Review: "Penny Dreadful" - Season 2

LOGAN, John, Creator: James Hawes, Brian Kirk, Damon Thomas, Kari Skagland, Dirs.; “Penny Dreadful – Season Two”, Showtime Networks Inc./Sky, 2015.

My concerns with the first season of this show were mainly to do with gratuity; not to do with the violence and gore –there was certainly a lot of that – but mainly to do with nudity and sex. With the character of Dorian Gray swinging his way through the proceedings, it seemed that everyone was going to get their knickers off at one point or another, for no really well-defined reason, and that turned out to be the case. My hesitation therefore at picking up this next instalment, was that it was going to be another panoply of sexual tableaux – like “Black Sails” without the disturbing mirkins.

To my surprise (and great relief!), the sex has been toned right down this year and, amazingly, when it does appear, it almost always has a point. Almost. Obviously, the production staff has been listening to its critics. Dorian and Victor Frankenstein have been worked slightly backwards in the narrative, rather than being first-string characters as they were in the first season: this means that their input is used more judiciously and sparingly, and the focus is firmly on Vanessa Ives, Sir Malcolm Murray and Ethan Chandler, where it needs to be. In essence, the writing has become tempered: all the characters are still there from the first go around, but they have been woven more intelligently into a tapestry, rather than being thrust into an open slather.

The narrative opens with questions about Vanessa’s evident possession by a demonic force, revealed as “Amunet” in the previous instalment; Ethan is forced to face up to his rampage at the Mariner’s Inn after discovering that there is a survivor of the massacre; Sir Malcolm’s attempts to reconcile with his wife, Gladys, after Mina’s death at his hands are chillingly rebuffed; and Victor is forced by his Monster to resurrect the corpse of Brona Croft as his new “bride”. Into this stewing quagmire leap three hairless, scarred and black-eyed naked women, who attack Vanessa and Ethan whilst en route to their headquarters at Grandage House, all the while spouting a bizarre admixture of dead languages, which Vanessa realises she can understand. Apparently, in the wake of the vampires, a new player has hit town and now wants to capture Vanessa for dubious ends.

With many flashbacks and side excursions, we discover that these hideous creatures are witches, led by Miss Evelyn Poole (“Madame Kali” from the first series) who wish to claim Vanessa as an offering to their master Lucifer, a Hell-penned spirit once named Amun-ra and brother to Amunet. The key to Amun-ra’s release onto Earth is Amunet, and, once this happens, Armageddon is in the offing.

Like the insectoid vampires of the first season, the witches are an original take on the topic. The scars they bear are “Devil’s marks” showing their devotion to Lucifer and they shape-change spookily, turning from desirable ladies to hideous, night-coming creatures in a heartbeat. They use this power to skulk chameleon-like in plain sight, blending in to wallpapers and woodwork with equal ease. In later seasons of “Supernatural” Dean Winchester deplores witches for their fascination with bodily fluids and portions, and these witches do not disappoint on that score: they spend an inordinate amount of time paddling in entrails and tearing hair.

The frosty Evelyn Poole handles her coven of three with a whip hand, although one of them – Hecate – is kicking against this control the whole while. Bathory-like, Evelyn takes bloodbaths and utters incantations to ensure her eternal – although nonetheless, slowly-fading – youth and beauty, and she creates fetishes in her castle’s basement – voodoo dolls of those whom she wishes to fold into her power, amongst them Sir Malcolm and Vanessa. Unlike the dispassionate and aloof vampire leaders of the previous season, Evelyn is a thoroughly frightening and engaging villain whose devious presence is palpable throughout the show.

Another revival from the first season is Ferdinand Lyle, a position-holder at the British Museum and dabbler in the dark arts. Spectacularly fey, he is essential for the slow revelation of the cosmic games encircling the Grandage House group and he becomes a pawn of Evelyn’s quite early on, allowing her to spy on her foes. However, he undergoes a change of heart and begins to play the double-agent, appalled by the stakes and fretfully unearthing his Jewish roots to find comfort in his existential dread. This character was a very bright note in the first season and I thought that maybe more of him would be too much; happily, the writers have found many facets to his personality, which have made him a continuing delight.

Not so Dorian Gray. This character is so one-dimensional that his presence is inevitably boring and places a halt on the proceedings each time he appears. His role in this series is to facilitate a general meeting of the Grandage House heroes with the resurrected Brona Croft. This he does and it works well. However, the introduction of cross-dressing Angelique does little more than give Dorian another sexual partner to display. There is some mild and brief discussion of Victorian prurience and some interesting historical material concerning the introduction of table-tennis to England, but little else. When Angelique discovers Dorian’s secret, he quickly despatches her by means of poison, but apart from this petulant little display, not much new light is shed on the character overall.

Brona, on the other hand, resurrected as “Lily Frankenstein”, Victor’s ‘cousin’, begins an arc that starts innocently but which turns horribly disturbing. With the Monster (going by the name of “John Clare”) lurking in the background, Victor develops unhealthy feelings for his female creation which she reciprocates, despite being told that she is affianced to Mr. Clare. Meanwhile, the Monster finds work at a waxworks run by the greasy and grubbily money-obsessed Putney family and finds friendship with their blind young daughter. As well, he encounters Vanessa while she’s working at a cholera clinic and finds in her a kindred spirit: despite all of his blathering-on about how the world rejects him for his ugliness, John Clare’s worldview is continually turned on its head – that is until the Putney’s plans for him come to fruition. Brona, in the meantime, discovers her superiority to normal human beings and, with Dorian in one pocket and the Monster in the other, declares open war on humanity, determined to take what she wants from the world and damn all who deny her.

However, these are mainly sub-plots to the main course of the story, which embroils Vanessa and Ethan – doggedly pursued by Inspector Rusk of Scotland Yard – in the derailing of the Apocalypse to come. With Evelyn Poole murdering his estranged wife the better to seduce him, she ensnares Sir Malcolm in a net of witchcraft and captures him within her castle of horrors; Vanessa, having taken certain diabolical steps which have irrevocably damned her soul, goes to rescue him, as does Ethan and Sembene – Sir Malcolm’s African batman – despite the fact that it’s Ethan’s ‘time of the month’ and not good for him to be out of doors. Stumbling in their wake are Victor and Ferdinand, who, despite being well-armed by Ethan, discover themselves to be horribly up to their necks in it.

As in the first season, the performances from all involved are top-notch and, given the far- better-paced scripting, well-nuanced. Frankenstein was fairly wooden in Season 1; here, he has much more to work with and gets his teeth in. A huge benefit to the show is the presence of powerful female roles to offset the male characters: Evelyn Poole is a great villain and Eva Green is fantastic as Vanessa Ives (and fortunately, not as edgy as last year). As before, the scenery, sets and costuming are all first-rate and some of the set pieces – such as the rain of blood at Dorian’s ball – are truly spectacular and strongly-imagined. There are truly visionary forces at work behind this show.

The conclusion to this season is exciting and suitably dramatic with enough loose ends to ensure (hopefully!) a third season. It turns out that “Penny Dreadful” is more than a pale imitation of Alan Moore’s “League of Extraordinary Gentlemen” and more, indeed, than just the best opening credit sequence on TV. Suck it and see...

4 Tentacled Horrors.