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So I've been watching Penny Dreadful for the past couple of weeks, out of curiosity and because I quite like LXG-esque monster mashes. It's ... interesting, I think is the word. Full of terrible people nursing terrible secrets, and the odd few innocents strewn among them - though of the two innocents with screentime so far, one's already dead, so it would seem either you acquire a terrible secret, or you become someone else's on this show. The prospects for the second innocent don't look very bright, therefore.
A few theories on that and sundry other spoilery impressions:
- Is it just me, or are they hinting that Brona is destined to be Frankenstein's 'subject' for Caliban's bride? I'm asking because there's the whole Victor-vs-Ethan thing happening, and Brona meeting Proteus, and Brona's consumption being echoed in flashback by Victor's mother, who was the reason he is what he is, which apparently adds up in my head to a suspicion that she's gonna end up as the bride, possibly after Ethan accidentally kills her in a wolf-out or whatever it is that happens to him.
- The demi-monde is very, very small. Which I realise is part of the point, but London is how big? And yet this group keep running into each other in various permutations by sheer coincidence - Brona to Dorian, Brona to Ethan, Ethan & Brona to Victor & Proteus, Vanessa to Dorian, Ethan & Brona to Dorian, with Caliban lurking in the background at the theatre and the house, and so on and so forth. And the hematologist they manage to acquire happens to be Professor Van Helsing, apparently without at least Victor's knowledge, though I'm not sure about Murray's. London's occult demi-monde is apparently tiny. Possibly fortunately, yes, but still.
- I loved the fragment this episode with Vanessa and the little girl. Where the kid says that her mother died, and they put her in the ground, but she didn't stay there. None of them do. And you can see Vanessa's alarmed face, has she just stumbled on a vampire graveyard or what, and then the kid goes 'she went to heaven, silly'. Because, honestly, you can't blame Vanessa, with the shit she goes through on a regular basis. But her face, her face was fabulous for that scene. Perfect.
- I do not like Murray. I love Timothy Dalton, always will, but not Murray himself. And yes, we're not really meant to, but they're really working that dislike. To the point where my first thought when he started talking to Victor about his son dying in Africa, and how Ethan means nothing to him but Victor now does because of the resemblence to said son, was that he was deliberately manipulating Victor. I'm not sure why, but that was my immediate automatic suspicion.
- I'm loving Caliban's life as the theatre stagehand. And that whole first meeting with Alun Armstrong (can't remember the character's name). The Monster's first day in London, he gets beaten half to death in an alley, stumbled across by a drunken thespian who promptly offers him something vile and alcoholic, casually gives him an alibi for his scars, adopts him, and sets him to work as essentially the Phantom of the Opera at the local Theatre des Vampires (well, not actual vampires, at least so far). So, your typical introduction to Victorian London, then? And the way he actually seems to enjoy the stagework, and the camaraderie he has with Armstrong's character. It's heartwarming, for a character who was introduced literally hands-first through someone's chest and who is currently coercing his creator into making him an undead bride. As you do.
- Sidenote: I know this is a case of TV standards, but honestly? Caliban isn't hideous. He ain't even ugly. He's got scarring around one side of his head, and the golden eyes look a little odd, but honestly he just looks like a Victorian and slightly vampiric Meatloaf. Victorian London has to see worse than him all damn day, why is everybody flinching around him?
- I have no idea what to think of Dorian Grey. Mostly all he's done so far is lounge around having orgies and seducing anyone who comes in range, and murmuring about poisons and beautiful dying things. So, you know. Dismissable. And then he had this thing with Ethan just now. Not even the kiss, that was more surprising on Ethan's part than on his, but the ... the weird honesty of their conversation. Dorian was almost young there for a while. Almost genuine. Talking about cologne and music and pretending to be human, and the weird half-alarmed look when Ethan grabbed him, like he actually wasn't expecting that, and then the almost delicacy when he responded. It was weird, with what we've seen of him. Like there might actually be some depth here, beyond the whole 'soulless hedonist with a magic portrait in the attic'. Weird.
- I'm wondering if Ethan is just the new Jack the Ripper, since it's fairly strongly implied that he killed that family, or if he's actually the original one as well. Given the theories about Jack having run off to America and all. Or vice versa, in this case. I wonder if there's any connection, or if Penny Dreadful's Jack was something different again, or just a normal human who managed to out-psycho what's implied to be a werewolf.
- That said, there was an advertisment for a 'Dr Jekyll' briefly, so it's possible there's a Jekyll and Hyde still in the woodwork, who may or may not be connected to Jack.
- Given a) Dorian Grey, and b) the strong Egyptian origins with the setting's vampires, there is more than a little influence from Anne Rice going on here. With Vanessa apparently being possessed by the setting's Akasha, and a few other things besides. I did like the little detail with a Victorian spiritualist who calls herself 'Madame Kali' and whose spirit guide is the Egyptian goddess Amonet. Because the Victorian occultists were so good at keeping their mythologies straight. Heh. Especially in the penny dreadfuls.
