Pilot

The good buzz I’ve heard on Showtime’s latest seems to be warranted, at least through the first hour. Figures that a few clicks over you’ll find me saying there’s nothing quite like Hannibal on TV, and then what should appear but a cable series that shares a lot of its basic DNA: both are a reimagining of a well-known macabre property that oozes mood and viscera, but one that can fit just fine within the trappings of a procedural.

The adaptor in this case would be John Logan of Skyfall fame, and the overlap here makes sense beyond just the inclusion of a former Bond and Bond girl (and, I’m pretty sure, use of J. M. W. paintings). Logan’s Skyfall was about cracking open the pulpy but ironclad outer shell of a cultural icon to see what made him tick. The movie could only go so far within the timeframe of 2 hours with a character as controlled as Bond, but Penny Dreadful is already showing immense promise in terms of how it might take characters of Victorian literature, and make them into television versions of real people.

The pilot is really a lot of fun, in part because it hues strongly to the conventions of a team-up serial, the kind that The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen did well when using these characters in comic form, only to be butchered in movie form with a different Bond at the helm. It established roles for the all the characters as part of a potential working group, and it’s easy to see how the show could make for a modern (read: bloody, scary, naked-y and swear-y) take on Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s monster of the week format.

But the pilot works just as much for how it subverts your expectations, in particular with the characters. The darkness dominating the pilot isn’t just magic and superstition, it’s existential; when two characters are talking around this other world of darkness they’ve peered into, they’re as much talking about actual supernatural evil as they are the missing piece in their lives that’s pushing them into the frightening unknown willingly. Though it plays coy with the deep dark secrets the leads are being driven by, that they have that drive is really quite impressive. The Josh Hartnett character, a cynical American actor and war vet, could very easily have been the main fish-out-of-water perspective for this gothic setting. The handful of characters who seem likely to make up the core cast all display an obsessive thirst for something by the end of the hour, so I’ll definitely be tuning in for more. 

Episode 2: Séance

“Séance” is a really great bait and hook of a second outing for Penny Dreadful, which is quickly rising on my “God, I hope this is as good as it could be” list. The first half or so is full of the usual kinds of concessions a show will make to get the attention of viewers who didn’t tune into the premiere based solely on the premise, and therefore might need a little more enticing. The opening half abandons the dread of the pilot for a lighter touch, thanks to a new character played by Billie Piper, who says she’s from Ireland, but whose accent travels all across the European continent in a given sentence. I was unfortunately captivated by Piper’s affections so I spent a good long while wrestling with them instead of hearing any of the banter she was trading with Josh Harenet. Later, a sex scene between Piper’s character and the show’s tweenage heartthrob of a Dorian Grey made the episode’s plays to the cheap seats seem even more apparent.

But then the episode has the titular séance, and all bets are off. Before saying anything else, it should be emphasized how much of the show’s strengths and potential are tied to Eva Green’s performance style. She doesn’t so much go for broke and seem completely oblivious to the idea of limits; there’s no vanity to her embodiment of the character, so she’s freed herself to inhabit the role fully, regardless of how out there things might get.

The episode crosses back over into its weird and deliriously fun fringe territory when Green’s character becomes possessed by a spirit, and goes through the usual stages of being a possessee. Contortions, a 2-pack-a-day Clint Eastwood growl, and a desire to taunt those around you is the devil’s playbook as established by every exorcism movie ever, but because we’ve established Vanessa as a character, and she’s being plaid by Green, the scene puts to shame many cinematic attempts at aping The Exorcist.  

Because we’ve started to establish a familiarity with these characters, the trauma brought about by and implied during the exorcism has weight; we’ll carry on the details we think we learn about Sir Malcolm with us going forward, and that gives the scene its emotional heft. What we do piece together about Malcolm’s tragic backstory hints at something very wrong in his relationship with his daughter, and his feelings on his son, and by letting Green tear like a hurricane through the scene, it makes Dalton’s work that much more powerful.

To sidetrack: the episode’s ending revelation is definitely the kind of WTF-#PennyDreadful-GIF-Tumblr bait that the show could have capitalized on if it was airing on a network (and had, oh I don’t know, about 10 million more viewers). It’s a bold move ripe with potential. Perhaps because I thought where the plot was going originally had many interesting avenues available already, that we won’t see them (at least for now) means that the last-second reversal earned its dramatic punch. Good stuff. 

Episode 3: Resurrection

Arguably the biggest reason reboots/reimaginings work is because established fiction has built-in hooks for the audience that an entirely fresh property doesn’t come equipped with. We’re in the jazz-era of TV and film, where the core of western fiction has been so deeply established that all there is to do now is riff on that core using the instrumentation everyone is already familiar with.

