Penny Dreadful - S01E03 Resurrection (2014)

Review

We learn what lead Victor Frankenstein away from the poets, in particular the romantic poets, and into human anatomy, medicine, and the creation of life. Offsetting this of course is The Creature who knows more about the human condition, both the extreme negatives and the positives, than Victor could ever hope to learn. The Creature has sort out Victor not so much for revenge but due to a particular longing, a request Victor is not going to be able to deny. Seems our young Doctor will again be playing God, and that can't be good for anyone involved.

Meanwhile over in toff land the rather severe Vanessa is having visions of Mina, who we learn was betrothed to a certain Mr Harker, who wants Vanessa and the team to rescue her from the clutches of ultimate evil. Sir Malcolm deduces that Mina might be at the local zoo and the team head in, naturally after dark. Ethan Chandler, who we learn is on the lame, is dragged in as he needs money for medicine to help Brona Croft with her consumption condition. The Scooby gang arrive at the zoo and interrupt a vampire who is munching down on monkey. They capture the vamper with the aim of extracting information about Mina's where abouts. We learn that the ultimate evil, which may or may not be Dracula, might well be using Mina as bait to get at Vanessa!

Let's be clear about one thing here, Sir Malcolm and his ragtag band of hunters are not only embarking on a quest to save Mina but also to stop the end of times from happening due to the convoluted notion that vampires are derived from Egyptian gods and are somehow seeking the union of Amunet and Amun-Ra which will spell apocalypse, and not in a friendly zombie bitting way! I'm still vague on the details, but that's what I'm absorbing from the past couple of episodes. Amunet was the Egyptian goddess of air and invisibility, though her exact role in the mythology seems to have changed between Egyptian dynasties. She seems to be either a Goddess who welcomed new comers to the underworld, or in later interpretations the Goddess of tombs, sarcophagus, and coffins. Conversely Amun-Ra was considered to be a God involved with the hidden aspect of the sun, i.e. night, which would definitely fit in with the vampire mythos we should all be across considering the genre we are travellers in. No amount of research turned up any information on why the union of the two Egyptian deities would lead to Ragnarok, but I figure Justin Bieber is probably the terror that awaits us all if Sir Malcolm doesn't taste success.

Sir Malcolm and his team might be the only thing standing against the apocalyptic forces of ancient Egypt!

To the episode, and my what an awesomely cool hour it turned out to be. We get some background on Victor, which explains his current obsession, we get background on the Creature and why it has a literary bent, and we get hints that Ethan Chandler may be on the run from the law in his home Country. And that in a nutshell was worth the price of admission alone. Penny Dreadful is still finding its feet for mine and hasn't really got past the pilot concept yet hence the continued filling in of what went down prior to current events.

Probably the central development in Resurrection was the finding and capture of the vampire Fenton. Clearly Sir Malcolm is after information, and has gone to the lion's mouth so to speak, but equally I got the distinct impression Fenton was only too happy to be captured and was a part of his master's ultimate plan. Which actually makes you wonder just what machinations are happening that we are unaware of as yet, remembering some maniac or supernatural entity has been ripping apart the odd Londoner which has the local Police confused as to whether or not Jack is back? Whether or not the two plot angles will merge isn't clear at this stage, but I'm wondering if perhaps there isn't some grand design going down.

Interestingly just before capturing Fenton the team are confronted by a pack of wolves, no not werewolves, which certainly had me scratching my head over why exactly they were running free in the middle of London's zoo, are there no nightwatchmen securing the area? Not surprisingly Ethan Chandler proves his worth by facing down the pack leader in a pretty tense scene. There were two things I was intrigued with here, firstly the wolves are a clear reference to Dracula, the whole children of the night thing, and secondly why didn't the wolves note the presence of the vampire in their domain? On the bright side the CGI was absolutely brilliant, there were no seams showing, which really brought home to me at least how good the post production work has been on this show thus far. I've got my fingers crossed that the wolves get another run later in the season, they are a welcome addition to the show but their exact purpose remains elusive.

Of course there are mysteries a plenty already in this show, what exactly is Vanessa's back story, what is Ethan running from, and the mysterious manservant Sembene seems to have a lot of knowledge of the arcane though he remains pretty close mouthed. Clearly there's a lot more details to fill in and I'm expecting the next few episodes to be chock full of background information. Actually I'm not discounting Brona Croft having some major role to play going forward, she seems slightly too convenient a character and is getting a lot more screen time than a minor character normally gets without having a central role to play. Hmm Brona Croft, consumption, and Victor Frankenstein, just some loose ideas there folks but it does have a certain ring to it.

Before I forget, anyone else noticing the show is being sexed up more with each episode. Last episode we had Vanessa doing the wild thing on a London street with some random, this week we got a pretty steamy sex scene between Ethan and Brona, though it was slightly too obvious that a double was being used and we weren't enjoying Billie Piper's boobs. So yeah lap it up you perverts, yet another horror outing that is dipping into the voyeuristic pool of perving.

Another excellent episode that continues to build the plot of Penny Dreadful while not making any great leaps into the unknown. I'm digging the gradual introduction of new characters and new elements to the story but kind of want something to actually happen in terms of moving things along. There are some real decent developments thus far, vampires, demons, the creature, and of course literary characters brought to life but the actual plot arc remains elusively out of vision. Sure we know Sir Malcolm is intent on saving Mina, and we now know his supernatural opponent, who remains out of sight, may have an ulterior motive to abducting her, but the ever increasing proof of the end of days approaching is going to add a real wrinkle to Malcolm's family reunion plans. I've got the feeling the best is yet to come in the opening season, stay tuned if already watching, else if not ensure you have this one pencilled into your viewing diary. Full recommendation, my current favourite television show.