S03.E08: Perpetual Night / S03.E09: The Blessed Dark

[Tara Ariano]

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Ethan, Sir Malcolm and Kaetenay return to London, where Ethan searches for Dr. Frankenstein. Meanwhile, Dr. Seward discovers Renfield's secret; and Lily reveals a heartbreaking story from Brona Croft's past.

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Season 3 ends with Ethan learning the shocking truth about Kaetenay, and Dr. Seward using hypnosis on Renfield. Meanwhile, the Creature must make a moral decision that could affect his relationship; and Sir Malcolm, Ethan, Kaetenay, Dr. Seward and Catriona fight to save Vanessa.

[sjohnson]

All those people will be fighting to save Vanessa. How very adoring of them. (The show would have us think feminist, I suppose.) But it seems confused to me.  Who will fight to save us from Vanessa?

[PS posted after seeing the finale---Ethan is the one who saved us, at the cost of the Eva Green Show. Have to admit, didn't see it coming.]

Edited June 20, 2016 by sjohnson
saw the episodes

[WaltersHair]

When did it become a two part finale? I just found out tonight. Seems...sudden and not a good sign for renewal. Going up against GOT of all things.

[LadyChaos]

I don't like the closing of storylines that I'm seeing.....I do like the Sir Malcolm and Cat interaction...I do think this is the first time Victor is really seeing the true Lily......and I'm not all that surprised that Kaetenay probably made Ethan a werewolf, however I did notice that he seems to be able to control his change where Ethan cannot.

Edited June 20, 2016 by LadyChaos

[LadyChaos]

1 hour ago, WaltersHair said:

When did it become a two part finale? I just found out tonight. Seems...sudden and not a good sign for renewal. Going up against GOT of all things.

There still calling it a season finale...so...that's hopeful....

[raven]

GOT season finale is next week, maybe they were avoiding that.  Or they want to push these endless Ray Donovan commercials or Almost Famous (I won't be watching either though).

So very modern Cat is annoying me again.  I'm trying, because I did like her scenes with Sir Malcolm.

So the wolf question is answered.  The timeline is confusing me a little, the guy at the dock seemed to imply that the fog had been there a while and Cat did too when talking about how many people were dying...then it seemed almost like same day that Lily was locked up in Bedlam. 

Glad Victor showed some humanity.  

Again, who is going to clean up at Dorian's??

On to part two.

[LadyChaos]

OMG THE START OF THE FINALE IS DIFFERENT!

[raven]

Yeah that was pretty cool :)

[LadyChaos]

2 minutes ago, raven said:

Yeah that was pretty cool :)

I loved it!

[LadyChaos]

I really like Dr. Seward

[WaltersHair]

Oh hell no. To EVERYTHING

[lmsweb]

WTF SHOW?!?

[LadyChaos]

I'm sorry dumbest ending ever!

[lmsweb]

Oh god, tears. That last scene just broke my heart. And that's it for the show, folks. It won't be back for another season.

[WaltersHair]

THE END. I think that explains no renewal.

I'm out. Worst finale of a show next to M*A*S*H I've see in my life.

[LadyChaos]

I'm so mad! I just cant even.

 

The End.

 

WTF!!!!

[raven]

That sure felt like a series end.  How can we have a series end without Mr. Lyle?

No no no!!  OK - maybe it's a contingency ending in case PD isn't renewed.  They teased us with reincarnation talk.  They teased us with Hyde!

I liked Dr. Seward's mind game with Renfield.  I liked how they casually picked up Victor at Bedlam "hey we're going to save Vanessa, wanna come" "Sure". 

I liked that Victor is still game but is not the best at fighting monsters.  I did not like Cat the vampire slayer.

I liked that John Clare made the right decision about his son and I guess chose burial at sea so Margery wouldn't be tempted to dig him up.

I liked that Vanessa made her choice.  Being the Mother of all Evil looks pretty dull, actually.  You just stand in a room full of candles and stare at the wall, no thanks.

Dorian got dumped again (Vanessa dumped him first).  I thought Reeve Carney did well with his little speech to Lily, it was the most compelling he's been in a long time.

I could listen to Rory Kinnear recite poetry for a long time.  That last shot of sad John Clare at Vanessa's grave alone was beautiful.

But yeah WTF show.

[LadyChaos]

I don't know.....I feel like it was an end with an opening, like they wrote it not sure it would be over, but figured they could make of what they could.  They left enough bread crumbs JIC IMO.....I have a feeling that the verdict has not dropped for the network yet.

