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Penny Dreadful Reviews: "The Nightcomers"


         Okay, this is unusual. A Penny Dreadful episode I didn’t really care for. Don’t get me wrong, there was good stuff in it. Some of the visuals were well done and the performances from Eva Green and Patti LuPone especially were very good. But it feels so disconnected after the last episode, a pointless diversion that may have worked better later in the season. It’s obviously trying to be like “Closer Than Sisters” in how it’s providing a backstory for the events of the season, and more development for Vanessa on top of that. I just don’t think it’s as needed or dramatically fulfilling as that earlier episode was.
          Vanessa, only mildly affected by the apparent voodoo from the end of the last episode (then again, Evelyn didn’t seem to have a lock of hair or anything), confides in Chandler more of her hidden backstory. Apparently after meeting Mina but before coming to Sir Malcolm, while wandering the moors looking for a Brontë story, Vanessa found the home of a witch called the Cut-Wife who after some convincing, began training Vanessa in the art of witchcraft. Only for Evelyn to show up and cause trouble establishing a relationship existed between her and Vanessa prior to the series. We see Vanessa gain control of her powers and Evelyn display more of her sadistic bitchiness.
           I don’t really see the point of revealing that Vanessa knows witchcraft. Sure it’s handy for the season to come but it seems like her demonic clairvoyance is already enough. Also while “Closer Than Sisters” revealed almost a complete backstory, this episode focuses on just one point in Vanessa’s life that really just feels squeezed into a possibly open spot in the backstory we learnt from that previous episode. The story isn’t all that strong, consisting of Vanessa hanging out with the Cut-Wife, learning things occasionally, at one point coming across an aimless wanderer, but reiterating a lot of the gloomy foreboding dialogue we’ve had before concerning Vanessa. And when not that, it was just Evelyn -the Cut-Wife’s older sister trying to lure Vanessa to her while also infiltrating higher levels of society. We’ve already seen her dominant personality among her coven, was there really a reason to show her manipulating a lord to the point of whipping him naked? I suppose to articulate further her power and emphasize his forced subservience. But you don’t care about him so there isn’t any suspense for whether she’ll kill him or not. And the fact that with the exception of Vanessa and Evelyn there’s no continuity from the last episode. Take out the opening establishment of the flashback and this could easily have been placed at the beginning of the season. That might have worked better as a set-up. There aren’t really any scares, only mediocre supernatural effects, it doesn’t amount to a good episode. The one thing it provides is an explanation for the scorpion Vanessa had drawn in blood which isn’t that big a mystery to rack your head about. This is also a case where it doesn’t help the episode at all that most of the cast is absent.
          I will say the cast present does do a good job. Eva Green’s got a grasp on her character by this point that’s very believable and Patti LuPone is pretty good as her Yoda; the character comes across as actually caring and wise but also wary. Her story of being turned into a witch by her sister is interesting, and I kinda liked that one of the early scenes where they’re talking by the fire looks a lot like the Ring backstory scene from The Fellowship of the Ring. Even Helen McCrory is a little less over-the-top than she was before, though the scenes she’s given don’t do her any favours. We don’t learn anything new about Evelyn except that she’s been around for a while and has had her eye on Vanessa (which is a little odd considering she didn’t take much note of Vanessa in her first appearance). Everyone else is forgettable. The production design is pretty good though and I do like the change in environment to a small house on a spooky moor. It’s a good looking episode at the very least and the fate of the Cut-Wife is done well enough and creatively. Indeed that climax with call-backs to witch hunts is alright but there’s a lot of padding to get to it. Vanessa gets a handful of good moments, there’s some decent dialogue, and Vanessa is given a chance to get the best of a lecherous creep. Even if it does lead to a witch riot.
          But at the end they set this up as the moment Vanessa became who she is -but didn’t we already have that. “The Nightcomers” is trying hard to be “Closer Than Sisters” when that episode gave us enough to justify Vanessa’s character. I get the showrunners want to keep a sense of mystery about her and may even have more revelations to come; but the origin of her supernatural relationship and how it’s affected her personally I think has been done, so this episode though nice to look at and with some good performances, is pointless. I really like Eva Green in this role but there’s only so much glooming and fearfulness of her future I can take before it becomes dull. There are ten episode rather than eight this season and I feel like this was one of the extras. Hopefully the next episode will return us to the plot and characters we’re interested in following.

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