Legacies - Do All Malivore Monsters Provide This Level Of Emotional Insight?

 

Discussing Ep. 3.9 - Okay, this show can go and fuck right off!

So I'll get to what I actually liked in the episode. Finally....FINALLY...Bonsai Head actually stands up to Hope in some fashion and flat out tells her that she has to stop obsessing over him and quasi (not very convincingly though) gives her grief for almost killing Lizzie and Josie. Thing is though, this is like the third person she has heard this spiel from! I have no idea why she obsesses over him the way she does. I fucking cringed every single time she kept saying that all that mattered was that she had Landon back. Look, I've been Landon's biggest advocate as a love interest on this site from Day One but even I don't think he's everything that Hope believes he is. There is nothing that he brings to the table that is so amazing or so unique that Hope, or anybody else for that matter, should fawn over him the way she does.

  

And this episode really didn't do much to change my mind about that. Sure, it was a nice change of pace that Landon wasn't the damsel-in-distress in this episode. And I like that he was able to reach Hope and essentially tell her that she was wrong and that he was the researcher of the group and was able to find the solution to the gremlin problem. But he sort of tip-toed around his confrontation with Hope as though he was afraid of her and I didn't like that. At the end of the day, I'm glad that he was able to tell her the truth that she needed to hear, but it sucks that it took Lizzie creating all this drama in order for him to do it. I wish that we'd get an answer as to why Hope is so obsessed with him because there is really no logical reason for that. At least with Elena, they gave that sire bond excuse at the beginning as to why she was so obsessed with Damon. What's Hope's excuse? She clearly only cares about Landon and if multiple people have to tell her, including Landon himself, that she's taking it too far, then that's a real problem. That's not romantic, it's psychotic. That sort of behaviour is not healthy, people!

Speaking of Lizzie, by far she was my favourite character in the episode. Aside from Alaric and Josie, who should have been equally upset with Hope, at least Lizzie represented the side of righteous anger and was wholly upset with her. Fucking props to her for that! And again, I couldn't help but feel like Hope is turning into Elena, recognizing her own faults and missteps but always coming up with an excuse for not taking the right steps to correct them. Her being upset with Lizzie (for what reason again?) or being upset with Cleo (for what reason again?) and recognizing that she needed to apologize but didn't was just so infuriating. I swear, Hope doesn't come off well here at all. She's manipulative, narcissistic, selfish and unforgiving. Why is she the lead character and the hero of the show again?   

As far as the side story of MG and Ethan, I actually kind of liked that. At first, I was more annoyed than anything else as to how easy it is for a student to transfer, in the middle of the school year, from a near-defunct supernatural school to a regular high school, all in the span of a couple of days! Then I was worried that we were going to get more crap between Josie and Finch. And then I was wondering what they hell they were doing with Ethan and him taking vervain and all of that.

Then they surprised me. I think because I was expecting them to use Ethan as a love interest for Hope or even for Josie. I didn't think he'd be a person of interest for MG! And it's nice that this doesn't revolve around a romantic relationship. It's just two guys who share of a love of comics and nerdy things who suddenly find each other in the midst of, well, essentially being friendless. Ethan got cut from the football team and all his so-called friends abandoned him. MG feels like he was abandoned by his so-called friends at Salvatore School. So they find each other, with Ethan looking at MG (who saved his life) as a sort of super hero with all his cool vampire powers. In return, MG chooses not to compel him to forget everything and entrusts him to keep his secret. This is almost a basic blueprint for a love story on the CW!

But it's not a love story and perhaps it's how they turned my expectations on their heads that make me intrigued by this storyline. Now, I have zero faith that they will maintain my interest but this is rather refreshing. Having said that though, I found it rather funny how Ethan found little downside to being a vampire, other than "the blood thing." But even that isn't an issue. I made this point in my Dracula review about how the TVD universe totally removed the 'curse' of being a vampire. I think what would have added some drama to this budding friendship is if MG still had that issue of being a Ripper. Having MG choose between fulfilling his blood lust or protecting his new friend is a classic vampire conundrum that they could use to great effect here. They won't, but under better writers, they could.

Speaking of shitty writers, now we get to the bullshit that I hated, and this was some real bullshit right here! 

Aunt Elena and Uncle Damon!

Fuck you, writers! Fuck you, Julie Plec! Fuck you all!

