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Monsters, All: PENNY DREADFUL s2e9

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Warning: Spoilers Most Dreadful

Penny-Dreadful-serieThough 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

images-10Of 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.

Unknown-1He 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.

Unknown-3She 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.

images-1Though 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

images-6Vanessa 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

images-4Oh, 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.

images-23Besides, 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.

images-20I 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

images-17All 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. images-24

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.

UnknownWhen 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…”

imagesNone 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.

images-6For 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.

images-12In 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.”

images-5When 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.

images-6Lyle’s consistently been demonstrating that he is not, in fact, a monster.

Just a man with secrets.

And jittery nerves.

The Putneys

images-24How ’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)…

images-54Sweet, 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…

images-43That 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

images-33Poor 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.

images-27What does he get?

Nothing but betrayal.

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

At the theatre watching the performers,

images-20In his basement “living quarters,” sobbing after the “ingenue” Maude rejected his advances,

images-17Watching Lily (Billie Piper) go out with Dorian (Reeve Carney) after Frankenstein (Harry Treadaway) made her specifically to be Clare’s mate.

images-18Now 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

imagesSir 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.

images-8Instead of dancing at a phantom ball with his family members, which is how he broke Evelyn’s enchantment last episode,

images-15Sir 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

images-16If, 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.

reeve-carney-as-dorian-gray-in-penny-dreadful-season-2-gallery-photo-courtesy-of-showtimeTaunting 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.

images-9Looks 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

images-25For 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.

images-1Sembene 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.”

images-11Then, 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

images-3I 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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When the Hunters Become the Prey: Showtime’s PENNY DREADFUL Season 2 Premiere

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Warning:
Spoilers Gory & Galore

images-28Showtime’s hit series Penny Dreadful, whose second season premiered last night with “Fresh Hell,” might be advertising itself with photos of the major characters stating No Rest for the Wicked, or videos where the characters move in slow motion, in blurred and changing images, saying, “The Devil is in us all: that’s what makes us human,” but the real theme of Season 2 was revealed last night in the premiere, and it seems to be changing from its initial season.

In Season 1, most of the characters were hunting: for Sir Malcolm’s “taken” daughter Mina, for Creatures suspected of working for the unnamed “Master,” for a cure for Mina should she be found, for a mate for Frankenstein’s Creature, for Ethan’s secret that made him say things like “There are such sins at my back that it would kill me to turn around,” for Dorian’s secret to eternal youth and perpetual boredom, for a way to save Vanessa from her inner demons.

Last night the premiere of Season 2 revealed that virtually all the hunters from last season have now become the prey.

images-21The premiere episode of Penny Dreadful Season 2 flowed seamlessly from the finale of Season 1 as if several months had not intervened. The writing was flawless, though the story itself still has a couple weaknesses.

Vanessa & the Night-Comers

penny-dreadful-season-2-570x379Poor Vanessa (splendidly played by the talented Eva Green) had enough trials and tribulations last year with the “Master” hunting her for his bride, and with, unbeknownst to her, the “Devil” — in the form of Amunra — hunting her, as his mate “Amunet.” Also, her own inner demons were released each time she viewed someone having sex (Sir Malcolm with her mother in the hedge-maze) or participated in the sex act herself (with Mina’s fiancé Captain Branson, or with Dorian Gray) — releasing the psycho-sexual demons that the Victorians so feared, especially in females.

images-6Last night, a woman from S1 E2 “Séance,” Madame Kali (Helen McCrory), who seemed so innocuous when Sir Malcolm (played by the excellent Timothy Dalton) met her later in the season and she revealed herself to be merely “Evelyn Poole from Brighton,” was shown to be “hunting” Vanessa for nefarious reasons.

images-12We first saw Evelyn chanting in a language we did not recognize, but which we later learned is Verbis Diablo — the language of the Devil, or God’s language turned inside out after Adam was cast from the Garden. Evelyn’s chanting caused Vanessa to stumble and fall as she was leisurely strolling through the snow.

penny-dreadful_612x380When Ethan (Josh Hartnett) came to tell Vanessa that he must go away so that he doesn’t hurt anyone he loves, the two were attacked. Vanessa was obviously the main target, and Ethan was considered — by Vanessa and the attackers — as her “protector.”

images-19We later saw Evelyn bathing in the blood of a murdered woman — like Countess Erszabet [Elizabeth] Báthory, one of history’s most notorious female serial killers — while casually smoking a cigarette (also considered unfeminine, radical, and rebellious during the Victorian age).

