severed hands. Which they pile atop Dorian's dining room table.
Dorian begins to weary of Lily's new ideology. He thought he'd found
an immortal mate, one with whom to rule the world. Instead, Lily now
spends her time playing social worker. When one of her prostitutes has
an emotional crisis, Lily shoos Dorian out of the room for some
private girl talk.
Even worse, these whores don't respect him. In his own house.
They idolize Lily, but only tolerate Dorian. After all, he is a man.
Justine is especially impertinent, seeing Dorian not as her rescuer,
but as a rival for Lily's affections.
After Justine sasses off at him, Dorian glowers back, "Listen,
child, I can toss you out like the baggage you are whenever it pleases
me. And don't think for one moment 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."
Lily has forgotten that despite his innocent face, Dorian is ancient,
powerful, and has centuries worth of craft, cunning, and evil to his
credit. And that revolutions tend to eat their own.
As in Shelley's novel, Season Two ends with John Clare sailing into
the Arctic Ocean. Season Three opens with the ship frozen in ice, the
crew staring hungrily at a dying child. As he protects the child,
Clare suddenly remembers his life before Frankenstein reanimated him.
He had a son and wife. Filled with renewed purpose, Clare kills the
child, leaves the ship, and treks across the ice back to England.
(Clare thinks his act was a mercy killing, as the child would have
died soon anyway. Ironically, his creator did the same to Brona in
Season One, to provide Clare with a mate.)
Clare spends much of Season Three seeking his family. When he finds
them, he worries they'll reject him for his appearance. He reconnects
with Vanessa, who is filled with renewed optimism as she is falling in
love with Dr. Sweet. Vanessa convinces Clare to assume the best of his
family. He does so, and indeed, they welcome him back.
Clare is the happiest he's been so far in the series, yet he confides
to his wife,
"I've
done cruel things. I've been unworthy and hurt those who didn't
deserve it. A kind of madness, call it, and bottomless rage. The sun
will never shine so bright for me now that I've walked in darkness. I
cannot be the man I was."
"You
were lost, and now you are home." Marjorie's reply echoes the
parable of the prodigal son, and thus suggests Christian redemption.
That these
two actors, Rory Kinnear and Pandora Colin, are married in real life,
adds to the scene's poignancy.
Like
Vanessa, Clare is aware of his sins and has remorse. Unlike Jared
Talbot (Chandler's father), who, we will learn, has awareness but no
remorse. Or Lily, who has neither, but instead continues to justify
her savageries.
Vanessa Ives is the core of
Penny Dreadful and each season devotes one episode to her back
story. Season One's "Closer Than Sisters" relates Vanessa's betrayal
of Mina and subsequent time in the Banning Clinic. Season Two's "The
Nightcomers" follows Vanessa after she leaves the Banning Clinic and
trains under Joan Clayton. Season Three's "A Blade of Grass" returns
us to the Banning Clinic where Vanessa first met Dracula.
Vanessa had forgotten about the meeting. Then a vampire tells her that
she met his "master" in "the white room." That can only be the Banning
Clinic. Vanessa asks Seward to hypnotize her, so she can remember
Dracula. Seward thinks that Vanessa might be helped by confronting her
delusions, so she agrees.
"A Blade of Grass" is set mostly in Vanessa's padded cell at the
asylum, reliving her memories under hypnosis. Her first shock is
recognizing the orderly who attended her for five months: John Clare.
Vanessa never learns that Frankenstein reanimated Clare from the dead.
She knows only that Clare is a badly scarred man. Now we see Clare as
he appeared before his death. He is revealed to be soft-spoken and
compassionate.
Two modernist forces (a carrot and a stick) assault Vanessa's Catholic
faith at the Banning Clinic. The carrot is the feminist, individualist
temptation to be "true to oneself." This is the greater temptation for
Vanessa, for while she is firm in her faith, she still wants the
liberty to follow her sexual impulses. The stick is science and
reason,
Like those who deny "the science" of climate change and Covid masks,
Vanessa denies her doctor's diagnosis, instead insisting, "I have
been touched by Satan. My weakness allowed it. My faith was not strong
enough and Lucifer came to me. I didn’t fight him strongly enough. I
don’t know that I fought him at all."
