Penny Dreadful - S01E05 Closer Than Sisters (2014)

Review

Seems Vanessa spends her evenings, when not possessed by Egyptian deities, writing letters to the missing Mina Harker. This allows a flashback to when Vanessa and Mina were girls, who spent considerable time together as their families lived in close proximity to each other. A little too close, as we find out Sir Malcolm was rogering Vanessa's mother! Vanessa catches them going hammer and tongs in a maze and admits to getting off on it. Naturally this unleashes some sort of demonic entity within Vanessa and she begins to play little tricks on Mina, leading to Vanessa seducing Mina's betrothed the night before Mina's wedding. An act Mina walks in on causing an end to the friendship between the two families. Vanessa doesn't take it so well and goes a little crazy, which means becoming a patient at an insane asylum where medicine is still barbaric.

Vanessa returns home as the Doctors can't do anything for her. Things surprisingly get worse when Vanessa's demon takes corporal form as Sir Malcolm and is soon doing some horizontal dancing with Vanessa. Ironically her mom walks in at an inappropriate time and immediately karks it due to a heart attack. Later Vanessa is visited by a vision of Mina who implores her to help Mina escape the clutches of "The Master", no not the Doctor Who one. This of course leads to Vanessa joining Sir Malcolm and his man servant as they attempt to track down the errant Mina.

In a bit of a risky move the Producers of Penny Dreadful have left hanging any number of current plot lines to look into the past, to try and explain I guess a number of things that have been hinted at in the first half of the season. We learn what crime Vanessa committed in her past to put her in Mina's debt, as well as discovering Vanessa has always harboured some dark forces that rise to the surface when poked. Closer Than Sisters is almost a stand along episode and could well have served as the pilot episode. Personally I thought the risk involved paid off in stunning detail though some may well argue that the actual plot arcs of season one have slowed to a snail's pace at best, glacial at worse. I'm still not entirely sure what resolutions are going to be sent our way by season's end so will have to revisit things as the final episode plays out.

So we start discovering everyone has something bad in their past that colours their present

The focal character of the episode is of course Vanessa and Eva Green was put through the ringer tonight as her character suffered no end of indignities. Besides getting naked in one scene, not a special tissue moment by the by, Eva has two simulated sex scenes, gets hosed down on a couple of occasions, and looks to be freezing her butt off as the script demands. Green naturally rises to the occasion plays both happy young lady and sinister menace with equal aplomb, and once again demonstrates what a fine actress she is. I was actually pretty blown away by Ms Green in this episode and applaud show creator and chief writer John Logan for taking time out of his busy schedule to fully explored Vanessa's background.

One of the weirder aspects of the episode, and that's saying something, is the inordinate amount of time the younger Vanessa, Mina, and Peter, (Sir Malcolm's son), spend on taxidermy pursuits. Strange pastime I would have thought for teenagers, but it does allow Vanessa to point out you have to name things to bring them alive and her desire to put mirrors behind dead eyes to make them seem alive, two themes that will resonant during the course of the episode. Speaking of Peter, he's the son Sir Malcolm lost in Africa, and given his generally weak nature that was pretty much ordained. Peter seems to realise he is a disappointment to Sir Malcolm and views exploring as one way of getting the attention of his father. Was it just me or did Peter give a whiff of being gay? I'm wondering if this somehow comes into play in the Dark Continent?

And for the pervs in the audience, yes plenty of sex and rude bits being thrown about, however as stated not exactly seductive with darker intents interlaced throughout. Violence is pretty much off the agenda though we do get some pretty horrific medical scenes that rival the procedures dealt out to young Regan in The Exorcist. I think that John Logan seriously picked up on audience non-comfort with intrusive medical procedures while also working at a tie in with Victor Frankenstein's research into re-animation. If anything Penny Dreadful is self-referencing with some very solid plot angles linking the episodes, nice to see themes being developed, though at the cost of pacing perhaps.

Speaking of themes Vanessa is somewhat jealous of Mina, as Vanessa views herself as the outgoing one who should experience life's rich tapestry before her more subdued friend. Vanessa was not best pleased with Mina becoming engaged with a trip to India after her marriage to the rather dashing military officer Captain Branson. Vanessa remains hard to pin down, is she consciously doing evil or is she being influenced by malignant forces? The clear indication is she has something wicked on her back that periodically comes to the fore, but is this a reason for her acts, witness the sex season in a previous episode when Vanessa appeared to be possessed by an Egyptian deity, or is she simply wilful?

Once again the period angle is nailed, with sex viewed as a gateway to evil, the whole Eve thing was real big during the period, and nice to see the London backdrops here replaced by rural mansions and pretty much grunge medical facilities. The set designers have nailed everything with zero in the way of props going out of period. The dark and ominous nature of previous episodes was maintained with the episode playing out in entirely overcast or at least poor sunlight, including a couple of scenes down the beach.

Another cool episode in this engrossing series, though to be honest the pacing is slow even by period standards. Eva Green continues to prove her ability to play tough roles, and simply turns on the talent to nail a complex and multi-faceted character. We now know why Mina might consider Vanessa to be her enemy, however there is more here in vampire terms than has been apparent thus far. I'm expecting a lot of chaos and destruction in the final three episodes, but I did dig what was going down in this extended flashback framed by Vanessa's correspondence. Can Vanessa vanquish her demons, and will Sir Malcolm be strong enough to do what needs to be done as the Scooby gang track down Mina. I'm already booking some quality time with the television for the next episode as Closer Than Sisters rocked the house down.