images-27The bald, nude, scarred, female attackers who went after Vanessa are shown, first at the side of the street, then in Evelyn’s home, as beautiful women, one of whom — Hecate — is addressed as “daughter” by Evelyn, and another of whom is murdered by Evelyn for “failing” to capture Vanessa.

penny-dreadful-season-2Vanessa is so terrified by the attack, and by the fact that she vaguely understood their language and rebuked them in it herself without really knowing what she was saying, that she keeps herself locked in Sir Malcolm’s house. His faithful servant Sembene (Danny Sapani), who got a new coat this year — and more lines last night than he got the entire season last year — kept watch over her inside the house. (Ethan kept watch outside.)

images-16When Sir Malcolm finally arrived home — he’d been burying Mina at their home in the country, and being told by his wife Gladys to stay away from her for the rest of their married lives — Vanessa flew into his protective arms. It was a touching moment.

images-26Vanessa has, indeed, become Sir Malcolm’s “daughter” this season, but instead of hunting for her, as he had to do for Mina last season, he has only to protect her from the “Night-Comers” or “Witches” who are themselves hunting Vanessa.

images-15Later that episode, though Vanessa tried to protect herself by drawing a bloody scorpion on the floor between two candles as she prayed, the naked Night-Comers appeared behind her: they are the evil behind her back this season. And it seems Vanessa’s prayers will not protect her since, as she was praying, Evelyn was pledging Vanessa to her own “Master” — Lucifer.

images-13Vanessa had blood on the floor. Evelyn had blood on the forehead. Vanessa was praying in Latin to God — or at least to Jesus Christ on the crucifix before her — but Evelyn seemed to be “praying” in Verbis Diablo to Lucifer. As of the end of the show last night, Evelyn’s “prayers” and pledges seemed much more powerful. It seems that Vanessa has even greater cause to “be afeard” this season than last. More than one version of the Devil seems to be hunting Vanessa this year.

Frankenstein &
the Creature’s Bride

images-11All last season, Frankenstein’s “first-born” Creature (brilliantly played by Rory Kinnear) — called “Demon” by Frankenstein himself, and Caliban by his fellow theatre workers — insisted that Frankenstein (Harry Treadaway) create an immortal mate for him, partly in retaliation for Frankenstein’s cruel and heartless abandonment of the Creature after his “agonizing” creation/birth, and partly to alleviate his subsequent loneliness and isolation from the rest of mankind.

The Creature slowly fell in love with the actress Maude, and it seemed she might become his “bride.” Though kind to him occasionally, because he reminded her of her brother “Luke” whose face was burnt in an industrial accident, Maude rejected the Creature’s amorous advances. And got him fired.

images-3Frankenstein was forced to seek another candidate for the Creature’s mate. He chose Ethan’s lover Brona (Billie Piper), a prostitute dying of consumption, hurrying her death along by smothering her with a pillow, instead of more mercifully overdosing her with morphine to which he himself is addicted.

imagesIn the premiere of S2 of Penny Dreadful, after the Creature helped lower Brona’s scarred body into a vat of water, Frankenstein announced that they had to wait for an electrical storm before anything more could be done. I’m not sure what the Y-shaped scar over Brona’s breasts and down her chest and abdomen are, unless Frankenstein replaced her consumption-ravaged lungs. Otherwise, Brona the intended Bride is un-scarred. Unlike the Creature himself, whose appearance frightens and disgusts onlookers.images-17

Alas, for the poor, love-lorn Creature, Frankenstein himself seems to have fallen in love, or in lust, with the lovely Brona. Talking to her, telling her he’ll miss her when she was made into the Bride for the Creature, touching her dead body in an openly sexual way (without her consent, since she’s… dead), Frankenstein’s inappropriate lustful behaviour seems to be setting up a vicious conflict for this second season. I’m guessing that the beautiful Brona will be desired by both Frankenstein and by the lonely Creature.images-4

The storm eventually came, with both men screaming loudly for her to come back to life Now! And slowly Brona’s hand, head, then her entire naked body appeared out of the electrified water. No doubt, both Dr. F and his Creature will want her. Whether she will want either of them remains to be seen, since Dr. F pointedly remarked that he didn’t know whether she would retain any memories of her previous life. She may decide to hunt her love, Ethan.

images-8

The Bride v the Blind Girl

Having lost his job at the theatre because of his love and sexual advances toward Maude, however, the Creature was forced to seek alternate employment. He found work at a family-owned wax museum. The proprietor hopes that his new “crime scene re-creations” — along with the Creature’s face — will draw new customers. His wife scolded the husband for choosing an employee with such a face, and was scolded in return.