Why include this? Why? I was content with the idea that Elena and Damon were in Offscreenlandia (as Baby often used to call it) and they perhaps were no longer in Mystic Falls but were somewhere else. But Josie DESTROYED those happy delusions by not only staying at the rebuilt Gilbert house where Elena and Damon supposedly live, but flat out saying that Aunt Elena was due to come home from her shift and was going to make some delicious casserole or whatever the fuck she said. So we are now to believe that both Damon and Elena are actively living in Mystic Falls.....they just don't bother showing up to help or even visit Alaric and their non-related nieces, Josie and Lizzie.

They teased it so fucking hard. That shot of Alaric walking into a room with 'someone' pouring him a glass of liquor.....you could tell that they wanted the audience to believe that it was Damon! You know that they were doing it for that effect, as though it was going to be like old times, only to pull the rug out from under everyone and have it be Dorian instead. I don't understand why they do that. First of all, I've noted this before as to how Legacies is really not even in the same universe as TVD and TO. It just isn't. And so trying to create that connection by teasing past characters is stupid. But to go so far as to try and weave them into the show and yet have them not physically show up is getting real tiresome! 

It's just so cheap and insulting. Much like with Caroline, it makes no sense for Elena and Damon to not show up. Character-wise, there is literally no reason why Damon and Elena wouldn't make frequent appearances at the Salvatore School if they were truly in Mystic Falls. Number one, it's Damon's old fucking house! And the school is in his and brother's family name. Wouldn't he lend a hand in trying to 'save the school' that was built from out of his family mansion and using his family name?!? Secondly, if they cared about their 'nieces,' they would check in more often. Damon would be drinking it up with his good buddy Alaric on a frequent basis if not helping him out with all the supernatural threats that they seem to continually face. They most certainly would have shown up to that musical that revolved around their lives! And yet, they don't show up at all! 

If the excuse was that they weren't supernatural anymore (which isn't even true...Elena is still a doppleganger and Damon is a cured vampire) and therefore didn't want any part of that world and so that's why they don't visit, then that's just as dumb as it was when Dorian took the job at Mystic Falls High because Emma didn't want him near the supernatural danger of Salvatore School! If Elena and Damon truly wanted away from all supernatural elements, then they would have moved away, just like Sheriff Mac did. Period! Bonnie moved away. Caroline, for all intents and purposes, moved away. Jeremy moved away. The only other person who is still there is Matt. What the fuck is so special about Mystic Falls that Elena and Damon had to stay there? Plague and the producers know full well that neither Nina nor Ian nor Candace nor Paul nor Kat are going to do any cameo appearances. So why tease their existence? At least with Klaus and Hayley, they're dead! So there's a reason why they don't show up. But the TVD cast just hanging around the outskirts of the show is such an unnecessary tease that it's more annoying that nostalgic.

Speaking of nostalgia, we get this quasi-tribute to Gremlins. I will say that I thought it was clever when they introduced this thing onscreen, the tune playing was the exact same tune that Gizmo would sing in the movie Gremlins. Beyond that, this was stupid! I hated that this fucking plot device showed up at just the right moment to bring Lizzie and Hope back together again. Far too convenient and contrived. That this stupid fuzz ball feeds off of 'disrespect' was just ridiculous! I think it had potential for laughs and even chaos but they didn't know how to write it well so it came off as dumb.

And here we get yet a new MacGuffin. So all of a sudden, that thing that Alaric used during Hope's therapy session is something that is supposedly very important, almost like the One Ring. Something that is now revealed to have been in the hands of Einstein, Rasputin, and Napoleon. I have to admit that I laughed at the bad photoshopping but at the same time, I am intrigued. I mean, if this leads to a replacement for Malivore as the main antagonist for the show, then I am all for it. However, I'm beginning to think that yet another of my predictions may have come true.

Odd that Clarke opened the show and that reject from Riverdale ended it. So I'm beginning to think that Clarke has indeed returned as Twiggy 2.0.. I wouldn't be against it if he brings something new to the table. I actually liked Clarke as a villain but I felt like he was underused and his motives were a bit off. It'd be nice to have an antagonist who is actually there and can talk to the protagonist (whoever that may be....I'm still not sold that it's Hope), but I fear that the writers, who are far too one dimensional, will make Clarke and his motives rather generic. 

So no, I don't have much hope for where this storyline is going. 

