Penny Dreadful : Episodes 5&6.

“Everybody Wants To Rule The World” – Tears for Fears

This World is Our Hell:

Last week, we learned a lot about Ethan and Hecate, as the two of them trudged through the desert to reach his homestead. Ethan’s plan is to go back home, confront, and possibly, kill his father.

Ethan and Hecate get to know each other as they slowly dehydrate but that doesn’t stop them from having sex. In fact, I’m not surprised they did. The entire time they’ve been together, Hecate has been telling Ethan what a wonderful creature he is, and how they will take over the world, or something. This is much more believable coming from Hecate, than it is from Lily, who we didn’t get to see in this episode. Unlike with Lily,  I’m actually afraid of what Hecate might do.

It also appears as if Ethan is slowly coming around to Hecate’s way of thinking, on this issue, as he stops protesting, and side-eyeing her. Maybe she’s just worn him down, or he’s starting to like her, or he’s just pretending to care about what she says. It’s hard to tell with Ethan, as he likes to play his tenderest emotions close to his vest.

The two of them are  still being pursued by Rusk and his men, most of whom get killed when Hecate works some arcane magic to call snakes out of the sand to attack them.  During the chaos, Kaetenay gets bitten while trying to steal the posse’s horses,  and things do not look good for him. He and Sir Malcolm make a getaway, but it’s not clean.

Malcolm eventually meets up with Hecate and Ethan, who are on their last legs and about to die, but all of them are apprehended by Ethan’s father’s men. It turns out that Kaetenay is an Apache, one of fiercest and most rebellious tribes, during the time period before they were mostly wiped out. There’s no love for Kaetenay, in this crew, so Ethan tells them to abandon him in the desert. I’m not sure if Ethan is doing this to spare Kaetenay’s life, if he knows Kaetenay will be alright and come rescue him, or if he really doesn’t care.  Again it’s hard to say what Ethan knows, but I’m inclined to believe that he knows Kaetenay will come for him.

Earlier, Kaetenay  outlined to Malcolm, Ethan’s great sin, which was aiding in the massacre of his tribe and family. I’m still unsure if Ethan was cursed at the time this happened, or if it was something Kaetenay did to him afterward, which would be incredibly ironic. Cursing the man who massacred his family to murder any other people he comes in contact with, (including his own family), sounds like the sort of vindictive , horrible, yet mordantly funny thing, Kaetenay might do. His sense of humor is very odd. At any rate, Ethan must have killed scores of people in his, relatively young, life.

At Ethan’s home, Malcolm and Ethan’s father have words. Malcolm is not greatly impressed by the man, although they seem to have much in common. I think the difference is that Malcolm, as hard headed as he is, eventually learns when he fucks up, and Ethan’s dad, not so much. Dad still insists on making the same mistakes he made before, hoping for a different outcome. As evidenced by his actions when he tells Ethan why he insisted on bringing him home.

In the movie Seven, one of the detectives mentions something called “Forced Atonement”.” It’s when you regret your sins but not because you love God. It’s because you have a gun to your head.” That’s what I thought about when Ethan’s father held a gun to Ethan’s head to make him beg God for forgiveness, and make atonement for what he thinks is Ethan’s great sin, killing his wife and daughter, Ethan’s mother and sister. He says he wants Ethan to pay for what he did, but I’m still not sure what threatening Ethan is going to accomplish.

It really would be interesting to find out that the Apache they let go in the desert is the person who is indirectly responsible for what happened to Ethan’s family, which doesn’t bode well, for the relationship between John and Vanessa. This show likes to mirror characters, and if the relationship between Ethan and Kaetenay is a mirror of the one between Vanessa and John, then there is some hard  news for us viewers, later.

On a side note, we watch as Victor and Henry work on his serum together. Their goal is to get the effects of the serum to be permanent. So far, we’ve seen no sign of Mr. Hyde, but we have seen some startling and disturbing glimpses of Henry’s rage at the world, and how it’s treated him, at the bigotry of the English, and the disregard of his father. This is a man with a deep well of rage, and from time to time, he can’t seem to keep it underneath. Is he already taking the serum , or is this leading up to him taking it, or being given it by Victor?  This also unclear. It wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest if Victor did such a thing. Twice now we’ve seen him admonish Henry for displaying his anger. Testing the serum out on Henry isn’t something that’s out of bounds for him.

 

No Beast So Fierce:

So far, Hecate and Ethan want to rule the world, with Kaetenay  and Malcolm trying to nip that in the bud. Lily and her charge, Justine, want to rule the world with Dorian. Satan tried but lost his bid, but that’s okay because Dracula has put in his application to rule the world  with Vanessa. Who the hell even knows what Henry wants and John  just wants to take care of his family.

Dr. Sweet and Renfield:

Renfield is still giving Dracula  regular updates on what Vanessa has been telling Dr. Seward, including her last session, in which she found out his name, for which he is being rewarded by being made Dracula’s favorite. Dracula now knows that Vanessa knows his name. My thoughts while watching this scene: Dracula has got them (bishies) in check.  A mere twitch of his fingertips is enough to have his followers, minions, (or whatever) groveling on the floor in front of him. Now, that is control!

Vanessa and Lyle:

Unfortunately ,this seems to be the last we will be seeing of Lyle, as Vanessa catches up with him just before his expedition to Cairo, something he says isn’t strictly voluntary on his part. Vanessa asks him for the name of someone who knows as much about the occult as he does, and this is how Catriona Hartdegan, a new female character and Thanatologist, is introduced, for this season. (Note that famous Egyptian name that Lyle drops before his departure.)

Vanessa goes to see Cate at her fencing lesson, to ask her to investigate Dracula’s name. Cate is definitely a modern woman, bold and snarky. I’m not sure I like her just yet, as she seems very brittle and scratchy, so far. She’s not unlikable, just skritchy. I think one test of whether or not I’ll like her, is how well she gets along with Vanessa, who seems intrigued by her, and how well she handles the situation with Dracula.  I also think its important to learn whether or not she can shoot a gun.  In other words, is she as bad-ass as she likes to think she is, and does she have Vanessa’s back.

Lily, Justine, Dorian:

“No beast so fierce but knows some touch of pity. But I know none, and therefore am no beast.” -Shakespeare

Oh boy, do I have a lot to say about these relationships this week. Now I’m intrigued by the introduction of Lily’s little girl and I’ve decided I’ll call her by her name this week, Justine. Things are definitely heating up between these three, but not in the way you might think, which does not bode well for either Lily, or Justine. I have decided to apply the above quote to Justine and Ethan, although it could apply to just about any of the characters in this episode.

Somebody gon’ die!

Lily has begun to draw up her army. They are mostly prostitutes, and other fallen women, whom English society has disdained as worthless. They’ve been gathering, mostly quietly, at Dorian’s estate and learning from Lily how best to gut and stab their male clients. I watched Lily’s demonstration on Dorian, and I think Lily forgot to factor in that there would be arterial blood spray, if you cut someone from the front. (You really want to do that kind of shit off to the side, or from behind, where the blood wouldn’t hit you.)

Anyway, her biggest problem isn’t that she is teaching incorrect murder classes, but that Justine, who has pledged herself to Lily, has pledged herself to Lily alone. When its time for Justine to demonstrate on Dorian, Lily can barely restrain Justine from cutting his throat. I think Dorian not dying would be a surprise to all of them. He doesn’t actually look scared but he does look nervous. Either he hasn’t told Lily what he is or he’s worried about how little control he has over these women. I’m guessing, the latter.

At any rate, its not Lily who is the wild card in this scenario, it’s Justine, who will take orders from  no man, including Dorian. Justine basically looks him in the eye,  and tells him to fuck off, something I’m pretty sure Dorian isn’t used to from women he’s  actively sleeping with. At any rate, the future doesn’t look good for Justine. Dorian killed Angelique just for finding out what he was. If Justine can’t be controlled by him, in his own house, then she has a very short future. And if he kills Justine, then he can forget about having a happy relationship with Lily.

Victor and Henry:

The two have finally gotten the serum to work. Victor makes plans to kidnap Lily so he can administer it to her. Henry, long ago, sussed out the real reason Victor is obsessed with saving her. Victor is that creepy stalker, who believes he’s a nice guy.

John:

There’s a little of John’s situation this episode as he goes to visit his family. His son is suffering from some disease and is very sickly. When his wife leaves him alone, John sneaks down from the attic to see him. John manages to give the child a single hug before the boy wakes up  to see a strange man, who looks suspiciously like his father, standing over his bed, and begins to scream. Its heartbreaking to think that this is the only opportunity John will have to touch his child.

 

Victor and Lily

All that happens is Victor gets captured at Dorian’s house. The only reason Justine doesn’t kill him is because of the amount of control Lily has over her, and Lily’s mercy. She warns him not to try it again, or he’ll be killed.

Hecate, Talbot, Malcolm 

 

The set piece of the episode is the final dinner and shootout at the Talbot corral. Everyone is calmly sitting and eating dinner as if guns weren’t being brandished a couple of hours earlier. Guns get brandished again when Rusk asks Hecate what she is, knowing what she did to his men with the snakes, and she reveals her true face to every one at the table. That’s some next level shit to everyone, as the room  immediately erupts in gunfire. We get to see Ethan’s gunfighter skills come into play and Hecate gets taken down by a bullet from Papa Talbot. No future Queen of the Earth for her, I guess.