Science punishes Vanessa for her Christian "delusions." When she
refuses to eat, a tube is forced down her throat. After an ice bath
("hydrotherapy"), she is forbidden blankets lest she hang herself, so
she shivers in her cell.
"It's not torture what they're doing," says Clare. "It's
science. It's meant to make you better."
"It's meant to make me normal," says Vanessa. "Like all the
other women you know. Compliant. Obedient. A cog in an intricate
social machine. Normal."
Her statement suggests that
science has its totalitarian uses. But it also recalls the priest at
the end of Season One, who said to her, "If you have been touched
by the demon, it's like being touched by the back hand of God. Makes
you sacred in a way, doesn't it? Makes you unique. With a kind of
glory. A glory of suffering, even. Now here's my question. Do you
really want to be normal?"
To a large extent, Vanessa does not, because normalcy means marriage
under a man's rule. Free love or virginity, either is preferable. When
she despairs that she will never leave the clinic, and realizes to her
horror that
"I've only been with one man!" (Mina's Captain Branson), she tries
to seduce Clare. He resists. Whereupon she does a complete reversal.
"I should of died a virgin. Like Joan of Arc. Be true. Be strong.
Sing on the funeral pyre."
Vanessa tells Clare that she would not make a good wife. Yet her
traditional Christian side wants that normalcy. At the end of Season
Two, Satan tempted Vanessa with visions of a happy married life with
Chandler. She insisted that she didn't want that, yet the tears in her
eyes suggested otherwise.
Satan and Dracula both manifest in
Vanessa's cell, in the form of Clare. Both compete for her love, to be
the Amun-Ra to her Amunet. Both accept Vanessa without judgment,
according to her nature and desires, without laying a guilt trip on
her. "In this mortal world you'll always be shunned for your
uniqueness. But not with me," says Dracula. "I love you
for who you are, Vanessa."
Vanessa resists them, insisting that her soul and flesh are
"promised to another. He who vanquished you. He who is my protector
and who stands with me even now."
She then levitates under her own (Amunet's) power. "I am
nothing. I am no more than a blade of grass. But I am. You think you
know evil? Here it stands!" Then she speaks the Verbis Diablo and
drives away both demons.
It's an odd and difficult scene, but not impossible to interpret.
Vanessa begins by invoking Christ (who "vanquished" Satan by dying on
the cross), then asserts herself --
"But I am." -- and ends by conjuring her own dark powers. (It's
noteworthy that "I am." is how both God and Christ expressed
their divinity.) She is conflicted, wanting both her Christianity
(submission to God's law) and her autonomy. She will later lament in a
letter to Sir Malcolm, "I have done things in my life
for reasons that seemed right, and even moral, in their violent
immorality. And now I stand without that God upon whom I have always
depended."
Vanessa is eventually scheduled for "trephining" (brain surgery).
Clare relates the disastrous results in the patients he's seen. He
urges Vanessa to deny her faith if that would please the doctors.
"Pretend to be cured. Be like everyone else. Do what he wants you to
do. ... Is it so important to be different? To have such specialness?"
Vanessa resists his advice, but later claims she tried to follow it.
But when Dr. Banning asked her what she believed, she couldn't help
herself. She blurted that "God's immortal glory lives in me as in
all of us. How can that be anything but lunacy to a man like Doctor
Banning?"
Curiously, in Season One, Dr. Banning began boring a hole into
Vanessa's skull. He stopped when he saw something beneath her scalp. A
budding horn? Whether he finished the surgery is unclear. We are told
by Seward that Vanessa had been trephined, yet despite Clare's
insistence that patients end up vegetables, Vanessa seems unaffected.
Perhaps a Season Four would have explained more?
Chandler is trekking toward his father's ranch to kill him. Alas, he
and Hecate run out of water. Before they can die, Sir Malcolm and
Kaetenay arrive. Soon thereafter, Jared Talbot's (Chandler's father)
men arrive, and take them to the Talbot ranch. They leave Kaetenay to
die of thirst.
Talbot (Brian Cox) is thrilled to meet Sir Malcolm. "It's like
looking in a mirror." Just as Sir Malcolm helped tear an empire
out of Africa, Talbot tamed the North American wilderness. Like Sir
Malcolm, Talbot brags of having mountains named after him.
"And at what cost?" asks Sir Malcolm, having lost his taste for
empire. He denies that he and Talbot are alike. Sir Malcolm respected
Sembene. "A proper man. I've not known many." Whereas Talbot
contemns the Apaches.
