Episode 8 of Penny Dreadful , ‘Memento Mori’ had one of the best beginnings of Season 2 so far – and that’s saying something, Season 2 has been exceptional. It also had a lot of split mirrors. A lot.

penny dreadful victor lily

The beginning picks up right where it left us last week in ‘Little Scorpion’ and that’s with Lily in bed with the man she just killed while having sex with him. Now, she’s just lying in bed with him, running her fingers through his middle-aged chest hair having a post-coital conversation…….. with a dead man. He’s probably cold to the touch – just like she is. This naïve Lily personality that she has been giving Victor (and us) is a sham!

Back at Victor’s place, he’s in a drug stupor and John Clare/the Creature pours water on his face to wake him and threatens that he will get Lily and then come back and kill Victor. Good Morning!

Lily goes out with Dorian again and has a grand time all the while Clare is spying on them. He just looks so very sad. You can actually feel his heart breaking. He has to watch Dorian buy a giggly Lily a pearl necklace.

She comes home and Jon Clare is there and what happens is AN AMAZING SCENE, incredibly poetic. Billie Piper kills it! Clare tells Lily to stop pretending innocence and she obliges with an amazing monologue. She rages against the treatment of women – for real – about the make-up, the shoes and women having to have their faces turned against a pillow. This is a perfect bookend to an earlier episode when Victor first dressed her up and she had all those questions about why women put themselves through wearing ridiculous constricting and uncomfortable clothes – Victorian era, remember. She ends her tirade saying “Never again will I kneel to any man. Now they shall kneel to me as you do, monster. My monster. My beautfiful corpse.” Clare just melted in her arms. “No being who ever was, or ever will be, will ever love you like I do.”

So yeah, now the creature belongs to her. Clare just melted in her arms. Plus she promised they would destroy Victor together. So there’s that.

dorian gray portrait

Now, other stuff did happen in this episode. When Dorian gets home from his Lily date, Angelique has discovered his secret room with the portrait. Dorian comments that she has discovered his secret – that he is forever unchanging. Dorian asks Angelique if she could still love him, knowing this. She says yes so Dorian’s hands her a drink to toast. Of course at my house, I yelled, “You know that drink is poison, girl!” And sure enough, it was. Beautiful Angelique is dead and we got to see the scary portrait of Dorian, himself,  chained up – the one that soaks up Dorian’s age and bad deeds. The portrait Dorian snaps at Dorian and Dorian flinches for an ever so brief second.

Over at Evelyn’s house, she is toying with Ferdinand. What hold doth she have over him? He’s miserable. She’s deliciously evil. She demands that he kiss her before he leaves. Ferd doesn’t want to do this for so many reasons but he does and she kindly tells him that he “tastes like a fat little man.”

Malcolm is coming out of Evelyn’s enchantment. In fact, as she works on the fetish to possess him, his eyes turn black and she almost has him but Sembene yells “KNOW WHO YOU ARE” and he breaks free much to Evelyn’s shock. Sembene is such a badass. Also, it looks like Evelyn’s daughter is gonna make a play for being top witch. Family drama.

penny dreadful malcolm sembene

During that commotion, Ferdinand, Victor, Malcolm and Sembene were working on the puzzle and discover Lucifer may have had a brother. Creepy. Who is this other evil she or he?

Malcolm confronts Evelyn at her creepy skull-filled mansion. Malcolm wants Evelyn to leave Vanessa alone which will never happen. Instead, Evelyn leaves Malcolm with hallucinations of his dead wife, daughter and son.

Next week on Penny Dreadful Episode 9, ‘And Hell Itself My Only Foe’ (only 2 episodes left of this incredible season), Vanessa goes alone to battle Evelyn in order to save Sir Malcolm.

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