Lily wakes up where we last left her, in bed talking to the body of the man she murdered. The lack of remorse over this as well as her maddening ramblings paints Lily in a new light and over the course of the episode we find she’s not nearly as curious and innocent as we’ve been led to believe. This is also evident in her next scene with Frankenstein where though he’s upset, she’s much more confident and ignorant of his strife, utterly refusing his suggestion to flee London. The reason is pretty clear to us as he was woken up earlier by Caliban, who as suspected after seeing Lily with Dorian last episode is not too happy, and violently chastises him for letting Lily go out with others, emphasizing she was made for him. The scene plays out very much like one from the original novel, combining a brutishness on Caliban’s part with commentary on his nature. He leaves with the threat “I will show you the monster you have made” and after what we saw him do to Proteus and Van Helsing in the past, it makes sense Frankenstein would be fearful for his life. It’s no surprise Frankenstein spends the rest of the episode with Sir Malcolm, Sembene, and Lyle, keeping his distance from both of his creations.
But those characters have worries of their own. Early on, Lyle’s giving a report to Evelyn under clear duress and she probes him on information regarding Vanessa and Chandler’s whereabouts. The scene is played very well as Lyle tries to maintain composure, especially after Evelyn comes within inches of killing him. It’s a testament to both Simon Russell Beale’s and Helen McCrory’s skills, to have taken these characters initially set up as comic relief last season and execute tension in their interactions. It may be a bit worrisome that Evelyn suspects Lyle’s loyalties wavering. I wonder if either of them will make it through this season alive. Also that kiss was uncomfortable. Sir Malcolm it’s revealed isn’t as deep in Evelyn’s trance as we may have thought, as he reveals to Frankenstein in a scene where clearly he’s in control that he feels like an outsider to his own actions and behaviour at times, citing his elation during his wife’s funeral as being particularly unlike himself. This might have been brought on in another scene when Inspector Rusk (yes I finally caught his name) comes by to question Sir Malcolm on Chandler and his suspected connection to him. The scene between the two of them is really quite good, you can feel the pressure on Sir Malcolm and the intensity in the room, particularly when Rusk asks why he stopped coming to Scotland Yard about his missing daughter. Sir Malcolm insists it’s because the nature of her death would have been embarrassing to his family. Later, Lyle is revealing a secret about the coming apocalypse, including an apparent brother of Lucifer who they briefly suspect was Dracula. It was really great too how when Lyle mentions “the Hound of God” in his set-up, Sembene visibly reacts, he being the only one who knows Chandler’s secret. Could Chandler be that hound? While this is going on, Evelyn completes her fetish and Sir Malcolm goes full-on possessed, tossing tables, and wreaking havoc before Sembene secludes him in an empty ballroom where his memories and visions of his lost family manage to snap him out of Evelyn’s control. I for one am glad, because it means Sir Malcolm will have more of his own agency and character the remainder of the season. Also he’s not quite as fun when he’s possessed as Vanessa is. Evelyn is taken aback and subsequently confronted by Hecate who it appears may be turning on her. She earlier inquired Lyle about Chandler and now openly questions Evelyn’s power. She’s clearly vying for head witch and I’m interested to see if their tenuous relationship plays into the season’s final two episodes.
It was a triad of big moments that followed all this, any of which could have closed the episode. The first was a catch-up on Dorian’s story. Angelique clearly feeling snubbed sits around his place all evening while he’s out with Lily, so it was only a matter of time before she found his hidden passage. Dorian returns and finds her staring at the picture revealing that it shows him for what he really is and asks her if she can accept him for it. The open-minded Angelique says she can but Dorian poisons her anyway. Harsh. What I love about this is it shows that darker side of Dorian that’s always been there but not really delved into completely, and Reeve Carney plays it well. It’s sad to see Angelique go but it makes perfect sense. Even better, we FINALLY get to see that portrait: the haggard, decrepit, frightening, and just all round unsettling form in chains. We see the marks of Dorian’s murder appear on the canvas; it’s a really great reveal and further establishes Dorian as a player in the supernatural world the more central characters inhabit.
After that, the stuff with Frankenstein’s monsters isn’t through as Caliban comes to confront Lily thinking he’s going to intimidate her. Was he ever wrong! She fights back verbally his accusations, mocking his feelings and preconceived notions of love and poetry. She shows she can physically overpower him too if she wants and lectures him on the evils of man (it seems she’s start to turn into Caliban herself). And Billie Piper really sells this passion but also leaves you wondering if she really means all this, considering what we’ve seen of her and Frankenstein. She proclaims herself and Caliban both demons, and swears never to submit to man again, before seducing him. At a point I wondered if she was actually going to kill him, but in the end it seems she understands they’re the only two of their kind. Which allows me to buy her sudden love-making with Caliban (is that even possible?) after all her demonstrated hatred of him . What’s more interesting is that she vows to kill their creator and Caliban, finally having her as he wanted, seems to agree. Geez, Frankenstein just can’t catch a break. That’s what he gets for having sex with his creation I guess.
Finally, the award for dumbest idea in this episode goes to Sir Malcolm for thinking he could possibly kill Evelyn by himself with her witches around. Does he even remember what happened when they invaded his house? Obviously, he gets captured and has one of those eloquent conversations with his villain, that you kind of need with Timothy Dalton around. Evelyn tempts him into giving her Vanessa but he refuses, counter-offering with himself in her place. Evelyn decides to force him to stay the night, locking him in the room where he soon discovers sitting in a coffin is the body of Peter. He mourns for a little while before Peter’s corpse regains consciousness, as do those of his wife and Mina also in the room, and they begin to approach him similar to in his wife’s hallucination. Yet this doesn’t quite feel as much like a hallucination, and more like zombies -just like “Verbis Diablo”, ending on a pretty goofy but interesting idea.
So yeah, creepy Dorian Picture, a plot to kill Frankenstein by his own monsters (who also seem to want to procreate -somehow?), Hecate possibly turning on Evelyn, Sembene tucking Frankenstein in (aw), and Sir Malcolm having to ward off the zombies of his family. Can’t get much weirder than that? Once again, I feel this episode is perfect in keeping with the title of the show: pulpy yet gripping and oh so intriguing. The horror was on display in the latter half with good suspense all round. Both the Frankenstein and Dorian storylines seem to really be reflecting the tone of their respective sources, and the other storylines are doing creative and dramatic things as well. I’m really curious to see how the return of Vanessa and Chandler is going to effect things. But as is, “Memento Mori” is absolutely great, one of the best episodes yet!
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