Dracula 1.07 “Servant to Two Masters” Recap

Now that he has the nickel steel alloy necessary for his resonator to work, Grayson is barreling full steam ahead toward a public demonstration that could prove to make or break his place in the London business world. However, he’s not at full strength due to not feeding since Vera Markham and when Van Helsing calls him on it, he refuses to do so, claiming that he’s okay. Later, Grayson meets with Harker, who figures out that it was his boss who was behind the bringing down of General Shaw; Grayson cites Shaw as simply another casualty in the ongoing energy wars and when Harker threatens to expose him, he reminds the young man it was not he who sought the bookkeeper and sent the evidence to the newspapers. Now that that’s settled, Harker is to send out press invites for the upcoming demonstration.

The Order is, of course, seething at the idea of Grayson putting his creation out into the public sphere, though Davenport admits that he’s clever at keeping them on the defensive, and thus, begins the next phase of their plan – bringing in Scotland Yard’s DCI Morrow and going after Harker. Renfield gets sent to Budapest alone to retrieve the Dresden Triptych, one of Grayson’s family heirlooms, and Grayson is given another shot of serum by Van Helsing, who presses him again about not feeding and obviously showing symptoms of being ill. However, Grayson claims to be feeling reborn as a man once more and shows no signs of wanting to give in to his baser instincts, not when they allow him to walk out into the sunlight in the middle of the day and meet with Mina at a nearby park. He catches her riding her bike and she tells him of an argument with her father over the monotony of the days in the hospital and what that could do to the patients’ sense of morale. Grayson suggests a dance to get their blood pumping and soon after, goes to Lady Jayne’s to see about the flowers he sent her.

Once there, he informs her of her butler having sex with her cook and him walking in on it, but after he sucks the blood from her finger that came as a result of a thorny rose, he suggests that they go and watch. Instead, they have fun of their own and she expresses great joy at having him there in the middle of the day. Especially since things aren’t going as well with her husband, who has fallen in love with his attending nurse. Under any other circumstances, Jayne would be fine with that, but she has her reputation to think about and Grayson advises her to go after the nurse, as wounding her would wound her husband without getting her hands dirty in the process. At the hospital, Mina brings up the dance to her father and mentions the benefits of socialization; at first he’s resistant to the idea for the potential for inappropriate behavior, but he ultimately agrees to it when she tells him that a dance could help with morale. While Grayson is having trouble suppressing his urges to feed around one of his servants, Harker comes in with a stack of refusals for the public demonstration. As such, Grayson takes a wider approach and hires a little boy to cause a commotion in the middle of town and pass out fliers to any and all around.

While Renfield makes it to the auction in Budapest and outbids the highest bidder for the painting by 750,000 korunas, Grayson is surprised to see Mina in his home without having welcomed her in. She asks for and gets the okay to borrow his phonograph for the dance, just as Jayne meets with Lucy about what happened the other night with Mina. Jayne assures her that Mina is the one in the wrong her, her actions cowardly and monstrous, and agrees to help her help Mina know pain by advising her on how to seduce Jonathan. She gives her tips on how to appeal to Harker’s five senses – fingertips on his arm (touch), her laugh (hearing), lingering looks (sight) – before kissing the young girl as a demonstration of “taste.” The Order meets with DCI Morrow and learns that half of Scotland Yard will be attending the demonstration, yet Grayson’s condition isn’t guaranteeing that a demonstration would be feasible right now, as Van Helsing tries to get his colleague to wake up and realize how poor he’s holding up. But Grayson tells him that he would rather live as a man or not at all.

Renfield goes into his room following the auction and finds that the door is already open. Drawing his sword, he only finds an apologetic cleaning lady in there, who quickly leaves. He checks behind the dresser for the box the painting was in, which is still there, just as Harker and Lucy go to a tailor for a suit fitting. He offers condolences for the ending of her relationship with Allistair and she boots the tailor aside in order to measure his inseam herself, writing it down and walking away when she was finished. Out on the streets, DCI Morrow goes to a milk cart in search of a drink and while the attendant wasn’t looking, spikes the milk with something before inconspicuously heading off.