[BuddhaBelly]

Why? Why did they do this to us? Why can't we have nice things?

[Traddles]

I am so pissed off right now.

[WaltersHair]

There was a small part of me that thought Eva Green was going to show up at the funeral in a Catriona red wig and be like "Hey guys, it's me!"

Instant reincarnation/body snatcher.

I just can't get over how mean this ending was to the series' fans. Not only do they kill Vanessa, but have Ethan do it too. Just no. I'm seriously, murderously mad right now.

[LadyChaos]

1 minute ago, WaltersHair said:

There was a small part of me that thought Eva Green was going to show up at the funeral in a Catriona red wig and be like "Hey guys, it's me!"

Instant reincarnation/body snatcher.

I just can't get over how mean this ending was to the series' fans. Not only do they kill Vanessa, but have Ethan do it too. Just no. I'm seriously, murderously mad right now.

I'm at odd right now over what pissed me off more, This ending or the ending to Allegiant

[raven]

Well some wild googling turns up "no decision yet".  So Logan's keeping his options open ?

But I want my show back...9, 10 eps, whatever they'll give me...but it was always supposed to be Ethan/Vanessa.

I'll just grumble away incoherently here.

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Not only do they kill Vanessa, but have Ethan do it too.

It's so gothically, tragically Victorian.  She trusted him to do it because he loves her and he did it because he loves her.  She wanted out of the pain and awfulness and he gave that to her.

I'd rather they ended up back on the moors, growing food and wearing fabulous sweaters together myself.

Edited June 20, 2016 by raven

[LadyChaos]

1 minute ago, raven said:

Well some wild googling turns up "no decision yet".  So Logan's keeping his options open ?

But I want my show back...9, 10 eps, whatever they'll give me...but it was always supposed to be Ethan/Vanessa.

I'll just grumble away incoherently here.

This reeks of 'No decision yet' IMO...........maybe they are trying to see how much outrage they will generate first.    Seriously, I just cant even right now, over how mad I am

[WaltersHair]

I'm gone either way. I'll come back to the thread this week to see who the suits send in to post and do damage control.

[Jcap]

Worst ending by a Hollywood mile I've ever seen in a series ever

 

No showdown between Dracula and Ethan

Vanessa wasn't involved at all in the good against evil struggle...

Ethan kills Vanessa????  Really....?..the one he is destined to protect??

Dracula spends 10 minutes choking the one guy while Ethan slowly walks down a hallway to eventually shoot vanessa

 

I could go on....but this was just really dreadful 

[absolutelyido]

So possibly the series finale and we get about 5 minutes of Eva Green in almost two hours. Really?

I suppose it can make sense that Ethan's destiny to be Vanessa's savior was by killing her and ending her torture, but why was it necessary for him to be the Wolf of God when he just shot her with a gun as his normal self? What was the point of him being a werewolf and killing a lot of innocent people? And does Vanessa's death really end her suffering? Hasn't she been around for thousands of years if she is the reincarnation of Amunet? Isn't her soul just going to come back into another tortured life, still being pursued by Dracula and Lucifer?  A lot of this just doesn't make any sense to me.

Edited June 20, 2016 by absolutelyido

[Pogojoco]

Wait.....what?

[sjohnson]

Amunet/Vanessa isn't coming back. She saw God, so she's out of the game, home free in heaven. Being the incarnation of an ancient Egyptian sex demon, she was 1)the most powerful character in the series, never needing to be saved but 2) the one we needed to be saved from. This was as happy an ending as she could hope for. This is an unusual type of resolution, the deus ex machina, where God steps in and resolves the story. (Technically, the "machina" in "deus ex machina" refers to the use of a machine to lower an actor playing a god onto the stage. But God only appears offstage in Vanessa's vision. And His dialogue is the Lord's Prayer, uttered by Ethan and Vanessa. Still, I think you could only call this deus ex machina.)

Jekyll changing into Hyde by becoming an aristocrat? The most believable monster on the show. No duality like in that silly Stevenson novella, just a bad man through and through from beginning to end.  

It's sort of believable that Frankenstein could relent. After all, as Lily says, he created her as an offering to save his life. It still doesn't make any sense that he's so much worse than the creature John Clare, but the reminder makes it clear that the kind of premeditation and malice we couldn't believe disappearing was never there. What's not so believable is Lily's change of heart. Basically, the Lily plot resolves with Frankenstein slapping some sense into her. A little icky, that.

