Penny Dreadful “Ebb Tide”

Is it bad enough that Vanessa was canoodling with Dracula without knowing it when we realize the next morning she was getting licked by Renfield in her sleep?

Well, fortunately Dracula returns and reminds Renfield that licking the Master’s new girlfriend is not cool.

“Fortunately Dracula returns”?  Man, I never thought I’d write that!

This is Penny Dreadful, so all our good news must be canceled out by even worse news for other characters.  Who got good news?  The Creature!  Taking a suggestion from Vanessa, he goes back to his wife.  And Mrs. Creature…is totally glad to see him!  And this time, so is his son!  Could it be someone on this show will get a happy ending?  Probably not.  We’ll see.  His son is still sick.

And dead children seem to pop up all over.  Lily is mourning a baby girl she lost when she was still Brona Croft and a lot less angry.  Granted, she was powerless then and she isn’t now.  She has good reason to be angry given her lot in her previous life.  I don’t think that excuses the murders and plots of revolution.  Her biggest mistake may have been underestimating how little Dorian gives a fig.  He’s seen revolutions, and the pile of severed hands on his dining room table don’t impress him much.  Neither do Justine’s threats.  So, he’ll arrange to have Victor and Dr. Jekyll get their hands on Lily to “fix” her, which is also rather wrong all things being equal.

Dorian Gray realizing he isn’t having any fun and that revolution won’t work is an interesting development, but for the life of me I don’t see how a couple dozen prostitutes are supposed to overthrow the patriarchy.

But the main problem is Vanessa doesn’t realize right away who Dr. Sweet really is.

Though Sir Malcolm and Ethan are headed back with Kaetenay in tow, and the old Apache meets Vanessa in a vision and sees she’s already halfway gone, and he had a vision telling him they’re probably too late to save the world anyway, the real clues come when Vanessa’s new friend Catriona the thanatologist comes by.  She has information.  All the old vampire myths about sunlike and reflections?  Myths.  Dracula can be killed like any other man when he’s in a human form, but otherwise he’s probably unkillable.

But Catriona’s information lets Vanessa know exactly who Dracula is, and she goes to take him out.  Well, she maybe should have, but Dracula sweet talks her about how she can finally be herself and he accepts her for who she is, and she won’t be lonely anymore, and then with the neck-biting.  Craparoonie.

In other news, Dr. Seward notices how twitchy Renfield is.  He’s bad at hiding things now that he’s crazy.