"More animal than human. Not human at all in truth."
Talbot brings Chandler (aka Ethan Talbot) to the family chapel. We
learn Chandler's great sin, about which he's spoken since
Season One.
After joining Kaetenay, Chandler helped the Apaches raid his father's
ranch for guns and ammunition. The Apaches promised Chandler that his
family would not be harmed. They lied. They tortured, then murdered
Chandler's mother and siblings, cutting out his little sister's eyes
and tongue.
Penny Dreadful is admirable for giving most of its characters a
fair hearing. Talbot, Chandler, Hecate, Clayton, Clare, Kaetenay,
Justine, Lily, and others commit monstrous acts, yet they are also
victims of cruelty. While this doesn't absolve them of sin, they are
fruits of a fallen world. As Vanessa explained to Chandler in Season
One, "We here have been brutalized with loss. It has made us brutal
in return."
(Sir Geoffrey is an exception -- one-dimensional and offering no
defense for his cruelties -- thus he is more caricature than
character.)
Talbot demands that Chandler repent.
"I don't blame you for hating me. I have given you cause. But try as I
have, I can't forgive you either. We're not here to make amends."
"Why then?" asks Chandler.
"To save your soul."
"You slaughter a trainful of innocent people, and you talk of
redemption?"
"Oh, not for me. I'll writhe in the fires of Hell. But ... I read
the guilt upon your face for which you must atone."
Some might consider Talbot a Christian hypocrite, like Sir Geoffrey.
But unlike the English lord, Talbot is self-made and self-aware. He
expects to pay for his sins, yet remains proud of his accomplishments.
"This is a bloodthirsty land. When I first came to this place, it was
infested with those red-handed devils, the Apache. ... I blazed my way
through the darkness. Through iron will, and violent force, and the
glory of God are empires born."
In a way, Talbot resembles Vanessa. Both care deeply about God and
repentance. But whereas Vanessa is conflicted, still struggling
against her fallen nature, Talbot accepts himself. And like Vanessa,
Talbot believes that he is lost to God. Yet damned though he is, he
wants to save his son.
But Chandler will have none of it.
"I'm done repenting. And I belong in Hell."
Just then the only two survivors of Hecate's rattlesnake attack,
Bartholomew Rusk and Marshall Ostow (Sean Gilder), arrive. Talbot
treats everyone to dinner. He asks his son to say grace. Chandler
recites a blasphemous version of the Lord's Prayer. "Our father,
who are in Heaven, cursed be thy name..."
Talbot is outraged, but Chandler continues to the end, capped off with
a snide remark from Hecate.
The dinner does not go well. Hecate transforms into her witch's form.
Kaetenay bursts into the room, gun blazing. All fight against all. In
the end, casualties include Talbot and his men, Rusk, Ostow, and
Hecate. Her last words, "Ethan, Hell awaits us both."
Chandler seems saddened by Hecate's death, yet quickly realizes that
he loves Vanessa. He no longer cares about the Apocalypse, but wants
only to be with her. Kaetenay insists that Lupus Dei has a duty
to forgo love and fight Hell. Luckily, Kaetenay has a vision of
Vanessa, whereupon he, Chandler, and Sir Malcolm realize their goals
are aligned. All must return to London to save Vanessa from Dracula.
Along the way, Sir Malcolm praises Chandler for not being able to
shoot his father. "And for that you must be thankful. You have a
soul left inside you, Ethan. You have some kindness. Never lose that."
Even so, Chandler's quick return to goodness, then the three men's
race to London, feels rushed. Hence the rumors that
Penny Dreadful was originally planned for four seasons.
Back in London, Vanessa visits Lyle to learn about Dracula. But Lyle
is leaving for Cairo, seeking a place more tolerant of homosexuals. He
refers Vanessa to Catriona Hartdegen (Peridita Weeks), a thanatologist
(one who studies death).
Catriona is
Penny Dreadful's
most ridiculous character. With her sassy attitude and black
leather outfit, she is an anachronism, marring the show's carefully
constructed Victorian milieu, looking and behaving like video gaming's
Lara Croft. Her presence is pointless. She is dropped into the second
half of Season Three, and does nothing that some other character
couldn't as easily have done. Why is she even here?