Talbot barricades himself and his men in the chapel where he’d earlier threatened Ethan, but Kaetenay, who simply refuses to die, comes through, in the cut. With the two biggest influences in his life dead, Ethan is free to leave with Malcolm and Kaetenay. The all need to return to England NOW! because Vanessa is falling further into Dracula’s clutches.

Vanessa and Dr. Sweet

 

After a visit with Dr. Seward, who urges her to mend fences with her friends, Vanessa goes to see Dr. Sweet, who goads her into talking about her problems with him. He is still sweet?talking her, with his opinions about creatures of darkness, and loneliness. He seems surprised that she has turned up to see him because he thought all his hard work in wooing her had been wasted.

A lot of the things Sweet tells her are about himself, and she seems, on some level, to understand this because they end up having sex in the exhibit. Yeah, this does not look good. All evening long, Sweet seems as if he’s on the verge of telling Vanessa his real name, but keeps thinking better of it. Shit is gonna hit that fan when that happens.Vanessa: betrayed yet again!

Obviously, Vanessa cannot be left alone to choose her own friends, and must needs adult supervision.

Let’s hope Ethan reaches her quickly before something horrible happens.

 

Of Note:

It’s interesting that Dracula, despite his nefarious purposes, really seems to actually love Vanessa. His behavior towards her is so incredibly convincing, as Dr. Sweet, that even I occasionally forget what he is. I know he’s probably lying to her quite a lot, but I still can’t help but feel a great deal of sympathy for his evil ass. This a testament to the skills of the writer and the actor. (Plus, it doesnt hurt that that actor is really really hawwt!)

Penny Dreadful : Good and Evil Braided Be

 

The titles are especially apt this season. This episode we get glimpses of all the characters, most specifically their good and bad sides. Most of this episode consists of people dealing with their memories and coping with their aftermath. We find out what John has been doing, a curious setback for Vanessa and Dr. Sweet, we follow Ethan and Hecate’s travels, and our horny little immortal couple, Dorian and Lily. The episode hops around from person to person,but rather than recapping it in that manner I’m going to tell what each character was doing individually.

Ethan and Hecate:

These two are riding around in the desert getting shot at by Rusk and his posse. Ethan wakes up in a barn and finds Hecate waiting for him to come back to his senses. She insists that the two of them have a future together, even after Ethan makes it clear that he hates her guts. (Ethan seems to hate everybody but Vanessa.) Hecate is blindly devoted to him, normally an admirable quality, but for that reason alone, she should probably come to a bad end.

She and Ethan stop to steal some horses from a small ranch, but when the owner protests this via shotgun, Hecate slits his throat and then proceeds to kill the rest of the family, too. Ethan can’t seem to do anything but watch in horror. Does that make him complicit in their deaths?

 

Kaetenay/Malcolm:

Kaetenay and Malcolm are hot on Ethan’s trail. Kaetenay tells Malcolm that if they don’t recover Ethan the destruction of the world is imminent. He even knows all about Hecate and has visions of Ethan, so  I wonder if this is just  the typical Mystical-Indian tropes or something more than that? Malcolm asks why Kaetenay needs him and susses out that maybe Ethan doesn’t  actually trust Kaetenay, no matter how lovingly K. talks about him.

He and Malcolm find the  bodies of the rancher and his family, and Kaetenay’s behavior becomes more desperate. You can tell because his attitude becomes even more snippy than usual. I am loving Wes Studi in this role. He appears to be having waaay too much fun.

Renfield/Vanessa:

Renfield has been listening to Vanessa’s  therapy sessions which Dr. Seward has been recording. He continues to behave nervously around Vanessa, and has become so obsessed with her, that he writes her name over and over again (ala The Shining) in his journal. We also catch the classic moment when he eats a fly. This is a very juicy (pun intended) role for this actor and I hope he’s really enjoying it. Keep in mind, that what Renfield  overhears in Vanessa’s therapy sessions, will later be conveyed to Dracula, and his minions, which is something that will play out in the rest of the episode.

 

Vanessa/Dr. Seward:

Vanessa and the Doctor argue about Vanessa’s  confessions to her in therapy, including the fact that they’ve met before. The Doctor insist that what Vanessa told her is nothing but delusions. At one point, Vanessa grabs the Doctor’s  hand and reads her tragic past. Only then does the Doctor look half convinced. Vanessa asks to be hypnotized, so she can see the part of her past that was lost to her memory, and the doctor agrees. This is something that will play out in the rest of this episode and the next.

 

John:

John (Victor’s creature) is finally back in England. He stops in Limehouse, where he finds Vanessa just standing about, but she’s actually waiting for Dr. Sweet. The two of them have a date and John is delighted to see her happy and holding hands with him.

Some of John’s memories of his human life have been returning and he’s decided to seek out the family he left behind when he died. He finds them but their situation is dire. His little boy is dying, and his wife is so poor, that she has gone to work in one of the many smokestack factories dotting the landscape of Victorian England. It’s a horribly dirty life for the two of them and John is naturally brought to tears. They were not rich when he was alive but at least he held a steady job (which we will find out at the end of the episode, exactly what that job was) and they were all relatively happy and healthy, living in Limehouse.

 

Victor/Henry:

“Good and evil braided be”, seems to be some kind of catchphrase that Victor invented because even though it sounds like a book quote, I couldn’t find that quote anywhere. (If anyone knows where that quote is from, let me know becasue my Google-Fu was no good with that phrase.) He and Henry discuss the serum Henry created and Henry relates how it only has temporary effects on his patients. Victor says he can solve that problem, simply because he is awesome.

During their conversation, Henry becomes more and more excitable, and manic, and I kept expecting him to Hulk Out  at any second, but the show is being very coy about the existence of Mr. Hyde. I do wonder if Henry has been taking the serum, but I’m not convinced, as he’s been trying to ween Victor off  morphine and him being addicted to something would be both  paradoxical and hypocritical.

Dorian/Lily:

I have no idea what Lily’s new young ward’s name is so I’m going to call her Lily 2. What happens between Dorian, Lily and Lily 2 , is the most disgusting part of the episode, which is saying something when we were just watching Renfield eat bugs.

Lily and her protege take lunch at an outdoor cafe and Lily is being coy about her plans to destroy, or take over, the world. I’m not clear on exactly what she wants to accomplish, but she disdains the efforts of the Suffragettes, who are too loud and boisterous to get anything done. I get the feeling she has no firm plans either, but it does seem to involve an army of former sex-workers, I’m guessing. It’s disturbing listening to Lily 2 talk about her abusive past. I know she must be an adult but she looks all of twelve years old. She has this dewy little face, like a baby, so its even more  disturbing when Dorian has her kill her father, later that evening,  and then the three of them have bloody sex over the corpse.

I know this was done for shock value because it went on for way too long, and I was kind of bored and kept getting distracted by the liveliness of the blood, which still looked pretty wet, right up til morning. I just kept wondering why it wasn’t getting tacky, and why  the three of them were  able to move, without getting stuck together. No, I’m not going to show a picture of them cuz…yuck!

Dr. Sweet/Vanessa:

Honestly, this is the sweetest, cutest, most delicious relationship in the show, since we already know that Sweet is Dracula and that he’s been pursuing Vanessa for years. We already know that his endgame is for her to become his bride, to that end, we get to watch him actually trying to woo her, and he’s fairly successful at it. Hell, I love the guy, even knowing who he is and that he’s a big fat liar.

The two of them meet in Limehouse because Sweet asked Vanessa out this time. (For their first date, Vanessa had asked him.) So, the two of them have been regularly seeing each other. At one point he tells her she’s beautiful, in a kind of off-hand way, that makes Vanessa smile, and he holds her hand when they visit the house of mirrors. So even though he is evil personified, he is doing everything right that you do on a date, and I wonder where he got his skills cuz I would totally date this guy, (except for the whole, “he’s a lying bloodsucking fiend, who has been spying on me” thing.)

Based on the things Vanessa told Dr. Seward, Dracula spins her a sob story about how he’s also in mourning for his lost wife. (I have no idea if this is a real story, or one he made up to win her sympathies, but I suspect its a lie.)

At the House of Mirrors, Vanessa is approached by one of Dracula’s minions, who has been following them all evening. He insinuates that Dracula is very close by (well, yeah!) and that she’s met him  before, in the place of her lost memories and Vanessa is very shaken by this. She was trying to leave her past behind, with Dr. Seward’s help, but it just won’t leave her alone. She abruptly breaks off her date with Sweet ad tells him she can’t ever be with him.

Sweet doesn’t like this shit at all. He has been working really hard for possibly weeks, months even,  to woo this woman, slowly and very, very carefully, winning her trust, getting her to like him, bringing her out of her shell, and enjoy his company, and its all been completely undone. Now he’s got to try some other tactic to get close to Vanessa and he doesn’t like that one bit.

When he figures out that it was his own minion, who undid all his hard work, he has his other minions eat him.