Legacies - Long Time, No See

 

Discussing Ep. 3.8 - A somewhat weird, if not annoying, episode. I don't think I've ever been as annoyed by Hope and her mission to save Landon since Elena kept gushing about losing Damon in the prison world and she didn't give a fuck about Bonnie who got lost there too.

I'm actually going to start with MG first because if anything, his whole storyline made even less sense than Hope's. He starts off the episode as a pariah, with the news that he had hid the Ascendant from Hope and everyone else and now he's an outcast. And all for what? He was fearful about Hope using the Ascendant to open the prison world because of all the shit he saw in said prison world when he and Lizzie went there before. He feared that opening the prison world would basically release Hell on Earth.

Did this happen during that lost episode that I spoke about last week? I remember him and Lizzie visiting the prison world and MG getting spooked by some demon in a trash bin. But that was it! I don't recall MG shaking in his boots at the prospect of releasing all this evil and darkness that the prison world contained. I don't recall him getting the Ascendant and then taking it upon himself to protect the world from the danger that it represented. I don't recall him expressing any kind of fear about anyone accessing the prison world...AT ALL!!!

Nor do I recall him being the Jiminy Cricket of the now-labelled Super Squad (which is apparently a new label....the promos for the show are naming them as such and it's stupid!). Sure, he might have been the voice of reason at times and helped the other characters out every now and then, especially Lizzie. But MG, who felt like he was essentially the conscience of the group, now feels like nobody listens to him and does things that are dangerous and unnecessary (contrary to his better judgement apparently) and so he feels like he has to go away. 

Then go away, you useless fuck! 

Because I don't know where these phantom issues are coming from. I DO recall him having issues with saying 'no' and standing up for himself and all of that. I do recall that being a theme for MG throughout this whole season. I do recall him being labelled a Ripper once and having trouble controlling his bloodlust (which he seemed to have conquered in record time....sucks to be you, Stefan!). But this is the first time they made a real issue of him running contrary to the rest of the group and that's apparently enough for MG to feel like he doesn't belong there anymore.

And was he drinking blood in this episode? Vamp-speeding and drinking blood? Is...is he...a...a vampire?!? 

Sigh!

They seemed to be making a mountain out of a molehill in regards to MG and I don't know if they're trying to shake up the cast by bringing in Cleo and taking MG out. I honestly wouldn't mind that switch because I don't know what MG brings to the show anymore. Him and Lizzie's issues seem to be at a stalemate. He's either in the Friend Zone for life or he and Lizzie get it on and live happily ever after. Seems like it's the former and therefore he might not have anything more to contribute. I wouldn't have minded the build up to this but they really made it an issue out of nowhere for MG and it feels too jarring.

And now we get to Elena 2.Fucking.0! Just like Elena, they write it that Hope needs to get over her obsession with Landon. She herself realizes that she needs to do that. But the moment there's a chance to get Landon back, she'll move Heaven and Earth and use anyone she has to in order to get Landon back! She'll hold a grudge against Cleo for killing a stupid leprechaun...by accident! Cleo apologized but Hope was pissed nonetheless. She'll even sacrifice Josie and Lizzie to save Landon. She didn't care! She didn't care at all about Josie's feelings on the issue nor about turning Lizzie or Josie into dark entities. Not that I care about Josie either but I'm not her friend. Hope is supposed to be her friend and yet she was perfectly willing to let her get swallowed up by dark magic again in order to bring Landon back.

This was perhaps the most inconsiderate thing that anyone could do. I griped two episodes ago about everyone being callous to Hope regarding her grieving over Landon's supposed death. Well, she quickly returned the favour! Just imagine that Josie had a drinking problem and she got behind the wheel of a car and got into an accident, almost killing someone. So she swears off liquor forever but Hope, in an effort to get Landon back, gives her a bottle of Scotch, saying that she believes that Josie can handle it because she believes in her, but Josie needs to down that bottle of Scotch because it's the only way to get Landon back. 

Yeah...fuck Josie and fuck the consequences because Landon is all that matters!

