Wednesday, July 01, 2015

Recap/Review: Penny Dreadful's 2x09: And Hell Itself My Only Foe

It's time for the penultimate episode in the current season of Penny Dreadful and it's certainly an episode that contained some rather surprising moments, if also a few rushed ones too.

Written by John Logan
Directed by Brian Kirk


The Witch's Lair: After nine episodes of this season, the moment finally arrived for Vanessa and Evelyn to properly face off (and Hecate too). Of course Malcolm being kept as prisoner was going to be more than enough for Vanessa not to listen to her friends and go to save her 'father' of sorts. I really liked the confrontation between Vanessa and Evelyn - restrained but effective as the latter more or less began to drip feed her general plot to Vanessa while Hecate continued to undermine her mother at every turn as well as trying to make Vanessa jealous by discussing Ethan. Come next week though, this mother and daughter duo won't be a problem for anyone ever again.


The Wrong Time To Change: In the first ten minutes of this episode, one of Ethan's ongoing problems was taken out the equation. However Rusk is still around to make Ethan's life a living hell and Hecate certainly took delight in trying to tempt Ethan into her way of thinking as well. However I did massively enjoy the scenes between Ethan and Sembene in this episode as the latter encouraged Ethan to tell Vanessa the whole truth about himself. Unfortunately given the way this very episode ended, things don't look so good for Sembene who really has come into his own this season.


Family Torture Hour: For this week, both Malcolm and Victor had to deal head on with their failings as fathers in a pretty interesting way. Malcolm was reminded by his wife, Mina and Peter about his responsibility for their deaths while Victor ended up facing Caliban, Lily/Brona and even Proteus as well. I did find it interesting that both Malcolm and Victor ended up locked in the same room, unable to help each other as well.


Rule The World: I am really liking this darker side to Lily/Brona/whatever she's calling herself these days. Not only does Billie Piper pull it off so bloody well but it's also moving things forwards as well. After Dorian figured out that Lily was Brona, he then got into something of a faustian pact with her as Lily manipulated him into revealing more about his darker side. It does make me wonder if the show is setting up both Lily and Dorian (maybe less so) as the main antagonists for the third season? Interesting if they are.


Caged Poet: Well, it finally happened. An episode appeared where I felt sorry for Caliban. After Lily reduced him to a whipping boy last week, this week Lavinia and her awful parents decided to trap caliban in a cage with a poetry book so they could run their own little freak. Caliban might be one of the few characters I'm happy for this show to lose but even I don't believe he deserves this fate. Hopefully next week's finale will see the end of Lavinia and her parents.

Next week, it's the finale as Vanessa and Evelyn go to battle.

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