Vanessa undergoes a hypnosis session with Seward which reveals she spent some time in a padded room at an insane asylum, and that one of her orderlies was John.

Penny Dreadful : Predators Far and Near

SPOILER ALERT

The title of this episode is especially apt, this week. Yes indeed, there are predators very, very close to Vanessa, and some far away in America, which we catch an unfortunate glimpse of this week. Including a surprisingly unsurprising revelation about Dr. Sweet, Vanessa’s zoologist/taxidermist crush, about which I’m sure you can probably guess, just as I did. After all, Dr. sweet is the only new introduction to the season who has absolutely no backstory. The guy came out of nowhere and conveniently landed near Vanessa? C’mon!

Anyway we get another taste of the story from Sir Malcolm and Kaetenay’s point of view, including some interesting tidbits about Kaeteny’s history with Ethan. We don’t see what John is up to , but we find out what Dorian and Lily are doing. It’s not good, but still not scary. I’m still waiting to be impressed by the two of them. And we find out where Ethan is and what he’s doing.

But first we get to find out what England’s  most unimpressive couple gets up to in their spare time, and that’s attacking bougie gentlemen in bdsm clubs. Okay, it’s not bdsm, because that would imply that the people participating are consenting adults. It’s a sadistic club for grown men to beat up little girls.

I had always considered British men of that time period to be somewhat vile creatures but this strikes a new low, (and really this sort of violence against children need only be suggested to be effective, but apparently cable TV is more interested in being edgy than subtle). Anyway, Lily and Dorian  walk in and dismantle the clientele with guns and  straight razors, and for the first time I’m impressed with their level of carnage, but I do wonder where Lily picked up her martial skills. Did Dorian teach her this in between waltzes?

Later, Lily and Dorian’s waltzing is interrupted by the young girl they saved the night before, and Lily recruits her to fight in whatever imaginary battle against the patriarchy that is playing out in her head. They sort of remind me of moody, vengeful, energetic, versions of Morticia and Gomez Addams. I’m still not impressed by Lily’s plans for the future. Does she plan to individually straight razor every man in England? She better get to work then, because there are a lot of them. If you’re sensing I have some contempt for this couple…you’re right! They’re like all those vengeful teenagers in movies, who plan to get all the ones who laughed at them, but without any actual, you know…plans. Maybe they’ll do something impressive later in the season.

I’ll wait.

Henry Jeckyll takes Victor to lunch and shows him his workplace, Bedlam Asylum, the most notorious insane asylum in England, during this period. When he gives his spiel to Victor about how awful his workplace is, he’s not wrong. It was pretty much the place where poor people with mental disabilities went, to get regularly hosed down like lawn furniture, or die. (Rich people got sent to wellness spas, which were only slightly less awful with better food. Hosing optional).

Listen to Henry’s speeches about the duality of man for insight into his character, and the motivation behind Hyde’s creation. Henry takes Victor to the bowels of the asylum and experiments on one of the screaming, raving patients there. After forcing his elixir into  him, the man becomes calm,  genteel and refined, asking for water.  Henry promises Victor he will do the same for Lily.

Later, we see Victor looking pretty bad, as Henry is trying, I think, to ween him off his morphine addiction. Victor goes to sit outside Dorian’s  house and watch Lily through the windows. I was never a huge fan of Victor, since he killed Brona, but this is pathetic and stalkery, making me like him even less. Lily comes out to see him, telling him to go away. I think Victor doesn’t seem to understand that there is no personality  to change Lily back to. I think this is Lily’s authentic self, an angry, bitter sex worker. What he wants is to bring Lily to heel and make her submissive to him, which is so very Warren of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Victor. Really! I don’t know what’s stopping Victor from killing some other woman and making her his bride. It’s one of his skills. If you’re noticing a certain level of contempt for Victor… You’re right!

Vanessa is still seeing her therapist and has been persuaded by her to tell her story, while Renfield  acts creepy and nervous, in the background. Dr. Seward insists she can handle whatever story Vanessa throws at her, and appears to be as stoic as always during, but the moment Vanessa leaves, she breaks down in tears. Actually I was kind of heartened to see that. It makes her more human and not the ball breaker she wants people to think she is.  I’m not sure what the tears are for. Is it because it was a heightened emotional experience for her? Is she sad that Vanessa is so broken? Does she even believe her? I’m inclined to think she just doesn’t believe Vanessa and is appalled by her level of insanity. Later, we see Renfield listening to the tapes that Dr. Seward made of her discussion with Vanessa.

Next up,  Sir Malcolm is on a ship, with Kaetenay, being seasick. Kaetenay is a morbidly funny fellow, whose not so impressed by Sir Malcom that he won’t make small jabs at him. I was surprised to find out Malcolm got seasick, as I thought of him as some great world traveler. He says it’s the reason he never traveled to South America. It says a lot about his relationship with Ethan that he will brave all this to save him. When Kaetenay asks if he’s ever hated someone so much that he wanted them to live and suffer, but that later, it became a form of love, Malcolm says yes he has, and you figure out that he’s talking about Vanessa.

Kaetenay performs a spell that allows him to talk to Ethan in his dreams.  It turns out that he and Ethan have a much more complicated relationship than father and son, as Ethan seems to hate him and threatens to kill him when he sees him. But at the same time Ethan also confides his feelings to him too. It’s deliciously complicated. I wasn’t expecting this because Kaetenay spoke so lovingly of Ethan. I don’t know why,  but I also had the impression that Kaetenay may be  a witch, or werewolf, too. He seems to be trying to form a bond with Malcolm through their shared relationship with Ethan, as he keeps referring to Ethan as “our son”, which sounds really weird, considering they just met.

Ethan seems to have only the most complicated relationships with all the men in his life. He seems to be rebelling against all of them except Dorian. It’s very telling that the most uncomplicated relationship he has had with any man on this show was Sembene, who he later ate; and Dorian, who he slept with,  who is now sleeping with his late-ex-girlfriend.

Just parse that out for minute or two.

Dr. Seward orders Vanessa another homework assignment. The week before it was go out and do something she’s never done before, and this week it’s go do something with no agenda beyond it being fun. So she goes back to see Dr. Sweet, who is giving a lecture on insects, but when he sees Vanessa is present, switches it up to talking about scorpions. There follows one of the sweetest, and cutest meet-cutes you can imagine for this show. It’s as adorable as when she met Dorian, and if you’ve been watching the show, you remember how that ended. 😊

Vanessa invites Sweet to accompany her of an evening and she takes him to “see the cinematogragh”, as  she has heard ‘it is a wonder of the civilized world’! And he really does seem to enjoy it and his time with her. And Vanessa seems to be enjoying herself too, which made me smile. Watch Vanessa’s face as Sweet watches the movie. She is thoroughly enamored of him, like a crushing schoolgirl, checking to see that he’s happy. When she invites him for coffee afterward, he declines. I think that’s when I suspected who he might be, because who vehemently declines coffee? (For the coffee is the life.)

Good news! Rusk survived the train massacre and is still hunting for Ethan. He plans to track him  back to Talbot territory.  I had the idea that he was planning on getting ripped apart by Ethan before reaching Talbot territory, as that’s more likely to happen than apprehension.                   Hecate overhears this conversation and makes plans of her own.

Ethan’s kidnappers have stopped at a little hacienda, in the middle of nowhere, for a pit stop. The native woman who recognizes him as Kaetenay’s protege is an actress I remember from Dances with Wolves. I think her name is Red Crow or Red Crow Feather. I’d been wondering where she’d gone off to as I’d seen her in only a few projects since that movie. I was happy to see her here and that, warned by Ethan, she managed to escape the later carnage. Ethan refers to her relative,  Kaetenay, as “the old demon”  and calls her Mother, although I think that’s more a kind of title. She seems to know exactly who and what he is and when he tells her to go, she skedaddles.

Ethan changes and kills everyone in the hacienda but is stopped in his tracks by the appearance of Hecate who has been trying to cozy up to him since she found out what he was. I think, once again, she’s not going to get what she wants out of this relationship, unless she has a spell to control him, or something. I just don’t see Ethan’s dark side being cowled by whispered endearments, and the offer of va-jayjay, which is all Hecate seems to have in her repertoire.

Yeah, Ethan’s breakout was still more impressive than Lily and Dorian at the top of the show. Interesting how the show started with a massacre and ends with…a massacre. And lets stand back and admire Ethan’s werewolf, which is a callback to the original Wolf Man imagery, from 1941, starring Lon Chaney Jr.

Renfield reports to Dracula’s lair to tell tales about Vanessa. He demands blood, Dracula acquiesces, and we pan up to see that it’s actually Vanessa’s new boyfriend, Dr. Sweet.

Penny Dreadful Season Three Premiere

Showtime was kind enough o give everyone a preview of the first episode of season three of Penny Dreadful. It doesn’t give much away, it’s mostly a setup of all the characters we’ll be meeting, and what issues we’ll be dealing with, in the first half of the season. We visit each character in turn, find out where they are, what they’ve been doing, and where their next adventure might lead. The only people we don’t get to see are Reeve Carney and Billie Piper as Lily and Dorian, a couple of villains I was thoroughly unimpressed by last season, especially since Lily’s villainy seem to come out of left field. (Not saying her anger and bitterness isn’t understandable, just that I wasn’t impressed by it.)