To that end, I realize Penny Dreadful isn’t a revolutionary show, or even groundbreaking, but it is rejiggering elements of story and character into combinations I wouldn’t expect, and therefore, I’m feeling the same dopamine kick of surprise that you get when something legitimately original and innovative comes along. Episode three does an impressive job of humanizing Frankenstein’s original monster, who loomed heavily as a threat in the last episode’s nasty cliffhanger. They do it even better than their back-fill on Frankenstein himself this week, seeing as the pathways in my brain stimulated by characters with unresolved mother issues are all-but attenuated at this point.

But creating a literally theatrical villain by giving him a home in the theatre? I’ve got to say, I love that idea. Again, it’s not half so clever a story as my brain thought it was at first brush, but Logan uses the component to unify and give different perspectives on the show’s established themes. Theatre, as the primary non-literary form of entertainment of the era, was where an audience would go to escape their problems. Extrapolate that to its furthest conclusion, and even at a show like Sweeny Todd (which Logan worked on the recent movie adaptation of), the viewer is there so they can forget about death.

And it’s in the theatre that those who have cheated death live on, in the form of characters and playwrights that endure for hundreds of years. Of course, the show’s theme of change also works here too; just as the industrial revolution has replaced so many workers with machines, The Creature’s mentor must lament that the days of Shakespeare have given way to Ibsen. Everyone on this show is looking for something solid to cling to as they grapple with what they are afraid of, and so by hour’s end, The Creature’s pained request for a companion hits like it needs to. It goes to show just how good Penny Dreadful is getting at making us sympathize with the monsters. 

Episode 4: Demimonde

I like Josh Hartnett in this show. As one of the more frequent weak links being pointed out by others I see talking about the show, I think what Hartnett is doing with his character is really engaging. Yes, he looks like he came out of the same genetic tube that spawned Ethan Hawke, just with a lower incubation dose of raw talent, but the show has played into his strengths as a hunky dope really well, in particular because of how it’s handling Ethan Chandler as a character.

There’s a really smart little bit from the pilot where after Chandler pulls a lady from his audience for some rather unfulfilling backstagecoach sex, he goes through the usual theatrics of a guy looking to drop the one-night stand like deadweight. Normally, we’re supposed to be smitten with the cad’s feigned heartbreak, and the gal he’s just pulled one over on is meant to either buy the illusion, or just generally look like a dimwit for expecting something more out of the guy.

But the show flipped that with just a line, as the random women responds to his bullshit toast to the memory of their tryst with a simple question: “won’t you want to know my name at least?” she asks, with a playful sarcasm that indicates she knew going in that more than likely, both were just in this for a quick lay. Giving the woman the last word not only makes her seem like an actual person instead of just a rube bedpost notch to elevate how cool our hero is, but it also lets us get a moment with Chandler to really hammer home that yes, he’s somewhat ashamed of his actions, and all the moreso because they’re not filling the emptiness in him.

With that, I think the show established a baseline awareness of its sexual politics that it’s been following into interesting territory. Everything between Hartnett and Piper’s character was pretty rough tonight, as Mrs. Croft is kinda the worst even without my accent issues. Like episode 2, “Demimonde” really snaps into place when centered around a piece of theatre, here an actual play instead of a séance. Art as an expression of inner anguish has been a big theme for the show thus far, and every one of the main characters is putting on some kind of a performance.

For Chandler, a B-movie play version of his worst fears don’t frighten him, as he’s come to love the theatrics in both his profession and personality. An underground rat-hunting ring contains the same savagery as the play, but doesn’t dress it up. Chandler loses his cool because he needs that layer of fiction that makes up his cowboy persona to armor himself against the world’s nature and his own. I think we could be getting a really neat look at the stock masculine cowboy role Hartnett’s supposed to fill, and the ending for this week gives a strong indication that traditional gender norms aren’t Penny Dreadful’s interest. 

Episode 5: Closer than Sisters

The big challenge shows face when trying to build a cast out of characters who don’t already have a history together is that you have to get around to establishing their individual backstories at some point. Something like Game of Thrones involves so much shared history that you can usually get away with info-dumping using monologues and storytelling, but not every show is so lucky. Usually, the flashback is the way to go, and some programs treat the narrative construct as a key part of their DNA, Lost being one of the more famous examples, and Orange is the New Black being a more current one.

Penny Dreadful’s appeal stems from two specific sources that don’t jibe particularly well with flashbacks: the diverse cast of characters, and the mystery surrounding them that’s thick enough to insulate a house. “Closer Than Sisters” bumps up against both of these constraints in spending the entire our letting us in on the history of its most intriguing character, Vanessa, the problem being that info is often the death of intrigue. On paper (which the entire episode is, given the conceit that we’re finding this all out in the form of a letter), what the hour has going for is that it’s pretty much the Eva Green Show once the moppet versions of Vanessa, Mina and Peter’s youth take a hike (that’s not a slam on the kid actors, who are all quite good. But, come on, the show pretty much pulsates when Green’s on screen).

