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After last week’s excellent Vanessa Ives backstory centered episode: “The Nightcomers.” This week’s “Evil Spirits in Heavenly Places” had a lot to live up to in its return to the present-day story. Instead “Penny Dreadful” became something else entirely because at certain points it didn’t watch as if it were what its become to be known for. There were scenes that moved away from the usual dark palette and themes, and replaced them with something much lighter.
One of those is when Miss. Ives and Dr. Victor Frankenstein went shopping to look for a suitable dress for his “cousin” Lily — formerly Brona Croft — who’s supposed to become Calaban/John Claire’s bride. He’s now falling for Lavinia Putney, blind daughter at the wax museum. The crossing of story-lines between this “love square” plus one is sure to be interesting once creature and Ethan Chandler find out what Frankenstein has been up to. Creature’s side story continues to snowball into just another great part of this show. Going back to Miss. Ives and the good doctor, she’s smiling and slapstick?! Goodness, what a turn of events, and all while everything having to do with the witches is still underway.
As for the witches, it’s neat to see the danger Sir Malcolm Murray is putting not only himself but the others in the group by, as he says, “courting” Evelyn Poole. Her ambitions and plans for Miss. Ives continue to drive season two forward. What exactly are the witches doing? It doesn’t appear to be the end game of the show because of the tri-mysteries that include Mr. Chandler’s Wolfman persona and the Verbes Diablo puzzle. Hopefully, it all leads to a reveal of “the master”/The Devil…Dracula, maybe? Until these questions are answered, “Penny Dreadful” witches are the scariest on TV right now. Beautiful women who kill babies, rip their hearts out and make dolls with it for whatever reason. The attacks from them to open up the season and then this week’s were carbon copies of each other but scary nonetheless.
For more on “Penny Dreadful,” watch next week’s episode promo.