 

We start with Vanessa, who has given in to  major depression after the events of last season. Everyone has left her. Sir Malcolm is off burying his best friend Sembene in Africa, and Ethan left her to go to America and deal with his father issues. She’s all alone in the house, she’s neglected it’s upkeep, there are no servants that I can tell, although someone is regularly delivering bread and milk to her. She mostly wanders around the cobwebbed, fly swarmed house, like a ghost, until she’s visited by Lyle. I love Lyle. He’s such a gem and just about the only positive person on the show. He dispenses some words of advice, wisdom, and gentle humor to her. At no point does he tell her what to do, but his genuine concern is enough to get her out of the house.

Lyle makes an appointment for her to see his therapist, played by Patti Lupone, who also is the spitting image of The Cut Wife from last season. Vanessa recognizes her immediately and is happy with o see her, even though she realizes it can’t be the same woman. Oddly, the therapist does share the same name, place of origin, and character traits  of the Cut Wife, so they’re more than likely related somehow.

Patti plays a genderbent Dr. Seward, who calls herself an Alienist, which is what I guess psychiatrists called themselves back then. She is a blunt, pragmatic woman who has no patience for foolishness or prevarication, and I liked her immediately. She reads Vanessa extremely well, just as the Cut Wife did, when they first met. In fact, tonight’s episode was full of people “reading “ each  other, which is something that’s only effective when the person being “read” is unaware, uncertain, or trying to hide themselves. Against someone who knows and acknowledges who they are, this is not a very effective technique. It requires the participation of the one being read, and the specific intentions of the person doing the reading, which  must be pure, or all they’ll end up doing is telling you who  they are.

There’s a lot of reading in this episode . The creature reads his shipmates before abandoning them. Kaetenay reads Sir Malcolm, and Dr. Seward gives Vanessa a bluntly accurate reading of who she is, when Vanessa tries to derail their conversation about herself. This serves the purpose of telling the audience where these characters are mentally at this point in the season.

We also meet Dr. Seward’s secretary, Renfield. But more on him later.

Anyway, Seward tells Vanessa to go out and do something different. To break the cycle of the behavior she’s been in lately, although I think leaving the house to seek help from a therapist would qualify. While wandering around the city, she becomes aware that the poet, Alfred Lord Tennyson has died, when a pale little boy offers her a black ribbon. He makes some cryptic comments to her about his blood disease. This is a presentiment of Dracula’s introduction in the show. In the first season we got an introduction to Dracula’s presence via his minions and brides, and no mention at all last season. So they’ve upped the ante for this season.

Vanessa  visits a kind of Taxidermy Museum, where she meets Dr.Sweet, who seems very taken with her. The two of them have an immediate connection of some kind. I don’t know this character so have no idea where he fits within the show or if he has some dark secrets we find out later (probably yes).

We find Sir Malcolmin Africa, distraught after burying his friend, Sembene, and vowing to give up fighting supernatural creatures. He is challenged in this by a native American man, of Apache origin, named Kaetenay. Kaetenay, says he is like a father to Ethan too, and says Malcolm must travel to America to help save their son. So Ethan has three fathers. The father he disowned and wishes to avoid, (and who probably cursed him with lycanthropy), the father who adopted him and that he  later abandoned, Kaetenay, and the father he adopted, Sir Malcolm. I like these little smigdets of backstory we get about Ethan.

In America, Ethan is being transported home, to be executed for whatever crimes he committed there, when his train is attacked by brigands. Or that’s what we’re meant to think, but really they’re there to kidnap him. Hecate, in her innocent, American waif disguise, just barely manages to escape being shot in the face. The sheriff, Detective Rusk and his deputies, don’t. The kidnappers tell Ethan they were sent by his father. He is going to see his father whether he likes it or not. Ethan wishes them good luck with that. I suspect he’s correct. There are a lot of people after Ethan, and depending how far away home is, a full moon is coming soon.

The most interesting person introduced in the show is Dr. Jeckyll, played by Shazad Latif. (Wooo! I’ve got the vapors over this big-eyed hunk of a man! Seriously though, he has the biggest eyes I’ve ever seen on a man, and a very intense stare.) Victor calls Henry to London to help him figure out how to kill Lily, but Henry is canny enough to figure out that Victor  wants her back because he’s in love with her. There are some allusions to Henry’s anger issues and how he has treated these issues through his mastery of chemistry. He and Victor have great chemistry together so I expect a lot of ‘shipping of this pair.

We find Victor Frankenstein’s creature, John, trapped on a ship sitting in the Arctic ice, while the crew contemplates eating their fellow shipmates. They are about to attack one of their crew but John stops them. He eventually kills the child by snapping his neck, and walks off into the Arctic snow, leaving the ship’s crew to whatever their fates may be.

Dr. Seward’s secretary, Renfield has a terrifying encounter with Dracula’s minions, when they kidnap him to take him to meet their Master. We get to watch Renfield become RENFIELD, and I already dislike him because he’s such a spineless jellyfish. (No, scratch that. I actually like Jellyfish.) Dracula announces himself but we don’t get to see his face. I’m hoping the show will  buck tradition and make him a classically handsome looking fellow, because his voice sounds pretty awful. All he has to do is tell Renfield to bare his neck and Ren just flips over to have his throat torn out without any resistance. I kept yelling at my TV for the man to grow at least one ball. (Vanessa is more man than he’ll ever be.)

I think I must be reading too much modern vampire fiction because I long ago accepted the idea of Renfield as a title passed along to whatever minions are closest to Dracula at any given time. That way one could have multiple Renfields.

Anyway, Vanessa seems rejuvenated after her visit with Dr. Sweet and goes home to clean, clean, and clean some more. She appears to be trying to put her life back in some order, but this probably is not something permanent, as later in the season, we see she’s been institutionalized.

Well, this season looks promising. Except for the Dorian and Lily stuff, I enjoyed last season. Not that I don’t like Reeve Carney but the  show-runners sort of pissed me off when they introduced a transgender character, just to kill her of for no purpose.  Really, people! Do better than that! You can’t make a character that damned interesting just to kill them off for shits and giggles.( At some point there must be some kind of payoff for what Dorian did to her.)

Well, anyway I hope they keep Lily to a minimum this season because she’s a lot less compelling than the writers think she is. She’s not a bad character, its just that next to the evil of some of the other characters, she’s a non-entity.

This episode is available for free pretty much anywhere on the internet, so check it out. I will be reviewing the entire season, and my reviews/recaps are meant for people who don’t have Showtime, so there are spoilers, as I recap the episodes, (and I don’t separate the two.)

TTFN!

Geeking Out About : Preacher and Friends

I’m cautiously optimistic about this show, coming to AMC, soon.

I haven’t read the entire series but I’m familiar enough about the plot and characters to be looking forward to what AMC will do with this new graphic novel franchise, considering how well they’ve done with Into the Badlands, and The Walking Dead.

Check it out:

 

It  looks like an even grimmer Justified, and that show was pretty dark. You know this show means business, cuz it’s set in the West, and the lead character has a metal tipped collar. How cool is that? I want it.

 

 

And here’s the lowdown on Wynonna Earp. I love Weird Westerns and monsters, but I haven’t read the graphic novels this is based on, and  I never heard of it before. It looks fun though, and Wynonna and I will be hanging out with each other this  summer. With any luck, maybe our relationship could go long term.

I’m glad to see that the Siffee Channel has got back in the business of having actual shows on the network.

 

I like the trailer and definitely gonna watch the show but yet again, I’m kind of pissed that  only  the white ladies get to have adventures and be sheroes on TV. When can sistahs of color get some fucking love in the genre? You like us in books. Why can’t we be in any of the visual media? C’mon, people! Let’s get some brown girls in the ring!

 

Oh, and this nifty little gem will be coming to the Shiftee network soon, called Hunters. It looks suitably grim, and could take the place of Alphas, another show I was loving before it was canceled, in favor of making more of those damn shark movies. Yeah, thanx for those Swiffer channel!

Wanna hear about it? Here it goes:

 

Oh and that’s not all this summer. We’ve got several movies coming out. And some more TV shows, like Penny Dreadful, Outlander, and Game of Thrones, which I’ve never been a huge fan of, but I’m starting to get into it now. I’m looking forward to the new season and I think the episode Hardhome, had a lot to do with that. Also, now I’m really intrigued by the Jon Snow thing.

I’m still watching Daredevil and liking it so far. I’ll have another review up of the next four episodes soon.

I’m not watching Damien. That’s one of those shows, like Bates Motel, where you monitor the trailers,  just in case there’s some excitement later. I also stopped watching Blindspot, even though the trailers look pretty interesting. Second Chance ain’t gettin’ one. I don’t know anyone who cares about that show and I suspect  it won’t get renewed next season.

I did watch Crouching Tiger 2, but I got nothing to report about that, other than it ain’t the first movie. It’s not bad, the fight scenes are okay,  but it’s not as compelling as the first. The story isn’t as deep and the plot is kind of workmanlike. It’s not as pretty as the first film and the fight scenes seem tacked on because the story isn’t as deep or developed.

