Tag Archives: finale

The Disappointing Penny Dreadful Finale

Posted on by
2

Penny Dreadful ended its three season run this past weekend…wait for it…dreadfully. After much gnashing of teeth, I decided the only way to exorcise my despair was to hash it out in a blog post. Spoilers ahead.

Let’s start at the beginning. When I first heard about a new show which was to bring together Victorian monsters and actors like Eva Green, Timothy Dalton, and Josh Hartnett, I fist pumped my joy. Green played Vanessa Ives, a tormented woman living with her surrogate father, Sir Malcolm Murray, played by Dalton. They were joined by Hartnett as Ethan Chandler, a mysterious gun toting man from the wilds of the American West, Harry Treadaway as Victor Frankenstein, and Rory Kinnear as Frankenstein’s monster. Later Dorian Gray and the bride of Frankenstein would join the crew, but the story was always about Vanessa and her struggle with darkness.

In Season One, the gang came together to fight vampires that abducted and turned Sir Malcolm’s daughter Mina. Vanessa felt responsible for her best friend’s fate as she, in a moment of weakness, allowed her “demons” to take control, and she seduced Mina’s fiancé. Through the battle with evil, each character had moments to demonstrate how they battled their own inner monsters, literally (Ethan was a werewolf) and figuratively against a sometimes lurid, gorgeous, gothic backdrop of Victorian London.

Season Two delved deeper into each character and brought us truly sublime episodes like when we glimpsed Vanessa’s time spent with a witch (Patti LuPone) years back. In this episode, we learned, as did Vanessa, more about her power and oh how awesome it was. She displayed her strength which came into play when she defeated Satan himself in the season finale. We also learned more about how Ethan was “Lupus Dei” or God’s wolf and much was made of his role in defeating the forces of evil. And the show finally succumbed to the awesome chemistry between Eva Green and Josh Hartnett in the wonderful episode where Ethan traveled with Vanessa to the witch hut and they walked the moors, Ethan wore chunky sweaters, and they fell in love. The show gave us so many wonderful moments: Vanessa and Ethan, Vanessa and Frankenstein’s monster, the mournful Victor, and weird, sexy if pointless Dorian Gray. The show’s strength lay in the moments in which the characters interacted so what did they do in Season Three? Give us more sexy Vanessa and Ethan? Explain Dorian’s purpose to the story? Explain what exactly was Vanessa’s power? No! Instead they kept our monstrous heroes separated until the…wait…not season finale, but series finale.

But I’m jumping ahead in my condemnation. Vanessa, our strong, sometimes fearsome heroine who defeated the Prince of Darkness using mad demonic rapping skills, who successfully fought off the dark forces inside her, and after finding out via Native American instant messaging, that her family was on their way to help her defeat Dracula himself, she gave in to Dracula. After two seasons of epic battle, she just gave in to Dracula. Series creator John Logan stripped away all the agency she fought for and gained and we only see Vanessa again when Ethan finds her and kills her. We got more screen time in the final two episodes with secondary characters and while I loved Renfield, for crissake, we get meandering with secondary characters and no satisfying Vanessa/Ethan or Vanessa/Malcolm.

But okay, let’s go there. Vanessa goes all evil because surely we’ll get an epic showdown between Vanessa and Dracula or Ethan, God’s wolf, and Dracula, right? No! Instead we get the Scooby gang facing off against the vampire hordes with guns. Since when did guns work against vampires and what was the point of Ethan’s wolfman? Even Twilight used their wolves better! And not only was there no epic battle with Dracula, he didn’t chase after Ethan when Ethan went after Vanessa, and when Ethan showed up carrying our dead heroine, Dracula simply shadowed away. Gone. Poof. Completely ineffectual and anti-climactic and speaking of… Season Three introduced some intriguing new characters in Cat and Dr. Jekyll but alas we got no idea what Cat’s purpose was and no Mr. Hyde.

