Evelyn has finished her creepy baby hearted Vanessa doll
and now turns her attention to another doll she has, cracking open its head to
reveal the very real and very icky brains inside. This seems to worry her
somewhat
But she gets over it when Hecate returns with Vanessa’s hair. Hecate threads the hair into the Vanessa doll while Evelyn stabs a hot needle into the exposed brain of the other doll. Elsewhere a woman wakes from sleep clutching her head and screaming in agony
At Malcolm’s house, Ethan describes them as being under
siege, drawing on his own experience in the Indian wars (in a battle he says
was to exterminate the Apache, something he seems to regard with disgust and in
frank terms)… He describes how ruthless, how they betrayed them and how they
massacred the Apaches.
Vanessa also knows what they’re doing, making a fetish
with her hair, something Sembene also knows about. They prepare to defend the
house with weapons, rituals and every superstition they can muster. Sembene
draws on his traditions, Ethan on Native American traditions smudging away with
sage and Lyle hides from the others to pull out a Torah and a Tallit, drawing
upon his Jewish traditions. Vanessa bleeds everywhere. Lyle covers the mirrors
and Vanessa prays.
It’s all very very ominous – and then the naked
nightcomers surround Vanessa. She falls, panicked then runs to a praying Ethan.
She panics, fearful for her inability to tell if the nightcomers are there or
just in her heard. She despairs of ever feeling safe and refers to suicide as
the only path to freedom though she clings to her faith. She asks to sleep in
Ethan’s room and he agrees.
She also talks to him about faith, confronting him about
his praying but he has some very deep thoughts about god and responsibility and
how killing someone (“deciding my life is more important than anyone else’s”)
changed him. Vanessa offers her acceptance regardless of what he has “made of
himself.”
Evelyn keeps tormenting the woman with her magic pins – I
think she’s Malcolm’s wife.
When Ethan wakes, Vanessa is gone leaving a book behind.
When he leaves the house Inspector Rusk “asks” to speak to him. He goes to the
Inspector’s office and is massively unco-operative though they do establish
several reasons why he is suspicious. Not least of which because Ethan Chandler
doesn’t appear to be his real name. Inspector keeps pushing him and Chandler
keeps dodging him – the Inspector seems especially interested in pushing Ethan
to admit he knows about Native Americans. They part company and Ethan quickly
loses the man the inspector sets to follow him.
But the man from America he mauled succeeds in following
him to Malcolm’s house.
Over to Frankenstein. The creature, John, is tired of
Victor putting off introducing him to “Lilly” and engages in some throttling.
But, as Victor points out, he can’t stop John going to see her himself, he
knows the way – and John’s own fear and nervousness rises. Victor explains what
he told her of John – that he was her fiancé but that he didn’t know if she
loved John nor that she must love him now – that’s her decision. He confronts
John on whether that was wrong and John accepts that he wasn’t wrong to leave
her love to her own choice. John also worries about his face – but Victor
points out all Lily knows is the three of them, she has no reference for
whether John’s face is handsome or repulsive.
Victor leaves them both (though eaves drops) while the
awkward conversation begins. John tries to push her, pushing her to say she
finds his face beautiful and trying to push their fictional history on her even
though she clearly doesn’t want to hear it. After his recounting she insists
they must start as friends, and reverts to last names, because she just doesn’t
remember all their past together (ha!)
Vanessa has gone to have tea with Victor and Lilly. Lilly
is terrified, nervous, awkward (not just about the city, but simple things like
how much sugar to put in tea) while Vanessa (who doesn’t appear to recognise
her) does her very best to be kind and reassuring. When Vanessa leaves there’s
a lot more flirting vibe between the two – and Lilly is still nervous and
desperate.
Vanessa continues to visit the cholera homeless shelter
and runs into John again, discussing his name (after a poet who was also
considered an outcast). They both recite beautiful poetry about the outcast.
They discuss peace (and how she thinks Victor has found it because he’s fallen
in love with Lilly) even while they discuss how love leaves you vulnerable and damaging
while John laments how terrible he is at woo-wooing or human company in
general. Vanessa decides to help teach him, starting with how to dance.
Now to Dorian and Angelique just having attended the
opera and they run into a man who has paid for Angelique’s company not
realising she was trans – he calls her a “freak”. Dorian steps in the way and
kisses her hand in clear acceptance – and the man spits on her.
At the same opera, Malcolm is with Evelyn and he is well
and truly taken with her. She talks ominous about simplifying his life and “accidentally”
pricks him with her ring. At least Malcolm does seem suspicious of that.
They leave and get laughingly caught in the rain and
Malcolm kisses her for some time before apologising profusely. He kisses her
again and they go into a hotel together where they have sex – her taking the
opportunity to prick him with her ring again.