I’m much more interested in Rise of the Legend, which I just saw. I also watched The Revenant, The Assassin, and He Never Died, which I loved, because my boy  Henry Rollins is the star. I’m gonna have to talk about that this summer, if I have time, because I’m totally geeking over that one, along with It Follows, The Signal and another Mad Max:Fury Road review, from the male character’s (Nux and Max) points of view.

Penny Dreadful : Momento Mori

We have two episodes left in an extended season and events are beginning to reach their peak. All season, John Logan has been ratcheting up the tension like a vise. The finale is going to be  a huge release for everyone. This episode featured some not quite epic confrontations, but still very satisfying.

There was no Ethan or Vanessa in this episode, nevertheless their presence was felt, as the story begins to coalesce around what Vanessa will do during the finale, and how things between her and Evelyn will play out, although I have no doubt Evelyn will lose. Like the best plots, Vanessa’s victory may create a situation that’s even worse.

Yes, there are still too many secrets for my taste but I have come to understand the underlying theme of this season seems to be eternal youth and immortality.

You have Victor Frankenstein, who has found a way to cheat death, through Science. You’ve got Dorian Gray, whose backstory everyone already know, ,if you’ve read the book. We have the Nightcomers, Evelyn Poole and her daughter Hecate. Apparently Evelyn is pretty old, something which makes her daughter think that she is weak and ineffective. She thinks her mother needs to be  supplanted by someone more youthful, like herself.

And  there’s Evelyn’s cats-paw, Lyle. I thought she held some horrible secret over his head to keep him in her clutches, but it turns out that her only hold over him is vanity. He wishes he were younger and prettier, so he could more easily attract the young men he lusts after .As for why Evelyn wants Vanessa – vanity. To keep her youth and immortality, she has promised to procure Lucifer’s favorite.

Whether or not Lilly and John will age remains to be seen. Technically, they’re already dead but this is not without its issues. They’re stronger and faster, something Lilly proved last week,  but are completely  amoral and have no qualms about harming people.

Just like Dorian, who, after discovering that Angelique found his secret, poisoned her with a glass of wine. And this is another theme  to be discussed. Up til now, we’ve all been quick to dismiss Dorian as just a pretty wastrel, mostly harmless and charming. We tend to forget that he is nothing like that. For the first time we get to see the painting that shows what he actually looks like and yeah, it’s  as awful as you imagine.The man in the painting is disgusting, with a scowling, leering expression.This is what Dorian actually looks like and its all the more frightening because not only do you like Dorian, you want to like him. When I mentioned earlier that the Gentlemen of London were not Gentlemen because of the way they treated Angelique, well, Dorian is not a Gentlemen either and never was.

Many of the people on this show are pretending to be something they’re not. Evelyn states as much to Lyle. John is the only monster that looks like one. Lilly, the Nightcomers, Ethan, Vanessa and Dorian all have some very pretty packaging. I think the difference is in how each of these character approaches their monstrousness.

Lilly has decided to embrace her inner monster. She is a woman with a deep well of hatred for men, and that’s understandable considering the life she led before her resurrection.  When John confronts her about the men he’d seen her with and thinks to hit her, she has this great monologue, infused with all her rage and contempt at how she was treated in her old life. In fact, she so totally forgets her present, that right in the middle of her speech, her accent changes back to her  Irish brogue, and so smoothly, that if you’re not looking for it, you miss it. Billie Piper is wonderful here.

John is pretty shaken by this. He’s  speechless, as she tosses him around the room like a doll. He totally didn’t see any of that coming.

Victor, in a touching moment with Sir Malcolm confesses his addiction to Morphine. Its interesting to watch Victor become a warmer, more approachable person. I think this is due to his acceptance by the group and them treating him like family. Even Sembene behaves tenderly towards him, and Malcolm is understanding and kind when he makes this confession to him.

Earlier, after finding him in a stupor, John threatened to kill Victor, again. How many times per episode is that going to happen? John is very big on threats but the only person we’ve ever seen him kill is Victor’s second experiment, who was technically already dead. John also  threatens to take Lilly away, declaring that she belongs to him. Well, Lilly makes it clear that she has very different ideas about her life and that he won’t be the only one, wearing the pants in their relationship.

Sir Malcolm seemed to be coming out of Evelyn’s spell.  Ms. Poole, pushing her luck too far, started a working over the doll she created of him and it backfires. I’m not sure what the spell was supposed to accomplish but Sembene put a stop to it, by reminding Malcolm of his past. When the spell breaks, Evelyn, who seemed to actually care about her relationship with Malcolm, was very shaken. I’m guessing no one had ever willed them-self out of one of her spells, before.

Sir Malcolm is also confronted by Inspector Rusk, who is circling closer and closer to Ethan. Watching the two of them verbally jousting is almost as entertaining as watching Rusk and Ethan. What do you want to bet that Rusk gets exactly what he wants and meets Ethan’s monster, face to face?

Realizing what had been done to him, Malcolm hies off to confront Evelyn about it and their confrontation is the highlight of the episode, as we’ve all been waiting for it. Malcolm thoroughly rejects her. Are her tears real or fake? At its conclusion she drops a tiny scorpion in his lap and leaves him alone with the  hallucinations of his dead wife and children.

I’d also like to point out some of the parallels we’ve seen in the actions of certain characters from first season to this one. At one point we see Vanessa teaching Ethan how to waltz. Earlier in the season we saw her teaching another monster how to waltz. She reassures John that he is not the monster he thinks he is, and Sembene does the same thing for Ethan in an earlier episode. We also see Ethan bonding with Victor while teaching him to shoot and later we see him do the same with Vanessa.

Next week we’ll see if Vanessa reaches Sir Malcolm in time to save him from himself and possibly a final showdown between her and Evelyn. At some pint everyone is going to have to deal with Ethan’s secret, and Dorian’s as well. And things between Victor, Lilly and John reach a moment, but its also possible, these may be the cliffhangers for next season.

Penny Dreadful : Little Scorpion

This week’s episode is an Ethan/Vanessa vehicle. Fewer plot threads are introduced, which is a good thing because it’s easy to lose track of how many people aren’t talking to somebody,  even though there’s less than ten people in the cast.

Vanessa’s symbol is the scorpion. Its been part of the shows iconology since season one. The nickname was given to her by the witch that trained her, The Cut-Wife. After making the decision to protect Vanessa from Ms. Poole/Mme Kali, at her cabin, Poole maneuvered the local landowner to burn her alive because she was being magically restricted from setting foot on the property herself, and needed to get Vanessa out in the open. Most of this episode takes place at the cabin.

Last week,  Ethan asked Sembene to watch over him while he turns into a  werewolf. And it’s a beautiful, naturally lit, opening scene, where Sembene explains to Ethan what he witnessed. He’s surprisingly alright with it because his people are not unfamiliar with the idea of shape shifting. He reassures Ethan that this is not necessarily a curse because he can see that Ethan is a good man.

I agree. I think Ethan is a very dark soul, but essentially a good man, who has done some very horrible things. The fact that he’s intelligent enough not to try to justify the horrible things he’s done and tries to do better, even if he  fails, speaks well of him as a character. Of course, this is only something that’s true on screen. In real life people like that are repulsive.

The family, (and from hereon, I’m going to refer to the group as a family, as it’s what they’re slowly becoming, despite all  their secrets), discuss what happened to Vanessa at the party the night before. None of the people present witnessed  anything and Vanessa calls into question their ability to protect her if the danger can get so close to her, and none of them see it. She decides she needs to leave. She wants to go back to the Cut-wife’s cabin. Ethan tells her he will accompany her. Lyle is the one who  suggests Vanessa not tell the group where she’s going.

And Lyle is a very interesting character. He is supposed to be working for Ms. Poole but is definitely coming to care for these people he’s supposed to be betraying. He makes that suggestion because he knows he’s compromised and that Malcolm is thoroughly roofied. Ms. Poole can find out anything from the two of them and Lyle really does seem to want to keep Vanessa safe. So while he does, in fact, work for Ms. Poole, he appears to be doing so under great duress and works to thwart her activities, as and when he can.

But Vanessa does tell Victor. She is very warm and loving to him and  treats him much like a little brother. I think its very telling that while it’s Ethan who accompanies  her to the countryside, because he wasn’t at the party, it is Victor she trusts with her location, against Lyle’s advice.

She and Ethan arrive at the cabin and spend the day cleaning and collecting food. Later that evening, they have a lovely exchange of stories about their past and Vanessa teaches Ethan how to waltz. But later Ethan, feeling restless, warns her that he must leave and she is to make sure the door is locked. After he changes, we see him eating some neighbor’s sheep.

The next day, Ethan takes it upon himself to cut down the tree where the Cut-Wife was burned by the estate owner. This man was another who had fallen under the sway of Ms. Poole. Later, while out walking, Vanessa and Ethan encounter this man, riding with his pack of hounds. He’s still as nasty as ever and decides he should add degrading and threatening Ethan, by comparing him to his well-trained dogs, to his list of sins.