Great as Green’s performance still is, it’s responsible for elevating some tired material. Infidelity at an English manor makes for a slow buildup to the show’s particular breed of horror, but a trip to the asylum was not my preferred way of getting back into the gothic groove. I can see the appeal Logan might find in the setting, as the torture Vanessa suffers at the hands of her caretakers is more frightening than a thousand red-eyed ghouls, and it is based on the actual mental health care standards of the day, only amplifying the terror. And just speaking personally, psychiatric horror has always been a horror pressure point for me, but what left me more squeamish was the need to fill in Vanessa’s backstory with physical trauma and abuse, which can be a lazy shortcut to audience sympathy. All the dudes on the show are dealing with angsty man-pain and guilt, so surely Vanessa’s angsty woman-pain and guilt were already enough without the ice baths and head-drilling, right?

We’ll see. I’m hoping the show starts pulling its threads together for the last few hours, as it feels like enough of the players have been sufficiently setup that we can start letting them play together again. 

Episode 6: What Death Can Bind

CHICANERY! Much as that really is the vital piece of dialogue from this week’s episode for understanding the theatrical charms of Penny Dreadful, the actual thesis statement comes the scene after. “To be alien? To be disenfranchised from those around you? Is that not a dreadful curse?” As delivered by Eva Green as just the opening volley in a game of theme tennis with Reeve Carney’s Dorian Gray, it’s a little overripe like the entirety of the scene (again, theatrics being the show’s most endearing quality), but it does crystalize the real fear behind Penny Dreadful: being alone.

“What Death Can Join Together” is a nice congealing of the show’s strengths after the last couple episodes split them apart, and the result is probably the most consistent hour of the show since the pilot. Though the hunting party for the action set piece was smaller than usual, with Vanessa off on a date, and Frankenstein brushing up on his vampire lore, the episode connected all the dots marvelously by showing the characters in various stages of relationships, and the differing ways they try to hold onto them.

For Chandler and Croft, a mental picture will have to suffice, as their romance seems terminal. The degree to which they seem to love one another is hard to buy, as not only have I not really liked the Croft character, but we’ve barely gotten to know her, let alone Chandler. Still, the haste of their relationship is perhaps what fuels the passion, which is valid enough reason. As a counterpoint, the longest coupling was presumably between Dr. Van Helsing and his wife, his crystal clear memory of meeting her erased after we find out how they finally parted.

Vanessa and Dorian, class acts that they are, go with paintings and photographs to capture their moment together, which lets the show add on more and more nods to Gray’s literary origin, that at this point it might be a fakeout. The show is keeping the identity of its monsters so close to its vest that the most obvious answers seem to obvious (chicanery?! We’ll find out). It’s The Creature who’s most desperate to have something to hold onto, as he’d rather have a partner who lives forever than risk being left alone again.

It’s an old saw, but the desire to connect is the overriding drive behind all these characters, as it was for many of their literary counterparts. The opening credits, which I’ve grown to really love, offer the best representation of the show’s central interest. The first half is all mood and dread, a drumroll to the horror show you’re meant to expect. But the second tells a different story, and rather than just representing the characters with sinister symbols, we get to see in profile looking as human as they might ever be- distant, but reaching out for something to hold onto (save for Danny Sapani as Sembene, who just looks kinda bored; can’t blame him, as he’s had very little to do so far). They may be monsters, but the contours of a snake can be beautiful when you look closely enough, and even a bat may want to take flight in the sun from time to time. Another two hours as focused as this one, and Penny Dreadful should end its first season in fine fashion. 

Episode 7: Possession 

“Possession” is more or less everything one could really ask for out of Penny Dreadful, and represents the show operating at (what’s currently) its upper limit. It had all the basic ingredients of the series’ appeal at its disposal, and threw them all into the pressure cooker that is Sir Malcolm’s mansion. Cook time: one month. The result is an hour overflowing with atmosphere, shady backstories, and some of the biggest flashes yet of pure horror.

It’s tempting to just call it “The “Exorcist episode,” but the majority of “Possession” is about everything that happens on the way to getting a priest. Rather than focusing on solving Vanessa’s possession as some sort of immediate end goal, Penny Dreadful settles in for the long haul, in the process establishing the perfect excuse to get all its characters under one roof for an extended stretch of time. It’s an inspired structural choice, as many seasons of television take place over a shorter period of time than “Possession” compresses into an hour.

But you feel the length, which is vitally important to understanding the show’s approach to these well-worn character types, and its own themes. While the flood of spiders and the increasing layers of flop sweat on Eva Green (whose continued excellence here would require well more than 10 minutes to sum up, so I won’t even attempt to) represent the show at its most theatrical -and at its most obsessed with theatricality as a means of connection-, the broader themes are what’s being pulled together by Penny Dreadful tonight.