And I'm going to take fucking Bonsai Head to task as well. He saw Lizzie and Josie and Hope getting swallowed up by the darkness, with Hope encouraging everyone to keep going regardless of what was happening to them. He knew what evil that prison world contained. And yet, when he showed up, he didn't take Hope to task at all! He should have, at the very least, lectured her on how wrong she was to do that, to sacrifice her so-called friends (and his friends) in order to save him. He should have pointed out that he never would have done that for her. But he didn't. Instead, he just sat there and comforted her, like the fucking wuss that he is! And where is their relationship going to go? They can't have sex so what the hell are they going to do? Just kiss and hold hands? Really? Good luck with that, you delusional fucks! Be prepared to feel like roommates for the rest of your relationship.

I swear, everyone, especially Lizzie and Josie and Alaric, should hold Hope accountable for what she did. If they're going to treat MG like an outcast for hiding the Ascendant, they should do no less to Hope for doing a lot worse! She was reckless and endangered the lives of everyone because if Josie had indeed become Dark Josie again, or if Lizzie had been swallowed up by the darkness, who knows what carnage they would have done (I'd have loved to have seen that, but they should have learned their lesson). Who knows if they would have gotten either of them back? Hope would have traded one life, perhaps two, for another. And it's for a guy she can't even have sex with. He's in the Friend Zone by default now. What is the point?!?

Speaking of folks who could stand a little while being in the Friend Zone....I can't stand these two! I can't. Josie's got such a visible hard on for Finch it's just embarrassing at this point. But then she goes and gripes about how Finch will leave her because Josie is essentially not paying enough attention to her. What is that I always hear women say, quoting Marilyn Monroe? "If you can't handle me at my worst, then you don't deserve me at my best." Well, perhaps that applies here. If Finch is so insecure that she can't deal with Josie's absences and dedication to her family, then she's not girlfriend material. Hell, she even quasi-insulted Hope upon seeing her and she didn't even know her! Why would you want to be with someone so insecure? You know what....I don't care! Be like MG and just go away too.

And then we get to Charon. I swear, they had this Halloween decoration on sale at Walmart last year. This was stupid. Like, I don't even get the logistics of it. How did Cleo summon the Greek mythological ferryman? I recall they ran into another Greek god (that god who was Cupid's brother or something). Can they summon any Greek god then? Is this a one off? Surely they can now summon Charon to get anyone back. They just got to sing a song. I hated that part and I literally jumped ahead because I know they did it just to showcase that Kaleb can sing. Who the fuck cares? I can't even wrap my head around this one. And all thanks to Cleo who has never done magic before. So we have prodigies in the school now. We have Hope, who has never worked with clay before, being able to create a bust of Landon. We have Cleo, who has never done magic before, summon a Greek mythological figure. Which brings up another question: who is teaching the kids now? I know they have limited students but they have no faculty. Who is teaching the magic arts to the kids? This hurts my brain thinking about it.

And to top it off, we get this reject from Riverdale. Or is it The 100? Take your pick at this point. I don't know who he/she is or what he/she is. What I do know is that I'll probably be disappointed. Maybe it's Raf. Or maybe it's NecroTed. Or maybe it's Clarke. 

Not Clarke from The 100, though that would definitely be a surprise. Hell, that'd be funny, if only to see who the bigger idiot is between her and Hope! 😄

Netflix/BBC One - Dracula (2020) TV Series

 

So having watched Francis Ford Coppola's Bram Stoker's Dracula (BSD) recently on Netflix, I stumbled upon this other Netflix series and decided to give my review on it. I will state right at the outset that I highly recommend this series. It's only 3 episodes long at around an hour and a half each episode, so it's quite a quick binge-watch. But I do think it's a fantastic series and highly recommend it. A basic summary:

The series starts off as though it will be a faithful adaptation of the book, and I feel that sets things up quite nicely for the various twists and revelations that eventually come. From there, the details of the book and characters do show up but in far different ways, however it's all delivered in a manner that doesn't feel too jarring. I will admit that it sort of threw me off at the beginning because I did think they were trying to be faithful to the book. But once they introduced certain characters and when Jonathan Harker in particular started experiencing various things that were not in the book, I realized that I could not adhere to any expectations. It's a very good re-imagining of the story with some elements that are great and some that are not so great. The costumes, special effects and environments are amazing, especially in 1897 in Transylvania and on board the Demeter. 