It’s possible Showtime pulled the rug out from under the show mid season, but John Logan said the series ended as he had planned. If that’s the case, then he did the show’s fans and his characters a great injustice. One of my biggest gripes about shows is when the writers build up a conflict without resolving it. Dexter did it. Dexter’s colleagues in the Miami police should have discovered he was the killer. Victor’s friends should have discovered he revived the dead especially given the connection between Vanessa and his monster. But no. We are left with a heroine who did not go down fighting, flailing loose ends, massively under developed secondary characters, and no sex between Ethan and Vanessa. Sigh. Adios, Penny Dreadful. We barely knew you.

Black Sails Episode XVIII

Posted on by
Reply

For all the blood and violence we occasionally see on Black Sails, the scene of the Charles Town crowds throwing stuff at Miranda’s corpse horrified me the most. Poor Miranda. Onward to our intense and satisfying finale.

Long John slithers his way out of yet another flogging or keelhauling. Not this time. Silver’s tongue and double-dealing maybe caught up to him, showing us finally how Silver became our beloved Treasure Island peg-leg. Two painful scenes to behold: Vane’s man hacking away at his leg and his crew cutting it off. Thank the gods for anesthesia and modern medicine. Flint’s crew has certainly taken a shine to Silver, and I think it makes him uncomfortable. I don’t think he wants to feel loyalty, but he had no choice after they elected him quartermaster. I wonder how the crew will feel if they ever find out he was the one who sold information about the Urca gold to Max?

Number of Flint sneers. Flint gave Peter Ashe many sneers and the Governor deserved every last teeth gritting one. So what was his deal? Why did he betray Thomas, Flint, and Miranda? Was he jealous of Flint’s relationship with Thomas? And is he really dead?

Flint is brilliant, delusional, or downright scaring the crap out of me. As I kind of figured, Flint’s aspirations to reconcile with Ashe got blown to bits along with Miranda’s, ah, cerebrum. I see him going for that gold with a renewed sociopathic fervor. James McGraw died with Miranda.

On deck shenanigans. Lots of crazy shit, limbs being severed. Which crew would prevail? Or which leg? I was squinting through most of the onboard scenes, but Bones and Flint’s crew prevailed.

Wenches behaving bad-ass-ly. So Eleanor was out of the picture. Will we see her or her hanging corpse next season? Anne absolved herself in my eyes by finally resolving where her true loyalties lay. I still don’t quite understand what drove her to go all nutty and slit Mr. Logan’s throat, but the scene with her and Jack on his ship was nice. “You and I are going to be fucking partners until they put us in the ground.” A more direct, piratical way of saying ’til death do us part, yet Anne wants nothing of domesticity. None of the women on this show do. Kudos to them. Max is flying high right now, but me thinks a take down is in store.

Pirate history check. Charles Town became quite the prosperous colony, deriving much wealth from rice plantations, on the backs of the slaves, of course. While it was not sacked by pirates, Blackbeard blockaded it for two weeks in search of medical supplies, supposedly to treat his men afflicted with syphillis. The Spanish, occupying St. Augustine, raided settlements to the south of Charles Town, and the local Native American tribes often attacked the settlements.

Episode MBP (most badass pirate). In the spirit of mutual cooperation, I’m calling it a tie between Vane and Flint. I’m liking the temporary truce between the two. I know it won’t last long, well, at least until next year. Vane and Flint tore through Charles Town, manacled… manacled!!! Flint honored Miranda by not giving Ashe what he wanted, for Flint to admit to all his horrible crimes. Vane, my pirate Che Guevarra, brought hell fire down on the town after a rousing speech and with a very dramatic manacled hand raise.

vane

 

I seriously had that song in my head when he raised his hands. Or we will rock you. Who wants to live forever? Any Queen song would have done nicely.

Billy Bones, Billy Bones is our true hero. Vane knew who he needed to convince to keep peace on the ship, and Billy, loyal to his pirate brethren, gave Vane the key to blasting Flint out of Charles Town. Who knew a girl’s journal could hold so much power?