Her last name is a clue. H.G. Wells did not name his protagonist in
The Time Machine, but the 2002 film version calls him Alexander
Hartdegen. Is Catriona a time traveler? That would
explain her anachronistic attire and attitude. It's also evidence of
an intended Season Four. As it is, no mention is made of time travel,
so Catriona remains a character in search of a story.
She's also not very likable (though I suspect we're supposed to
like her). In her first scene, she cheats at fencing, and proudly
claims victory even though everyone saw her cheat. "Strictly
speaking I would not categorize that as cheating. More as creative
improvisation to assure a victory. Which is, as you know, rather the
point."
Well, no. The point of any game is to win within certain
restrictions. Improvisation to assure a victory is admirable in
actual combat. But the battlefield imposes restrictions that
cannot be improvised away (e.g., a muddy field, a river in the way,
etc). Games impose artificial
restrictions, to discipline one to fighting
within actual
restrictions when the time comes.
Catriona is also insultingly arrogant. She will later say to Vanessa,
"You may as well read the Bible for its history, which, it goes
without saying, is a fool's errand fit only for idiot children."
To her discredit, Vanessa admires Catriona's cheating. One senses that
the fencing scene was written to celebrate Girl Power. The two women
bond over lunch. Vanessa tells Catriona that Dracula is after her.
"If Dracula wanted you dead, you would be," says Catriona.
"He doesn't want my death," says Vanessa. "He wants my
submission. You seem to be a woman who understands why submission to
another would be intolerable."
"That I do."
It's an immature attitude. The Catholic church teaches that the
natural order imposes hierarchy. Heaven has its hierarchy. So does the
church, schools, the family, the military, employer/employee
relations. Submission to legitimate authority is not
intolerable, but just and necessary for civilization to flourish.
Satan refused to submit. So too Lilith and Eve. So too the Jacobins
and the Bolsheviks.
Vanessa's feminist rebelliousness is increasing, just as Dracula's
influence is growing over her. (Much like her feminist rhetoric
intensified while under Satanic possession in Season One.) During a
psychic contact, Kaetenay tells Vanessa,
"You're made for the day. Not the night." She replies, "There,
sir, you are wrong." This is not the Catholic Vanessa speaking;
this is the one who yearns for sexual liberation and autonomy.
Kaetenay concludes, "She is halfway his [Dracula's] already."
How
to interpret Catriona? She is what in fandom is called a "Mary
Sue" -- a one-dimensional, perfect female character who is beautiful,
knows everything, and can do anything. Catriona is both soldier and
scholar. Her father raised her to be tough, because he had no sons
(what in the manosphere is known as a DODO, a dad of daughters only.)
But the best way to interpret Catriona is to ignore her. She is silly
and cartoonish in a show that is otherwise full of literacy and
gravitas. Her scenes are scraps of an idea for a character that might
have developed into something had there been a Season Four.
Fearing Dracula, and seeking security, Vanessa reaches out to Dr.
Sweet. But she warns him that, if they are to be together, he must
know that she is in danger. She has a troubled past, disaster striking
whenever she sought romance.
Brushing aside all her warnings and self-recriminations, Sweet says,
"Vanessa, I love you for who you are, and not who the world wants you
to be."
It's what Vanessa wants to hear. (And what Dracula said in the asylum
-- hint, hint.) Sweet accepts her as is. No judgment. No guilt. She
falls into his arms and they fornicate in the museum.
In
Penny Dreadful, fornication never ends well. Renfield (Samuel
Barnett) falls under Dracula's spell while copulating with a
prostitute. An attorney in Stoker's novel, here Renfield is secretary
to Dr. Seward, privy to her therapy talks with Vanessa. Thus, Renfield
supplies Dracula with intelligence about Vanessa.
Soon after Vanessa's night with Sweet, Catriona drops a casual remark.
It's the vital clue. Vanessa realizes that Sweet is Dracula.
(Too quickly and easily, but typical of a rushed Season Three.) She is
outraged at having been tricked, her heart betrayed by the demon who
tormented her at the Banning Clinic, who murdered Mina, and who is the
enemy of her God.
Vanessa goes to the museum at night, intending to kill Dracula. She is
instead seduced. The scene is brilliant for its writing and acting,
for its psychological complexity and thematic depth. Like a master
pickup artist, Dracula knows how to play Vanessa. He knows when No
means Yes.
