|
Post by Carade on Apr 20, 2015 19:57:20 GMT -5
www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8LdbYbhnTIFirst episode of the new season out for free on the youtube. Within the first ten minutes naked monsters attacked and Eva Green whispered creepy incantations. This show knows what I want.
Even though I was pretty miffed when Caliban killed Proteus in season 1, I'm always kind of hoping that the weird monster gets a somewhat happy ending.
In that same vein, I am IMMEDIATELY shipping Caliban and this new, young, blind shawty.
HELL YEAH. DEMON WORSHIPPING WITCHES. I AM ON BOARD.
Just finished it. Really strong opening episode. There's more plot momentum this time around and they dialed up the camp by like 40%. Loved it.
|
|
Post-Lupin
Prolific Poster
Immanentizing the Eschaton
Posts: 5,673
|
Post by Post-Lupin on Apr 21, 2015 15:08:33 GMT -5
I set up for a AVC Penny Dreadful subthread at the Salem reviews, since they literally have 6 people commenting on that show - and all of them seem OK with the idea.
Loved it too - Helen McRory is an excellent addition (and I've had a bit of a thing for her for a while, anyway).
My main observation: Doesn't Brona have an oddly well-manicured bush for a Victorian woman?
|
|
|
Post by Carade on Apr 21, 2015 15:19:09 GMT -5
Wait, is the AV Club seriously not doing weekly reviews of Penny Dreadful? Why the hell not? The readership for the show last year was pretty sizeable.
|
|
|
Post by drjacoby on Apr 21, 2015 20:55:34 GMT -5
Wait, is the AV Club seriously not doing weekly reviews of Penny Dreadful? Why the hell not? The readership for the show last year was pretty sizeable. I would think they're still covering it... I haven't heard any announcement of them dropping it. But the actual premiere is almost two weeks away so I guess he just set it up there to talk about the first episode? Edit: Or... maybe I'm just out of the loop, Lupin seems to know something I don't.
|
|
|
Post by Carade on Apr 21, 2015 21:44:28 GMT -5
My main observation: Doesn't Brona have an oddly well-manicured bush for a Victorian woman? Given the family filters on YouTube I just assumed all British women have blurry boobs and vaginas.
|
|
Post-Lupin
Prolific Poster
Immanentizing the Eschaton
Posts: 5,673
|
Post by Post-Lupin on Apr 25, 2015 11:37:40 GMT -5
My main observation: Doesn't Brona have an oddly well-manicured bush for a Victorian woman? Given the family filters on YouTube I just assumed all British women have blurry boobs and vaginas. They really don't, I am glad to say. So; a glance at IMDB says 201 doesn't officially air until 3 May... so I guess the version I watched by Entirely Legal Means (with all the nuddy bits intact) was a leaked preview. Which means, maybe TOC will actually review it when it airs?
|
|
|
Post by sarapen on Apr 25, 2015 17:20:28 GMT -5
Boy, this was some awesome shit. The motherfucking Countess of Blood is in the hizzy! Everyone's prancing around chewing scenery like their lives depended on it.
|
|
|
Post by jerkassimo on May 11, 2015 10:44:26 GMT -5
Oh boy - that second episode was absolutely great. I don't even know where to start so I'll rank scenes from fun to poignant to squirming in my seat uncomfortable to what the fuck just happened:
1) Chandler and Lyle (an American! I'm undone!) flirting - and for all the deserved praise Eva Green gets, Josh Hartnett is also doing a great job in this role.
2) Ives' and Caliban's sort of heartwarming discussion in the Cholera camp
3) The looming icky/incesty love triangle with Frankenstein/Lily/Caliban
4) The whacked out baby heart in the doll scene - yeesh, that was a lot of hearts i there.
And was that a Chekov's Mauser?
|
|
Post-Lupin
Prolific Poster
Immanentizing the Eschaton
Posts: 5,673
|
Post by Post-Lupin on May 11, 2015 13:49:47 GMT -5
Not only loved Angelique & the full-frontal cock, but loving even more the painfully nuanced discussion as to whether Angelique should be considered transvestite or transexual at TOC!
Also: way to raise the stakes (heh) Evelyn... in a mansion decorated entirely as an ossuary, the truly creepy room is decorated with dolls.
|
|
|
Post by disqusf3dme on May 11, 2015 23:22:12 GMT -5
I love everything to do with Evelyn and how overwrought her mansion is, and I'm sad Lyle is being blackmailed because I just want to see him have more laughy banter and misadventures with Chandler.
|
|
|
Post by Douay-Rheims-Challoner on May 19, 2015 20:37:17 GMT -5
I'm beginning to think every season needs a Vanessa Ives flashback episode. More Than Sisters was the highlight of season one and the Nightcomers was none too shabby either.
