The third season of PENNY DREADFUL is sadly the last season of the show.  It mostly resolves all of the story threads successfully while not quite fulfilling the end for Vanessa Ives storyline to everyone’s liking and leaving the possible story for The Mummy type tale to be untold.   It all comes to a head as Vanessa Ives (Eva Green) starts seeing Dr. Seward as her last attempt to deal with her inner demons while Sir Malcolm Murray (Timothy Dalton) is convinced by the Apache named Kaetenay to go rescue Ethan Chandler (Josh Hartnett) from the southwest United States.   Meanwhile, Dr. Victor Frankenstein is convinced to work with Dr. Jekyll on a process to remove the beastly insanity from human beings because Victor thinks he can use it to get Lily (Billie Piper) back, but she and Dorian have their own plans of building a female army comprising of whores.  Vanessa senses she is being lured in by Dracula and her only hope may be in Catroina Hartdegen if Malcolm and Ethan don’t get back to London in time (but it depends on if Ethan can be saved by Malcolm as Hecate has set her sights on bringing Ethan to the dark side).  PENNY DREADFUL has always been about the struggle of the beast inside vs. the humanity that exists in humans and monsters.  The big Dracula plot started in season one finally comes to a head with Vanessa trying to face down her demons for one last time.   I will miss this show, but I wish the last two episodes were resolved better than the end product that ended up on the screen. 

 

SPECIAL FEATURES:

DISC 1-

HECATE’S WITCH PROSTHETICS- a behind-the-scenes look at the prosthetics for Hecate

THE MAKING OF DR. JEKYLL’S LAB- the production design of Jekyll’s lab

 

DISC 2-

CHARACTER PROFILES on ETHAN CHANDLER, SIR MALCOLM & KAETENAY, DR. SWEET, DR. SEWARD & RENFIELD, THE CREATURE, DR. VICTOR FRANKENSTEIN & DR. JEKYLL, DORIAN, LILY & JUSTINE AND CATRIONA HARTDEGEN show scenes form the third season as cast talk about their characters and the story

 

DISC 3-

VANESSA’S COSTUMES- the costume designer and actress Eva Green talk about Vanessa’s costumes

THE DEAD ZOO- a look at the Irish Natural History Museum which they use as a location in the third season and the set they built at the location (along with fake taxidermy animals)

 

FINAL ANALYSIS:  The third and final season of PENNY DREADFUL sets things up greatly, but the resolution of all the storylines leaves me a little mixed over how they resolved the big story with Dracula and Vanessa Ives.  I have no problems with how they wrapped up everything with the other characters.

 

This review is ©10-16-2016 David Blackwell and cannot be reprinted without permission.  Send all comments to feedback@enterline-media.com

 

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