Vanessa makes the decision to kill him before he can become a problem. I’m all for getting rid of potential problems before they become actual problems. I know that sounds blood thirsty but I’m pragmatic. If someone has threatened to become an obstacle to your happiness, why wait for them to get started. (Keeping in mind, that this works great in movies because no one ever goes to jail for preemptive murder. Not so workable in real-life.)

Ethan cautions Vanessa against killing this man because it will damage her soul and goes out to do it for her. But Vanessa spells the man’s dogs to attack and eat him before Ethan can shoot him in cold blood. When he gets back to the cabin, lightening strikes the cabin and after she and Ethan put out the resultant fire, they share some wet kissing. After a minute, Vanessa cuts that shit short because she knows its a “bad idea”.

And here’s  why:

According to Lyle’s interpretation of the artifacts of the Devil’s Bible, the “hound” (otherwise known as Ethan), is the protector of the Devil’s favorite , hereinafter referred to as Vanessa). The hound is apparently the only thing that can thwart the devils plans for her, as he gets a lot of shout outs in the artifacts.  At the same time, there’s a dark soul that, should it become conjoined with Vanessa’s, could bring about the apocalypse. Ethan fits both criteria, (while Dorian only fits one of those), so make of that what you will.

BronaLilly receives an invitation to go out on the town from Dorian and Victor says he’s okay with it. He really shouldn’t be because Dorian is still trying to figure out where and when he last saw her. Naturally, they visit the Wax Museum where John Clare works. Since he’s never mentioned to anyone that he has a job, she doesn’t know this. The sheer amount of things people are not talking to each other about, in this show, is just staggering. Of course John witnesses her date with Dorian.

Instead of going home after her date, Lilly indulges an impulse to stop at a pub. She picks up a man there, goes home with him, has sex, and chokes the man to death. I don’t think this was an activity that Brona got up to when she was alive. The killing part, not the sex. Actually, I’m not at all surprised by it. I’m sure that when she was a sex-worker she hated that job and men like the one she killed. I think this is an expression of that contempt, although she has no memory of where it comes from.

So we are almost done with the season and we have more questions than answers. As much as I complain about this show, i really do love it and hey!, it could be much worse. It could have at least one rape, burning or lynching per episode, so that’s a step up, right?

Penny Dreadful: Glorious Horror

Well, not much happened and yet a lot happened. There was serious ratcheting up of the tension, as friends and rivals circle closer and closer to each other, and to a final showdown, of some kind. This episode takes place in the immediate aftermath of last weeks episode.

Everyone gets up the next morning and, right away, they start working on the culmination of all this drama. Mme. Kali takes a lock of Sir Malcolm’s hair, so she can finish up her voodoo doll of him. She’s taken his blood and hair, so he’s pretty much her beeyotch for the rest of the season. I wonder what is the outcome of all this maneuvering? Is she just doing this for her own entertainment? To hurt Vanessa? So, its dolls all around, I guess. Meanwhile her daughter Hecate makes her own quiet plans to usurp her mother’s authority.

Malcolm wakes up smiling, happy and complacent, exactly the way Kali wants him, and then continues to behave like a brain removal patient for the rest of the episode, leading all of the other characters to question  his mental status.  Especially after he remains  completely unbothered by the news of his wife’s horrific suicide, only remarking on how he’ll need to change the carpeting in the house. Now, that’s some cold shit and all the characters seem to understand that, especially Sembene, who was present at the death of Sir Malcolm’s son, and knows this reaction is just all kinds of wrong.

Victor, after sleeping with BronaLilly, realizes its a bad, bad thing he just did, and that John is going to beat his ass, when he finds out about it. Not if. When. Because that’s how this show rolls.

Dorian wakes up and decides to throw a grand ball, as a coming out party for his new paramour, Angeligue. I can’t help but think that the only reason he is so smitten with her is because he has a fetish for her uniqueness, and as soon as Angelique’s novelty wears off, she’ll be kicked to the curb. I think Angelique knows this, having been kicked to the curb, after use,  several times before. And I think we’ve already established that Victorian Englishmen are not gentlemen. Will she find out Dorian’s secret? How will she react when she does? Not if, but when.

Vanessa confronts Victor about his love for his “cousin”. She mentions  her friend, John Clare and Victor puts two and two together and realizes just how little she knows about what he gets up to when he’s on his own. Victor’s got nothing but secrets. I guess that makes up for his lack of character. If he engaged in less deception or had better people skills, maybe he wouldn’t have so many.

Dorian stops by the house to issue an invitation to the ball and Vanessa says yes. She attends, unescorted, when Ethan, who has much larger issues to attend to, turns her down.

Ethan ran into Rusk at the Wax Museum where John Clare works. The Museum has put on a showing of the massacre at the Inn, where he used to live, and Rusk confronts him about it again. They do that little verbal dance, that I enjoyed so much in the last episode, where Rusk keeps throwing chum in the water and Ethan keeps nimbly dodging the bait.

John Clare and the blind sculptress at the museum are  edging closer to being friends, when she realizes that there’s something very wrong with him because he has clammy hands. This frightens her and she confesses her misgivings to her employer.

Ethan is also visited by the bounty hunter who survived the massacre, and he threatens to slit the throats of all the members of the household, late one night.  I just had to raise my eyebrows at that because  part of me was saying, “I wish he would! He don’t know who he’s messin’ with.”  If he tried something, he’d be in for a  surprise. Nobody in that house is a pushover. Okay, maybe Malcolm is. But, as far as I can tell, Sembene never sleeps  and Vanessa could probably make him burst into flames with a sharp look. So, yeah, right dude!

So, everyone who is anyone, is invited to the ball. Ethan and Sembene are the only ones who don’t attend. The two of them have bigger concerns. For a household that’s supposed to be under siege, everyone is very lax in their safety. It’s like they’ve completely forgotten about the recent home invasion, and the house battening and sage burning of the last episode.

Victor and Lilly show up and Lilly thinks she remembers being in that house. Dorian meets her and is intrigued by his own feelings of déjà vu. He’s had so many sexual partners, what’s one long absent,  consumptive, whore. Of course he can’t remember her, but he wants to. This exposes the first chink in Angelique’s armor. She’s very jealous of Dorian’s attention to this sweet, shy, fragile looking, and cis-gender, blonde. How is this jealousy going to play out later, if at all? The writers keep introducing new plot threads and resolving none of them.

Lyle tries to talk Hecate out of whatever she plans to do to Vanessa that evening. And then  tries to talk Vanessa into going home. I’m pretty sure Vanessa knows about Angelique’s gender status. Her reaction to meeting her was very interesting. I didn’t see that coming and I wonder if it will have any meaning in the future. Or maybe she was reacting to something else about Angelique, that we don’t know.

Hell, if I know.

Mme. Kali arrives with Mlacolm and she and Vanessa exchange some sugar coated barbs. Instant antipathy between the two of them, was not at all surprising. Before she can leave, Vanessa is approached by the other witches and hallucinates a blood rain before losing consciousness. It’s one of the most striking scenes  I’ve ever seen in the show. I’m not sure if this is a result of Vanessa’s precognitive abilities or if the witches sent her this vision.

That evening Ethan approaches Sembene with a request. He tells him he needs  to be locked in irons and watched carefully. That no matter what happens, he is not to set him free or leave. Puzzled by this request, but willing to go along, probably becasue Ethan is one of the few people I’ve actually seen speaking to him, he is surprised and horrified to see Ethan turn into a werewolf.

We’re halfway through the season and the plot is moving so very slowly. I have no clue where any of these plot threads are heading, although I can see the slow convergence of all the characters. I’m starting to suspect that the writers are either  stalling for  time or just winging it. Do they have any idea how they’re going to wrap all of this up?

Stay tuned to find out.

Penny Dreadful : Above the vaulted Sky

This episode, while less spectacular than the previous, has just as much drama, while ratcheting up the tension between all of our characters and the various secrets they’re all holding, especially Victor.

We’re entering the midpoint of the season and so far we’ve been absent many sex scenes, but this episode more than made up for the lack by featuring some hot, sweaty, monkey-love, between people we never expected to be seeing naked on TV. Namely Timothy Dalton.

I do recall stating, earlier,  that I had no wish to see Timothy Dalton’s naked bottom and, thankfully,  the creators of this series kept my request in their thoughts while filming.  Actually, it was very tastefully done, if conventionally shot. I could also have done without all the bloodletting but then I’m pretty sure Sir Malcolm could’ve done without it as well, as he had not signed up for that, when he began flirting with M. Kali.

After the house was invaded by naked, chameleon, witches who stole Vanessa’s hair, the group decides to batten down the hatches and adopt a siege mentality. I know this because Ethan gives a speech about the last siege/ambush event he’d been involved in, and because we get to watch a montage of Sembene and Ethan, battening down the hatches. Sir Malcolm arms himself, Sembene lies in wait on the stairs, while Ethan fogs up the house with some Sage, and Lyle, the traitor’s traitor, etches some magical symbols around the house. The witches are just going to have to ninja their way into the house some other way, the next time they come trawling for hair samples.

