Ethan and Hecate continue their wandering through the old
west which is all full of deserts and death as we’re reminded frequently. No
really, everyone has to tell us how deadly the landscape is probably because we’re
not seeing a lot of said deadliness.
Except Hecate. She totally wants to follow Ethan to his
dad’s and kill lots of people so they can all be super dark and evil rulers of…
everything? It’s an ambitious albeit vague plan. Ethan is against this and her
murdering people to get their horses (though he still takes the horses and
supplies. That’s a convenient evil companion to have around – don’t want to do
anything morally questionable? Let your evil companion do it, judge them and
then enjoy the result).
Hecate isn’t exactly on side with his judgement, or moral
grey areas. She doesn’t particularly see a whole lot of moral room between her
choosing to kill people and Ethan losing control and killing people – the
bodies are still on the ground. Obviously there are flaws in her reasoning but
it also begs the question of how much Ethan must restrain himself before the
murders he causes are intentional. Especially when they are convenient – like escaping
his captives.
They’re being followed by Inspector Rusk who continues to
have a lot of class and coolness. He tries to introduce Marshall Franklin Ostow
to the concept of the occult.
They’re also being followed by Kaetenay, the endlessly
cryptic and Malcolm. Kaetenay predicts all kinds of spooky bad things happening
if they can’t keep Ethan on the side of goodness. His prediction sounds almost
apocalyptic… albeit vague. It isn’t helped when he discusses Hecate’s presence
with Michael and they find the bodies she left behind
Malcolm also champions Kaetenay against some nasty
racists… there really feels like a kind of forced redemption narrative with
Malcolm this season. Taking the imperialist explorer with the characterless Black
servant and now making points about how imperialism is wrong and racist
segregation is terrible? I mean, obviously they are wrong and terrible, but it
feels more like an attempt to make it clear Malcolm isn’t like Those
Imperialists more than anything else.
John Smith, Caliban, the monster, has arrived back in the
city to try and chase his memories. After moving through several poor parts of
the city, seeing the pain and poverty people are suffering, he seems to find
his son and his wife… he doesn’t introduce himself to them. Especially since
his son is sick.
He does see Vanessa, but backs away when he sees she is
happy with Dr. Sweet
Of course Vanessa’s apparent happiness is complicated to
say the least. Dr. Seward continues to be toweringly awesome and every scene
she’s in is beyond amazing but Vanessa insists that she has to believe Vanessa’s
story rather than assume they are delusions caused by her pain. She can back
that up with a display of her psychic skill – and a reminder that her stare is
intense enough to stop a vampire in its tracks. I think Dr. Seward is going to
have to rapidly reassess things
Vanessa and Dr. Sweet – Dracula - do continue on their
happy little outings, until one of his minions decides to confront Vanessa, and
reveal that his master once saw her when she was locked away in a mental
institution. Reminded that dark things haunt her, Vanessa realises she’s
putting poor Dr. Sweet at risk (especially after he has just revealed he is
vulnerable after the recent death of his wife) and she cannot drag him into her
world. Tragically she breaks off their friendship
Dracula is Not Pleased with his minion, which because
creepy minion food for the other minions. And yes, they are very creepy
Vanessa returns to Dr. Seward seeking hypnotism. I’m
actually impressed by how non-dramatic the hypnotism is and how Seward is quick
to point out its limitations and the risks of uncovering sealed memories (and
can I say again how awesome she is). Still Vanessa manages to revisit her past
and drag up a memory: one of the orderlies in the mental institution
Speaking of – in Bedlam Henry and Victor continue their
experiments – and Victor seems to think he can make Henry’s serum permanent: so
mankind doesn’t have to constantly fight their base urges which Henry thinks is
an inherent struggle of humanity. It will be interesting to see what each side
considers a “base urge” since both “lust” and “ambition” have been listed
Lily, Dorian and new protégé Justine continue to plan
their ruthless take over of the world with a brutal murder to mark the
recruitment of Christine: murdering the paedophile who raped and enslaved her. They
try to make a point about how morally difficult this is and how she will never
come back to it – she doesn’t even hesitate and kills him before the echoes
have died. Justine has no moral issues with murdering her evil tormentors.
Then they all have an orgy covered in blood, obviously.
There’s an interesting moment when Lily and Justine see
the suffragettes struggle and Lily is adamant that they’re not like them: both
in tactics (Lily prefers low key suffering) and in goals (they want mastery not
equality). I think it’s interesting because though Lily has some epic speeches
about misogyny and the abuse she and Justine and so many women have faced, it’s
also likely they’re going to go into further and further acts of violence (and
blood soaked orgies) and it’s unlikely all of their victims will all be as
obviously deserving. While we can wave flags for Team!Lily now, it’s not likely
we will continue to do so. There’s a real risk of straw!feminism here: where
feminists are presented as violent haters of all men stab them all RAWR. The point
of “we have the same enemies, but we are not them” may be expressly not to
label feminism with the potential crimes they will committ
It remains to be seen how this is going to develop
