Judy Manning

Penny Dreadful is lurid and deliciously twisted! The writers continue their brilliant onslaught of deft storytelling and superb vision as they lead us down a shadowy, winding path into the murkiest depths of our fears and imaginations. What the writers have done in “Resurrection” provides us with a rich back story into several characters’ lives, most notably, the morbid doctor Victor Frankenstein (Harry Treadaway).

In the aptly titled “Séance,” there is an actual séance; however, we’ll get into that shortly. First, we meet a few more characters and are reintroduced to one we met briefly in “Night Work.” The latter is the endearingly quirky Ferdinand Lyle (Simon Russell Beale), the curator at the British Museum. We met Mr. Lyle briefly when Sir Malcolm Murray (Timothy Dalton) brought him some unique photographs of Egyptian carvings. Throughout “Séance,” the audience is privy to some disturbing yet intriguing scenes that make it difficult to turn away, in spite of every fiber of your being telling you to do so. One such scene involves Dorian Gray (Reeve Carney) and Brona Croft (Billie Piper).