S02.E01: Fresh Hell

[Maum]

Saying that I am re watching season 1 episode 7 (Vanessa's possession) and Victor is giving the priest some good sass.

He's much more fun when his creature is not around.

Edited May 8, 2015 by Maum

[raven]

Yay!  Glad the show is back.  I'm all in for whatever they're doing.

 

Love the wax museum setting; looking forward to extended creepiness there.  Shouldn't be too long before Caliban offs the owner's wife, maybe accidentally while she's being annoying. 

 

Eek at Frankenstein and dead Brona.  He always seemed kind of asexual, I guess he's just into the dead.  Ew dude.  Will we get a triangle with him and Caliban, maybe a quadrangle with blind daughter at the wax museum?

 

I love supernatural creature stories, esp ones with werewolves (and werewolf tales are very rarely done well), so Ethan with his sad intensity works for me (plus, cute Josh Hartnett; the skinny, fey types like Dorian and Victor aren't physically appealing to me).  I liked the friendly, protective vibe with Vanessa; how she seems vulnerable and then bam! out comes the Verbis Diablo. 

 

Helen McCrory is doing a great job as Madam Kali.  It'll be fun to see where it all ends up.

[kathyj]

I love this show!  It has been disjointed since the beginning and I enjoy that - makes me think more. Let me see some more Josh and Dorian (and I'm a 68 year old heterosexual woman)!  I'll also take some Josh and anyone!  

The new episode was excellent.  Great setup for things to come.

I love the witch stuff - how weird they look without clothes.  Madame Cali is a real bitch and I love it. And, Frankenstein, you are a bad boy (didn't guess you were a necrophiliac (sp).  Disgusting!

Vanessa is an excellent actress and I can't wait to see how she defeats Lucifer, again.....!

I have a soft spot for Caliban - hope he lasts out the season.

[Maum]

I forgot to add. Didn't Sir Malcolm's wife look wonderfully Victorian? She looked like a portrait brought back to life.

[BuddhaBelly]

 

As for Frankenstein feeling up dead Brona and the possibility of a love triangle- I'd throw in Wolf Man, cause I don't think he's going to be thrilled his dead love has been reanimated as a companion for Caliban.

 

I think Ethan's eyes are firmly set on Vanessa. I think reanimated Brona will cause some issues later but, imo, he's fully shifted his focus.

[Former Nun]

I find that I no longer care about the storyline.  I just like looking at everything...the characters, make-up, the scenery, the costumes.  It's like a wonderful moving picture book.

[ganesh]

I was thinking it's more like a graphic novel. The establishing shots are so stylized. The show is *white* and pristine, and then the carriage is so black. The blood spatters all over the place. 

[paramitch]

I loved this, and am so happy the show's back. It's just such a visual treat -- the sets, costumes, cinematography and lighting are all stunning.

 

Poor Vanessa, already on the brink again. But I love how much strength and power is in her, and how much Eva Green is able to portray with just a gesture. I loved her powerful moment of simply putting out a hand in warning as the other defenseless Victorians attempted to help her. Her clear "Here there be dragons" gesture could not have been clearer. And I was weirdly happy to see her affected by the latest fears and encounters -- I prefer her when she's open with others -- with Ethan as here, and even more touchingly, with Malcolm. I love every single scene between Malcolm and Vanessa -- there's this just beautiful tenderness there.

 

I'm very interested in Caliban's continued evolution. He's now more  cultured and in control as "John Clare," and I loved the moment when he hung his hair over his face to hide the scars at the waxworks, then visibly seemed to say, "Fuck it," pushed his hair back, and entered proudly. The blind girl's moment, a huge cliche, managed nevertheless to be touching, and I of course immediately hoped she'd see the beauty in "John," who wants love so, so badly. (I hate what he did last season, but in his case, the one thing that will heal him and change him is the one thing he wants so desperately -- love. Without love, he is a murderous id. With love, he could rule the world.)

