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by Alexandria | 30 June 2015 · 3:15 pm

Monsters, All: PENNY DREADFUL s2e9

Warning: Spoilers Most Dreadful

Though the penultimate episode of season two of ShowTime’s wonderful gothic horror series Penny Dreadful, created and written by John Logan, was officially titled, “And Hell Itself My Only Foe,” it actually revealed that almost all the characters are capable of being monsters.

Even those you would least suspect of having any evil intent.

Roper

Of course, we know Roper (Stephen Lord), a Pinkerton hired by Ethan’s father to bring him home, even if in manacles, was a bad guy. Even with the scars from his attack when Ethan changed into a wolf, there wasn’t much reason to empathize with the guy. After all, he threatened Ethan even after he knew what Ethan was capable of doing. Roper crawled in through the window of the Cut-Wife’s isolated cottage, indicating that he’d been following Ethan (Josh Hartnett) and Vanessa (Eva Green), and threatened to kill them both.

He ordered Vanessa to manacle Ethan, but I guess this Roper guy lost some of his brains in the attack at the Mariner’s Inn. Even manacled, Ethan proved himself a formidable foe — and that’s without his turning into a wolf. Vanessa just kicked herself some ass, too, without any spells or enchantments, and without using the gun as Ethan had taught her.

She stabbed Roper repeatedly in the chest. And if those wounds weren’t mortal, Ethan helped her out as much as he could with his hands manacled.

If I’m ever in a fight, I want these two at my back.

Though Vanessa “mourned” that they were both murderers now — almost as if she’d forgotten that she’d set Sir Geoffrey’s dogs on him and killed him by a Verbis Diablo spell in an earlier episode — the two only defended themselves against another monster: Roper.

I call self-defense.

Vanessa

Vanessa thinks she’s a monster now, though she’s always acknowledged that she had “demons” inside, because she murdered Roper. That must be her weak spot because that’s what Evelyn got the fetish to say to Vanessa in the basement: “Murderer.”

Vanessa was more of a monster for going alone to Evelyn’s house, ostensibly to rescue Sir Malcolm, but instead putting all her other friends and defenders in jeopardy by forcing them to go, without a clear plan, to the Night-Comer’s home to rescue Sir Malcolm and Vanessa herself.

How monstrously thoughtless of her.

Hecate & Evelyn

Oh, that Hecate (Sarah Greene), she is one wicked, little girl. Not only did she intensify the conflict with her mother Evelyn (Helen McCrory), she came right out and insulted her, calling her a “Dinosaur” and warning her that “Dinosaurs should know when Mammoths are hunting.”

Evelyn was a little too preoccupied “feeling [Vanessa] coming closer” to be on sufficient guard.

Besides, Evelyn didn’t know till later in the episode that Hecate had gone to visit Ethan, easily getting by all their defenses and fetishes, which only have power, as she told Ethan, “for those that believe in them.”

Even when Hecate told Vanessa, in front of Evelyn, that she’d gone to Ethan and kissed him, she neglected to mention that she’d also told Ethan, who is clearly now regarded as the Lupus Dei, that she would worship him and help him destroy God.

I guess she didn’t think that information was important to her mother, revealing Hecate’s treachery goes deeper than Evelyn thinks.

I suppose Hecate’s also missed the definition of Lupus Dei — The Wolf of God — and the fact that he is a Protector. Lyle (Ferdinand Russell Beale) explained this when he and Ethan were in the basement of the museum, gettting ready to steal Father Gregory’s “puzzle” of Verbis Diablo and Ethan saw the shield (or family motto) with Latin on it about wolves. Lyle said the mottoes and shields weren’t so much to scare the enemy as to protect the bearer.

Ethan is the Protector.

Too bad little monster Hecate doesn’t know that.

Lyle

All the viewers have probably been thinking that Lyle was a monstrous bad guy, what with his letting himself be blackmailed by Evelyn into betraying Vanessa.

Of course, the other characters and most of the viewers probably guessed that he was a closet-homosexual long ago: he has a terrible crush on Ethan, and flirted outrageously with him, which Ethan seemed to mostly find amusing.

None but the viewers knew Lyle is Jewish until this episode, and viewers only discovered it after Ethan instructed everyone to use every spiritual practice and belief he knew to help protect Vanessa from the Night-Comers. While Ethan was using Native American chants and passing smoke over himself and the entry-way, Lyle snuck down to the basement where, glancing around beforehand, he donned his yarmulke, kissed his prayerbook, draped his prayer shawl over his head, and began to daven and pray in Hebrew.

When Lyle and Dr. Frankenstein were left alone at the front of Evelyn’s house — while Ethan and Sembene went to find a back entrance — Lyle paused to say the opening lines of the Kaddish, also known as the “Mourner’s Kaddish,” the Jewish prayer for the dead, which is actually more about praising God than about the dead, so it was literally and symbolically appropriate considering they’re entering a witch’s house and facing death. Afterward, when Lyle looked at him, Victor made a comment like, “Far be it from me…”

None of the characters surrounding Vanessa knew that he was “in league,” albeit involuntarily, with Evelyn, to help her capture Vanessa, but the viewers knew his secret.