The Dorian ending where it's made clear that Dorian is the portrait and only the portrait is nicely done. Completely unlike the novel but effective in doing something different (which come to think of it is very much like Logan's script for The Time Machine.) 

John Clare resolving to feel totally miserable and talk in a stage whisper for eternity was wholly believable (but not that gripping for me.) 

Everybody should be dead of course. But the anticlimactic way the supplementary villains lie down at the earliest opportunity explains why they're not. 

Logan does not expect the series to be renewed. As a series finale, it works. 

[JulesKikiCobb]

This was the series finale. Eva Green says, "I feel quite sad. I don't know what to say."

 

Edited June 20, 2016 by JulesKikiCobb

[bilgistic]

I just wish Mr. Lyle could've been at Vanessa's funeral. He will be heartbroken.

[numbnut]

Well, that was depressing. And all those monologues/speeches. Criminy Pete. I got a few laughs when Dracula's night creatures showed up like breakdancers in a Janet Jackson video, but WTF? So many disappointments. Why did Eva Green get so little screen time? I'm surprised Lily didn't burn Dorian's painting as payback, and I'm still confused as hell with the whole Dracula End of Days thing. So Vanessa lets Dracula bite her because she wants to wait for Ethan to kill her? Ugh. Whatever.

Edited June 20, 2016 by numbnut

[AlwaysWatching]

I feel so stupid. Had no idea the series was ending. This was a first for me. A total surprise!  What's really sad about it is that these last two eps definitely felt like they were rushed or simply not thought out all that well.  Maybe it was more like, uh, we've got to tie this up one way or the other, so let's just give everyone a quick ending.  If it makes sense, great. If not, we tried and it was fun ya'll. But, I'm not really angry about the ending - just sad and bit disappointed.  I will miss all of these characters.  And I will admit, I was so curious about where they would have gone with the "Lily" storyline.  Makes me wonder why they were so convinced the show would not be renewed.  Hmm. Oh well, it's all over now.

[TrueMyth]

Man, that sucked!  I was really enjoying this season until these final episodes.  So upset about Eva Green's screen time and the SINGLE Ethan/Vanessa scene all season that wasn't a vision. Gaaaaah!

[TiffanyNichelle]

Wow that really sucked. What the hell was the point of this season? I'd rather it was cancelled at the end of last season in order to avoid this mess. 

[Glade]

What???  This can't be the series finale!  This show...brings all of the feels, everyone tonight, Dorian, Victor, John Claire, Ethan...everyone brought it.  The dialogue/writing was absolutely gorgeous, I cried...  I love these characters, this show...it can't be all over now. 

I kept waiting for Victor to pull Ethan aside at the end and tell him, 'Brona's alive.'  And Malcolm, or someone but especially Malcolm should have shot Dracula before he disapeared.  I was waiting for the show, as well, to explore racial politics by having the serum turn Dr. Jeckyl white!  This can't be it... they wasted so much of the last season by focussing it all on Ethan walking in the desert and Lily giving pathetic misandrist speeches to whores she's training as serial killers while Victor languished in the psychiatric hospital not seeing his friends at all...they could have given better buildup to this ending! 

One person I did not love was the replacement for Mr. Lyle who should have been there with his friends!  I'm so sick of Cat and all of her shallow comic book one-liners and her outfit taken straight from 'The Matrix!'  She does not belong on this show, she belongs on CSI and its a huge drag.  Her propensity to act obnoxious in other people's houses instead of just giving the proper reference to being a colleague of Lyle's was not charming. 

Why did they attack during the day, when Ethan and Katenay couldn't transform?  I'm glad that character and his insistance on being Ethan's father finally paid off and made sense.  Patti Lupone was electrifying with Renfield tonight; I'm so glad they explored his humanity as well, and he didn't die meaninglessly like Fenton in season 1. It makes sense that she was at the battle in the end, just like the book's Dr. Seward, one of Lucy's suitors... 

Poor John Claire...he made the right decision, but oh the pain and loneliness!  As Dorian foretold, endless loneliness...  I was sure that Lily would go on a killing spree once released (and therefore reminding me of Orlando...), but she too chose grace, and as Victor said, humanity...  She and Victor and then she and Dorian were amazing in their scenes tonight. There was no time for Ethan and Brona, but as I said, there could have been a word from Victor...not that I want to watch her for another moment, but if it's really a series finale...

