PENNY DREADFUL: "A BLADE OF GRASS"
REVIEW
Based off the scenes they had together back in Season 2, we already knew Eva Green and Rory Kinnear worked magnificently together. And that was when he was a totally different character, and not the three beings he wonderfully inhabited this week in the superb "A Blade of Grass." Where Kinnear played the empathetic orderly, Satan AND Dracula.
Just last week, I found myself hoping that an episode like this would come soon. A more isolated, focused episode on par with Penny's previous triumphs "Closer Than Sisters," "Possession," and "The Nightcomers." Time out chapters that help slow the story down a bit while delving into the past. Episodes, with limited locations and characters, that give the show a stage play feel.
Here, this week, it was all about Vanessa hypnotically exploring her past - the five months in an asylum and the close friendship she'd developed with an orderly. A relationship she'd completely blocked from her memory (along with her gruesome run-ins with Lucifer and Dracula - and her contemptuous expunging of them both!)
At first, when Satan first appeared through the orderly, I wondered if the man was even real. Was he the mild-mannered kind father that the John Clare remembered being or was there some sort of subterfuge? Was he another disguise? No, he was real. The Devil just inhabited him every so often so that he could meet with Vanessa. And - interestingly enough - likewise for Dracula. Who was also somehow able to take the orderly's form, making me wonder about the true full extent of his powers. Is he an entity that takes over forms? Meaning, is Dr. Sweet a shell he took over? Or is Dracula's real self the man who looks like Dr. Sweet? Either way, it was still fascinating to see the triple-play between Vanessa and the battling Rorys.
There wasn't much plot development this week, but that was more than okay. Vanessa learned the name Dracula while we learned that the two brotherly halves of the fallen angel - Satan and Dracula - are actually quite adversarial. They're both out for themselves when it comes to their separate affections for Vanessa. And Dracula actually has a more lustful, earthly leg up on Lucifer, as it turns out. So not much story here, but some nice revelations.
But forwarding the plot wasn't what this chapter was about. Green and Kinear, and John Logan's sсript, beautifully laid out a strange, bewitching friendship that only a show like Penny Dreadful could properly nurture. I knew Dracula was coming at some point this week, but what I really got invested in was the interplay between the orderly and Vanessa.. Their "love," really. The way it slowly built from no conversations at all to the orderly removing her gag, fixing her hair and face respectfully, and reading her children's poems, was spectacular. And yes, there could have easily been something creepy and wrong about this pairing, given the power dynamic (he even had to force feed her at one point) and there were desperate moments when things did cross the line, but overall it was heartfelt, pure, and tragic.
The orderly even quit his job, with no other job lined up and a family to support, because of Vanessa's plight. Because of her agony and his inability to continue on at the facility. And the moment when he pleaded with her to act normal, to fake it, so that she wouldn't get lobotomized was such honest, wrenching decency that it brought tears to my eyes. In one episode I started to care more about this man than John Clare (who at times can be challenging to care for given his rage), though it also gave me more of an idea of what John Clare lost/left behind. And what he seeks to reconnect with now.
The Verdict
"A Blade of Grass" was just what Season 3 needed. A Vanessa-centric episode that both added clarity and heart. Along with a thoughtful, amazing friendship between Vanessa and the man in charge of her care at the asylum. A relationship that built itself up magnificently over the course of the episode. I know Penny Dreadful is too much of a genre series for Emmy voters to ever give it fair consideration, but it's episodes like this that make me mourn that fact.
REVIEW
Based off the scenes they had together back in Season 2, we already knew Eva Green and Rory Kinnear worked magnificently together. And that was when he was a totally different character, and not the three beings he wonderfully inhabited this week in the superb "A Blade of Grass." Where Kinnear played the empathetic orderly, Satan AND Dracula.
Just last week, I found myself hoping that an episode like this would come soon. A more isolated, focused episode on par with Penny's previous triumphs "Closer Than Sisters," "Possession," and "The Nightcomers." Time out chapters that help slow the story down a bit while delving into the past. Episodes, with limited locations and characters, that give the show a stage play feel.
Here, this week, it was all about Vanessa hypnotically exploring her past - the five months in an asylum and the close friendship she'd developed with an orderly. A relationship she'd completely blocked from her memory (along with her gruesome run-ins with Lucifer and Dracula - and her contemptuous expunging of them both!)
At first, when Satan first appeared through the orderly, I wondered if the man was even real. Was he the mild-mannered kind father that the John Clare remembered being or was there some sort of subterfuge? Was he another disguise? No, he was real. The Devil just inhabited him every so often so that he could meet with Vanessa. And - interestingly enough - likewise for Dracula. Who was also somehow able to take the orderly's form, making me wonder about the true full extent of his powers. Is he an entity that takes over forms? Meaning, is Dr. Sweet a shell he took over? Or is Dracula's real self the man who looks like Dr. Sweet? Either way, it was still fascinating to see the triple-play between Vanessa and the battling Rorys.
There wasn't much plot development this week, but that was more than okay. Vanessa learned the name Dracula while we learned that the two brotherly halves of the fallen angel - Satan and Dracula - are actually quite adversarial. They're both out for themselves when it comes to their separate affections for Vanessa. And Dracula actually has a more lustful, earthly leg up on Lucifer, as it turns out. So not much story here, but some nice revelations.
But forwarding the plot wasn't what this chapter was about. Green and Kinear, and John Logan's sсript, beautifully laid out a strange, bewitching friendship that only a show like Penny Dreadful could properly nurture. I knew Dracula was coming at some point this week, but what I really got invested in was the interplay between the orderly and Vanessa.. Their "love," really. The way it slowly built from no conversations at all to the orderly removing her gag, fixing her hair and face respectfully, and reading her children's poems, was spectacular. And yes, there could have easily been something creepy and wrong about this pairing, given the power dynamic (he even had to force feed her at one point) and there were desperate moments when things did cross the line, but overall it was heartfelt, pure, and tragic.
The orderly even quit his job, with no other job lined up and a family to support, because of Vanessa's plight. Because of her agony and his inability to continue on at the facility. And the moment when he pleaded with her to act normal, to fake it, so that she wouldn't get lobotomized was such honest, wrenching decency that it brought tears to my eyes. In one episode I started to care more about this man than John Clare (who at times can be challenging to care for given his rage), though it also gave me more of an idea of what John Clare lost/left behind. And what he seeks to reconnect with now.
The Verdict
"A Blade of Grass" was just what Season 3 needed. A Vanessa-centric episode that both added clarity and heart. Along with a thoughtful, amazing friendship between Vanessa and the man in charge of her care at the asylum. A relationship that built itself up magnificently over the course of the episode. I know Penny Dreadful is too much of a genre series for Emmy voters to ever give it fair consideration, but it's episodes like this that make me mourn that fact.