- This show does, by the way, completely live up to its name. Cheap, lurid entertainment, with sex and demons and haunted shadows thrown in. I'm actually enjoying it quite a lot at the minute, but it is, very much, a penny dreadful. An expensive one, but nonetheless. A nice little faux-Victorian monster mash to pass the time with ;)
- Is it just me, or are they hinting that Brona is destined to be Frankenstein's 'subject' for Caliban's bride? I'm asking because there's the whole Victor-vs-Ethan thing happening, and Brona meeting Proteus, and Brona's consumption being echoed in flashback by Victor's mother, who was the reason he is what he is, which apparently adds up in my head to a suspicion that she's gonna end up as the bride, possibly after Ethan accidentally kills her in a wolf-out or whatever it is that happens to him.
- The demi-monde is very, very small. Which I realise is part of the point, but London is how big? And yet this group keep running into each other in various permutations by sheer coincidence - Brona to Dorian, Brona to Ethan, Ethan & Brona to Victor & Proteus, Vanessa to Dorian, Ethan & Brona to Dorian, with Caliban lurking in the background at the theatre and the house, and so on and so forth. And the hematologist they manage to acquire happens to be Professor Van Helsing, apparently without at least Victor's knowledge, though I'm not sure about Murray's. London's occult demi-monde is apparently tiny. Possibly fortunately, yes, but still.
- I loved the fragment this episode with Vanessa and the little girl. Where the kid says that her mother died, and they put her in the ground, but she didn't stay there. None of them do. And you can see Vanessa's alarmed face, has she just stumbled on a vampire graveyard or what, and then the kid goes 'she went to heaven, silly'. Because, honestly, you can't blame Vanessa, with the shit she goes through on a regular basis. But her face, her face was fabulous for that scene. Perfect.
- I do not like Murray. I love Timothy Dalton, always will, but not Murray himself. And yes, we're not really meant to, but they're really working that dislike. To the point where my first thought when he started talking to Victor about his son dying in Africa, and how Ethan means nothing to him but Victor now does because of the resemblence to said son, was that he was deliberately manipulating Victor. I'm not sure why, but that was my immediate automatic suspicion.
- I'm loving Caliban's life as the theatre stagehand. And that whole first meeting with Alun Armstrong (can't remember the character's name). The Monster's first day in London, he gets beaten half to death in an alley, stumbled across by a drunken thespian who promptly offers him something vile and alcoholic, casually gives him an alibi for his scars, adopts him, and sets him to work as essentially the Phantom of the Opera at the local Theatre des Vampires (well, not actual vampires, at least so far). So, your typical introduction to Victorian London, then? And the way he actually seems to enjoy the stagework, and the camaraderie he has with Armstrong's character. It's heartwarming, for a character who was introduced literally hands-first through someone's chest and who is currently coercing his creator into making him an undead bride. As you do.
- Sidenote: I know this is a case of TV standards, but honestly? Caliban isn't hideous. He ain't even ugly. He's got scarring around one side of his head, and the golden eyes look a little odd, but honestly he just looks like a Victorian and slightly vampiric Meatloaf. Victorian London has to see worse than him all damn day, why is everybody flinching around him?
- I have no idea what to think of Dorian Grey. Mostly all he's done so far is lounge around having orgies and seducing anyone who comes in range, and murmuring about poisons and beautiful dying things. So, you know. Dismissable. And then he had this thing with Ethan just now. Not even the kiss, that was more surprising on Ethan's part than on his, but the ... the weird honesty of their conversation. Dorian was almost young there for a while. Almost genuine. Talking about cologne and music and pretending to be human, and the weird half-alarmed look when Ethan grabbed him, like he actually wasn't expecting that, and then the almost delicacy when he responded. It was weird, with what we've seen of him. Like there might actually be some depth here, beyond the whole 'soulless hedonist with a magic portrait in the attic'. Weird.
- I'm wondering if Ethan is just the new Jack the Ripper, since it's fairly strongly implied that he killed that family, or if he's actually the original one as well. Given the theories about Jack having run off to America and all. Or vice versa, in this case. I wonder if there's any connection, or if Penny Dreadful's Jack was something different again, or just a normal human who managed to out-psycho what's implied to be a werewolf.
- That said, there was an advertisment for a 'Dr Jekyll' briefly, so it's possible there's a Jekyll and Hyde still in the woodwork, who may or may not be connected to Jack.
- Given a) Dorian Grey, and b) the strong Egyptian origins with the setting's vampires, there is more than a little influence from Anne Rice going on here. With Vanessa apparently being possessed by the setting's Akasha, and a few other things besides. I did like the little detail with a Victorian spiritualist who calls herself 'Madame Kali' and whose spirit guide is the Egyptian goddess Amonet. Because the Victorian occultists were so good at keeping their mythologies straight. Heh. Especially in the penny dreadfuls.
- This show does, by the way, completely live up to its name. Cheap, lurid entertainment, with sex and demons and haunted shadows thrown in. I'm actually enjoying it quite a lot at the minute, but it is, very much, a penny dreadful. An expensive one, but nonetheless. A nice little faux-Victorian monster mash to pass the time with ;)
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