Vanessa asserts her autonomy. "I will never serve you."
Dracula agrees. "No, I don't want you to serve me, Vanessa. I want
to serve you."
He plays on her guilt, her desire to be accepted, even celebrated, for
her "true" sinful self.
"We have been shunned in our time, Vanessa. The world turns
away in horror. Why? Because we're different? Ugly? Exceptional!"
Vanessa calls Dracula a monster. He doesn't deny it. He uses it
against her, to build empathy, knowing that she sees herself as
a sinner, a murderer, a monster.
"There's one monster who loves you for who you really are. And here
he stands. I don't want to make you good. I don't want you to be
normal. I don't want you to be anything but who you truly are. You
have tried for so long to be what everyone wants you to be. Who you
thought you ought to be. What your church, and your family, and your
doctors said you must be. Why not be who you are instead?"
"Myself," Vanessa whispers.
Dracula comes near. "Do you accept me?"
Vanessa offers her neck. "I accept myself."
Weary of feeling guilty for her natural desires, losing hope,
despairing that she is beyond redemption, Vanessa follows Hecate's
advice and embraces her sins. She surrenders to Dracula, who
transforms her into a vampire. Thus does Vanessa become Amunet, the
Mother of Evil. The Apocalypse begins.
The scene is brilliant partially because we don't know if Dracula
truly loves Vanessa, or if he's lying. Christian Camargo is so
charismatic, and his performance so convincing, that his Dracula has
won the hearts of at least some female
Penny Dreadful fans, who post their devotion on the internet. Yet
as Clare warned us in Season Two, "True evil is above all things
seductive. When the devil knocks at your door, he doesn't have cloven
hooves. He is beautiful and offers you your heart's desire in
whispered airs."
Hours earlier, Dorian is out walking with Lily. He has grown bored
with her secular revolution. "I've lived through so many
revolutions, you see. It's all so familiar to me. The wild eyes of
zealous ardor. The irresponsibility and the clatter. The noise of it
all, from the tumbles on the way to the guillotine, to the roaring mob
sacking the temples of Byzantium. So much noise and anarchy. And in
the end, it's all so disappointing."
He also reminds Lily that hers was
not the revolution signed up for. He expected to be Caesar, not
Spartacus. "And you have disappointed me most of all. We had
the potential for true mastery. A cosmic darkness. And what have you
created? An army of depraved whores. A slave ship bound for ruinous
shore."
Dorian concludes that one of them must change. "And I think it
should be you." Whereupon Jekyll drives up in a horse-drawn
carriage, Frankenstein emerges, and the three men kidnap Lily.
Despite his evil, Dorian speaks the wisdom of the ages. Secular
attempts to create heaven on earth are doomed. He later tells Justine,
"In my time, I have seen a thousand Lilys. Beating their breasts,
burning too bright and too wild. I understand she dazzled you, but
she's gone now. Trust me when I tell you, you are lucky. You have
glimpsed liberty, and that is more than most ever know."
Lily awakes in Jekyll's Bedlam lab, chained to a chair. Frankenstein
explains, "Lily, we're going to try and make you healthy. Take away
all your anger and pain. And replace them with something much better.
... Calm. Poise. Serenity. We're going to make you into a proper
woman."
But like Vanessa, Lily wants to remain her true self. "I shall be
unmade. Become a nonperson. I would rather die who I am than live as
your demure little wife."
Frankenstein responds like he were God at Eden. &"I gave you life. I
made you perfect in every way. And here you are, a murderer, a savage
beast. You were a miracle."
"Monstrous I may be in your eye,"
says Lily. "A savage beast, you say. Then so be it. I am the
sum part of one woman's days, no more no less. That woman has known
pain and outrage so terrible that it's made her into this misshapen
thing that you so loathe. But let her be who she is."
Lily then tells a sob story to elicit sympathy and justify her
murderous deeds. Years earlier, while out whoring, she left her baby
alone. The baby died of cold. Billie Piper's recital of Lily's
monologue is powerful, and viewers are doubtless moved. But if one
sets aside emotion, and considers Lily dispassionately, she is less
sympathetic.