For the last couple episodes, however, he’s shown that he’s actually on Vanessa’s side: he urged her to leave the ball, telling her she wasn’t safe there; when Vanessa said she had to leave London, he encouraged it, telling her that she should go immediately and without telling any of them her destination; and since he actually didn’t know where Vanessa had gone, Evelyn was unable to get that information out of him with her threats of torture.

In E9, he confessed his duplicity. After Frankenstein (Harry Treadaway) questioned their ability to trust him now, Vanessa was quick to forgive him, saying, “No one here is above guilt.”

When the men went to “rescue” Vanessa from Evelyn’s house/castle, where Vanessa had gone alone to “rescue” Sir Malcolm (Timothy Dalton), Lyle went with them. Though he declined Ethan’s offer of a gun and took what looked like a pocket-knife.

Lyle’s consistently been demonstrating that he is not, in fact, a monster.

Just a man with secrets.

And jittery nerves.

The Putneys

How ’bout them Putneys, eh?

Them Putneys (David Haig as Oscar P, above R; and Ruth Gemmell as his wife, Octavia) with their wax museum of horrors and crime scenes and “beasties.”

Them Putneys with their pretty, blind daughter Lavinia (Tamsin Topolski) who’s so sweet to the Creature, now going by the name John Clare (Rory Kinnear)…

Sweet, blind Lavinia, who made no comments when she touched Clare’s face, but “grew uneasy” when she felt how cold his hand was, and told her parents there was something wrong, something “dead” about him…

That Lavinia showed herself to be one of the most vicious monsters of all, along with her parents, when she lied and manipulated John Clare into a “secret” part of the museum, claiming to want to know what her father was building, telling Clare, “You are my true friend,” just before she locked him in a cage.

He’s going to be part of their “Freak Show.”

Against his will.

If that weren’t bad enough, Lavinia, little horror-show that she is, insulted his poetry, too.

John Clare

Poor John Clare (Rory Kinnear), Frankenstein’s first Creature. All he wants is love. All he wants is companionship. All he wants is poetry. All he wants is to “fit in,” even if it means learning how to dance.

What does he get?

Nothing but betrayal.

He’s metaphorically been in behind bars for the entire two seasons.

At the theatre watching the performers,

In his basement “living quarters,” sobbing after the “ingenue” Maude rejected his advances,

Watching Lily (Billie Piper) go out with Dorian (Reeve Carney) after Frankenstein (Harry Treadaway) made her specifically to be Clare’s mate.

Now Clare is in a real cage.

Imprisoned by real monsters, who consider him nothing more than a freak, when he is the most loyal, loving, passionate “creature” of them all.

Sir Malcolm

Sir Malcolm (Timothy Dalton) should be a monster. After all, he did rape and pillage and murder his way across Africa. He did neglect and emotionally abuse his family. He did use Vanessa to find his lost daughter Mina. He did shoot his own daughter in the head, to protect Vanessa.

Now Sir Malcolm’s cowering in a locked room in Evelyn’s house, surrounded by the ghosts of his family, all of them reminding him of his past misdeeds.

Instead of dancing at a phantom ball with his family members, which is how he broke Evelyn’s enchantment last episode,

Sir Malcolm is trapped with the ghosts of his family, screaming so loudly that the other characters can hear it all through the house.

This is the only part of the show that didn’t work for me.

Unless his “breakdown” is due, in part, to more enchantment, Sir Malcolm is too much of a monster himself to be broken by ghosts, even if they are the ghosts of his family, and even if they are telling him the “monstrous” things he did to them.

Because, you see, Sir Malcolm already knows what he is.

And he already knows what he’s done.

Lily-Brona

If, despite her brilliant tirade against men and how they “use” women in e8, if any viewers or other characters had any doubts that Brona-turned-Lily (Billie Piper) is, indeed, a monster, they can toss those doubts out with the metaphorical window. This episode, Lily sought out Dorian (Reeve Carney) herself.

Taunting him with the line, “You tell me your secret, and I’ll tell you mine,” she made love to him on the floor of his portrait gallery, then bit off his ear.

Ouch!

She called him her “Monster” and told him to go heal himself.

Any viewers who had not read the book The Picture of Dorian Gray got to see his own portrait in the episode when he killed his transgender lover Angelique (Johnny Beauchamp) for discovering it. Anyone who didn’t know he was a monster before certainly knew it then.

In e9, we learned that Lily knows perfectly well that she was Brona in her former life, that she was a prostitute in her previous life, and that Frankenstein did something “monstrous” to her.

Looks like she’s out for revenge, this little Monster.

Against all men, whom she wants to “kneel before [her].”

As Dorian so obligingly did.

Before she bit off his ear, of course.

Sembene

For two seasons now, Sembene (Danny Sapani) has claimed that he “had no story,” as he told Ethan when asked. But since they are the only two real warriors in the show, they have become close. Ethan trusted Sembene to tell him what happened during Ethan’s blackouts.

Sembene revealed that the scars on his face are not tribal initiation marks, as I’d thought and stated in a previous blog, but marks of a slave trader.

Hated by his own people as well as by whites.

In short, Sembene has been a monster for most of his life, even if he’s attempting to atone for his sins and treachery now.

The growing bond between Sembene and Ethan has been marvelous.

Hecate ended that by trapping the two of them in a narrow passage of stairs, knowing that the moon was going to be full that night. Realizing that he could not stop the change, and not wanting to hurt Sembene, Ethan attempted to commit suicide.

