It seems Vanessa’s encounter with Dorian led to a psycho-sexual response and possession by a demon (thanks Dorian!). It lashes out and toys with audience expectations by acting like Vanessa’s recovered a couple times only to reveal nothing’s changed. The gang restrain her and try to care for her (Sembene deals quite a slap to the face), but it soon becomes hopeless as Vanessa sinks under her possessors control. Meanwhile Chandler begins to suspect Sir Malcolm doesn’t have her best interests at heart and the impatient group begin to squabble over bringing in a priest to perform an exorcism.
Unlike other episodes where the action’s divided amongst the main cast in their separate stories, this one’s mostly confined to one setting and all the characters coming together to look after Vanessa. It’s actually strange for a show as dark as this one to show this level of compassion and friendship. But it makes sense for what we’ve seen of the characters, and we do get that they still distrust each other and aren’t the closest of teams. Scenes like Chandler teaching Frankenstein how to shoot and Chandler passing the time with Sembene (“what’s your story?”he asks just like I have been; it seems Sembene may have saved Sir Malcolm’s life); they’re corny and whimsical though and may not be the best offset to what Vanessa’s going through. There were a couple interesting points while everyone was waiting on Vanessa. Caliban is still waiting for Frankenstein as seen when Frankenstein briefly looks out a window to find him standing outside. We also hear a possible darker story to what happened in Africa when the possessed Vanessa accuses Sir Malcolm of forcing his son to have sex with the local women. Sir Malcolm himself later reveals his guilt for having left Peter behind, coming back to find him dead, and proceeding to name a mountain range after himself rather than Peter. Thus why he’s planning another expedition to bring home the body. Sir Malcolm’s is the story I put more stock in believing, but you never quite know on a show like this. There’s also an insinuation that Sir Malcolm was dissatisfied by his wife’s weight and had affairs because of that. I like that we see Frankenstein being an actual doctor as he looks for a cure to Vanessa’s condition, and Chandler’s comparison of Vanessa’s existence between two worlds to Natives escaping captivity but being unwelcome in their own tribes is pretty good. Chandler also gets into a row with Sir Malcolm when he pressures the ill Vanessa to reach out to Mina. Again it muddles his intentions towards her.
I love the effect Vanessa’s possession has on the vicinity. In one scene, Frankenstein throws a playing card on a desk and spiders swarm out of it (very much like the ones in the opening theme). There’s also a good scene where Vanessa is visited by a demon disguised as Chandler. It ropes you along for a little before revealing who he is and the scene is performed adequately by a petrified Eva Green. The demon also knows about Chandler’s night with Dorian or has some kind of telepathic ability. The rest of her possession sequences are mixed. Sometimes they’re really intense and horrifying, but others are a little overdone.
The real camp comes when they bring in the priest to perform last rites and they do a lot of the Exorcist tropes. The whole idea of Vanessa being trapped in the room, the priest being attacked, her breaking free of restraints, speaking in tongues...it was all done scarier in the William Friedkin film. There’s even a scene where Vanessa’s screaming while we see Chandler looking up at her window with his hat on at night. It’s all I could think about watching the scene and I couldn’t entirely take it seriously. I half expected Mercedes McCambridge’s voice to come out every time Vanessa opened her mouth. And the ceiling crawling was almost downright funny. But I will give props to the make-up. The detail on Vanessa’s body when the bloody symbols begin to form are terrific and right out of any great horror movie. You completely feel for her, understand her fear, as well as the others’ decision to let her die. She’s made to look incredibly pale and unhealthy and it really has an effect. Whatever her true nature may be, you feel enormous sympathy for Vanessa throughout this whole episode.
And the ending is certainly fascinating and unexpected. The priest being incapacitated, Chandler manages to hold Vanessa while chanting and holding a cross, and actually manages to exorcize the demon himself. And then he just leaves. It’s not a bad twist and is executed fairly well with Chandler leaving in the snow making for a great visual. It makes me wonder more about him than I have in the past. How can he perform an exorcism? I actually would have preferred it ended here, instead of the revelation that a fully cured Vanessa now knows where Mina is.
“Possession” delivered on what it promised -it gave us a possession, and while at times it felt too derivative of The Exorcist and sheer amount of demonic powers were hard to take seriously, it gave us some character revelations, confined its action to its core cast in one place which actually worked out well and provided some genuine frights and an unexpected climax. As I said it was very much a penny dreadful, the kind these characters may read. It may not be all that conducive to the next episode season finale but its enjoyable enough. It has that dark gothic tone while at the same time is able to include levitation, other magic, and lines like “she’s been possessed by the devil”-“oh fuck me”. This may not be one of the best episodes, but some of the stuff that happens is the best in the series thus far and I’m hoping it’s even better at the Grand Guignol in the finale.
Comments
Post a Comment