UnknownA more significant conflict appeared, however, when the Creature, calling himself “John Clare” for employment purposes, met the proprietors’ daughter, who is blind. She needed to “touch his face in order to meet him,” and made no remark or reaction when she carefully examined his severely scarred face.

images-29Because the daughter is not only blind but very beautiful, I suspect that she will come to care for the Creature, and he for her — even if he is torn with guilt about feeling “unfaithful” to his Bride Brona.

Of course, if Frankenstein’s feelings lead to a conflict between himself and the Creature for the Bride, who knows what will happen between the Creature and the blind girl? Will the Creature still be hunting for a mate, will he accept the potential love and affection of the blind girl, or will he continue hunting Frankenstein for taking the Bride Brona?

Ethan as Wolf-Man / Were-Wolf

One of the Wolf-Man's first victimsLast season, a vicious killer murdered and dismembered a mother and her young daughter. It was gruesome. At first, it was believed that The Ripper had returned. In one of the  episodes, the group hunting for the missing Mina was drawn to the London Zoo in the middle of the night, where they expected/hoped to find Mina and the (vampire) Creatures.

Josh Hartnett as Ethan Chandler and Eva Green as Vanessa Ives at the London Zoo at night, just before the encounter with the wolves Instead, they found a pack of wolves. Ethan ordered everyone to stay still. Then he lowered his body and held out his hand. One of the male wolves, snarling, approached and tentatively took Ethan’s hand gently into its mouth, acknowledging Ethan as the Alpha male. The Alpha male wolf.

Unknown-1From that episode on, bloggers and reviewers of the show predicted that Ethan’s secret was that he was the Wolf-Man, though there is no literary piece of the period dealing with such a creature. There is a Penny Dreadful which features  a Wolf-Man — Wagner the Werewolf — but no literature. Guy Endore’s 1933 novel The Werewolf of Paris was the first literary exploration of the Wolf-Man.

I assumed that the bloggers, critics, and reviewers who were proclaiming that Ethan was the Wolf-Man had to be mistaken since creator & writer John Logan had repeatedly stated that Penny Dreadful mixed Victorian literary characters, re-imagined, with his fictional characters.

The Wolf-Man v Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde

Dr_Jekyll_and_Mr_Hyde_poster_edit2At that point, I was still convinced that Logan would introduce one of the most famous novels of the period which explores the nature of good and evil, Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

The Wolf-Man simply did not fit into the entire scheme of the first season of Penny Dreadful, where the characters chose to do good or evil. The Wolf-Man is cursed or bitten or somehow turned into a violent and dangerous creature against his will. He doesn’t consciously decide to go around during the full moon, tearing people apart and eating some of their internal organs.

In Stevenson’s novel, however, Dr. Jekyll makes a conscious choice to explore the evil aspects of his personality by concocting a formula which will allow his personality to separate into two parts: one entirely good, the other completely evil. Mr. Hyde is the evil, immoral part of Dr. Jekyll.

The importance of Jekyll and Hyde versus the Wolf-Man to Penny Dreadful and Ethan Chandler’s secret is choice. Choosing to do evil, choosing to harm others for selfish reasons, intentionally hurting others to achieve personal satisfaction or pleasure at the others’ expense — these were all themes of Penny Dreadful S1, and all of the characters made those choices repeatedly (though Dorian Gray’s evil or cruel choices were not actually shown: I know this from the novel itself).

Just as the characters in Penny Dreadful consciously chose to do evil and to hurt others to satisfy their own selfish desires or to exact revenge, Dr. Jekyll chooses to allow his evil side to come out. As Edward Hyde, he seriously hurts children, dismembers women, and murders famous politicians. Hyde enjoys it.

Dr. Henry Jekyll enjoys it, too, because it allows him to do whatever evil he wishes — as Hyde — while maintaining his good reputation and respected standing in society as Dr. Jekyll. Unfortunately for Jekyll, Hyde also has free will, and he chooses to take over Jekyll’s life to the point where Hyde can gain control of their shared body at will, without any potion, and Jekyll is unable to get it back. Jekyll commits suicide when he realizes that the good part of himself is being subsumed by the evil part of himself.