Grayson rips apart the wood that encases the painting and finds that someone took the painting. That someone? The cleaning lady, who works for the Order. The men open up the triptych to find that the painting is of Ilona and they realize that the thing that Grayson loves most in the world is the woman who looks exactly like her – Mina. The Order then sends for Harker, who they pick up off the street and bring to their headquarters, where Browning is the only member he sees with the rest of them lurking in the shadows. Browning asks if he would give up his life to serve God’s word and informs him of the Ottomans having the power through their oil supply to potentially take over western industry. While Grayson’s electricity could be the thing that ultimately crushes their chances, the Order views it as a dead end distraction from a man only interested in lining his pockets. Meanwhile, the dance goes about as well as can be expected, with everyone having a good time and Grayson bringing in a six-piece string band to liven up the proceedings beyond a phonograph. He leaves, though, when he begins to shake and Mina follows. Upset that Jonathan isn’t there, she gets Grayson to share a dance with her in the hallway, which nearly leads to both a kiss between the two and Grayson biting her. However, he refrains from both, despite how much he wants to indulge himself, and leaves for the demonstration.

At the demonstration, the curtain is down with no sign of Grayson and whatever the chief inspector put in the milk has begin working its magic, as everyone who took a drink has become frightfully ill. Scotland Yard comes into the room and shuts the demonstration down due to the claimed negative impact the resonator had on public safety and begins confiscating the equipment. Just then, Grayson makes it in and berates the chief inspector, throwing money his way as he taunts the man about being paid off. Grayson gets held back by Harker and pulled away, though later, after Harker apologizes to Mina for not showing up at the dance like he promised, Grayson gets his revenge on the chief inspector. He poses as the man’s driver and feeds on him in the middle of the street, drenching himself in blood as a result.

Grayson returns to his place to find Van Helsing and curses the man for giving him the false hope that one day he could be human again.

Additional thoughts and observations:
-The opening shot with Grayson and the goggles made me think of Willy Wonka, for some reason.
-I’m surprised how quickly Harker pieced together that it was Grayson who was the one that orchestrated the Vera Markham deception. Considering the pace of the show, I figured that would be a season finale revelation.
-Watching Grayson suck Jayne’s blood after she pricked her finger on a rose and then offer to watch her servants have sex was bizarre; the prior at least made sense within the confines of the story, with this episode (and Grayson’s blood lust in general) as something of an addiction allegory, but the latter was out of nowhere and the kind of kink that hasn’t really been present during this show. But that and Lucy making a thing about measuring Harker’s inseam made me laugh, at least.
-1,000,000 korunas is about $50,000, at least in 2014.
-I loved how they dressed Lucy in green (Jayne’s “signature color” of sorts) when she met with Jayne about what happened with Mina and how she was back in bright pink when she made her first move on Harker. The show has done well with color thus far and this was another (fairly) subtle example.
-Have we seen the guy with the face tattoo/markings before? Because I didn’t recall him and felt like I should.
-Favorite shots: Anything while Harker was down in the Order dungeon was suitably creepy and Grayson feeding on Morrow was impressive for its use of shadow and how primal he became. Bonus points for the blood falling out of his mouth, a good touch of gore that didn’t go too far.
-However, it would be nice if there were more attacks than one at the end of every episode. I know that the classic sense of Dracula isn’t the story the show is telling (it’s more similar to the novel), but this is at least the third time that the lone bit of violence is at the end of the episode and that makes it feel like something they feel obligated to do rather than something organic. As if it were a tacked on after thought rather than an important part of the episode.
-Next week on Dracula: Grayson has a falling out with Van Helsing over the demonstration, while Harker forbids Mina from seeing Grayson.