Sembene prevented it, reminding Ethan that he was “chosen by God.”

Then, as Sembene braced himself for the inevitable, Ethan changed into the monster-wolf that he is, and tore out Sembene’s throat.

Even if Sembene claimed that he, too, had once been a monster, I’m so sad…

The Finale

I have no predictions about what will happen in the Penny Dreadful Season 2 Finale — my heart’s still broken because Ethan killed Sembene — so I’ll leave you with this teaser from ShowTime.

♥

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The Lion Hunts Tonight: Showtime’s PENNY DREADFUL “Memento Mori” S2E8

Warning: Spoilers

(Updated to include Video of Lily & John Clare)

Wow, I didn’t think Showtime’s brilliant series Penny Dreadful, created and written by John Logan, could get any better this season, but last night’s episode, “Memento Mori,” was stunning and relentless. Actually, only one person got killed, but everyone was reminded of death because the lions were relentlessly hunting.

Many people have expressed their disappointment that Vanessa (Eva Green) and Ethan (Josh Hartnett) were not in “Memento Mori,” but they had virtually the entire previous episode, “Little Scorpion,” to themselves, so I found it rather refreshing to concentrate on some of the other characters, most of whom are directly involved in the storyline which involves Vanessa and Ethan, but almost all of whom are peripherally involved.

So Victor Frankenstein (Harry Treadaway, above L) has gotten his heart broken by a lying Lily (Billie Piper, first photo, center), who had sexual relations with a stranger whom she strangled during intercourse. Victor confessed his suffering to Sir Malcolm (Timothy Dalton, R), who then explained that he, too, is suffering from the disease of love.

In previous episodes, however, Sir Malcolm has been happy and carefree in his love for Mrs. Poole (Helen McCrory). Not so in “Memento Mori.” He expressed his dismay that he is no longer his “mono-maniacal self,” since that’s who he really is. He was so much a comfort to poor Victor as a fellow traveler on the path of those who suffer for love.

Sir Malcolm is also missing his dead family members, like his wife Gladys, daughter Mina, and son Peter. All of his family, actually. He was glancing sadly and pensively through their photos. His own personality and ego may be much stronger than the Night-Comer (witch) Evelyn Poole imagined when she enchanted him.

Despite massaging the heart of his fetish, then ripping it from the doll’s body and holding it in her hand while she attempted to completely submerge Sir Malcolm in her spell, he was able to break free, with Sembene’s (Danny Sapani, below) help: Sembene wrestled Sir Malcolm after he went nuts and tossed over the table containing the story of the Verbis Diablo, scattering their carefully constructed puzzle; dragged Sir Malcolm across the hall, kicked open a door, pushed Sir Malcolm in, and shouted, “Know who you are.”

As Lyle (Simon Russell Beale), Victor, and Sembene (L to R, below) watched, Sir Malcolm roamed around an empty, dusty room, where — in his mind — he was seeing and interacting, in a miniature ball, with his own dead family members.

He broke free of Evelyn’s enchantment, she was aware of it, and fought with her daughter over that fact when her daughter suggested rather brazenly that her mother was perhaps too old and not attractive enough to maintain her hold on Sir Malcolm. Maybe, the daughter Hecate (Sarah Greene) suggested, she herself should give it a try with Sir Malcolm. She got shoved out of the room by her face for that impertinence.

Actually, the only person who got killed last night — though they all might have been reminded that death is always imminent — was poor transgendered Angelique (Johnny Beauchamp), left alone for the second night in a row while her lover Dorian (Reeve Carney) took Lily (Billie Piper) out to dinner again.

Alas for poor Angelique, she’s inquisitive and clever as well as beautiful: when the wind in a room without windows blew out some candles, she discovered the secret door that led to the room which hides the picture of Dorian Gray.

The picture that allows Dorian to remain forever young, beautiful, immortal — unmarked physically by all his internal ugliness. When Dorian returned home and found that Angelique had discovered his secret, he poisoned her, despite the fact that she said she could still love him.

The picture itself, shown for the first time last night, wasn’t that interesting. But then, unless you’ve read the book, you wouldn’t think Dorian had ever done anything except drink and eat to excess, have sex with members of both sexes and genders. You wouldn’t know the lies, betrayals, murders, drug use, alcohol abuse, etc because Dorian’s a rather minor character in this show, and his story isn’t much tied in to that of the other characters, except peripherally.

The only thing that was interesting about Dorian’s portrait — and I was the only one in our household who found it interesting because I’m the only one who’s read the book and who’s also seen previous film adaptations of it — was the chains on Dorian in the painting. That was an intriguing touch, since Picture-Dorian was pretty tame and dull, to be completely honest. It looked like a ragged mummy or dirty ghost.

The chains symbolized Dorian’s evil being trapped in the portrait, but they also represent the fact that Dorian is chained to the portrait of himself: if anything happens to it, Dorian ages, gets ugly, and could die.

The most stunning part of “Memento Mori” was Lily (Billy Piper), who should have looked like the demonic photo below instead of the sweet one above.

She’s broken Victor’s heart and caused him to attempt suicide (there seemed to be pills on the floor around his unconscious form when the Creature (Rory Kinnear) threw a bucket of water on him to wake him: then Victor vomited, which made me suspect he’s attempted suicide out of despair).