I guess it interests me to see the Cutwife favour the Roundheads over the Royalists as she felt the royalists cared less for women (or at least; that they didn't care; she attributes no positive claims on the Roundheads' behalf.) Interesting that is because uh playwright Aphra Behn and her cavaliers existing above the narrow morality of the Puritans, on the face of it seems closer - but then her cavaliers are wealthy, existing beyond Puritan morality because they are of an upper class, and the Cutwife is at the very fringes of this little society, unlikely to have any love for the wealthy.
(Apropos of nothing, but the Cutwife dating herself to the Civil War makes me think of one of the great Gothic figures in literature, Melmoth the Wanderer: Doomed to forever wander the world to find but one person to sell their soul to the Devil, his only way of saving his own. Before he became this Mephistophelean figure he was a Roundhead veteran of the Civil War granted land in Ireland - the book has an introduction from the perspective of his 'present day' nineteenth century descendent and Trinity College student. Like none of that is strictly relevant, but Devils, Roundheads, etc...)
|
|
|
Post by jerkassimo on May 20, 2015 7:27:42 GMT -5
Quick question - The cutwife said her name "Joan Clayton" (i think that's what it was) with some intent. A quick google didn't turn up anything, but is that name somehow important in British history or Victorian literature? Or was it just so Vanessa knew it was her on the deed? My first thought went to Joan of Arc but that makes no sense.
|
|
|
Post by Douay-Rheims-Challoner on May 20, 2015 7:53:06 GMT -5
jerkassimo I think it was just for the deed, where we can see she's replaced her own name with Vanessa Ives. It's also an indication of how their relationship had grown, from refusing to know Vanessa's name to telling Vanessa her own.
|
|
|
Post by sarapen on May 20, 2015 14:05:42 GMT -5
I wonder if crossing out your name on a deed and writing another would have any legal standing if it went to court. I know Joan wasn't a lawyer, but surely a hastily written will would have been better for a property transfer, right?
|
|
Post-Lupin
Prolific Poster
Immanentizing the Eschaton
Posts: 5,673
|
Post by Post-Lupin on May 23, 2015 7:22:06 GMT -5
Quick question - The cutwife said her name "Joan Clayton" (i think that's what it was) with some intent. A quick google didn't turn up anything, but is that name somehow important in British history or Victorian literature? Or was it just so Vanessa knew it was her on the deed? My first thought went to Joan of Arc but that makes no sense. 'John Clayton' is the given name of The Lord Greystoke, aka Tarzan... that might have been what you were thinking of. In the show, it was just the fact of being given her true name, I think - no small thing among mages.
|
|
Post-Lupin
Prolific Poster
Immanentizing the Eschaton
Posts: 5,673
|
Post by Post-Lupin on May 23, 2015 7:22:46 GMT -5
I wonder if crossing out your name on a deed and writing another would have any legal standing if it went to court. I know Joan wasn't a lawyer, but surely a hastily written will would have been better for a property transfer, right? But that wouldn't have had Cromwell's sig at the bottom, which was the entire point of the shot!
|
|
|
Post by sarapen on May 23, 2015 13:11:17 GMT -5
I wonder if crossing out your name on a deed and writing another would have any legal standing if it went to court. I know Joan wasn't a lawyer, but surely a hastily written will would have been better for a property transfer, right? But that wouldn't have had Cromwell's sig at the bottom, which was the entire point of the shot! Fish need to swim, birds gotta fly, I got to pick nits till I die. Can't help Loving that man of mine.
|
|
|
Post by Carade on Jun 16, 2015 13:46:13 GMT -5
SEASON 3 CONFIRMED
SEASON 3 CONFIRMED
YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
|
|
|
Post by Carade on Jun 16, 2015 13:46:51 GMT -5
AH
|
|
Post-Lupin
Prolific Poster
Immanentizing the Eschaton
Posts: 5,673
|
Post by Post-Lupin on Jun 22, 2015 16:57:42 GMT -5
Ladies, gentlemen and others, I give you BILLIE FOOKIN' PIPER.
|
|
|
Post by Sanziana on Jun 22, 2015 17:00:32 GMT -5
Ladies, gentlemen and others, I give you BILLIE FOOKIN' PIPER. I never thought she had it in her. That was fucking fantastic! The best episode so far IMO, and it didn't even feature lovely, fabulous Eva Green. Even Dorian Gray was great this episode.
|
|
|
Post by MrsLangdonAlger on Jun 22, 2015 22:14:01 GMT -5
Ladies, gentlemen and others, I give you BILLIE FOOKIN' PIPER. That scene was incredible. I was transfixed!
|
|
Post-Lupin
Prolific Poster
Immanentizing the Eschaton
Posts: 5,673
|
Post by Post-Lupin on Jun 24, 2015 9:33:05 GMT -5
|
|
|
Post by kitchin on Jun 25, 2015 7:25:37 GMT -5
I'll step in for John Clare. Literary London feted him for a season or two as the "Peasant Poet," then dropped him like last season's gewgaw. He was often so poor he could not afford a pencil. If his madness was especially well-documented, thanks to those who recalled his fame, it may also be that he was ahead of his time - his work is probably more appealing to people now than even the greater poets of the Romantic era. It has a modern hardness, and an economy of words. Yet due to poverty his madness was more exposed than that of the others.