 

I didn't take Victor's caress of poor Brona to be necrophilia so much as a guilty moment of curiosity. He's been shown pretty blatantly to be a shy, studious and virginal young man, and to me the moment, while definitely creepy and uncomfortable, could also be read as the one in which Brona ceased being a 'project' or 'object' and started to become real to him. I think he'd never managed to see her as a real woman before that moment somehow.

 

I LOVED the Victorian intensity of the moment of life and reanimation in the storm for Brona. It was so gothic, with both men screaming, and then Brona's delicate little fingers reaching over the edge of the tub. And that final shot of her just standing there naked and shivering, regarding them, was just so powerful.

 

Brona offers such gorgeous plot possibilities! She offers the potential for relationship and sexual evolution for the virginal Victor, she's the long-promised "object" for John Clare, who of course never needed a woman to be created for him in the first place (and who is already faced with a beautiful young and potentially accepting woman at the waxworks), and she's the loved and lost object of sorrow for Ethan. What will Ethan do if and when he sees the reawakened Brona? And what about Brona's memories? Will she remember Ethan? Will she remember the fact that Victor killed her? I love the possibilities of all of it -- they're all so fraught, and she even offers potential further interesting potential with both Dorian and Vanessa, who have after all, met her before.

 

Meanwhile, that opening scene with the witches was so striking and gorgeous and brutal. I continue to love Ethan, and think Josh Hartnett's work on this show is easily the best and most nuanced he's ever done. Ethan's self-conscious gentleness is all the more moving now that we know what he is and what he's capable of (seemingly as a pure beast, and with no control over his actions, although we do see that he seems to remember at least glimpses of what the Werewolf does). It was wonderfully fun to rewatch Season 1 knowing Ethan's struggles, which I found very poignant as he is almost always the pacifist of the group, almost always the one to speak up for the victims -- it's like he does what he can while he is in control, as if in penance (hopelessly) for what he does when control is lost.

 

My one minor complaint would be that the bar was closed when Ethan rampaged on the two Pinkertons. Right? So why didn't he just dispatch them and move along? Instead it looks like he killed a barful of people yet missed one of his main objectives. It feels a tiny bit like a retcon but we'll see.

 

So glad this show is back, and I'm absolutely loving Helen McRory's expanded role. Bring on the evil witches! And I love that Vanessa is faced with a strong female adversary.

[RedheadZombie]

It seemed that Vanessa was not at Mina's funeral.  I wonder if Mrs. Murray still blames Vanessa for Mina's fate.

 

 I love every single scene between Malcolm and Vanessa -- there's this just beautiful tenderness there.

 

I didn't take Victor's caress of poor Brona to be necrophilia so much as a guilty moment of curiosity. He's been shown pretty blatantly to be a shy, studious and virginal young man, and to me the moment, while definitely creepy and uncomfortable, could also be read as the one in which Brona ceased being a 'project' or 'object' and started to become real to him. I think he'd never managed to see her as a real woman before that moment somehow.

 

I almost teared up when she went rushing down the staircase, and reached for him for comfort.  That relationship allows me to forgive all the bad things Malcolm has done.  And there's something so moving to me, seeing all the men gather again to protect her.

 

I didn't think Victor was a perv either.  I thought the scene was almost beautiful.  I think he felt a connection with Brona right before she died, and I feel she knew what he was going to do, and almost gave him permission.  He had plenty of chances to creep on Vanessa when she was on death's door, and instead he was very protective of her.

 

Meanwhile, that opening scene with the witches was so striking and gorgeous and brutal. I continue to love Ethan, and think Josh Hartnett's work on this show is easily the best and most nuanced he's ever done. Ethan's self-conscious gentleness is all the more moving now that we know what he is and what he's capable of (seemingly as a pure beast, and with no control over his actions, although we do see that he seems to remember at least glimpses of what the Werewolf does). It was wonderfully fun to rewatch Season 1 knowing Ethan's struggles, which I found very poignant as he is almost always the pacifist of the group, almost always the one to speak up for the victims -- it's like he does what he can while he is in control, as if in penance (hopelessly) for what he does when control is lost.