This was just beautiful and heartbreaking, but also so wrong!  There has to be a season 4!  Even if Vanessa only shows up in dream sequences or ghostly apparitions or something...surely there is more to explore, in at least one final season...

The ending did remind me a great deal of Bram Stokers Dracula (the film), where Wynona Rider's Mina cut off Dracula's head in the church head to 'give him peace' after declaring her eternal love for him.  Surely as the hound of god Ethan could have used some powers to heal Vanessa or something?

I don't want this to be the end!

Edited June 20, 2016 by Glade

[BloatedGuppy]

Welp, that's got to be up there with the most disappointing season/series finales I've ever endured. We're in Deadwood/Battlestar Galactica territory. Seems like the decision to tank the show would have come around the time of Preacher's launch. Season 3 was shaping up beautifully, and then everything felt abruptly rushed/sketchy, leading into this joke of a finale. The first few episodes of Preacher were aggressively mediocre, too, so it's good to know an excellent show died so a turd could slide into its place.

Even if they did decide to bring it back, which it seems obvious they won't, it would be very difficult to invest. Green was the pillar the show was built on. Most of the characters had their arcs closed, whether naturally or by force. I'm not sure anyone needs or wants a zombie Penny Dreadful to shuffle along for another season or two without its star.

What a crashing disappointment. It's gone from a "must own on DVD" series to a "wipe it from my memory, post-haste" situation.

[Raachel2008]

You fucking kidding me? I can't even. 

[polyhymnia]

Ugh.

Awful.

I really have no words.

[spaceghostess]

What in the actual fuck?

Talk about yanking the rug out. The change in credits gave me a not-so-great feeling; I should have stopped there. My beloved Vanessa and my beloved show all wrapped up in a depressing little bow? Beautiful to look at and great performances as always, but so very many things wrong. I mean, I get why Logan would kill off Vanessa. I don't agree, but I get it. But separating her from every single other character (except the divine Mr. Lyle) for the entire season)? I said after episode one that I wasn't thrilled about everyone being apart, but that I trusted the PD crew to do it right. Now I feel betrayed.

Sorry this is so grumpy and disjointed. I'm just really, really disappointed. My favorite thing on TV just went out with a whimper, and I feel blindsided.

[rozen]

Like what? What progress did we make this season? They might as well have had Ethan shoot Vanessa last season, and spared 7k English people who died during the "Thriller Plague". She didn't even get a final scene with her chosen family, the people who risked their lives to come save her. We deserved to at least see them all together one last time. 

I guess every other incarnation of Amunet...spent their whole lives running? Locked up in whatever version of insane asylums existed in their time? What was special about this iteration that allowed her to escape to heaven? Ughhh, none of this makes sense, and we spent so much time on characters I literally care nothing about. 

At least Lily made it out of that misogynistic death trap. Dorian's reaction was...actually pretty sad and pathetic. I guess it would make sense that if you live for too long, the regular beats of life are so predictable as to become invisible to you. It would almost be like sensory deprivation. When something even a little interesting pops up, he takes it like a petulant child and is upset if anything "changes" it. That's a nice twist on the concept of an immortal human, took a long time for us to get here, though. I dunno why turning Lily into Victor's Stepford Wife was any better than letting her burn out as a revolutionary, though.

[ulkis]

I didn't watch. Did Ethan at least rip off his shirt and scream in anguish after he killed Vanessa? At least give a nice ridiculous melodramatic opera ending over here.

[Cthulhudrew]

2 hours ago, bilgistic said:

I just wish Mr. Lyle could've been at Vanessa's funeral. He will be heartbroken.

Maybe he always knew it would turn out this way. He did refer Vanessa to an expert in the dead, after all.

Sad to see it ending, it definitely felt rushed, and there was a little too much "hand wavium" going on with all the travel in this early industrial era and getting people in the right places to meet up(I noticed the oddness with the timeline and the Bedlam Boys, too). Miraculously, the most compelling story this season was John Clare's, after he'd been such a dud the past two seasons. I did like how they left Dorian; he was truly the most evil of them all, or at least the most amoral.

I still love the show, and I might not even feel so bad about the ending had it not been kind of pushed through so suddenly. I think they wrote themselves into a hole with splitting everyone up at the end of last season, and didn't have time to bring things together the way they should have, but that may just be my opinion, and this was the plan all along. In any event, I will miss it, and especially Eva Green's amazing Vanessa Ives.

[AuntieMame]

I'm with y'all. I don't even know what to think. Except that I actually thought what the fuck? While watching this. 