Lily is a Creature, like her intended, the original Frankenstein creation, now going by the name of John Clare (Rory Kinnear, first photo above R, and below), who, despite his rages at Frankenstein himself, has often shown himself more passionate, loyal, loving, and decent than many of the human beings in the show.

His love for poetry, his philosophical musings, his intellect, his suffering all make him a tragic hero extra-ordinaire, and I compliment creator-writer John Logan for his brilliant interpretation of this Creature, so different from the origin source, Frankenstein by Mary Wollestonecraft Shelley, so much more sophisticated, and so wonderfully acted by Kinnear. The Creature is one of the most fascinating and interesting characters in the series.

Lily, however, was the surprise of the night. Not only did she seem to prefer her murdered stranger dead, nuzzling and love-talking his nude body after she killed him, she blatantly lied to Victor about where she’d been all night, then turned Monster herself when the Creature came calling.

It was a tour-de-force performance, with Creature-Clare dumbfounded — even, perhaps, frightened — as his Intended Bride, Lily, ranted about how women suffer because of men; as she tossed him about as if he were a rag-doll; as she questioned him about his dream that they’d walk country fields “quoting f***ing poetry to f***ing cows.”

Yowza!

Her rant against the societal expectations of women, the inequities they suffer, and men’s roles in all of it — with a few hints of dead prostitute Brona’s Irish accent — was phenomenal writing, social commentary, and acting. Then, as if Creature-Clare weren’t terrified enough, and the viewers not shocked enough, Lily then started making love to him, literally and figuratively, calling him her “ugly little monster” and saying that no one would ever love him like she did.

She also said lots of things about their having children, taking over the world, and being the future, but I’m not sure if the Creature got all that since she was sitting on his lap, making the beast with two backs, as she predicted their glorious future together.

As monsters.

Indeed.

(Lily rages @ John Clare)

Warning: Language

♥

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Warning: Spoilers, Most Dreadful

Showtime’s Penny Dreadful, created and written by John Logan, originally based on characters from Victorian literature — Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley’s Frankenstein — as well as on characters from the Victorian Penny Dreadfuls, like Varney the Vampire and Wagner the Werewolf, twists those characters around Logan’s principal creation, Vanessa Ives (Eva Green), in an intriguing and complex exploration of evil. Not the evil that some people insist exists only outside each of us, and call by names like the Devil or Lucifer or Satan, but the evil that exists inside us. Season 2’s Episode 7, “Little Scorpion,” returned to that theme with a vengeance.

The Lion Still Hunted

After the blood-soaked hallucination that ended the grand ball at Dorian’s mansion in E6, Vanessa decided that she was not safe in London. Museum curator and closet-homosexual Ferdinand Lyle (Simon Russell Beale) immediately seconded her wish to go away, advising her to go away now and to not tell any of them where she was going. Despite Eveyln Poole’s (Helen McCrory) blackmail of him (because of his sexual orientation) to help her get Vanessa, Lyle occasionally surprises us by his affection for and attachment to Vanessa. At the ball, he was upset that she was without an escort, and offered to see her home, telling her outright that it wasn’t safe for her there. Now, he was strongly advising her to go away without telling anyone her location. Mrs. Poole would be understandably upset at his “betrayal.”

Sir Malcolm (Timothy Dalton), who is literally bewitched by Mrs. Poole, was upset at his exclusion from Vanessa’s plans. He asked if they were no longer to trust each other, especially after Frankenstein (Harry Treadaway) and Lyle both agreed that Vanessa should go away without revealing her destination. Ethan (Josh Hartnett) insisted that he was going with her. Sembene (Danny Sapani) seemed to approve of Ethan as her companion. When Sir Malcolm asked, rather petulantly, why Ethan got to accompany her and no one else did, Vanessa summed it up very simply, saying that all — except Ethan and Sembene — had been present at the ball, and “yet the lion still hunted.”

The Warriors

Though Sir Malcolm may feel piqued at not being considered Vanessa’s sole or ultimate protector, he is actually not one of the warriors in the show. The only true warriors, given their histories, are Ethan and Sembene. Ethan hunted Indians in North America, sometimes infiltrating and destroying whole tribes who refused to be relocated to reservations. Semebene, whose face is marked with tribal “coming of age” scars, knows what it is like to hunt and fight. He was the only one Ethan trusted to watch his transformation, which, as he learned in the morning, was into a Wolf.

Sembene was not afraid, telling Ethan that he saw beyond the crocodile (who ate) the monkey (who ate) the whatever, each higher predator absorbing the prey lower in the food-chain. Sembene told Ethan that he also saw beyond the Wolf, and was not afraid because he sees the good in Ethan.

In effect, Sembene and Ethan are the warriors in Penny Dreadful, and they have now bonded as such.

Sir Malcolm, who literally and metaphorically raped his way across Africa (Vanessa accused him of S1E7, “Possession,” saying that he also insisted that his son Peter have sexual relations with the women against his will, to prove his manhood) is an imperialist, not a warrior. He conquers. He orders. He commands. He takes. He controls. Hence, his condescending remark that Vanessa may have imagined the blood-bath at the ball.

