“It is our make-or-break season, and we’re going for it.”
So said John Logan, creator and executive producer of Showtime’s Penny Dreadful, at a press conference for the show’s second season earlier this year. The Victorian era thriller, featuring some of literature’s greatest supernatural characters, finds Vanessa (Eva Green) and Ethan (Josh Hartnett) forming a deeper bond as the group — including Sir Malcolm (Timothy Dalton), Dr. Frankenstein (Harry Treadaway) and Sembene (Danny Sapani) — unites to banish evil forces. Meanwhile, Dorian Gray (Reeve Carney), The Creature (Rory Kinnear) and Brona (Billie Piper) are all waging battles of their own.
“I think everything becomes more fluid and more sort of liberated in the second season,” Logan added, “because we know the characters and now we get to unspool them in different ways.”
Ethan, in particular — who we learned last season is a werewolf — will find his story evolving.
“You’ll definitely see more [of Ethan’s wolf side] this season,” Logan said, “because one of the great revelations for Ethan is he himself learns what he is. You know, the sort of dread, if you will, of it has encompassed him, the sense of not knowing the capability for violence is defined. … So how we treat lycanthropy is a major part of the season and the ongoing story for Ethan.”
Also back this season is Helen McCrory as Evelyn Poole (a.k.a. Madame Kali), a spiritualist who becomes an antagonist for the characters.
“This season we embrace witchcraft,” explained Logan. “Last season we had the vampires, and now we have a proper villain, and we enjoy her immensely. … We sort of unleashed Helen this season. … There’s a foxhole mentality [among the group] because there’s so much pressure on them from Evelyn Poole.”
Speaking of witches, Logan is pleased with how they are portrayed in Penny Dreadful.
“I knew I didn’t want old crones with black hats,” he said. Logan revealed that he was inspired to talk with his makeup designer about the concept of their witches by the way he feels when he sees a rattlesnake while hiking — something that is beautiful as its scales capture the light in a certain bewitching way, but in an instant can become something else.
“I go back to those things that scare me,” Logan said when relating this story, and it doesn’t sound like viewers will be disappointed in getting their own scares this season.
Penny Dreadful Season 2 premieres on Showtime May 3 at 10pm ET/PT.
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Jim Fiscus/Showtime