Had Lily married, or found honest work, her baby would not have been
so neglected. Furthermore, even while ostensibly taking
responsibility, Lily is deflecting blame for her neglectful mothering
onto her client, much like Eve deflected blame onto the serpent. Yes,
the client and serpent were evil. But that doesn't excuse Lily or Eve. Worse, unlike Vanessa or Chandler or Clare, Lily feels no remorse for
murdering others. She justifies it. Because she suffered, she is right
to inflict suffering onto others. She weeps only for herself, not for
her victims. Wholly self-absorbed and solipsistic, she remains a
danger to others.
She demands the right to her painful memories, which fuel her rage,
and make her who she is. But the question is not, Does she have a
right to her pain? The question is, Does she have a right to
spread her pain onto others?
I wanted Frankenstein to inject Jekyll's serum into Lily. She wouldn't
be sinless -- scientists cannot take away sin -- but the world would
be safer. Yet Frankenstein is a sentimentalist and a romantic. He
pities Lily and releases her. (Ironically, he commits Adam's sin --
listening to the woman he loves rather than doing what's right.)
This scene, like that of Vanessa at the Banning Clinic, can be
interpreted from a feminist perspective. Science is trying to mold
women into patriarchal standards of perfection. But the scene can
better be interpreted from a Christian perspective. Science is trying
to supplant God and conform women
and men to secular standards of moral and mental health. Jekyll
plans to use his serum on everyone, himself included. Like God
in
Revelation, Jekyll promises to wipe away every tear.
Both Christianity and science try to tame rebellious women in
Penny Dreadful. Some critics see the show as a feminist apology.
Yet one can indict science without condemning Christianity. Dr.
Banning turns women into vegetables. Frankenstein creates monsters. By
contrast, the women freest of Christian conformity -- Kali and
Hecate -- are hardly role models.
Jekyll's serum seems to
work. But his story is not yet finished. His final words to
Frankenstein bristle with the egotism that corrupts so many of Penny Dreadful's characters.
"I create my own world. I create my own self. And one day,
one day all of you will understand that of which I am capable."
"I'm sorry, Henry,"
says Frankenstein. "It's a dark road ahead for you, I fear."
Frankenstein has accepted the limits of science. Jekyll has not. He
then gleefully announces that his father has died, leaving him the
family title. Jekyll is now Lord Hyde. The implications for his
serum are foreboding. The specifics, alas, were left to an aborted
Season Four.
Lily returns to Dorian. But he has evicted the prostitutes and
murdered Justine. The revolution is dead. Dorian's final monologue
explains the sad emptiness of eternity among mortals -- a problem he
might have avoided by following the Christian path to immortality in
Heaven.
The Apocalypse begins with a fog upon London, blotting out the sun and
carrying a plague. Thousands are already dead. (Critics have cynically
remarked that Dorian's storyline seems immune to the fog, yet more
evidence of a hurried and sloppy warp-up to Season Three.)
Sir Malcolm, Kaetenay, and Chandler arrive in London. They quickly
meet Catriona during a vampire attack. Seward shows up. Chandler and
Kaetenay -- who is also a werewolf, surprise! -- easily repel yet
another vampire attack. Renfield reveals that Vanessa and Dracula are
at a slaughterhouse. Everyone rushes to save Vanessa.
Dracula meets the whole gang, who are surrounded by vampires. He
offers them a chance to leave with their lives. Because Vanessa wants
them to live. (A part of her is still good!) Leave now or die. He also
taunts Sir Malcolm, saying that his daughter Mina tasted sweet.
The following exchange demonstrates the show's increasing creative
weakness as Season Three winds down. And how detrimental Catriona is
to the show.
Sir Malcolm refuses to leave. He will die fighting to avenge Mina. But
there's no reason for the others to die. He turns to his comrades,
advising them to go. "We are all doomed in this place."
"Makes a change for a Tuesday, though," Catriona quips.
"Fuck him!" Seward adds.
Sir Malcolm smiles. "I'd die proudly alongside all of you."
The situation is dire. Sir Malcolm's words are somber. Yet Catriona
wisecracks as if she's in a TV sitcom. Seward is little better. What
might have been a heroic scene is thus marred by childishly sassy Girl
Power.
Turns out, vampires aren't so tough. Our heroes slaughter the entire
horde, without a single casualty. Seward is an old woman. Frankenstein
is no soldier. But hey, they're only vampires. During the battle,
Catriona clambers up a pole, then straight back down again, achieving
nothing very much, but doesn't she look way cool doing that!