Despite Sir Malcolm’s being under a love-spell cast by the head Night-Comer, or witch, Evelyn Poole, his dismissal of Vanessa’s vision and its implications for her own safety are typical Sir Malcolm. Later, Vanessa revealed to Ethan her disappointment, and perhaps resentment, that the relationship between her and Sir Malcolm has changed since Mrs. Poole came into his life and he “fell in love.”

But I don’t see that the relationship between Vanessa and Malcolm has changed: he was always using her for his own ends. Just because his daughter Mina is now dead and Vanessa thinks he “chose her” over Mina, doesn’t mean Sir Malcolm has ever changed his basic imperialistic character. Or his attitude toward Vanessa and the others.

Sembene and Ethan, who have bonded over Ethan’s secret as well as over their own individual but similar pasts as hunters and warriors, are the ones who have now been revealed as the two characters most capable of good, although, of course, each is capable of killing another creature to ensure his own survival.

Little Scorpions

Despite the episode’s title and the Cut-Wife’s (Patti LuPone) reference to Vanessa as her “Little Scorpion,” quite a few of the characters are dangerous creatures who “sting whether you believe in them or not,” as Lyle explained to Victor, when he and Lyle were discussing good and evil, the Devil and God, Amu-net and Amun-ra. Lyle said the Egyptians called love the “Scorpion’s Sting,” insisting that it would infiltrate your entire system and last forever.

We know Mrs. Poole has stung Sir Malcolm, literally, with her ring, several times, sucking his blood as the vampire Creature did from his victims in S1 of Penny Dreadful; and perhaps injecting him with love’s venom, metaphorically.

Dorian (Reeve Carney), who is supposed to be in love with transgendered Angelique (Johnny Beauchamp), has already been technically unfaithful to her, though I’m not sure he ever actually promised her fidelity. Not only did he “forget” Angelique at the coming-out ball he threw in her honor by becoming virtually obsessed with Lily (Billie Piper), formerly Ethan’s lover Brona, whom Frankenstein smothered to make her into a Bride for the Creature (Rory Kinnear), but Dorian further betrayed Angelique by taking Lily out on a date. Dorian stings anyone involved with him, too.Despite Victor’s obvious distress at the events at the ball, as well as at the invitation from Dorian, Lily was delighted by both and went out with Dorian. Victor has been stung by the scorpion of love, but Lily apparently has not. She not only spent the day with Dorian, she picked up a stranger afterward and, while having sex with him, choked him to death, her face expressionless throughout.

Her transformation into a Creature-Bride seemed to have left only amnesia and the visible scars over her breasts and down the center of her chest and abdomen (and what they represent, I have no idea, unless Victor replaced her consumption-damaged lungs). But the scars over her breasts were clearly visible as she choked the man while she was having intercourse with him. One scar over each breast, connected to the main, body scar. Rather like a scorpion’s claws, eh?

Despite the fact that Vanessa was called “Little Scorpion” by the Cut-Wife, and despite Vanessa’s using the symbol of the scorpion as her badge of protection, she still stings. For one thing, she can shoot flawlessly, apparently without ever having had lessons.

And though she claims to accept Ethan completely, she accepts then immediately rejects any physical or sexual advances, saying, “We’re dangerous.”

Has she stung him? It would seem so.

Has he stung her? Perhaps.

But she’s maintaining control over her emotions and her sexuality.

Welcome to the Night

The bulk of the episode dealt with Vanessa’s and Ethan’s doomed Romeo & Juliet romance. Despite the fact that he chopped down the tree from which the Cut-Wife was manacled and burned alive,

despite all their revelations about their own sorrows and brief moments of happiness or safety in the past as they walked the fields, searching for herbs, and setting rabbit snares,

despite her teaching him to dance in return for the shooting lessons, and despite his proficiency in dancing, leading to closer physical proximity between the two,

the evil in each of them comes between them.

By Vanessa’s choice.

After being confronted and threatened, once again, by Sir Geoffrey in his woods, Ethan goes to Sir Geoffrey’s mansion, intent on killing him: not as a werewolf, but as a man, with a pistol, to protect Vanessa. He is stunned to witness, as he aims the gun, Sir Geoffrey’s own hounds turn and devour him.

Though Vanessa was warned not to use the Book with the glyph on its spine unless she felt completely abandoned and lost, since once she used it, she would “have turned forever from God,” that is exactly what Vanessa did.

In a scene eerily reminiscent of Evelyn Poole’s incantation to the Devil,

Vanessa got out the book and started chanting its spells.

To have Sir Geoffrey’s dogs kill him in retaliation for his killing the Cut-Wife.

Whoa.

Vanessa sold her soul to the Devil, turned her back on God, to get even with a worm like Sir Geoffrey?

Sure, she shed a few tears after she collapsed.

But Ethan, he was madder than hell.

He returned to the Cut-Wife’s cottage, calling Vanessa a “little girl” as he berated her for the evil thing she’d done. After all, he’d not only taught her to shoot, “to protect herself,” but he’d gone, as her protector, to do the deed himself.

Ethan hadn’t gone to do “evil,” in his opinion: he was an animal, trying to survive; he was defending the life of someone he loved from a predator. Ethan may, in fact, be the Lupus Dei — The Hound of God — repeated in the puzzle that Lyle and the others are attempting to solve in order to understand the Verbis Diablo — the language of the Devil which the Night-Comers use, and which is in the book Vanessa used to turn Sir Geoffrey’s hounds against him.