Therefore, if the bloggers and reviewers who predicted that Ethan’s secret was that he was a Wolf-Man, it took away Ethan’s choice to do evil, which went against the very premise of the show in season 1. It also eliminated the literary basis for his story since no Wolf-Man literature existed till 1933, and the show takes place in 1891. Also, throughout S1, Ethan objected to extreme violence — unless it was in the interest of self-preservation or to save those he’d been hired to protect — as well as to cruelty, especially in the case of the captured Fenton (Olly Alexander), whom the others tortured and experimented on, in an attempt to find a “cure” for Mina, whom they’d not even discovered yet.

Unknown-1Imagine my dismay when, in the penultimate scene of the S1 finale, Ethan did transform into a Wolf-Man and murder the Pinkertons his father had sent from America to forcibly bring Ethan home, as well as everyone else in the restaurant-bar-hotel where Ethan was staying.

UnknownIt wasn’t just a disappointment because Ethan’s being a Wolf-Man didn’t fit with the theme of the rest of the season 1 of Penny Dreadful. It was a disappointment because so many people had predicted it weeks beforehand, and they were correct.

Ethan & his Blackoutsimages

It appears that S2 of Penny Dreadful is also eliminating Ethan’s choice to do evil, separating him from the remainder of the characters. He told Vanessa that he has blackouts, during which he assumes bad things happen, because there’s a lot of blood, and that he is the one who’s done them, since he’s the one who’s still alive.

images-2The final episode of S1 showed that in addition to being a paid hunter, Ethan was also one of the hunted: the Pinkertons sent from America by his father were hunting him, determined to chain and drag him back home. This year, those hunters are dead, but since there was a survivor — mentioned once by Police Inspectors, and shown only briefly, completely bandaged, in a hospital bed — Ethan may be more prey than hunter this season.

Dorian

Reeve Carney as Dorian GrayThe only major character we didn’t get to see in the premiere episode of S2 of Penny Dreadful was Dorian Gray, whom I also felt was greatly neglected and unexplored last season. Anyone unfamiliar with Oscar Wilde’s novel The Picture of Dorian Gray, for example, had no idea what that secret, hidden portrait he was always looking at displayed.

The portrait is of Dorian, of course, and shows his external evil and ugliness in the portrait without its showing on his own face or body, but without reading the book itself, viewers could have thought it was a portrait of God, angels, Jesus, or the Devil. Of course, they could tell from the scene following his sexual encounter with Vanessa last year that the portrait has the power to heal physical wounds, but beyond that… Nothing.

Season Two Predictions

UnknownOf course, Penny Dreadful may be changing its theme of all the characters’ choosing to do evil this season. That would mean that the “weakness” of not giving Ethan a choice concerning evil would not longer be a weakness. Sembene has already been given more lines, so perhaps, he will “have a story,” this year, unlike last season. Dorian Gray has not yet appeared — which surprised me since creator & writer John Logan worked every other major character in the series into the premiere. In any event, unless Dorian radically changes his character, he will still be a hunter, seeking personal pleasure even if it involves the pain or death of others. Otherwise, only the Night-Comers — of which Evelyn Poole aka Madame Kali is the leader — are choosing to do evil as far as I can determine.

Ethan’s “curse” of being a Wolf-Man and his blackouts prevent his choice. Vanessa has become the prey rather than the “cruel little girl” who intentionally caused best friend Mina’s distress and ultimate entanglement with the “Master.” Frankenstein is attempting to give the Creature a Bride, though Dr. F is getting a little too involved with her himself, before she’s even brought back to life. Sir Malcolm has become Vanessa’s surrogate father rather than her judge and jury, constantly and cruelly reminding Vanessa of her “sin” and “betrayal.”

Since the S2 premiere so carefully integrated the various storylines set up in S1, I was surprised that we never saw Dorian, but I’m sure he’ll be along shortly. He’s probably just picking up some more manuscripts in Italy.

What I don’t know is if Dorian, too, will become one of the prey rather than one of the hunters.images-23Catch up on Season 1 of Showtime’s horror-thriller Penny Dreadful on Amazon ($1.99-2.99/episode, SD v HD). Watch the premiere of Penny Dreadful S2 “Fresh Hell” free on Showtime Anytime.

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