I will reveal that one of my biggest gripes is that the series ended far, far too soon. They needed at least one more episode to really bring the story to a satisfying conclusion, especially as it pertained to Dracula and his apparent weaknesses as a vampire. I was very impressed with the psychological aspect. I loved how they sort of re-invented the powers and weaknesses of Dracula while keeping some of the tried and true elements of past depictions but, like I said, the ending left a little to be desired and I think it's because they should have had at least one more episode to solidify what they were trying to do with Dracula and his psychological fears. There are plenty of satisfying twists and turns that keep you surprised and the ending of the first two episodes are very well done, leaving you on a cliffhanger that you have to see what happens next! I think it's a worthy retelling of the famous Count Dracula story and I do recommend folks go and see it.  

I will be going over the series in detail so do watch the series and come back and read my review of it to see if you agree or not.

*SPOILERS AHEAD*

I have to say that I loved this portrayal of Dracula. They revamped him (pun intended) to give him a modern edge (and that will be explained momentarily) while staying true to the classic Dracula, at times feeling like they were paying homage to the Bela Lugosi/Christopher Lee portrayals, especially in the way this Dracula dressed and looked when he put on his vampire face.

I think what I liked most about this Dracula was that he was a monster through and through, literally up until the very end (which I'm a bit iffy about). Having watched Coppola's BSD, where Gary Oldman's Dracula was more of a softy and was all romantic and shit (and that has it's place in vampire lore, I suppose), this Dracula wasn't any of that. He wasn't looking to find love or seduce Mina Harker into becoming his bride or establish an eternal love. In fact, when he saw a picture of Mina, he really didn't react at all, which was refreshing after having watched BSD. No, this Dracula was all about himself...and blood!

Again, having to compare this to other vampire franchises, this was so fucking refreshing! A vampire who actually CRAVES blood and can't control himself around it! One of my biggest gripes about Legacies and the whole TVD universe was the fact that the vampires there never really craved blood. They drank it but never craved it. They could survive on blood bags or on animal blood, but when it came to human blood, they never really had a lust for it. With the exception of maybe Stefan, who had an addiction as it were, the other vampires never had a problem when it came to controlling their so-called blood lust. They became too docile and too human as a result of it.

 

Not so with Dracula! It was absolutely fantastic how Dracula would try to pass himself off as a connoisseur of sorts, claiming that he chose to feed on certain individuals when it so pleased him when, in fact, he couldn't help his blood lust. The moment he smelt it or saw it, the eyes would change and the fangs would come out. He might be able to control it for a time but he had to satiate his blood lust somehow. He had no choice, and I loved that. I loved it because that should be what a vampire does. That should be a part of the curse, that a vampire should not be able to control his or her blood lust as that is what defines the vampire monster.

What I also liked about him was that he didn't care about humans. While that may seem obvious considering he is a vampire, with movies like BSD or other vampire franchises, where a level or romanticism and glorification of Dracula or other vampires is involved, there isn't any such thing here. They try to develop it but with the clear intent of turning everything on it's head. Whether it's Lord Ruthven onboard the Demeter—who thought that Dracula had chosen him to be a partner—or it was Lucy Westenra—who thought she could be young and beautiful forever by Dracula's side...they were all shown the truth: Dracula didn't care about them. 

Which ties into the other aspect that I liked about this series. While it's a common trope that young people especially seek immortality and perpetual youth, even if it meant killing and feeding off of other people, that trope was turned on it's head here. There was nothing cool or romantic or seductive about becoming a vampire or becoming undead (there is a difference here). Though Dracula would often refer to those he turned into the undead as "brides," he carried none of the compassion and love that the term implicitly carries with it. First, there was no guarantee that Dracula biting and then killing a human would turn them into vampires. With Jonathan, he was surprised by how fast and how much of his "spirit" he retained when he awoke as undead. The humans he turned, he looked at them as more or less like toys or experiments. He knew that there was a great chance that they would not become vampires like himself, but would become "the unfortunate few who remain sentient as they rot." In Transylvania, those unfortunate few were literally left crumpled up in a box.

The others that were perhaps more evolved and closer to the vampire that Dracula himself was, he treated them no better. His 'brides' too were left in a box and were fed other humans for sustenance, even babies. And once that bride was no longer interesting or amusing to him, Dracula would stake her. It was incredible how heartless he could be, being amused at how a baby suddenly became undead and marveled at it, questioning whether or not he should let the baby live simply because he was curious about it (apparently, a baby vampire had never happened before). This was a Dracula who was a clear sociopath...he didn't care. And for fools like Lucy, who fell for that classic trap of thinking that 'the bad boy would only be good to her,' she soon realized that dating a vampire and even becoming a vampire wasn't all that it was cracked up to be.  

