Dracula 1.09 “Four Roses” Recap

As Mina dreams about the night that she was attacked, remembering that a bloodied Grayson was also there, Grayson preps for war with the Order at home. Despite Renfield’s attempts to convince him of the idea that the attack on Mina, the theft of the Triptych, and his own abduction were more about Davenport’s personal vendetta than anything to do with the Order, Grayson is bound and determined to let the blood flow and to dismantle the institution responsible for the death of his wife. As such, Renfield decides to go after Van Helsing to try and get the professor to talk some sense into Grayson and keep him from doing something that could destroy the plan altogether. However, since Grayson couldn’t restrain his passion toward becoming human and the resonator has been taken from their possession, Van Helsing deems their contract to be broken and anything that happens to Grayson not of his concern.

Lady Jayne has called every huntsman she can to London for the impending vampire butcher, brought on by the gruesome deaths of Hackett and the two other Order associates. But Browning is distracted by the kidnapping of his children, which he blames on Grayson after finding Daniel Davenport’s suicide letter that mentioned Grayson’s role in his death. Browning believes that the energy scheme is nothing more than Grayson’s way of protecting himself while dismantling the Order one by one, intimating that the man they know as Alexander Grayson is in fact Dracula. Jayne argues that Dracula would not be able to strike in broad daylight and that right now, she needs Browning’s full attention; they can always get Grayson later, but he’s not the threat they need to be focusing on. Elsewhere, Harker wakes up after his tryst with Lucy and nearly makes it out the door before she wakes up and tries to get him to stay. However, he ends up leaving and her mother sees him coming from her room.

Renfield arrives at Carfax to find Inspector Sallinger and his team of men searching for something. Although they do have a warrant, it doesn’t specify what exactly they’re looking for and Renfield threatens to press trespassing charges if they don’t leave immediately. Grayson, though, insists that everything’s okay and that he gave them permission to search his premises; it turns out that the search is for Mr. Browning’s children and, of course, nothing turns up. Once everyone leaves, Grayson expresses doubt that it could be Van Helsing who took the children, considering that he’s so locked into the path he designed for himself, and comes down on Renfield for going to the professor in the first place. Meanwhile, Lucy learns that Alastair has been trying to contact her due to being worried about her and as she gets ready to leave, she begins crying in front of her mother. She asks why she was never taught that it was perfectly natural for a woman to love another woman before she finds the man she’s meant to be with and sees in her mother’s face that Jayne lied to her the entire time.

Harker accepts the invitation to join the Order on one condition – Browning tell him why Mina was attacked. However, Browning says that it wasn’t sanctioned through the order and notices in the way Harker reacts to talk about Davenport that he was the one who killed the Order member. The two shake hands and Harker immediately gets to work, this time going after the resonator blueprints in Grayson’s office; he does get the blueprints out safely, though he nearly gets caught by Renfield. Grayson goes to Van Helsing’s to talk about the comment he made to Renfield about their partnership coming to an end and Van Helsing explains that because Grayson doesn’t have the ability to control himself and his strategy of bloodshed isn’t a strategy after all, he would no longer be working with the man he’d spent years planning revenge on the Order with. Grayson inquires about the kidnapping of Browning’s children, though, and warns that if Van Helsing had anything to do with it, he would be in for some serious trouble.

Van Helsing goes to the house that he’s keeping Browning’s two young children and brings out the silver mallet that he used to kill the seers earlier this season. Though he thinks about using it on them and exacting the revenge that he always wanted against Browning for the death of his own loved ones, he ends up not being able to go through with it. Meanwhile, Grayson and three associates arrive at a billiards lounge that Lord Rothcroft and his colleagues frequent. Rather than keep up his American façade, Grayson reveals to the man that he’s Dracula and locks his vampire associates in the room with Rothcroft and his men, resulting in a bloody slaughter. Jayne, Browning, Inspector Sallinger, and Maori huntsman Kaha Ruma soon arrive to the crime scene, which Sallinger notes for there being no effort to conceal the bodies. The foursome plan to say that the disappearance/death of the men in Rothcroft’s party are due to a yachting mishap, yet Browning expresses to Jayne that he thinks it’s Dracula and excuses Sallinger by saying that his children were with his wife all this time. Once Sallinger leaves, Browning tells Jayne that she was right to question his judgment regarding Grayson and that while the American’s still a threat, they have other things to take care of first.

At the hospital, Mina wakes up to find Grayson watching over her and finds out that the roses she had been getting weren’t from Jonathan – they were from him. She informs him of her dream that he was there when she was attacked and stopped the men from doing even more damage, something that he vehemently denies, and she tries to get him to stay with her a little while longer. Although there’s nothing he would like more in the world, the sun was coming up and he didn’t have enough serum in his system to face direct sunlight, so he quickly leaves and returns to Carfax. Mina gets another visitor in Lucy, who comes bringing a bouquet of flowers that she cut from her mother’s garden. Lucy can’t believe that anyone would dare hurt Mina and makes it obvious that something happened with Jonathan; she doesn’t directly say that they were together, but her body language and attitude did all the talking and as such, Mina throws her out of the room.