And after all of our closely reasoned, impassioned dissection of the feminist and literary subtext of it all. I will have to come back tomorrow to think about what Ethan killing Vanessa means in all of this, though it does parallel Mina Harker's death in Dracula. Just, no, this wasn't the way for the most interesting heroine to go. 

Now for the pithy. Billie Piper is like watching a train wreck and I've seen her in a !ot of things. I can't say I enjoy it, but I'm damned if I can look away. I think we've really failed with immortal characters who began as humans. Weirdly, I think Dorian is a pedestrian possibility. Bored, spoiled, full of his own ennui. The original Dorian didn't have anything except his looks going for him, so a second rate immortal seems to fit, as annoying as it was to watch at times. 

Poor John Clare lurking to pay his grief and respects. And it fits that he is one of the most moral and compassionate characters in the end. He was compassionate in life too. 

I wasn't against Catriona in theory, but she seemed like she was imported from one of those Kate Bekinsdale horror movies. The entire thing felt cartoonist at the end and I've loved these characters. 

Overall, a disjointed disappointment. I'll be back tomorrow to see if I have further thoughts Bout killing Vanessa to save her. Just wrong.

[BuddhaBelly]

This season had such wonderful threads and didn't live up to any of them. PD has always had a weakness in terms of season finales but it was aces at building the threads until we got there. This season felt like a big waste of nothing, especially when it ends with Vanessa's death. Her and Ethan spent the whole entire season apart except for the last 5 minutes. What in the world?

Dr. Jekyll could have been something special but he was sidelined for most of the season and yes, I get it, the main focus is Vanessa and her issues but why bring him in if he's ultimately not going to do what he planned? Nice touch with his title being Lord Hyde but it felt empty.

I don't mind the end between Dorian and Lily. That felt the most poignant and who knew RC could act like that this whole time? I sure didn't because they didn't give him anything to play with but once they did he was solid gold.

I refuse to touch on Ethan's dumb separate storyline again because I've expounded enough on how it makes zero sense for the character they built for 2 season. However, it still needles me that he never learned that Brona was traipsing around London because of Victor and I never felt more cheated that after watching him hug Victor. The dynamic of their relationship has changed so much that I would love to see that confrontation.

Cat, why? Unless they're planning to use her as the Vanessa replacement if they get a 4th season and just no. ::insert grumpy cat::

I really tried to hold out hope on this season. It is honestly one of the most stunning shows on tv, but this whole season felt like we were running in circles and nothing like the first two seasons.

[Netfoot]

Cat is obviously the replacement for Vanessa, should the show move forward.  Which, frankly, seems unlikely.

This ending has not left me replete.

[Primetimer]

...Huh.

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[MissVanessaIves]

I could rewrite the ending of this entire episode but I will just say this. I would have liked to see Ethan go into the room Vanessa was in and have at least 10 to 15 minutes of dialogue before they finally consummate their feelings surrounded by light and candles. As the wolf of God, his light and power would help her transcend and that would be the end of the darkness upon Earth (sending Dracula & creatures of the night back to the Earth)  and he could rule at her side, kind of like a yin and yang. I'm sure there are lots of holes in this theory, but it's all I got........ I'm still so devastated from what I actually saw. I mean there are so many problems with this I don't know where to begin! So what ended up happening to Lily? What about Jekyll and Hyde? What about Frankenstein where is he going to go? Why was Sir Malcolm involved in any of this in the first place? With the way they ended it Mina  is not enough . Very irritating and unsatisfying. My biggest problem because obviously shows don't have to do whatever I think they should is that the end was lazy and when you have an actress like Eva Green,  to not write her finale Act as a tour-de-force is such a waste of talent.

[maraleia]

The only thing I will say is this show made me really love Eva Green. As for the ending WTF?

[Waldo13]

Season 4: "To be or not to be, that is the question".  If not, I don't find the Penny Dreadful finale better or worse than any other series finale. In a way they all suck because the series has ended and there are many questions unanswered or left to our imagination. The Sopranos and Dexter come to mind. 

With Penny Dreadful, I don't question how and why things happen probable or improbable but I watch because I'm totally fascinated by the characters, the period costumes, the dialog, and the superior acting lead by Eva and Rory.  In what other series can a monster bring you to tears so many times?  In what other series can the heroine be so believably strong and vulnerable, at the same time.  If PD is over, there is going to be a big hole in my Sunday night viewing.