The actual mythology at play reads to me like a big mush of Judeo-Christian devilry with some added occultism for flavor, and that’s all serviceable. Even though the literal devil is threatening the end of the world, the most captivating conversations are happening between the other characters as the days stretch on into weeks, and everyone starts getting exhausted and strung out (that goes double for Frankenstein). As supporting Vanessa takes its toll, the personas and costumes the characters protect themselves with start to fall away, tempting everyone to start speaking as openly and honestly as possible.

Penny Dreadful’s period setting allows Logan to draw on past historical traumas and present them as being part of what these characters hide with their outsized personalities. Just as The Wolfman, Frankenstein’s monster, and Dracula can become blown-up metaphors for national anxiety, the human versions of their alter-egos are shaped by regret and fear on a scale that’s greater than just personal. Over long nights of staring literal evil in the face with Vanessa, the American colonial past of Chandler and the British colonial past of Sir Malcolm come to the foreground with force; these aren’t the defining motivators behind these characters, but their personal identities are unmistakably marked by their national ones.   

It’s such skeletons in everyone’s closet that let the show’s most powerful demons, shame and regret, come out to play. Frankenstein, despite being the smartest guy in the mansion, diagnoses Vanessa like any ignorant doctor might at the time: blame it on suspicions of sexual trauma. In essence, he’s willing to chalk up all the crazy shit he’s just seen to Vanessa having lady parts, which speaks to his ignorance as an individual, and a student of a field still ignorant about many things at the time.

The clever bit is that Logan flips Frankie’s expectations even further a scene later, when Vanessa uses her knowledge of Chandler sleeping with Dorian Grey to try and castrate the swaggering cowboy. Sir Malcolm is a hard man whose experience in Africa is so wrapped up in the death of his son that he doesn’t seem to care how his other actions there affected the continent. He’s a callus, but weak man, a father trying to hold onto his daughter by risking her best friend. Chandler, the American with New Empire idealism, wants to believe he can do better, but his own shame for the things he’s done and seen makes him prey to someone like Dorian Grey, or the devil inside Vanessa wanting to further shame him for showing vulnerability.

On a plot level, there were things about “Possession” that bothered me (I think we needed to spend more time seeing Vanessa’s perspective as she grappled with the demon’s influence, and the seemingly literal deus ex machina was a headscratcher), but the mythology stuff is all just bells and whistles ultimately. Penny Dreadful knows that entertainment can be at its most powerful when going for spectacle, but the real heart of theatre just comes from having one person willing to share something, especially a secret, with another person. 

Episode 8: Grand Guignol

With a finale title like “Grand Guignol,” Penny Dreadful was practically going out of its way to raise my expectations. As I’ve said  before, the show’s real hook isn’t the macabre horror or gothic aesthetic: it’s the love for theatre. Outside of Slings and Arrows, I really can’t recall another program that centers so much of its story and themes on stage performance. It feels wholly fresh for the medium, and totally strange that it would take until 2014 for a show to wed its dramatic theatricality with actual theatre (which almost certainly means I’m just oblivious to shows that have already tried this…but let’s ignore that, shall we?).

“Grand Guignol” sets a pair of major scenes on its theatre stage that constitute Penny Dreadful’s bread and butter: unbearable yearning and ridiculous action. Caliban saying goodbye to his life behind the proscenium, and the investigation team fighting for their lives below it offers emotion and thrills heightened to supernatural levels befitting the supernatural premise. Penny Dreadful doesn’t really do restraint or subtlety, and I love it for that. Its characters start off as somewhat clichéd archetypes with terrible secrets, but this allows the show to work from the outside in, and the first season has done a really great job of building connections and binding ties between its most important elements…

But, not all of the show’s elements. Or, most of them, really. John Logan has a lot of proven experience in film, but his first foray into TV plays more like a comic book than a show, and it’s hard to tell if he needed more episodes to connect the dots, or less to avoid unnecessary padding. The “twist” with Chandler that’s finally revealed in the finale is a lot of fun to watch, but that’s because we knew it was coming, like, six episodes ago. Hell, it was so heavily telegraphed, I would have gone 50/50 on it all being a red herring. The show’s overarching mythology is still a big mess, and everything involving Dorian Grey amounted to pretty much nothing for the finale (though after watching an early episode of The Rockford Files recently, Rory Kinnear showing up does let me get distracted by how much he looks like a young James Woods).

Not-terribly-long story short: the show is kind of a shambles. But it’s my kind of a shambles, largely because it’s a show about understanding beasts of a flawed nature. I wouldn’t go so far as to say Logan is making a meta-commentary with the season’s final question (“Do you want to be normal?”), but right now I’m glad the TV landscape can offer something as self-assured in its strangeness as Penny Dreadful. Count me in for Season 2.