Furthermore, if Ethan is the Lupus Dei of the puzzle-tale, it may be his job to protect Vanessa. He certainly seems to see it that way, even though there is also now a sexual attraction there.

(Remember that the two of them had no relationship last season beyond employer-recruiter and hired gun. Sir Malcolm needed more guns to kill the Creature in his hunt for his daughter Mina, and Vanessa found and hired Ethan Chandler. Ethan was emotionally involved with Brona Croft (Billie Piper), who was dying of consumption but whose death was hurried by Frankenstein’s holding a pillow over her face so he could transform her into Lily, the Creature-Bride. Vanessa attempted a sexual liaison with Dorian, but in the midst of intercourse, her participation in the sex act unleashed the demons that the Victorians associated with female sexuality, and she became possessed.)

Now, however, Vanessa has once again chosen to do evil, just as she did when she seduced her best friend Mina’s fiancé the night before the wedding, causing a permanent rift between Mina and Vanessa, as well as between the two families. In “Little Scorpion,” Vanessa’s choice to do evil, when she knew she had a protector, when she’d learned how to shoot, when Sir Geoffrey was not actively harming her, infuriated Ethan and caused a rift between them.

It’s a rift far wider than that between Romeo and Juliet’s families. After all, the Montagues and the Capulets can’t even remember what started the feud in the first place: they just recall that their families are ancient enemies.

Vanessa consciously chose to do evil, to use the book of spells and the Verbis Diablo — which she was warned would separate her forever from God — for something as petty as revenge.

“We have claws for a reason,” Ethan told Vanessa earlier.

But after she used a Night-Comer’s spell to kill Sir Geoffrey, Ethan angrily told her that she could never go back to what she was before.

“Welcome to the Night, Vanessa,” he said, before turning away.

♥

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Penny Dreadful, Season 1

Penny Dreadful: Be Not Afeard

So Many Monsters: the Penny Dreadful Finale

Betrayal of the Blood: PENNY DREADFUL, S2 E4-6

Warning: Spoilers Galore

After the flashback in “Cut-Wife” (S2E3), where we learned how Vanessa discovered her true identity and how to harness her unusual abilities, Penny Dreadful has been busy entangling virtually all the characters in dangerous, potentially deadly, erotic, and exotic relationships. Beginning with S2E4 and culminating with a grand ball that turned disastrous in E6, some characters are intentionally setting traps to catch other, unwary characters, while others are merely betraying characters who trust them.

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The Fetishes

The witches, or Night-Comers, led by Evelyn Poole (Helen McCrory), long-lived and still beautiful sister of the Cut-Wife Joan Clayton (Patti LuPone), are busy weaving a web to snare Vanessa. Evelyn is trying a many-pronged approach.

She made a “fetish” — something like a voodoo doll — of Vanessa (Eva Green) in a basement that is filled with hundreds of dolls: evidence of Evelyn’s evil and power.

She put a live baby’s heart into the fetish of Vanessa, chanting Verbis Diablo, and when the fetish was complete, Vanessa felt her own heart lurch.

To make the fetish more effective and powerful, Evelyn sent her daughter Hecate (Sarah Poole), along with the two remaining Night-Comers, to Sir Malcolm’s mansion. There, the three of them blended into the wallpaper. Though Ethan (Josh Harnett), wolf that he is, smelled something suspicious each time he went by one of the hidden Night-Comers, he could not discover what was wrong until it was too late.

Vanessa is doubting her sanity since she is, at times, able to see the Night-Comers, but they disappear so quickly that she fears she’s going mad. Ethan comforts and reassures her, letting her stay in his room with him on guard.

Unfortunately, Hecate was able to get some of Vanessa’s hair by ripping it out of her scalp when the Night-Comers invaded the mansion, and Hecate later wove it into the fetish. I can only assume that this will make the fetish more potent.

Now that Evelyn has gotten Sir Malcolm’s attention, she’s also made a fetish of him, massaging the baby’s heart until it began to beat. Sir Malcolm is already losing his own grip on reality.Evelyn made a fetish of Sir Malcolm’s wife Gladys, but she cracked open the skull of that fetish and put hot spikes in it, driving Gladys mad with pain, causing convulsions and hallucinations, and eventually causing her to commit suicide by cutting her throat with her husband’s straight-razor.

No divorce necessary now.

Sir Malcolm is free to become involved with the widow Evelyn Poole.

Which is exactly what she meant at the shooting range when she told Malcolm that it was always good to have something “to aim at.”

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The Night-Comers

Apparently never one to lack imagination or tenacity, Evelyn Poole has also been using other ways to get at Vanessa. She is blackmailing Mr. Lyle (Simon Russell Beale) with photos of his homosexual encounters (which would have sent him to prison, lost him his wife, her money, and his position at the museum and in society). She wants him to get her closer to Vanessa and to continue helping them solve the puzzle of Verbis Diablo. He offered to “mis-lead” them, but Evelyn said, “No, let her follow the breadcrumbs to me.”

Lyle vainly tried to warn Sir Malcolm about his interest in Ms. Poole, advising him to “proceed with caution,” but I don’t think Sir Malcolm even heard him.

