Dracula Episode 109
“Four Roses”
Teleplay By: Daniel Knauf
Story By: Jesse Peyronel
Directed By: Tim Fywell
Original Airdate: 17 January 2014
In This Episode…
Grayson is convinced that the Order was behind Mina’s attack and wants to start war with them. Renfield tries to explain that Davenport acted alone in this, but Grayson doesn’t believe him. He goes to Van Helsing in the hopes that he can calm down Grayson, but now that Grayson has lost possession of the resonator, he considers their contract null and void. He’s out.
Browning is frantic over his missing children, but Jayne is annoyed. She has hunters coming from all over Europe to hunt Dracula, and she doesn’t have time to deal with Browning’s domestic issues. Besides, as a member of the Order of the Dragon, Browning swore that his personal needs would never supersede those of the Order. Despite the fact that he has seen Grayson walk in the daylight, he is convinced Grayson is Dracula. Jayne finds this absurd. While she continues prepping for the arriving hunters, Browning sends the police to search Carfax Manor for the children. Of course, they are not there. Renfield suggests that perhaps Van Helsing took the children, a notion which Grayson dismisses. Except that Van Helsing did take the children. After the resonator was taken into custody, Van Helsing thought the only way to exact revenge was to kill the Browning children. Of course, when push came to shove, Van Helsing couldn’t do it, so instead he keeps the kids in drugged stupors in the basement of an abandoned house.
Jonathan wakes in the morning with Lucy and is disgusted with himself. He dresses and leaves without saying a word to her. He takes a carriage and goes straight to Browning. He has decided to join the Order, but he insists on knowing why the Order attacked Mina. Browning insists that Davenport acted alone, and realizes that it was Jonathan who shot Davenport. They shake on his joining the Order. As a sort of hazing, Jonathan must obtain the blueprints to Grayson’s resonator, which he does so with relative ease. He is inducted shortly thereafter, in typical secret society fashion: robes, chants, kneeling, and a blood oath. Later, Browning has his engineers go over the resonator blueprints. The city had returned the resonator to Grayson because, as Browning points out, “if there is no demonstration, there can be no failure.” And Browning wants a spectacular public failure.
Grayson goes to visit Mina, but he has a little errand first: he drops off a few of his vampire brethren at a billiards hall and locks them in with a few members of the Order. When Jayne comes upon the blood-soaked scene, she sees it as a declaration of war. (Browning is there as well, and he takes the opportunity to tell the cops that his children are staying with his wife’s sister, and it was all a telegraph mixup. He finally agrees with Jayne that they don’t need any additional police scrutiny.) Mina is starting to remember seeing Grayson attack her attackers, which he insists never happened. Despite her pleas for him to stay, as he watches the sunlight move across the room, he knows he must go.
Lucy is feeling pretty terrible about her night with Jonathan, and her mother notices her mood. She begs Lucy to open up, and she finally does: “Why didn’t you tell me it was natural for a woman to fall in love with another woman?” Mom steps back from her daughter, alarmed, and Lucy realizes Jayne has played her. Desperate to make amends somehow, Lucy visits Mina in the hospital, and is relieved when Mina greets her warmly. She does not move away when Lucy sits at the edge of her bed, and she freely reaches for her best friend’s hand. Emboldened by this show of affection, Lucy encourages Mina to call off her engagement. Mina becomes suspicious and soon figures out (though the words are never spoken) that he and Lucy slept together. Mina throws Lucy out.
Mina escapes the hospital and goes to Jonathan’s home. He is surprised and angry to see her there, forgetting that he gave her a key. She is mad that he hasn’t visited her in two days, but after her visit with Lucy, she knows why. Jonathan’s defense is that Lucy was throwing herself at him. He tries to pull her to him, but she fights away and he tells her to leave, that she won’t hear from him again. Of course, before she goes, Mina just has to know: “Why?” “Because you love Grayson.” Mina has no response for this, so she rushes out into the night. Stumbling down the cold, wet streets of London, she bumps into every passerby she can, then steps in a puddle and notices Ilona’s reflection reaching for her. She passes out and is nearly run over by a carriage.
Mina wakes up in the hospital as Grayson is leaving another rose for her. So he sits with her. After some small talk, she finally asks: “What is happening between us?” He admits that she reminds her of “someone I used to love named Ilona.” Mina has dreamed of her since she was little. Her next question tears up Grayson: “Do you love me?” “Don’t ask me that,” he begs. “I have something I have to finish; until then I cannot move forward. Besides, you love Jonathan.” She reveals the tryst between Jonathan and Lucy, and Grayson is offended for her. Mina’s mood turns and she asks to be left alone. Grayson leaves with rage towards Lucy.
Lucy is sobbing in a milk bath, and I honestly expect her to kill herself. But something much better happens. Grayson/Dracula comes in, rips her throat open, forces her to drink some of his own blood, and leaves. Lucy is left alone in her now-bloodied bathtub, shocked - but alive.
Dig It or Bury It?
This episode started off a little slow. Lots of people wallowing in their own misery. But then it ended where I think a lot of us were waiting for it to go - Dracula turning Lucy into a vampire. Frankly, I think she is better off like this. Her life was kind of in the toilet;maybe she can rise above the nonsense as a vampire. It does make me wonder, back in that time period, which was worse: to be a vampire or to be gay?
Prophecies?
Browning sets the resonator to explode, and Grayson faces off against Jayne in the season finale.