Penny Dreadful 1.08: “Grand Guignol”
[Note: The following review contains spoilers for all aired episodes of Penny Dreadful, including the most recent, “Grand Guignol”.] What I might love most about Penny Dreadful is how much it seems to delight in subverting our expectations. From the title “Grand Guignol,” I had been prepared for the first season finale to be a veritable bloodbath, when in actuality, it seems that the title springs almost solely...
Penny Dreadful 1.07: “Possession”
[Note: The following review contains spoilers for all aired episodes of Penny Dreadful, including the most recent, “Possession”.] It seems that, practically every week, Penny Dreadful gets richer and scarier, and this week is no exception. This–the penultimate episode of the first season–was very likely the best, eeriest episode so far. As with the majority of installments to date, it doesn’t play by...
Penny Dreadful 1.06: “What Death Can Join Together”
[Note: The following review contains spoilers for all aired episodes of Penny Dreadful, including the most recent, “What Death Can Join Together”.] 1) Caliban continues to be a fascinating mixture of sympathetic and monstrous. On the one hand, we have his genuinely sweet and sad infatuation with the actress, which is made all the more bittersweet here ironically because she actually treats him with extreme compassion. She...
Penny Dreadful 1.05: “Closer Than Sisters”
[Note: The following review contains spoilers for all aired episodes of Penny Dreadful, including the most recent, “Closer Than Sisters”.] 1. In keeping with Penny Dreadful‘s uniquely novelistic structure, which I’ve discussed in previous episode reviews, this week’s installment again breaks typical television rules by being almost entirely set in the past. Penny Dreadful dipped its toes into this sort of...
Penny Dreadful 1.04: “Demimonde”
[Note: The following review contains spoilers for all aired episodes of Penny Dreadful, including the most recent, “Demimonde”.] 1. I continue to be fascinated by Penny Dreadful‘s narrative structure. Halfway through the season now, and we still don’t know what the overarching plot actually is. We have plenty of atmosphere, lots of character set-ups, and mythology hints, but no traditional plot per se, and for...