Sorry Jack, Flint had the money quote this episode: “Everyone is a monster to someone.” He proceeds to shows how he would be Charles Town’s monster when he and Vane blow the place to bits and remind them “that they were right to be afraid.” I got me some chills when Flint spoke those words to Vane with a sneer, of course.

So now we have the gold. In Treasure Island, that gold ends up buried on an island so we know it will slip through many hands before then. Really, I just want to see Flint and Vane return and wipe the gold induced fever from Max’s eyes. I respect her, but I don’t like her.

So what’s in store for season 3? I chuckle gleefully. Black friggin beard. Even better. Ray Stevenson as Black friggin Beard!!! Yesssss. Sorry Crossbones, but thissss was what I wanted to see. And a fine beard it is. And given the complex portrayals of all the pirates, I hope Black Sails will do Blackbeard justice and show him as the wily, cunning, and rational scurvy dog he was!

BKS3_304_020615_8936.jpg

The Crossbones Finale

Posted on by
Reply

Crossbones aired its final episode, and by final, we’re talking end of show. It’s not surprising they decided to cancel. While I found some of the drama compelling and Malkovich’s scene chewing fun to watch, the plot meandered between different characters without really settling in. What was touted as the MacGuffin, the chronometer, was quickly disposed of rather anti-climatically in, oh, the third or fourth episode, leaving me flapping worse than a loosened sail. It popped up again in the finale and I have no idea how it wound up in the hands of the Spanish fleet. I really would have liked to have learned more about Lowe’s past as the king’s spy, more about Blackbeard himself, or more from Charlie Rider. He grew on me and I was glad to see him surface and kick ass in the final battle. Charlie, mate, take yon red coat and head on over to New Providence and join Flint’s crew.Crossbones, Blackbeard, Charlie Ryder

I expressed my dislike in a previous post over the liberties taken with historical fact surrounding Blackbeard’s life, and still believe the show creators could have incorporated the facts about Blackbeard better, if they were going to use him at all. The show professed to be based off of Colin Woodard’s book, The Republic of Pirates, but I saw no resemblance whatsoever to the book. Once again, why not just create a new pirate character? I guess they thought Blackbeard’s name attached to the show would bring in more viewers, which is true, but for me it detracted from the show.

While I liked Kate Balfour in the beginning, she really began annoying me toward the end. So self-righteous toward Lowe, as if she bore no responsibility for her actions. And her attempt to abort her and Lowe’s unborn child because she didn’t think her husband, James Balfour, could stand another tragedy just struck me as another plot device to increase drama and conflict. Who knows? Maybe they began that subplot before knowing the show would be canceled. I was surprised at how neatly they wrapped everything up, making me think they had an alternate ending already shot and ready to go when word came down about the cancellation.

I was actually okay with Selima’s fate. (This was actually the best use of the highly derivative, yet pretty freaky Antoinette.) Selima failed to stir any emotions in me beyond distaste. I didn’t get her at all, and once again, could be because of the failure to develop the secondary characters. Case in point, and I apologize once again for the Black Sails comparison, take Max from Black Sails. She went through some pretty heinous sh@&* as the pirate sex slave. When she escaped that situation, coming out stronger and tougher to challenge the brothel madame, I liked her loads more than in the first few episodes because I could empathize with her choices after the horrible experience.

The only person who seemed to really go through some heinous sh@%$ on Crossbones was Lowe and the constant threat of death. And let’s discuss that more shall we, because I never believed for a second, in the what? three times they almost killed him, that they would actually really killl him. The plot device grew old fast. And what was the point with trepanning Blackbeard’s skull except to make my intestines shrivel and squirm?

So in the end Blackbeard walks off into the sunset. Who’s shriveled head did Lowe deliver to the Brits in Jamaica? And is Lowe a pirate now? Will he and James Balfour share daddy duties to Kate’s child? I guess we’ll never know.