Showtime’s Penny Dreadful is an interesting beast of a show, drawing together a handful of literary horror’s most recognizable characters and concepts, spinning them into a sprawling narrative that Season 1’s eight episodes only touched upon. Luckily, creator and showrunner John Logan (Skyfall) has spent the better part of a decade creating this world in his mind, and he let Comic-Con fans know that Season 2 will be much larger, expanding some of those stories, while also bringing a familiar human character to head the antagonistic front.
Remember Madame Kali, the uppity spiritualist played by Helen McCrory? She’ll be getting promoted to Season 2’s big baddie, and I suppose it’s fitting for a regular human being to be the threat in a series full of vamps, resurrected beings, a werewolf and some demons. But she, like Vanessa (Eva Green), can tap into the supernatural world – the unsettling séance from the second episode was one of the best of its kind – and apparently Madame Kali will go further down the ghostly rabbit hole until it’s too late.
Logan showed the Comic-Con crowd a deleted scene from Season 1 that hinted at where Madame Kali’s story would one day go. The showrunner, in reference to the nearby Reeve Carney, Harry Treadaway and Josh Hartnett, said that “her supernatural world becomes the threat to all the gentlemen sitting on the stage with me.” We last saw Madame Kali getting her flirt on with Ethan (Hartnett) in the season finale, so one has to wonder how naturally evil is she, and how much of her doomed side will be prompted by ghastly specters.
According to THR, Logan is also planning on revealing some info about Ethan’s past in the United States, specifically his relationship with his father, Jared. Plus that whole “how did he become a werewolf” issue. Speaking about Jared, Logan had this to say:
” He was a monstrous man who treated his son brutally. Something happened in Ethan's life that became this curse/blessing. But in the larger theology/cosmology, there are other elements to it, which we'll explore in season two.”
And, if everything goes according to his master plan, Logan also wants to take Penny Dreadful to the Island of Lost Souls, where a certain Dr. Moreau is presumably cranking out bastardized animal hybrids. Created by H.G. Wells for his 1896 novel The Island of Dr. Moreau, this reclusive and insane genius would be a fine addition to this bonkers series. But maybe wait until a third season when the plot will have room to breathe…through both lungs and gills.
With no specific release date set, expect to find Penny Dreadful covering Showtime in shadows next spring.
