Marlott is captured
and chained up and Esther is dead in the process of becoming not dead. Dippel
is being super creepy with Esther. Harvey is being super creepy with Marlott.
Everyone’s trying to out creepy everyone else and they’re all going for gold
Esther is resurrected
- but that whole weird creepy beach vision which I thought was Marlott’s
hallucination? Well it turns out like all the surreal moody visions, they’re
actually real. This beach seems to represent… limbo? Maybe? ANyway this is why
our not-entirely-dead people keep going there (because the land is life and the
sea is death so the beach is sort of in between. Nice metaphor. Also points for
moodiness. And making sure there are no seagulls. I feel seagulls would ruin
this). And Esther, on her way back from death, is in the sea and drowning…
until Marlott wades in and pulls her out
Which is nice but why
does Esther need a helping hand back to the land of the living?
This also gives
Marlot chance to tell Harvey what a terrible person he is killing his wife - he
protests he didn’t but Marlot claims she set the fire that killed her because
it was the only way to escape him. Because, yes, those creepy visions were real
and were her ghost
While Dippel embraces
Marlot as a sibling because they’re both not!dead people. He’s also passionate
in his belief there is no god, this allows you to do anything but also is why
he doesn’t want to die because it’s the end of everything. This from a man who
literally sees a vision of life death and limbo AND sees ghosts. At least point
being rather certain that there’s no afterlife seems… not the workings of a
rational mind. “There is no afterlife now I’m going to lure this woman into
following me into eternal life with the ghost of her son!”
I feel the writers
may need a slap upside the head from an atheist
Harvey and Dippel are
also working together - Harvey is really impressed with Dippel’s dad’s work -
Dippel is really impressed that Harvey can replicate it but they both kind of
need each other: Dippel is holding on to the formula for the catalyst while
Dippel seems to be running out of the stuff and possibly unable to recreate it
without Harvey’s genius.
But I’m getting ahead
of myself - because while, as I said last episode, everyone on team bad guy knows
each other and is working together, they’re all also all sharpening their
knives for more quality back stabbing than a Tory Party conference.
The Dean is duly
concerned that the current king is days away from dropping dead and Prince
William the heir is Not a Fan and all those pesky murders. So when Renquist
turns to him asking if the Dean will protect him the Dean happily says “god
will protect you”. Which is religious talk for “you’re screwed”.
Renquist responds to this by going to Boz the journalist and exposing the Dean as the murderer trying to make lots of money out of Pyre Street. He also orders the Parish Watch to arrest Dippel for the murders just so he can have a scapegoat
Queenie, Dippel’s
maid, does some of her own sleuthing in Dippel’s murder rooms and finds
Nightingale’s keepsake. A token mothers left with their babies at the foundling
home where she and Nightingale grew up so, if matters changed, the mother could
prove which child was there’s by describing this unique token. She has proof
Nightingale was there and takes it to the Inspector, threatening to take it to
the Parish watch if he won’t act
Yes that’s the watch
and the police after Dippel now.
Which is why, with
Esther newly awakened and screaming, the police arrive. Dippel and Harvey
promptly turn on each other, fighting over Dippel’s dad’s catalyst and the
formula: Harvey breaks the bottle which leaves Dippel distraught and all but
licking it from the floor. This is why I think Dippel is incapable of
recreating it - which is why he needs Hervey, I guess.
I wonder if Esther
and Marlott will need that catalyst as well?
Dippel escapes and
Harvey is dragged into custody because he’s in a room full of body parts. All
the preserved human hearts they’ve been cutting out and other disturbing things
makes Lord Harvey look awwwwfullly guilty.
Marlott appeals to
Dippel to take him because there’s no way rich guy Dippel can navigate the
rookeries and not get caught by the police and the watch (and the watch are
following the Inspector’s lead - so that’s another conflict resolved). He does
help them evade capture.
