Once those wolves have scampered off, Vanessa makes the episode’s biggest discovery: Fenton (Olly Alexander), a servant to the vampires, who is feasting on a small animal when she spots him. The group quickly takes him prisoner and chains him up in Sir Malcolm’s basement. Fenton starts singing like a canary – but not to the tune that Sir Malcolm wants. Instead of giving up Mina’s location, Fenton taunts the group. “Where’s your master?” Sir Malcolm asks. “Right behind you,” Fenton replies with a smile. “Don’t you feel him?” He proclaims that his master will soon be ready to plunge the world into eternal darkness. “The hidden ones will emerge and rule… Amunet… Amun-Ra,” he intones before dropping a pretty major hint: “I know the name Vanessa.”
Penny Dreadful‘s vampires got a pretty solid Ancient Egyptian backstory in last week’s episode, and the show is certainly positioning Vanessa as the embodiment of Amunet, the goddess whose union with the evil Amun-Ra (possibly Dracula, if the master is indeed him) will spark the end of the world. Sir Malcolm comes clean towards the end of the episode, admitting his belief that “the creature we seek doesn’t want her [Mina]” but Vanessa. Sir Malcolm still wants his daughter back above all else, of course, and he’s not averse to using Vanessa as bait, but he’s certainly conscious of the danger to both Mina and Vanessa.
They appear ready to torture Fenton into giving up his master’s secrets before Ethan objects, warning them of the line they’re about to cross. Sir Malcolm responds by taking the group (which grows to include a visibly perturbed Victor) aside. “No one in this room is kind,” he says. “That’s why you’re all here.” Essentially, he wants a gangster squad for supernatural creatures, one willing to break with tradition and get its hands dirty, if need be.
Part of their efforts involve finding a cure for vampirism; Victor claims that Fenton’s blood could lead to an antidote, though Fenton’s apparent vision of his master at the episode’s end suggests that the group may be playing more into their enemy’s hands than they realize. Still, “Resurrection” finds all the main players on Sir Malcolm’s team united for the first time, and it’s a thrill just to see them all gathered together.
As for what comes next, I’m as in the dark as the rest of you, but “Resurrection” feels a lot like table-setting. The action will almost certainly be more prominent in next week’s episode, but Penny Dreadful is still setting up the latter half of its season. That could be cause for alarm, but I’m hopeful that the story it wants to tell won’t end up rushed, given that creator John Logan penned every episode.
The adversaries Vanessa, Sir Malcolm and now Ethan are facing have been cloaked in shadow thus far, and directly introducing this “master,” the big bad himself, could mean great things for the show’s dramatic tension. Though he’s only hinted at in “Resurrection,” things are picking up on Penny Dreadful, and I feel as if his entrance isn’t far off. “Who doesn’t love a lost cause?” Vanessa says of the consumption-afflicted Brona in a conversation with Ethan. Let’s just hope, for the sake of everyone on this show, that Mina, the team’s current motivation, is still salvageable. The ruthless nature of the vampires would suggest not, but Sir Malcolm, Vanessa, Sembene, Victor and Ethan are wholly committed to bringing her back to the light, and her loss could drive the gang apart just as they’re coming together.