Review: Penny Dreadful - Season 2

WARNING - random spoilers contained below. Consider yourself warned. 

Sigh. 

I had high hopes for the second season of Penny Dreadful. I really did. I kept checking Amazon to see when the season would finally post (which didn't happen till about 2 weeks after the physical copy was available...super frustrating) and was excited when it was finally available on October 19th. Thanks to all the episodes being posted at once (instead of once a week, like season 1), I binge watched and finished it off in about four days. 

Sadly, I am unable to report that it was an improvement over season 1 (for that review, click here).

The story continued from where it left off last season, with Vanessa (mostly internally) fighting the demon and everyone else trying to figure out the whys and wherefores of what is going on. There's some more backstory about Vanessa, though there are still some lingering question marks. You figure out pretty quickly that Madame Kali (Helen McCrory) is more than just a dabbling medium and the major sidekick of the big bad...and that she's uber creepy.  John Clare/Frankenstein's Monster (Rory Kinnear) has a larger role and becomes one of the more interesting side plots, while Dorian Gray (Reeve Carney) fades into a mostly unnecessary character, until the very end of the season when he teams up with Lily (Billie Piper), together basking in their immortality...and possibly setting up one of the antagonists for next season?

Pros: 

1. Eva Green (Vanessa Ives) 
2. Timothy Dalton (Sir Malcolm Murray)
3. Josh Hartnett (Ethan Chandler) 
4. Time frame (late 1800s) and location (London)
5. General setting (beautiful architecture) and costumes
6. Literary characters - Doctor Frankenstein (Harry Treadaway), Dorian Gray (Reeve Carney) and Frankenstein's Monster/John Clare (Rory Kinnear). 

Cons: 

1. Sex/nudity. I mean really...come on! We get it...you like each other! Could we move on now? 
2. When Dr. Frankenstein created his first (well, second) monster, we got that he was naked in creation. We don't need Lily's creation in all it's...detail. Uuugh. 
3. The endless naked witches. Granted they're scarred and scary (as opposed to sexual), but they were in "night form" so much, it got a bit ridiculous. 
4. This season, the culmination of all that happened basically resulting in Vanessa despairing and "deciding she has to deal with this alone." Without God. Or Ethan. Or Sir Malcolm. 
5. Sembene (Danny Sapani) dies. Boo and hiss. 


My biggest problem is with the ending, the season finale. Vanessa Ives (Eva Green) has been fighting demonic possession pretty much from the very beginning and even with making several bad choices along the way (her relationship with Dorian Gray, sic-ing the dogs on the evil creepy guy in the backwater bog who killed her witch friend), it's her hope and faith - in God and her friends - that's been saving her. And yet in one felt swoop, they toss that aside. 

She doesn't give in to the demon...but she does give up on herself. Makes no sense.

Creepy, creepy doll! 

When Satan tempts her in the form of the fetish doll Madame Kali created, it's in the form of what she wants most - a normal life with the man she loves. He shows her what that would look like...being Ethan's wife, with two children, and nothing supernatural pursuing her or her friends. Just give in and this could be yours. And she resisted even that, winning the battle against the devil (the result of the war has yet to be determined)...only to give up and shut herself away at the end of the finale. 


And then there was Ethan abandoning her at the end as well. At the beginning of the season, he thinks about leaving for the safety of their little group (he knows something bad is happening, though he still doesn't know he's turning into a werewolf), but then he decides to stay once he sees how vulnerable they all still are (cue the "nightcomer" witches). He slowly became Vanessa's protector, the Lupus Dei...Wolf of God...and they clearly develop feelings for each other. And then suddenly in the finale, he is overcome and distraught by the violence & death he caused while in wolf form (which he has no control over, except when it comes to Vanessa apparently) and decides to turn himself in. Since Sir Malcolm is taking Sembene's body back to Africa and Dr. Frankenstein has come to understand the horrible mistake he made in creating yet another monster and falls deeper into his drug addiction (opium?), this leaves Vanessa alone in a dark and scary house. So much for being her protector. 

So they are now scattered to the four winds...Vanessa in the house in London, Dr. Frankenstein in his hazy hovel, Ethan chained up in a cage on a ship bound for America and Sir Malcolm transporting Sembene's body back to Africa. Considering the interactions between characters is one of the main draws, I can't see things working out well for the show. 

Long story short...I don't think I'll be checking back in for season 3...which bums me out. The show had real potential.

I should mention that this has not dissuaded me from dressing up as Vanessa for Halloween. Tuesdays post will be pics from the office Halloween party (this afternoon) and hopefully of the Vanessa Ives ensemble.

TGIF and have a safe and fun Halloween! 


~ Katie

Song of the day: I've only listened to a few songs by Bastille - the same two or three seem to pop up on my Pandora station a lot - but my favorite is Pompeii. Enjoy.