At the house Lyle is bemused by one often repeated phrase
among the Verbis Diablo they’re reading – Lupus Dei (albeit in several
languages). Hound of god.
Back at Dorian’s, Angelique comes into his room dressed
as a man in Dorian’s clothes – Dorian tells her it’s not really her, but
Angelique tells her story: how she came to London to escape her parents but
being Angelique forced her to become a sex worker and faced endless degradation
– and how Dorian is so lucky to live his charmed life (even as Dorian
challenges the idea that he doesn’t know what it is to be different or that
he’s “normal”.) Angelique tells Dorian how tired she is, so tired of fighting
and Dorian offers to fight with her – and says he cares about who she is as a
person rather than the novelty. They kiss and have sex (and unlike Dorian and
Ethan’s fade to black, this is every bit as explicit as any sex scene on the
show)
Vanessa and Ethan meet at the house and she gives him one
of her shatter-the-walls intense stares (seriously I think that would actually
back fire as seduction, her stare is terrifying) and touches his hair. They
don’t have sex – I thought we were going for a full set
Especially when, during the storm, Lilly is terrified and
runs to hide in Victor’s bed. He holds and comforts her – and she kisses him.
After kissing, Victor jerks away but Lilly then unties her nightgown and puts
his hand on her breast – and they have sex.
Vanessa and Ethan, you’re letting the side down.
Malcolm’s wife is bedevilled by terrible images of her
dead children rising from the grave. In her desperation and horror, she slits
her own throat
Penny Dreadful
you finally give Sembene some input and it’s because he knows about dark
cannibalistic magic, really? He’s allowed to step up with woo-woo?
Similarly while I’m, glad Ethan is harsh and stark in his
description and dislike of the massacres of the Native Americans, this
experience is being drawn upon in a cast that has no Native American characters
or presence; their massacre is an object lesson even while it is being
condemned. Especially since this seems to be used as a stepping stone for Ethan
to pull out some Native American woo-woo.
Ethan’s view of death and killing is a deep one though
and there’s a lot of knotty conflict I want to tease out there. His line
“deciding my life is more important than anyone else’s” really pokes an
unpleasant spike into the idea of killing in self-defence, one of the few acts
of killing most people would agree is justified. It reminds me of the Cut Wife
telling Vanessa she was selfish for helping her friend rather than the many
girls who needed her – harsh moral choices and complete shredding of illusions
and the justifications we tell ourselves seems to be something Penny Dreadful is good at.
Victor and John very belatedly decide to recognise Lily’s
autonomy and agency – which is good but also so very little so very late. The
flip side is I think the show did a good job of showing how little agency Lily
has – or is even capable of. When John asks if she likes her dress she just
repeats “Victor picked it out.” Victor himself points out she’s only ever seen
three people so has no concept on whether Victor’s face is noteworthy or not.
She’s so lacking in any kind of grounding or experience that she’s not even
capable of expressing or understanding preference. Of course, all of that makes
Victor having sex with Lilly all the more gross – even if she is the
instigator, everything she knows about him, herself, the world is based on a
lie. She is in a position of such profound ignorance has been so massively
manipulated it is beyond impossible for her to give any kind of informed
consent.
Angelique facing hatred is unsurprising, but I do wish
there was more to her story than facing prejudice and Dorian vicariously
revelling in it – though I am glad that Dorian actually focuses on comforting
and affirming Angelique, centring his attention on her rather than the bigot
and he didn’t try to emphasise her other-ness as he has been doing or enjoy the
moment as I rather feared he would. I’m also glad that Angelique openly called
Dorian out on his behaviour- that he is revelling in her otherness which led to
him finally addressing his problematic behaviour and caring for Angelique as a
person. That has been desperately needed in their storyline – he has treated
her as a novelty, the next taboo to break (not helped by interviews where the
actor said the same thing about Dorian’s bisexuality) – as a fetish more than a
person. This challenge was just what was needed
I’m also glad we saw them have sex without the fade (and,
if anything, their sex was much more explicit than anyone else’s) – with all
this show has shown, Dorian and Ethan kissing then fade-to-black with only the
implication of more was glaring.
I’m unsure what woo-woo Evelyn’s ring is causing – but I
suspect it may be coercing Malcolm or it may be part of cursing his wife with
the zombie kids
I wonder if that won’t backfire. I mean, Malcolm and his
wife being estranged and he continuing a discreet (or even not very discreet)
affair in those circumstances probably wouldn’t raise too many eyebrows
(against him, anyway), but holding an affair, especially an overt affair with
view to be more than affair, so shortly after one’s wife has kicked the bucket?
Apart from the tastelessness of it, I suspect Malcolm himself would pull away
from Evelyn for a while because of it.