Harker goes through the induction ceremony to get into the Order, which involves saying an oath and cutting his hand before joining hands with Browning, while Van Helsing cuts out individual newspaper letters to form the ransom note for Browning’s children. His asking price? 50,000 pounds. While Grayson ponders the idea of a daylight attack on the Order, he gets notice from Kowalski that the Board of Health has removed the quarantine and that they will be able to continue their work with the resonator. However, the Order was the one behind the Board’s reversal, as Browning believes that Grayson needs to have the opportunity to publicly fail once again. To combat Grayson’s tenaciousness and to keep him from trying again, Browning wants to rig the resonator and cause a catastrophe. Elsewhere, Mina leaves the hospital and makes it to Harker’s where she confronts him about not coming to see her for two days and sleeping with Lucy. He brings up that she’s been throwing herself at him for two weeks before apologizing and before Mina leaves, she asks him why he did what he did. His answer? She loves Grayson.

While walking on the street, Mina’s almost in a daze and sees Ilona reaching out toward her in a middle on the street, causing her to fall and nearly give herself a concussion. She lands back at the hospital and Grayson comes to see her, bringing another single red rose and making her laugh. She asks what’s between them and he confesses that she reminds him of someone he once loved; it turns out that Mina has been dreaming about Ilona since she was a little girl and was cognizant enough to know that Ilona was the figure reaching out to her in the puddle. But Grayson rejects the idea of being with Mina due to having to settle the debt he has with Ilona and Mina loving Harker. When she explains that she and Harker are no more due to Lucy, Grayson angrily goes to Lucy’s, tells her that he’ll make her a monster since she keeps acting like one, and bites her neck. He allows her to drink from his wrist and quickly leaves her in the bathtub, covered in blood.

Additional thoughts and observations:
-So, this was fun, right? It’s nice to see Dracula with this type of energy and pulse; the show still isn’t the fastest thing on television, but during the middle of the season, there was particularly lethargic moments, of which there were none to be found here. The show has been a slow build, but the fact that it’s built and that this is what it can do after stacking on character development and political maneuvering is promising.
-Favorite shot: Everything in the billiards lounge was interestingly framed, especially Grayson revealing his true identity to Rothcroft. I also really liked Mina staggering on the street (the fogginess a metaphor for her mind?) and the final shot of Lucy, bloody and stunned in the bathtub.
-Speaking of Lucy, everything that happened to her was made especially effective by the show slow-playing it, as we (or I, at least) had gotten invested in her happiness and hoped that she could find the peace with herself and forgiveness for Mina that she was seeking. It’s both tragic that she’s now a member of the undead, particularly when her final conversation with Mina was negative, and dramatically interesting to see the human character that was least connected to that world try and navigate it by herself.
-Scissors had been available for over a century at the time the show was set, so I’m not sure why Van Helsing felt the need to use his microscope and surgical tools to form his ransom note. The shot of his eye looking through the glass was very nice, though.
-Very little Lady Jayne and what we got…am I hallucinating or didn’t the vampire that she tortured last week tell her that Dracula was able to get out in daylight? So, why was she so convinced that Grayson isn’t Dracula due to his ability to be in sunlight? Is it just wishful thinking, her hope that she hadn’t invested as much time and effort in an elder vampire as she might have?
-Admittedly, I was a little disappointed that Van Helsing didn’t kill Browning’s children. Not that I root for children to die, but I would have been extremely impressed by the show’s guts if it was willing to go there. If you’re a show centered on a dangerous character like Dracula and you pull your punches, it gives the show less bite (har har) and makes everything less compelling (har har). But really.
-Harker definitely looked like he was losing his mind, or had already lost his mind, during the induction ceremony. I believe that was a combination of disbelief at where he was, sadness at Mina being in love with Grayson, and self-hatred at what he did with Lucy, all tied together with one faraway, disconnected stare that made for a sharp contrast to the bright, eager Harker we met in the first episode.
-So, season finale predictions? My bold prediction is that Lady Jayne is done for. She’ll likely have a final battle with Dracula and even if she were to defeat the other vampires and send him running, I could see Browning disposing of her due to not being able to recognize that the man she was sleeping with and developing feelings for was an elder who had been picking apart the Order since he arrived in town.
-Next week on Dracula: It’s the season finale and while Grayson’s public demonstration causes catastrophic results, Lucy joins the ranks of the undead, Van Helsing exacts revenge upon Mr. Browning, and Lady Jayne attempts to eradicate London of all vampires.