They shelter in a
church and Dippel starts to talk about why Esther is his and why he needs her
(basically, lonely immortal is lonely) until Esther gets really annoyed by all
this and clubs him with a metal bar
Esther is her own
woman, she belongs to no-one and she is not going to have Dippel referring to
her as property. That leaves Marlot and her free to make their own escape. That
escape involves revisiting her home looking for the ghost of Sam her child.
Marlott makes a bitter realisation - yes they can see ghosts but for some perverse
reason they can’t see the ghosts of their own family: hence why he can’t see
his wife and child and while he can see Sam, Esther cannot. Ouch
Esther and Matlott go
on with the theological debate and nature of god which has been rumbling
throughout this series: she realises how much she had been living in her grief,
how she’d come to almost haunt her own home and even theorises she trapped Sam
as a ghost because of her inability to let him go and move on. She wants to
make a new beginning and when Marlott continues to lament the loss of god but
her fresh start includes god: She’s not going to let any rules, god man or
otherwise, define her. Including the memory of the dead
Surprisingly she and
Marlott go their separate ways - she joins Mrs. Wild’s caravan but Marlott has
some epic questing and moping to do. She’s still followed by the ghost of her
son and they do plan to meet again. Esther has definitely had a transformation
- next season she’s going to be much more interesting than Marlot. Marlott is a
box of angst and woe, while she has completely transformed who she is and what
she’s doing.
As for all the bad
guys - well Lord Harvey’s nasty experimenting books have been found along with
all the bodies. Also he’s started rambling about Marlott being still alive. Sir
Pool visits him to say how this is most unfortunate that all the serial killing
plus the seeing dead man makes him sort of delusional. But hey, he’s booked a
very nice room in Bethlem for him.
While the Dean of
Westminster isn’t super doomed, old King George finally drops dead and his
brother Prince William becomes king William. And literally the first thing he
does upon becoming king is look at all these personally enriching royal
warrants ol’Georgy had been giving him and assure the Dean they will be Talking
About This. At length. So the Dean is about to find things awkward. He starts
tying up loose ends - which means Renquist gets repeatedly stabbed. Bye
Renquist
His own revenge
against the Dean doesn’t go so well - sure Boz writes a damning story - but his
editor refuses to print it. Causing Boz to quit and take his work elsewhere. At
least with Harvey now pegged as the murderer, the Irish giant member of Mrs.
Wild’s group is released. In extra threads left dangling - Dippel is still
alive
It’s interesting how
this season ended - by both finishing everything off (the series could end here
and still be finished satisfactorily) but still leaving enough hooks and
potential expansions for the show to continue. And I think there are definite
hooks for that - the ongoing story of Merlott and especially Esther, the
opening of the world to possibly bringing in more obscure myths and legends -
even Mrs. Wild’s travelling caravan all have plots galore. We know Harvey has
managed to secrete a little of the catalyst. That gives us the scope for at
least 4 characters to actually extend their lives enough to be present in any
era from them
What frustrates me is
that part of the reason why these series has so much potential to go on is
because it’s so damn short but also because it drops hooks and intriguing
characters both historical and otherwise without actually doing anything. Like
Mary Shelley and Ada Byron - these iconic, fascinating women do little more
than a bit part. And this definitely applies to the POC as well - I mean,
points for including POC when so many historical dramas rather ahistorically
assume an all White Regency England - but Nightingale had so much potential as
a character and to be involved in the plot rather than being a… not even a
quasi antagonist since that would involve him being more involved. Or Mrs. Wild
- why introduce this fascinating character with her unique opinions and
potential and then so underuse her.
The whole show feels…
curtailed. Like they had a full series worth of plot and then were forced to
cut vast chunks of it to squeeze it into a 6 episode miniseries. Which in turn
makes me less appreciative of the epic atmospheric and thematic style of the
show. Which is truly excellent - the feel of the show, the acting, the
cinematography all create a really excellent eerie, bleak atmosphere which
really works with all the considerations about god and where they stand and
life and death et al. Which would be lovely. In a 12 or 20 episode season. In 6
episodes there’s no room for this!