This is part of the reason why I hated the Lucy character. Props to the actress for doing such a great job because I both hated her character and applauded her demise. She was so fucking annoying but I felt like she represented the most vapid, most narcissistic of personalities in today's society. She got off on the idea of dating a vampire and didn't care that he killed people, including children. The fact that she didn't care was what had intrigued Dracula the most, since he had never met someone so devoid of empathy as himself. And the nice touch that they added to her character was that she lamented being so beautiful because people would only smile and love her because of that beauty, implying that perhaps she wished she wasn't so beautiful.

Well....

This was fucking brilliant! The makeup was excellent and again, props to the actress because I swear she had that Brundlefly thing going! I do wonder what she would have looked like had she not been cremated (which was brutal considering she was awake throughout the whole process). Suddenly she got what she wanted (immortality) but at a cost: her beauty. The one thing she had felt was a negative in her life suddenly became the one thing she cared about losing the most. And I suppose to Dracula's credit, he saw past the charred flesh and disfigurement and was intrigued by her spirit and her mind and her lack of fear when it came to death. He didn't care what she looked like and was content to keep her around forever (until he became bored with her, of course). He didn't really care about her at all. Again, she was an experiment, a toy that just didn't work out. He shed no tears and felt no remorse when she died. She was just another in a long line of broken toys.

I loved it because it removed all the romanticism and allure of being a bride of Dracula or being a vampire. You didn't get to stay young and beautiful forever. You didn't become this cool or aristocratic immortal who could live forever, feeding off of humans while having the time of your life. To quote The Lost Boys poster:

"Sleep all day. Party all night. Never grow old. Never die. It's fun to be a vampire!"

Well, not so much here. Here, you decayed, piece by piece. Your body literally started falling apart like a zombie. And if you retained any sentience or spirit, the hunger of being a vampire was overwhelming. As Mina would find out, Jonathan didn't have the will to fight his hunger. No one did. You became a slave to the blood lust and everyone around you, including your loved ones, were in danger. You became an abomination. And even drinking Dracula's blood didn't yield any positive results. For Zoe, all she got were the memories of those victims that he had killed, in particular Agatha Van Helsing. No supernatural powers. No advanced healing or shortcut to immortality. Through and through, this series turned vampirism into a true curse and I applaud it for that.

Speaking of Agatha Van Helsing....I fucking LOVED her! I really did. I don't particularly know why. I think a part of it was her personality. She was fearless! She was intelligent, witty, sometimes reckless, humourously aloof, confident (bordering on cocky and it would cost her), but she was most of all fearless. I loved the contrast between her and Dracula, in that Dracula would look at humans as toys or experiments and see himself as superior while Agatha would reduce him to an equal level of insignificance. She wasn't impressed with his powers or feared his fangs. She regarded him as a mere beast, a curious new species of animal that she was intent on learning about and ultimately putting down. He was like a rabid dog to her who just happened to walk upright like a human. 

The sheer gall she had to challenge him and disrespect him was the definition of brazen, bordering on arrogant which would cost her at times. The chess match between the two was an appropriate symbolism. It was a chess match, and when Agatha thought she had the upper hand and had Dracula all figured out, he would make a move that would prove her wrong. And vice versa. I think what I loved most about her was her sheer defiance of him. She knew what he was and how powerful he was and how savage he was...and yet she didn't care. She would not give him the satisfaction of knowing that she feared him in any way.

By far, my favourite Agatha part was when Dracula had her cornered. She had provoked him enough and now was his chance to take her and make her suffer. He had her dead to rights and she knew it. And yet, her resolve never faded. She faced certain death with the same defiance as she had always shown. And as he went in for the kill, her line to him was fucking great!

"Come boy. Suckle!"

Bad...ass!!! 

And I liked that as confident/cocky as she was, there were moments when Dracula surprised her and had her on the ropes and she showed genuine fear and uncertainty. But she would always bounce back and regain her footing, never allowing herself to become a victim, even when Dracula killed her. I feel like she was a worthy re-imagining of the Van Helsing character. 

