![]() Lily evolves from Victor’s puppet (mirroring Evelyn’s control over her voodoo dolls) into a being empowered by Brona’s subconscious sexual drive. Fashioned from the corpse of consumptive prostitute Brona Croft, whose death Victor assisted, Lily is another visitor from the grave come to haunt the mortal world. After constructing a female mate for his lonely “son” Caliban/John Clare (an outstanding Rory Kinnear), Victor’s desire for new creation Lily (Billie Piper) embraces abashed romance, sexual abuse, and crushing rejection. In counterpoint, the sins of the father revisit Victor Frankenstein (Harry Treadaway). The return of the repressed is his Achilles heel and, although his warm memories of Mina, Peter and wife Gladys do free him briefly from Evelyn’s influence in “Memento Mori”, she uses their deaths to trap and torment him. As a way of ensnaring Vanessa, Evelyn exploits his guilt over the death of his children and estrangement from wife Gladys. Sir Malcolm Murray’s past-his disastrous African expedition resulting in the death of his son Peter, followed by his mercy killing of vampire victim and daughter Mina-also informs the present. The city as character is underlined in Rusk’s investigation of the slaughter at the Mariner’s Inn and in the phantasmagoric crime scenes on display in another new location, Putney’s Family Waxworks. ![]() Similarly, Ethan’s lycanthrope curse (and true identity as Ethan Lawrence Talbot acknowledging Lon Chaney’s character in the classic 1941 film The Wolf Man) finds him in the sights of the Pinkertons and of new character, Scotland Yard’s Inspector Bartholomew Rusk (the stoic Douglas Hodge). Exposed as a werewolf in last year’s dramatic climax, Ethan’s immersed further into Ripper’s London, that mythical late nineteenth-century fog-bound metropolis haunted by Sherlock Holmes, Dracula, Jekyll and Hyde and Dorian Gray. I think you are the most human man I have ever known. Clare, there is around me a shroud that brings only pain. ![]() The scattering of table-top clues our characters use to decode this series’ Milton-esque medieval curse in “Verbis Diablo” and “Evil Spirits in Heavenly Places” replaces last season’s deconstruction of the hieroglyph-tattooed vampire. Logan also continues to weave detective fiction within his reworking of the Gothic genre. By the showdown of “Memento Mori” she is no longer a victim possessed by demons and is strong enough to enter Evelyn’s mansion and fight for her very soul. This retelling of her initiation as the ‘little scorpion’ redefines Vanessa. She is representative of a Christian-Judeo female consciousness struggling to regain “paradise” from a cast out demon Master determined to possess her. Logan explores Vanessa’s occult origins in “The Nightcomers”, a superbly played two-hander between Green and guest star Patti LuPone as young Vanessa’s mentor in the dark arts, Evelyn’s sister (nicknamed the Cut-Wife by local villagers). ![]() The snowbound confrontation between its two female leads, Vanessa Ives (Eva Green, enthralling as ever) and Evelyn Poole (the brilliantly matched Helen McCrory), immediately established this year’s arc. Using the reappearance of Evelyn-formerly known in her professional guise as spiritualist Madame Kali in season one-creator John Logan richly embellishes the personal histories of major players Vanessa, Sir Malcolm Murray (Timothy Dalton), and Ethan Chandler (Josh Hartnett).Īfter an initial entanglement with Evelyn’s coven of witches, Sembene (Danny Sapani), Sir Malcolm’s personal bodyguard, responds to Vanessa’s query “do you believe the past can return?” with “more than that, it never leaves us.” The past has terrible consequences in season two of Penny Dreadful and previous misdemeanours and indiscretions, sins and betrayals, return to haunt them all. ![]() Penny Dreadful’s second season opener “Fresh Hell” effectively restates the show’s modus operandi. ![]()
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