Those bizarre words in the above poem are not fanciful, they are the actual vocabulary of the rural Midlands. In the meadows everything has a name, and Clare knew them all.
Yet I think he's now a bit overrated, since he's become popular once again. You read too many of his poems and you see the weaknesses, especially a self-pitying, underdeveloped sense of romance for the lost lady of his life.
The linked Strange and Norell article on Romantic madness, and children, and nature, gives the lay of the land. But who's to say during his long indentured semi-retirement in the asylum, he did not grow to put on an act or indulge certain eccentricities when well-heeled visitors appeared to write letters about him? Unconsciously or not. By the early 1960s the poet Roethke, one of those in the know and praising Clare again, brought it to an absurd point. Roethke groups Clare with the other mad poets and makes almost silly claims for complacent wonder that we're pretty familiar with these days:
I don't see much "The fieldfares chatter in the whistling thorn" in that kind of simpering praise. The man had a language, first and foremost.
|
|
|
Post by Douay-Rheims-Challoner on Jun 27, 2015 11:19:44 GMT -5
Ladies, gentlemen and others, I give you BILLIE FOOKIN' PIPER. There was like three or four different layers to that performance all at once (even the briefest of Brona callbacks, which the show wisely did not dwell on.) I'd go so far to call it the best scene in the Frankenstein's Monster part of the show since, perhaps, the birth of Proteus (or, a little later, "Hello, father.") The Dorian Grey plot was interesting because this is really one of the first times in the show he's actually felt like Dorian Grey; for a lot of the time he comes off as an obvious Oscar Wilde-type: refined, erudite, cultured and decadent. In a world of vampires, werewolves and the undead he appears to be positively harmless, even sensitive in the catholicism of his love; when the Grey of Wilde's novel is selfish and cruel and ultimately quite malevolent. That Grey we have finally met.
|
|
|
Post by Sanziana on Jul 2, 2015 10:21:41 GMT -5
I finally watched this latest episode. It was wonderful too. Poor Sembene, he was the best. Now they've added another BIG angst reason for Mr. Chandler, which frankly he didn't need, he's angsty and brooding enough as it is. But someone had to die, I suppose, sooner or later, from our merry band of murderers. And I need Madame Kali to shut up that annoying little witch, and I cannot actually understand why Lupus Dei didn't shoot her in the face, maybe because she appealed to his ego? Eh.
Oh, and Dr. Frankenstein remains a creepy, awful weasel no matter how many times Vanessa Ives tells him he's a beautiful monster, or something.
|
|
Post-Lupin
Prolific Poster
Immanentizing the Eschaton
Posts: 5,673
|
Post by Post-Lupin on Jul 2, 2015 16:25:58 GMT -5
I finally watched this latest episode. It was wonderful too. Poor Sembene, he was the best. Now they've added another BIG angst reason for Mr. Chandler, which frankly he didn't need, he's angsty and brooding enough as it is. But someone had to die, I suppose, sooner or later, from our merry band of murderers. And I need Madame Kali to shut up that annoying little witch, and I cannot actually understand why Lupus Dei didn't shoot her in the face, maybe because she appealed to his ego? Eh. Oh, and Dr. Frankenstein remains a creepy, awful weasel no matter how many times Vanessa Ives tells him he's a beautiful monster, or something. Sembene better come back as a fucking were-lion, guys.
|
|
|
Post by Douay-Rheims-Challoner on Jul 8, 2015 8:26:56 GMT -5
Sembene better come back as a fucking were-lion, guys. Well with Malcolm off to bury him in Africa, I wonder if we'll see his home country... and what Malcolm might find there.
|
|
Post-Lupin
Prolific Poster
Immanentizing the Eschaton
Posts: 5,673
|
Post by Post-Lupin on Jul 8, 2015 8:28:32 GMT -5
Sembene better come back as a fucking were-lion, guys. Well with Malcolm off to bury him in Africa, I wonder if we'll see his home country... and what Malcolm might find there. Wakanda!
|
|
|
Post by Sanziana on Jul 9, 2015 10:49:10 GMT -5
I feel someone should mention how great this season has been for female characters! How many tough, wonderful, crazy women we had alongside Miss Vanessa Ives. I was never a fan of Billie Piper, but goddamn, I love her right now! And I know her storyline wasn't everyone's favourite, but I think Angelique was a great addition to the show. What's there left to be said for the Cut-Wife and Evelyn Poole, played marvelously by those two amazing actresses? Who would've thought Penny Dreadful would develop such feminist inclinations, and deliver with such panache on the female characters' storylines front! They really stepped up their game this season.
And that bloody dance! I absolutely love this show. What will I do until next year?
|
|