Evelyn attempted to send her daughter Hecate after Ethan, but he wasn’t fooled by her claim that she was an “American abroad” trying to “finish her education.”

Despite their physical contact when Ethan saved Hecate from a carriage in the street, which Hecate planned, Ethan was unmoved by her story. Her “un-American” accent betrayed her.

That attempt to make a connection with Vanessa failed.

But Evelyn and the Night-Comers have attained some power over Vanessa. At Dorian’s ball for Angelique (discussed in detail later in this post), they made her hallucinate that blood was spilling down on everyone.

And then they made her lose consciousness.

Bad witches, them girls.

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The Entanglements

Despite Hecate’s failed attempt to engage Ethan emotionally, several other characters are becoming emotionally attached and sexually engaged.

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Lyle & Ethan

Lyle is not only sexually attracted to Ethan, but may actually be in love with him. Lyle flirts outrageously with Ethan, even in front of others.

But the attachment seems to be deeper than flirtation, at least on Lyle’s side. Lyle and Ethan are often left alone in the mansion to work on the “puzzle” of the Verbis Diablo. The other characters are involved, mostly, in sexual encounters, and are not available much of the time. Besides, Ethan knows Latin, which helps in the puzzle-solving, and in impressing Lyle.

Though it’s clear that Lyle is sexually attracted to Ethan, he seems to value their time alone together most: that’s when Lyle drops his silly façade and shows his scholarship and caring side.

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Ethan & Vanessa

Though Ethan and Vanessa are clearly attracted to each other, she fears getting sexually involved because her past sexual liaisons have “unleashed” the dark side. Ethan, for his part, knows he has blackouts, and that people die during them.

Though he may not realize he is a Wolf-man, he knows he’s dangerous. He doesn’t want to hurt Vanessa.

They seem to be the only couple who are mutually sexually attracted to each other who have not had sexual relations.

Not even a kiss.

Just a wistful glance and a touch of the face on the stairs.

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Dorian & Angelique

I really admire the fact that creator-writer John Logan, Showtime, and Penny Dreadful are tackling the long-taboo or ignored subject of transgender persons. The show has touched on homosexuality, but only in Lyle’s vain love and admiration of Ethan: the affection and attraction is not mutual.

With the entrance of Angelique (Johnny Beauchamp), Dorian (Reeve Carney), who has had homosexual encounters — including one with Ethan in S1 — gets a chance to have an actual relationship with a “woman” who’s been born into a man’s body.

From its inception, the writer has made it clear that Angelique knew she was different from early childhood, and shunned by her family. Believing that prostitution was the only life-option, she turned to that.

Dorian is intrigued at first — how that ageless bad-boy likes novelty — and their fully nude sexual scene was handled tastefully. Now Dorian seems to be genuinely falling in love, as evidenced by his letting her buy some clothes and leave them at his home, his defending her in public, his kissing her gloved hand in public after she was insulted by another man, and his throwing her a “coming out” ball.

My BF immediately objected to the term “coming out,” insisting that it was an anachronism. I explained that Dorian meant something more along the lines of a debutante’s “coming out” ball, where she was introduced to society as an eligible marriage candidate. (My BF hadn’t heard of that kind of “coming out” — he retracted his objection.)

Unfortunately, the jaded Dorian, after dancing only one dance with Angelique at the ball he was sponsoring for her, immediately seemed to become enamored of Brona-turned-Lilly (Billie Piper), who is meant to be the bride for the Creature.

Angelique was understandably hurt.

So was Frankenstein (Harry Treadaway), who has fallen in love with Lilly himself.

My only problem with the Dorian-Angelique storyline are the same ones I had with the Dorian plotline in the first season.

No one who is unfamiliar with Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray knows what’s up with Dorian, beyond the fact that he likes to have sex with a lot of people — of either sex or gender — has some unknown and unrevealed portrait hidden away that he likes to look at once in a while, and lives in a big house with lots of money.
Dorian’s story, even with Angelique, is not interwoven with the stories of any of the other characters. Just like last year, Dorian could be completely erased from the show, and its storyline would not be affected. (Reeve Carney’s fans may be dismayed, but the storyline of Penny Dreadful itself would not be significantly altered.) This is not good.

I realize that this has the potential to change if Dorian and Victor get into a spitting contest over Lilly.

Then again, I was sure Dorian would eventually get more involved in the major story events last season, and, sadly, it simply never happened.

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Victor & Lilly

Unbeknownst to the Creature, Victor and the Creature’s intended, Lilly, are falling in love. Victor is filling her head with tales of Lilly being his cousin, and of all their childhood days together.

Victor asked Vanessa to help him buy clothes for Lilly, including intimate undergarments.

Victor took Lilly to lunch with Vanessa, who immediately recognized that Victor is in love with Lilly, “though he may not know it.” (And, yes, I agree with the commenters on forums about the fact that Vanessa’s not recognizing Lilly as Brona, whom she met with Ethan last year, is not realistic. Despite the change of accent and hair-color, Lilly has the same face, and it is not a bland, unremarkable one. To make Vanessa “blind” to her identity, or even to her physical similarity to Brona, is just silly.)

Victor took Lilly to Dorian’s ball.

Victor and Lilly had sexual relations, and they are falling in love with each other (although they may not realize it themselves).