Vanessa tells the group, that the Nightcomers can only approach or attack during…guess what? The hours of night. To protect herself, she has decided she needs to sleep in Ethan’s bed, but without Ethan in it, so far, although you can tell, the two of them are giving it some serious thought. She claims everyone should be safe from  witchery during the day, but that’s besides the point because there are all new dangers they face during the day, as they all run out to their separate errands.

Vanessa goes to visit the homeless shelter again, where she encounters Frankenstein’s monster and they have a poetry recital. I’m always baffled by people who remember huge chunks of poetry, until I remember that’s no different than my having thoroughly memorized old TV show jingles, from the 70’s, only more pretentiously high-brow. She gives John a  dancing lesson, not realizing that the person John wishes to woo, is the revivified corpse of Brona/Lilly, with whom she just  had lunch and totally didn’t recognize. What will she think to know that John is yet another revived body that Victor pieced together? She didn’t seem to recognize Brona/Lilly from their meeting last season, at the theater, but since she was with Dorian, who is very distracting, I will forgive her this inattentiveness. She can tell that Victor is very obviously in love with his “cousin”.

Sir Malcolm runs off to flirt with Ms. Poole some more. He’s very smitten with her and I’m not sure if it’s genuine or a spell she put on him. I’m still not used to seeing him smiling so much after the gloomy Gus he was first season. After Kali finds out that he cannot divorce his wife, she takes steps to rectify that situation by making a doll of his wife and spelling it. Malcolm’s wife goes insane and committs suicide. That distraction aside, Kali can now devote all of her energies to tormenting her doll of Vanessa and seducing Malcolm.

Ethan and Rusk finally meet face to face. Its a lot of fun watching their verbal parrying. Ethan is so much smarter than most of the people in the show give him credit for. He dances nimbly around Rusk’s questions about the massacre at the Inn and, even more nimbly, eludes the man that Rusk hires to shadow him, when Ethan is less than forthcoming about who he is, or how he survived.The greatest revelation may be that Ethan Chandler may not be his real name.

Later that evening. Dorian and Angelique visit a table top tennis parlour. I had no idea this was a thing in Victorian England, but okay. He and Angelique flirt shamelessly and it’s really cute, until Angelique is recognized by a former client, who spits and throws things on her. So much for the proper, English gentlemen myth. You’ve got Malcolm cheating on his wife, Victor reviving dead friends of friends, without their permission, and stealing his monster’s girlfriend and these yahoos, spitting on people in public.

Keep it classy, fellas!

Dorian takes her to his home where she makes love to him as a very comely man. What’s notable here is that the creators show this scene, at all, and film it just like any other sex scene, making no attempt to turn it into an Afterschool Special or veil it in false chastity. They juxtapose it with Sir Malcolm’s sex scene and Victor’s, which doesn’t make me feel too good about what secrets Angelique could be withholding. Since I’m experiencing so much tension with  the other two relationships,  it’s no trouble for me, at all, to transfer some to Dorian’s relationship. I’m waiting for Angie’s shoe to drop on his head.

Next week, we get more spectacle, as Dorian comes back into the fold, Throwing a ball for everyone at his home. Ethan and the bounty hunter who was the catalyst for Ethan’s change into a werewolf, when they last met, meet and annoy each other again. And Ethan shares his secret with Sembene. If we’re lucky! we might get one of them to open their mouth and say something…anything, about their past and we’ll get a little more backstory on each of these men.

I hope to see some major revelations next week, involving Victors secrets since both he and Lilly are attending Dorian’s ball. If Ethan attends, there may be unannounced fireworks.

Penny Dreadful : Evil Spirits In Heavenly Places

The third episode of this season, titled The Nightcomers, chronicles Vanessa’s coming out, and reaction to, her realization that she is a Witch, with superpowers. How she learned to deal with her special abilities and how this has shaped her, is the focus. It touches on her history with the witches, Evelyn Poole and her daughter, Hecate, and how they have been trying to procure her for their master, Lucifer, for a number of years, and how she managed to escape them.

The following episode deals with the aftermath of Vanessa’s confession, to the group,  about her past and how she came to know about the Witches and how they have pursued her and why.

In Evil Spirits In Heavenly Places, there are a number of enchantresses at work, too.

Sir Malcolm is still courting Evelyn Poole, also known as Madame Kali/Leader of the Witch’s Coven. She has already placed an enchantment of some kind on him,  in an effort to get him to betray Vanessa at some future point. Its fun to watch him be flirty and happy around Evelyn, even when you know its going to all end in tears, as she’s just deceiving him to get to Vanessa.

Victor Frankenstein has become thoroughly enchanted with the re-risen Brona, whom he has renamed Lily. He created her for His Monster, John Clare, but she appears to be falling in love with him, and he with her. He goes to Vanessa to help him choose a suit of clothes for his cousin, “Lily”, and mostly lies to Vanessa too, but she can tell he’s very taken with the young lady, whom she hasn’t met since her resurrection. She doesn’t know that Lily is Brona, Ethan’s late -girlfriend. On the other hand, Lily has no recollection of her past life and even has a different accent than the lower class one she sported as Brona.

Ethan is approached by Hecate, Evelyn’s daughter. The witches are fascinated by  Ethan, believing him to be Vanessa’s champion. Hell, that’s understandable. Ethan is a fascinating man and one day we’re going to get his backstory. If they can turn him to their own ends, that would be yet another avenue by which they can suborn Vanessa’s  trust in her friends and take her for themselves. But Ethan manages to detect Hecate’s lies,  when  she pretends to be an American while trying to seduce him. Ethan has so much depth. Hopefully the witches will not discover he’s a supernatural creature and use him to hurt his new family.

This episode is notable for Ethan reaching out to Sembene. It’s fascinating to watch the beginning edges of this gentle and tentative friendship blooming between them, mostly spurred by Ethan as Sembene is very close mouthed. I suspect they have much in common and would get along splendidly if each of them could let their guard down enough to do that.

In fact its interesting to watch all these characters behaving as a real family now. There are a lot of outside forces that are aligned against them, and they all have so many secrets, that its important that they finish the growing pains of last season and start to develop actual relationships and caring for one another. They will need it.

It’s not just the witches they have to deal with. It’s some of the choices that have been made by some of the characters, namely Victor. There’s Victor’s betrayal of both Ethan and John. What will happen if Vanessa meets Lily first? What will she say and do? Brona actually met Dorian before but Victor and Dorian are not in the same social circles, so its unlikely they will meet. Ethan was just on the verge of telling Vanessa his secret, I think, but he stopped and none of his friends know about him or that he was the cause of the massacre at the Inn, that’s been so much in the news.

Sir Malcolm takes Vanessa to visit a soup kitchen/homeless shelter where she meets John Clare, who is homeless after losing his job at a theater. He now works for a waxwork museum, whose owner has a blind daughter, who can’t see how ugly John is and has won his attention. Also, the owner has some nefarious purpose in mind regarding John, that involves making money off John’s unfortunate looks.

Dorian, on the other hand, now that Vanessa has forbidden him to be with her, lives a separate lifestyle from the other characters. He has fallen in with a transgender woman named Angelique. I’m waiting with suspense to find out what her secrets are. That she’s transgender is not the secret. That’s only shocking to the denizens of Victorian London, but I hope she also doesn’t turn out to be one of the witches or some other kind of supernatural creature.

I appreciate that the writers are trying to involve Sembene in the action and dialogue a bit more this season but I dont expect a whole lot because this show is still very much a vehicle for Eva Green. But it is nice to watch him do something else besides shoot things or serve food. This time we get to watch him fight over washing dishes with Ethan. It would be nicer still if the writers felt confident enough to give him some real dialogue and a purpose. Here is  a hint writers: just write him the way you would any other character on the show.

Detective Rusk is getting closer to Ethan after the massacre at the Inn last season. The only survivor is one of the men who was the catalyst, for the massacre, in the first place. A man hired by Ethan’s father to retrieve him by any means available and take him back home.

I still wonder exactly how much Ethan knows about what he is and what he can do. At one point, the witches infiltrate Sir Malcolm’s house, to retrieve a lock of Vanessa’s hair, so that Evelyn can finish her Voodoo doll of her. The witches have the ability to blend into the background, like chameleons. Only Vanessa and Ethan are able to detect their presence. Vanessa because she’s just hyper-aware of everything and Ethan because I think he smelled Hecate. So his senses are exceptionally keen, no matter what form he’s in?

Also, this scene is Hella creepy.

The witches manage to get Vanessa’s hair, which I still think, is a fairly elaborate way to go about doing it but it gives us several butt-shots of the witches, I guess. So there’s that. We really should get some butt-shots of Ethan, at some point. That would be much appreciated because, hey! It’s Josh Hartnett. We’ve had several butt shots of Dorian and I remain unimpressed because Twinks aren’t really my bag and I don’t think anyone wants to see Malcolm’s bottom.

The show is much more interesting than last season. It continues to be both sexy and deeply weird and creepy, like nothing else on television. There’s a concrete villain, even though her goal is somewhat nebulous. She’s  much more interesting than the Dracula we never saw, or the demonic entity that possessed Vanessa.