Now I had mentioned that there elements that weren't so great and I truly believe that these elements were brought about because they only dedicated three episodes to this series. They should have had four. They should have had two episodes taking place in the late 19th century and two taking place in the here and now. I felt like having only one episode in the here and now rushed things and either didn't set up the final revelations about Dracula adequately or left a lot of loose ends that needed tying up and characters/institutions that weren't used to their full effect.

One revelation that I wasn't a fan of simply because there wasn't enough of a build up were Dracula's weaknesses. The idea that Dracula was repelled by the cross or was afraid of sunlight or could not enter into a dwelling unless invited in....that all these 'weaknesses' were mere habits that he adopted throughout the centuries made no sense. I think I get what they were trying to do, to create this sense of irony as it pertained to Dracula finally being free. Once it was revealed that the sun didn't burn him or that he could very well enter into anyone's house without an invitation suddenly removed major obstacles to him taking over the world, so to speak. That he was suddenly free from these inhibitors meant he was essentially unstoppable. But it was when he was unstoppable that he decided he needed to stop. Like I said, I get the ironic twist to it and I can appreciate it but they needed another episode to set this up properly.

I just found it unbelievable that in 500 years of existence, Dracula never tested those limitations. He never let his hand stand in the sun to see if it burned. He never pushed through a doorway into someone's house just to see if he could do it. I'll have to give credit to the TVD universe here because that's what every vampire on that show did....they tested their limitations. I find it hard to believe that Dracula never did that and he feared the sun and the cross and couldn't enter into people's homes simply based on the idea that he too, out of habit, came to believe the folklore surrounding vampires. 

Regarding his fear of the cross, I can appreciate that he feared it not because of the holiness implied by it, but by the symbolism of Jesus giving himself over to death, something that Dracula apparently could never do. While I'm quite content with the mystery of how Dracula became a vampire (as sometimes the origin story can be quite disappointing....BSD had a very disappointing origin for Oldman's Dracula), I felt like they kept hinting at a story that we should have seen. Dracula himself says that he was a warlord and Zoe went on about how Dracula's brother and father and sons all died in battle while he remained alive unnaturally, all because he feared death. Whether they were hinting that he was, in fact, Vlad The Impaler is never answered, but it's at least hinted at. 

For that reason, I feel like an extra episode was needed, if only to establish more concretely Dracula's habits and how they came to be. They could have gone over Dracula's history and perhaps delved deeper into his fear of death and how he came to fear the sun and all holy objects. If we were shown his fear of death in a more visual way, it would have set up Dracula finally overcoming his fear and embracing death all the more potent. We could have gotten a more plausible reason for him to choose death other than the ambiguous one that we got, that being that he didn't want to live with the shame of being a coward who feared death. That was weak.

I wasn't a fan of this ending, mainly because there was no logical reason for Dracula to finally embrace death when he was truly free to do whatever he wanted. And the manner of death was disappointing. The idea that drinking Zoe's blood because she had cancer and was thus "dying," and therefore her blood was poisonous to him because a vampire can't drink the blood of someone dying, made little to no sense. As Dracula himself pointed out: "You're mortal. You've been dying since the day you were born." I felt like they gave in and did what they had spent the whole series avoiding doing: giving Dracula a romantic edge. Him dying and creating this illusion of making love to Zoe as he slowly drained her life as a way to not allow her to feel pain, while erotic to a degree, wasn't consistent. He had spent the majority of the series lacking any degree of empathy towards anybody, but for his final act, he shows it? 

I also feel like they wasted the Jonathan Harker Foundation. The fact that Zoe admitted that their funding sources were questionable and Renfield admitted that their funding stream was opaque, if not "occult," they gave the Foundation a presence that they never used to full effect. I was looking forward to them experimenting on Dracula, performing questionable tactics and perhaps crossing the line on that which was inhumane, even on an entity that was inhuman. I felt like they could have set up a greater rivalry between Zoe Helsing and Dracula, continuing the battle between Dracula and Agatha but with Zoe in her distant aunt's place. Also, they could have delved more into Jack and his work at the Foundation as well as further exploring his feelings for Lucy and thus making his killing of her all the more poignant. All this would have been greatly served by another episode. 

Despite these flaws, I think this was a really good re-imagining of the Dracula story. As much as I do like BSD, I'd probably put this one over that simply because of how they portrayed Dracula and did away with all the romantic stuff.

Still, BSD had a topless Monica Bellucci. Kind of hard to beat that! 😎