While this comic book silliness is going on, Chandler slips out and
finds Vanessa in a room full of lit candles. She is now a vampire, the
Mother of Evil. Chandler urges Vanessa to run away with him. He will
protect her from Dracula.
But Vanessa realizes the real threat is not from a Dracula, but from
her own sinful nature. "It's not him. It's me. Look at me. This is
what I am. And this is what I've done. Brought this terrible darkness
to the world."
Chandler persists. "Vanessa, please."
"Vanessa? And where is she? When did we lose her, Ethan? She was
standing in a quiet room, gazing up at a cross. She reached out, took
it from the wall, and put it in the fire. And then she was lost. And
so alone."
"You are not alone," says Chandler. "You never were. I have
stood at the very edge. I have looked into the abyss. If I had taken
one more step, I would have fallen. But no matter how far you ran away
from God, he was still waiting ahead."
In Season One, Vanessa begged Chandler to shoot her during her
possession. He refused. In Season Two, she contemplated suicide.
Chandler dissuaded her. Now she insists there is no other way. "You
must help me defeat the forces of darkness and deny them their prize
for all time."
She takes his gun, slips it in his hand, and aims the gun at her
chest.
Chandler begins reciting the Lord's Prayer. She joins him. When they
finish, he shoots. Her last words,
"Oh Ethan, I see ... our Lord."
The death of Vanessa Ives is a beautiful and powerful scene,
remarkable for its closure. So many things are brought full circle.
* Chandler's recital of the Lord Prayer is in contrast to his reciting
a blasphemous version of the prayer at his father's ranch, signaling
that he has come full circle from evil to good.
* Vanessa's last words are in contrast to Hecate's last words,
"Ethan, Hell awaits us both." That Vanessa says "our" Lord
suggests that Hecate's words are void. Chandler too is redeemed.
* Chandler's words to Vanessa echo those of Clare, who said the same
to her at the end of Season Two.
* Chandler's act completes what he started in Season One, when Vanessa
first begged him to shoot her. As she and Sembene said, "God has a
plan." The Wolf of God finally did what he was born to do.
* Vanessa had several times declared Joan of Arc one of her heroines,
so her martyrdom comes as no surprise, but flows naturally from her
character.
Most importantly, in her martyrdom, Christianity defeats modernity.
Despite all the temptations and assaults upon her faith throughout the
show, in the end Vanessa chose Christ over her "true" sinful self.
Back at the battle, every vampire is dead, except Dracula. He has
knocked out all the good guys and is choking Sir Malcolm. Apparently,
the vampires were useless. Dracula could easily defeat everyone by
himself. He is about to kill Sir Malcolm when he sees Chandler enter
with Vanessa's corpse.
Without Amunet, Dracula is defeated. He drops Sir Malcolm and flies
off. The sun bursts through the clouds. The fog has lifted. Lupus
Dei has defeated evil and ended the Apocalypse. Or merely delayed
it? Because life goes on. Well, no matter.
Penny Dreadful is an allegory, not theology. One in which, despite
all the gore and silliness and debauchery, Christ's glory shines
through.
Clare's sickly son has died. His wife insists that he bring their boy
to Frankenstein, so the doctor can work "his miracles" and return
their son to life. But Clare doesn't want his son to suffer as he did,
an undead freak. His wife says that unless he returns with their boy
alive, she never wants to see him again.
Clare buries his son in the River Thames. Alone again, he goes to
Vanessa's house, seeking consolation. Instead, he finds a funeral
procession. He follows it to Vanessa's grave. During this final scene,
Rory Kinnear recites William Wordsworth's "Ode on Intimations of
Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood." It's a poignant
and fitting end to the series.
Clare kneels at the foot of Vanessa's grave. We fade out and read:
The End.
And so it should be. But despite
Penny Dreadful's beautiful closure, the show's cult following has
led to an afterlife in merchandising and comic books, continuing the
supernatural adventures of Vanessa Ives. These are best ignored.
Also ignore Showtime's 2020 TV series,
Penny Dreadful: City of Angels. Created by John Logan, this is
a sequel in name only, with a new set of characters and storylines,
set in Los Angeles, 1938. From what I've seen, it truly is dreadful.
Rejected by fans of the original, it was canceled after one season.
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