This season has a lot more depth and I’m looking forward to the rest of the season, when all of Victor’s  lies and deceptions start catching up with him and we get to see more of Ethan’s story about how he became a werewolf and why his father is willing to send hardened bounty hunters after him. What will Sir Malcolm do when or if he finds out about Evelyn? What will this new family do when they find out about Ethan?

Next week: I’ll be finishing up my overview of season 10 of Supernatural, binge watching Sens8, which I’m getting very excited about. Check it out on Netflix on June 5th.  And reviewing Sunday’s episode 5 of Penny Dreadful, titled Above the Vaulted Sky.

Penny Dreadful: Fresh Hell/ Verbis Diablo

I know some of you have no idea what this show is or  what this show is about. If that’s the case, please go watch the first season, which introduces the world and characters, of this Gothic London Horror series. Watching this show, should give you plenty of time to get ready for Guillermo Del Toro’s Crimson Peak, this Fall.

This show has all the well-worn monster tropes, given new life, by being set in Victorian London, and made more accessible to modern viewers, by going into the minds of its monsters. We have Dorien Gray, Dr. Frankenstein, and his Monster, werewolves, witches, an English adventurer, gunfights, and prostitutes dying of consumption. In other words: The Full Victoriana.

The monsters hide in plain sight, among the regular populace and interact with humans, yet, remain completely hidden from common knowledge. What the protagonist of this show, Vanessa Ives, calls “The Demi-monde”, the in-between world, that is neither the real world, nor the world of the truly monstrous.

There’s :

Vanessa Ives – A Seer and Witch. She is the main focus of the show and a choice role for Eva Green, who gets to show off  her ability to act totally batshit. Last season, Satan seemed to really be into her, Dracula was out to get her, and  now the witches are after her, for who knows what reason. Vanessa prays a lot, but as far as I can tell, this doesn’t seem to help her much, and only seems to make her more popular with the monsters.

Ethan Chandler – Ethan, as portrayed by Josh Hartnett is full of all manner of hidden depths, including the ability to speak Latin, talk to wolves and an occasional taste for men, sometimes literally. An American gunfighter, who is running from some deep dark secret in his recent past and a father, who is so desperate for him to come back home, that he sends bounty hunters with chains after him. When Ethan refuses to cooperate with this manner of travel, it results in a barroom massacre at the end of the season, which is being investigated by

Inspector Rusk – played by Douglas Hodge. We don’t know what his secrets are yet, but I do expect to see a gunfight showdown between him and Ethan by the end of this season, or I will be disappointment.

Sir Malcolm – is an English adventurer, wholost his daughter to Dracula’s vampires last season, lost his son in Africa, adopted Vanessa as his new daughter, and  is trapped in a loveless marriage with a rich wife.

Dr. Victor Frankenstein and his Monster – who have a contentious relationship. The monster hates his maker but has threatened him into providing him with a mate. Victor stole the body of Ethan’s consumptive girlfriend, resurrected her and renamed her Lilly. We will find out later this season, exactly how Ethan will be feeling about that, and I can’t wait. It’s going get very, very interesting, especially since Ethan and Victor have been trying to bond through gunfire, earlier in the show. I hope Victor gets thrashed because I can’t stand him. I don’t think anyone does, even though the show has been trying to make him more likable.

The Monster – calls himself John Claire and is under the mistaken impression that just because he can commission Victor to build a woman, doesn’t mean Victor can control how she will feel towards anyone. There’s the possibility that Lilly may never love John, but I don’t think this has even occurred to him. What will happen to her if she rejects him?

There’s Dorien Grey – A complete omnisexual, who is responsible for most of the full frontal we get subjected to on the show, and who has slept with half the cast, Including Brona (Ethan’s late girlfriend), Ethan, and Vanessa, who is never allowed to get within touching distance of him, ever again, since the last time she slept with him, she totally lost her shit and thought she was possessed by Satan.

Last season, the characters dealt with vampires and demonic possession and it’s also fascinating watching them navigate each others weaknesses and trying to bond as family. Sir Malcolm is the father figure, with Sembene as a kind of Uncle. Ethan and Victor are like jealous brothers and, of course, there’s  Vanessa, the little sister, whom everyone must protect and around whom the show revolves. The only times they’ve defeated all the monsters, is when they’ve gotten over their issues, stopped lying to each other and worked together as a unit.

This season, the theme seems to be witches, and  a lovely group of witches we have.They like to run around naked, carve Pentagrams into their skin and have no loyalty to one another, even though they kiss a lot. In the  first episode of this season, we meet a coven of witches, who are hunting for the devil’s favorite, otherwise known as, Vanessa. Also, they’ve taken a marked interest in Ethan, whom they believe to be Vanessa’s champion, since he was the person who was present to fight them off, after they attacked her coach. I get the distinct impression that they would’ve believed that of anyone who’d been in the coach with Vanessa.

The three witches, who look like the Erinyes  of Greek lore, except with more hair, (except when they’re being bald,) shop for perfumes, attack public coaches, steal babies, bathe in tubs of blood, and use these actions to cast spells on Vanessa and her adoptive father, Sir Malcolm.

In an attempt to understand exactly what’s been happening to Vanessa, the group of heroes, which also include an African Shaman, named Sembene, who I hope gets some secrets of his own, conclude that they need the Verbis Diablo, a book chronicling the language of demons.The person procuring the manuscript for them is Ferdinand Lyle, who is a spy for the witches and totally crushing on Ethan, who is very charming, while ignoring his flirtations.

Since I know almost nothing at all about European Occult practices outside of some bad Horror movies, you will have to decide for yourself the accuracy of any of the Occult shenanigans, in this show.

Everyone on the show has some deep dark secret that they’re trying to hide from everyone else. Sir Malcolm, hides his depression and despair and that he’s thinking of cheating on his shrew of a wife, Ethan is pretty much hiding his entire life and there’s the strong hint of some potential romance with Vanessa. Vanessa is hiding everything from her past and the only way anyone seems to find out about it, is when it comes back to bite people.on the ass.

Last Sunday’s episode was notable for introducing a new transgender character, to be devoured by Dorien, Vanessa actually cracking a smile after she meets John Claire, and some infanticide. If these sorts of things greatly upset you, than this is not your type of show.

Next episode: We find out why the witches are so interested in Vanessa. What do you wanna guess, that  it has something to do with a dark secret, from her past?

The show is in it’s second season and airs on the Showtime network.

Coming Attractions

I’m very excited about this summer. There are a number of movies and TV shows I’m geeking out about and I’ll be talking about them here. All of the Fall shows will be on hiatus, but that’s okay, because I’ll soon have some new/old stuff to geek out about.

Coming Soon:

The Strain

The second season of The Strain is on the FX network.

I very much enjoyed the first season, even though it was a bit uneven. I thought some of the characters were pretty dumb but it was very suspenseful and the vampires were awesome. Like a lot of shows, however,  it fell into the trap of having a couple of token POC,  but over time they  became a little more fleshed out. I love vampires as much as you guys do, and we’ll be seeing more of them in the second season as the Vampocalypse gets into full swing.

From Dusk Til Dawn The Series

I’ve  spoken to several people, who have no idea, what the Hell I’m talking about, when I mention this show. Well, for those not in the know, this is a new series based on the Quentin Tarantino film of the same name. Yeah, it’s about vampires too and they are very intriguing.

It’s produced and directed by Robert Rodriguez, for the new El Rey network. Going into its second season, the acting is alright, the Hispanic actors look very, very fine, and it’s just different enough from the film to make things suspenseful. There’s  plenty of vampire action, with just enough Mexican Supernatural Mythos, to make them fascinating.

And the entire first season is available on Netflix. It’s totally binge worthy.

Penny Dreadful

I very much   enjoyed the first season of this. The only part of it that got boggy for me was the Dr. Frankenstein storyline, but the rest was very well done and the show looks gorgeous. It stars a full cast of the supernatural – psychics, Dorian Gray, a werewolf, an African shaman, and of course, vampires.

It stars Eva Green, Josh Hartnett, and Timothy Dalton on the Showtime network. I don’t have Showtime, but  I do have Amazon. I’ll buy the whole season and recap/review each episode, right here.

Daredevil

This new version of Daredevil will be airing it’s entire first season on Netflix.Yet another story about a guy who puts on an odd suit and decides to go out and punch evildoers, because the police are horrible at their jobs. It will be interesting to see if it has any ties to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The trailer looks great, but really, all I hope is that its better than the movie and we get to see The Night Nurse. I’m  going to be binging this one and reviewing as I go along and as time allows.

Some forthcoming posts will discuss:

The different Blob movies,  including Rob Zombies new version, the upcoming Avengers film,  Mad Max’s Fury Road and Jurassic World. I’ll be having thoughts about the Captain America films, Black Women in Genre TV,  my niece’s favorite Anime, the world’s most beautiful films, the best movies about werewolves, and some Martial Arts favorites will be thrown in there,  too.

Future reviews of books will include: Nick Cutter’s Horror novel, The Deep, Clive Barker’s new Pinhead novel called The Scarlet Gospels, will be out this summer, Alan Smale’s Clash of Eagles, which I’m totally loving right now,  The Devil’s Detective by Simon Unsworth, and Richard Kadrey’s newest Sandman Slim novel will be released this summer, as well.

So stay tuned people!