 

I loved that scene.  So much happened so fast, that I'll have to re-watch.  Interesting that the witches recognized him as a wolf man - which makes me wonder if there is a treatment for him.

 

I didn't appreciate Hartnett through the first half of season one.  I actually thought he was the weak link of the cast.  That's changed, and he's one of my favorites.  His acting here really reminds me of his character in 30 Days of Night.  He played the sacrificial hero in that movie, and the ending always brings tears to my eyes.

 

Why did Vanessa draw a scorpion with her blood? BTW, I know she is lovely and intelligent, but does every unholy being have to want Vanessa to be his bride? ;-)

 

That really confused me.  I think the impression is supposed to be that, in juxtaposition to Madame Kali's Satanism, Vanessa was appealing to God.  Therefore, the astrology(?) confused me.  I did look up scorpion symbolism, and found that Egyptians considered the scorpion a powerful guardian.  That makes sense with the Egyptian references last season, but not inside Catholicism, and Vanessa's pleas to God.

 

It was always Satan, he was trying to possess her after she saw her mother with Sir Malcolm, before and after her transgression with Mina's fiance,  at the asylum she told the doctor "she" watched hundreds of men drown on a slave ship. Even after she came home, when Sir Malcolm appeared to her in her bedroom, he all but admitted, he was her old friend, still hanging around and she called him out as the Devil. 

 

He also appeared as Ethan in Possession.  It killed me, because the scene was so tender.

 

Madame Cali is I guess supposed to remind me of Elizabeth Bathory?

 

That's my impression.

[luckyroll3]

Let me see some more Josh and Dorian (and I'm a 68 year old heterosexual woman)!  I'll also take some Josh and anyone!  

I'm right there with you!  Also a hetero female, and that scene between Dorian and Ethan was one of the hottest things I've seen on TV.  I just wished they'd shown a bit more!!  Also, I just recently rewatched The Faculty, one of Josh's first movies, and was commenting to myself how much sexier and manlier he now is on this show.

[Bec]

I liked the super creepy song Madam Kali was singing while luxuriating in the blood bath.

 

Funny that he regularly reanimates dead people, but monsters speaking perverted angel speak is over the top. Or maybe he thinks there can't be a God because otherwise he'd have been smote already?

But reanimating dead people is science! He has hard proof that it's real. And scientific proof would be super important to a guy like him. And also I think the answer to your question is "yes". Hee!

 

Frankenstein feeling up dead Brona was gross. So I guess they are going in that direction? Good, I don't want Caliban to have anything.

It was gross, but also kind of… sad? Corpse touching is all the human contact Victor has. It started off well enough, like he's an expectant parent about to bring his child into the world. And then it went to the icky bad touch place.

 

I'm glad I'm not the only one who reads it more as "child-like curiosity" and not "predator", though. I mean, when someone interrupted with a knock, he reacted like a little kid with his hand caught in the cookie jar. It was hilarious.

 

Victor did look every bit the mad scientist when the lightning was flashing and he was pulling levers with that deranged look in his eyes.

 

It seems like the story has to go that Brona doesn't like Caliban. I never thought about the possibility of putting her with Victor, but it would make sense as a way to keep up the conflict between Victor and Caliban.

[LittleGreyCells]

I can't believe that on a show this well-written and with such apparently intelligent actors no one pointed out that it's "memento mori" not "momento mori".

[Affogato]

On 4/24/2015 at 8:07 PM, justjoan said:

They did have sex; possessed!Vanessa said as much. But unlike the lots and lots of naked Eva Green romping around with a variety of fellows in a variety of poses, all PD showed of the sole gay pairing was a kiss. The double standard is dated and cowardly.

 

Still, that's less annoying to me than the pointlessness of Dorian Grey in general.

Dorian Gray was kind of pointless? He had a great opportunity and wasted it on petty debauchery?

The resurrected male and female corpses are shown naked and full frontal, though, which is something.