To make matter worse, Dorian’s past with Lilly-as-Brona, and Dorian’s inherent infidelity to anything, may cause some problems.

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The Creature & Lilly

Poor Creature, now going by the name of John Clare (Rory Kinnear, above L). He is so lonely. He so wants female companionship. He wants a life-long mate. That’s why Victor (above L) smothered the dying-from-consumption Brona Croft (Billie Piper), who was Ethan’s lover and love, and turned her into the amnesiac Lilly.

For the Creature.

Lilly feels uncomfortable with the Creature, however.

So uncomfortable that she acts cold and distant around him.

He is hurt, confused, and lonely.

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The Creature & Lavinia

I thought the blind Lavinia, daughter to the Creature-as-John-Clare’s new employer, would become a viable love interest for him. She cannot see his deformity, and made no remarks about the scars on his face when she touched him in order to “meet him.”

Unfortunately, in E6, during a friendly conversation at work, she took the Creature’s hand, remarked on its being so cold (as if his face isn’t) and then told her parents that there was something strange and “dead” about him.

I guess there’ll be no love story there.

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The Creature & Vanessa

Of all the women in the series, Vanessa is the Creature’s equal: emotionally, philosophically, theologically, and intellectually. The two met down in the poorer quarters, where Sir Malcolm sometimes works “to find a sort of peace,” and where he took Vanessa.

Since their initial meeting, Vanessa and Mr. Clare, as she knows him, have not only had many intriguing and interesting discussions, but she taught him to dance when he confessed that he did not know the rules or engagements of “courting.”

Sadly, even if the creature were to fall in love with Vanessa, I think she’s already falling for Ethan.

Meanwhile, Victor’s already stolen the heart — and body — of Lilly.

I think the Creature is in for an even greater heartbreak than that he experienced last season when the actress Maude rejected his affection and physical advances.

He turned violent last year after his heart was broken, killing Professor Van Helsing (David Warner) in front of Victor because Frankenstein had not yet fulfilled his promise to find the Creature a mate.

Who knows what the Creature will do when he discovers that his intended bride, Lilly, has been “seduced” by Victor?

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Sir Malcolm & Evelyn

Yes, I know it’s all witchcraft and enchantment.

Yes, I know Evelyn’s only using Sir Malcolm to get closer to Vanessa, preferably by marrying him and living in the same house with Evelyn’s true object of desire: Vanessa, as a bride for the Master, Lucifer.Yes, I know she’s, like, what — 250 years older than Sir Malcolm, and only looks his age and is only still attractive because of her having sold her soul to the Devil.

And, yes, I saw all the scenes where Evelyn pricked Sir Malcolm with her ring, making him desire her sexually. I know she pricked him during the sex act itself. I know he’s so bewitched by her evil power that when he heard of the suicide of his wife, his only comment was that he’d “have to replace the carpet” since it had been covered with blood.

He’s so bewitched by Evelyn Poole, Sir Malcolm even shaved his beard for her. The beard Vanessa reports he’s had all his life.

Yeah, yeah, I know it’s not real love. Not on Sir Malcolm’s part because he’s enchanted and controlled by witchcraft. Certainly not on Evelyn’s part because she only loves herself and her Master, the Devil. She’s already been shown to manipulate the men in her life — and others — to get the only things she really wants: Vanessa for the Master.

Despite knowing all that, it was wonderful to see an actual sex scene between actors who are not in their twenties. I think both Helen McCrory and Timothy Dalton are not only very fine actors, but they’re very physically and sexually attractive.

So it’s an even braver thing to show the two of them enjoying sex than showing Dorian and transgendered Angelique having sex. It was so brave, I’m going to put up the photo of them together again.I admit it. That scene between Sir Malcolm and Evelyn had me as breathless as the scene between Ethan and Vanessa on the stairs.

Talk about erotic.

(Note to Showtime and anyone else concerned: I would have liked to see more of Sir Malcolm’s chest during the act itself. His shirt was unbuttoned, but still almost closed. I’m not asking for full nudity, but it would have been really nice to see his chest and back, at least. And from the scene with Sir Geoffrey in “Cut-Wife,” we know that actress Helen McCrory (below, not in costume for the show) has a fine body, too, and she doesn’t have to show all of it for us to determine that.

Older people are still active sexually, and they’re still attractive. Be brave in this area, too, please.)

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Ethan as Wolf-Man
& Sembene as Protector

Finally, it looks like Sembene (Danny Sapani) is going to have a greater role than opening the door when someone knocks, or sitting watching it when it’s locked. In the final moments of E6, Ethan was not present at Dorian’s ball. At that time, Ethan was at the mansion with Sembene, asking him to chain Ethan to the wall.

Sembene, without further explanation but with a concerned expression, did so. Ethan showed his trust in Sembene by doing this. Though Ethan knows he has blackouts, after which there’s “usually blood,” and no survivors except himself, he does not apparently know that he’s a Wolf-Man. He doesn’t know what happens to him during the full moon, beyond the fact that other people die.

He’s about to reveal his darkest secret, which he himself doesn’t even know, to the only other true warrior in the show: Sembene.

Chained to the basement as Fenton was last season, Ethan then waited.

Seated in a chair in front of him, so did Sembene.

And things got wild.