I was really thrilled with a lot of what I saw in “Grand Guignol.” Logan was able to move all the stories forward in a believable and compelling manner. Victor’s arc, in particular, is a strong one. He’s gone from golden boy doctor to a murderous mad scientist over the course of the season, delving further into his darker half than he can ever hope to recover from. Something tells me that, next season, Victor will be the most dangerous character on this show – he’s embedded himself within the main group, but he’s clearly working against at least one of them. That Caliban is now more sympathetic than Victor, in my opinion, speaks to the terrific writing and acting on display throughout their storylines.
Though “Possession” was really the Vanessa show, “Grand Guignol” did give Timothy Dalton’s Malcolm a terrific amount to do. He’s the show’s second-most complex character (behind just Vanessa), and Penny Dreadful managed not to short-change him by putting Malcolm into the terrible situation of choosing between Mina and Vanessa more quickly than was even necessary. Logan really isn’t playing around on this show – he’s not dragging any story out more than is needed, and he’s perfectly willing to take the plot wherever it needs to go. The hunt for Mina has been the group’s main focus over the season – to end “Grand Guignol” without any resolution on that front would have been a mistake. Some viewers probably balked at seeing Vanessa and Malcolm come together as they did, but to me it feels like Penny Dreadful has been building to this all season. They are are bound together, as much as they’d like to deny it, and, as Ethan said a few episodes back, they’re really made for each other in how they work to pull one another back from the edge when needed.
The only character I’m dissatisfied with, looking back on Penny Dreadful, is Dorian. He’s still on the periphery, and we don’t know much more about him than we did when we started. Though Reeve Carney is doing perfectly acceptable work in the part, I don’t care about him much at all – and now that Vanessa has cut him off, it’ll take some pretty sharp maneuvering on Logan’s part to keep him involved with the story in an organic way.
I’m also happy that Ethan “wolfed out” in the finale, though that his two pursuers harassing him at the bar is what made him lose control (as opposed to, say, when he was being swarmed by vampire brides) is a little strange. Perhaps Ethan isn’t aware of his other side, and it’s only when his mind has already been dulled by alcohol that he can be coaxed into it? That will need some clarification when the show comes back. Now that Brona’s out of his life (until he wanders inside Chez Frankenstein, at least), I’d imagine we’ll be seeing a great deal more of this unhinged new Ethan. In other Ethan-centric news, his father still wants him back in the U.S. – but why? Still unclear.
Finally, it’s taken me a little bit, but I’ve come around to the ending that Logan went with for “Grand Guignol.” Though cutting to black on Ethan slaughtering his pursuers would have been more enjoyable for me personally, the fact that he checks back in with Vanessa – and finds her on the cusp of agreeing to a painful, potentially fatal exorcism in order to remove the demon (Amunet?) inside her – makes a lot of sense given where Penny Dreadful’s focus has been this season. A lot of the show has centered on the battle raging inside Vanessa, and now that Ethan has helped her to push the demon back down, she’s doing what she can to get ahead of it. But does Vanessa want to be normal? The answer to that, I’m sure, is no – after all, what would Penny Dreadful be without an Eva Green freakout every other episode or so? In all seriousness, I don’t think an exorcism would even work for Vanessa. Whatever makes her so appealing to the Master is deeply embedded and may in fact be part of her soul. Of course, she’s not going to give into her inner demons without a fight – which should make season two, which will seemingly still focus on Vanessa, a fun and scary watch.
That’s all I’ve got for Penny Dreadful. This season, the show kept the twists coming. I successfully guessed that Ethan was a werewolf-like creature, and that poor consumption-afflicted Brona would wind up on Victor’s table, but it threw me for a real loop when Dorian and Ethan hooked up (still unresolved, by the way), and when Proteus and Dr. van Helsing were both brutally murdered. Like the lurid, sensational books of the show’s title, Penny Dreadful really knew how to get me going – and though it’s not exactly high art, I love the show for that.
Two aspects of the season that I’ve touched on a little during my reviews have been the score and direction. Both of those parts of Penny Dreadful did an incredible amount to establish atmosphere and keep things interesting – “Grand Guignol” found both sound and visuals working together to create a gorgeous and terrifying world more fluidly than most of this season’s episodes. In particular, the thrilling vampire attack sequence in the Grand Guignol was expertly shot by episode director James Hawes, and the score was both heart-pounding and genre-accurate. Penny Dreadful has in many ways been more about an overall feel than plot details – that’s not a knock, because I love the feel it has – and the directors this season all excelled in building that atmosphere. Hopefully season two will find many of the same people behind the camera.
I’m a big fan of the world Logan has created, and I’m thrilled that I’ve been able to check in with you guys and write about it week after week (on that note, sorry for the delay on this review – Showtime didn’t release it to critics before it aired last night). Fingers crossed, I’ll still be here and able to write about season two when it hits next year!
I really want to hear what your thoughts were on “Grand Guignol” – let me know below, were you a fan of how Penny Dreadful concluded, or did something not sit right with you? And where do you want to see season two go?