Dracula 1.10 “Let There Be Light” Recap

It’s the day of Grayson’s resonator demonstration and he’s already putting in some serious work in terms of advertising, as Mina sees a vehicle with a phonograph of Grayson talking about the resonator pulling through town. In order to be at his best for the demonstration, which has left him tickled at the thought of waking up the next morning to plummeting oil prices, Grayson prepares himself for another dose of the sun serum and tells ely Van Helsing that the reason he had to act was that the original plan was taking too long. Although Van Helsing won’t be able to come right to the demonstration with them, he pledges to attend so that he can watch as his enemy gets brought down to their knees.

While Lucy has remained in bed following the attack by Grayson, Mina inadvertently runs into Harker at his place. She meant to leave the cross necklace that he gave her, originally his mother’s, and spare the two of them the awkwardness, but Harker immediately begins telling Mina how Grayson ruined him and how he warned her to stay away. She refuses to confirm that she doesn’t love Grayson, though she acknowledges that she’ll be at the demonstration that evening. To further drive up anticipation for the demonstration, Grayson rides through town himself with musicians playing all around him; when he gets to the location of the demonstration, where last minute checks are taking place prior to the 6:00 start time, he notices that Harker still hasn’t checked in with him following two days away.

Elsewhere, Jayne has gathered huntsmen from all over at the Order headquarters, as well as famed seers Loiza Scaveria, who brings The Blood of Christ as a weapon against the vampires. He is to use the blood to help locate the nests in London and teams of two to three will try to eliminate all those populating each respective nest, with green flares being set off for each confirmed kill. Harker finally makes it to the location of the demonstration and brings up Lord Davenport, whose death he claims is all a drunken blur, to Grayson, who wants the young man to put his trust in him in order to avoid being caught. The first phase of the plan? Deal with his job like he normally would, as there are swarms of press who require Harker’s attention. Though he wipes away a tear, Harker goes out to do his job, while Scaveria and Jayne wait for the nests to make themselves known. The former pinpoints the location of one nest in particular on 95 Lower Street and a team of three huntsmen quickly gets dispatched, bursting into the nest and beheading one vampire before burning the other to death. It’s all celebrations at the Order headquarters – except for Mr. Browning. He receives a message that he must leave to attend to, which turns out to be from his wife; the ransom note from Van Helsing has arrived, as has the finger of one of his children.

Back at the demonstration, Grayson receives a visit from men Harker claims are from The Times and want to take some photos of the resonator for the story they’re planning to run about it. He lets his ego get the best of him and mostly unsupervised allows them access to his creation, though he reminds a visibly shaken Harker to stay calm and continue doing his job. As Grayson orders Van Helsing to be tracked down, the professor destroys everything in his possession that relates to the creation of the solar serum. When Renfield comes in to stop him, Van Helsing mentions that since he has no more use for Grayson, he wants the vampire to not be able to walk out in the sun again. He then stabs Renfield in the stomach and leaves him on the floor. Grayson has kicked off his press conference and tries to charm the reporters who will be in attendance, which mostly works, while Kowalski nearly interrupts the men Harker brought in, all of the Order, as they try to rig the resonator to produce a catastrophic incident that evening. However, Harker only thought they were going to cause it to malfunction and when he learns that it could turn into something major, he runs off to try and save Mina.

That night, the pre-demonstration celebration kicks into high gear and while Mina walks around the town, Harker continues searching for her and Grayson tries to find her while waiting for the demonstration to begin. Meanwhile, Browning arrives at the cabin Van Helsing is keeping his children with a briefcase full of the money he was ordered to bring. Van Helsing catches him when he enters the building and holds the Order leader at knifepoint, confiscating the gun he carried in his jacket and lighting a nearby lantern to reveal his identity. However, Browning has no idea who Van Helsing is, even when the latter mentions his slaughtered family, and Van Helsing brings up that he’s the one who helped release Dracula back onto the streets of London. Browning then steps on a trap door and falls into the home’s cellar, where he hears his children. Van Helsing pours the money on top of Browning and tells Browning he’ll have to coax the children out, as they’re quite shy. Both Rose and William emerge from the shadows and reveal that they’ve been turned into vampires, mauling their father and feeding on his blood following a drink of Dracula’s blood provided by Van Helsing.

While Van Helsing sets the place on fire and leaves, tormented by the screams he hears when he emerges from the house, Grayson comes to center stage at the demonstration and begins filling the populace in on the feat they’re about to see. Scaveria reveals that Dracula is down by the river in front of a crowd of people and Jayne immediately knows that it’s Grayson, causing her to jump in a carriage headed straight for the demonstration. Harker finds Mina in the crowd and tries to drag her out of the demonstration, only to get punched by a man he runs into and find himself flat on the floor. He did manage to tell Mina that the resonator could cause tremendous damage, so she runs up on stage and informs Grayson of the sabotage; he tries to shut the demonstration down, but it’s too late. The resonator won’t disengage and soon enough, the dozens of light bulbs he brought for the demonstration shatter at the same time. Grayson sends Mina out with Harker while he works on the generator with crossed wires; unfortunately, though, he doesn’t have enough time to stop the inevitable and as a steady stream of the demonstration audience fills the streets of London, so does the resonator explosion.

Harker and Mina make it out of the blast okay and she desperately wants to try and find Grayson. Harker suggests that the man is dead and before she stumbles away, Mina calls her ex a murderer. Jayne makes it to the post-blast site and finds Grayson, who tells her that she knew all along he was Dracula. He encourages her to walk away from both him and the Order and live her life, but she chooses to trade blows with him and ends up pinned against debris with Grayson hovering over her. She manages to stab him and twist the blade to free herself; Jayne gets the opportunity to deliver a kill shot to Dracula and rid the world of an elder vampire, except she misses and he throws her onto a piece of shrapnel that impales her through the stomach. She begs him not to turn her and he complies with her wishes, though he does feed off of her as she dies.

While Lucy calls her mother over to her only to feed off of her, Mina makes it to Grayson’s and sees the triptych. He joins her and after the two talk about Ilona and how much she means to him, they make love. While looking at the bladed crosses that held Dracula for years upon years, Van Helsing is joined in his office by Harker, looking for information on Grayson. However, Van Helsing offers something better – he reveals that Grayson is Dracula and offers to reveal how to kill him.

Additional thoughts and observations:
-While I called Lady Jayne’s death, I was definitely surprised that they went after Renfield, who I always assumed was the third safest character on the show following Grayson and Mina. Van Helsing stabbing him in the stomach was an interesting surprise, especially since they didn’t do what I expected them to – having him still be alive and either show up at the demonstration to protect Grayson or find Van Helsing and finish him off.
-Good for the show for following through on Van Helsing’s revenge. When he couldn’t harm Browning’s children last week, I assumed that he would make the expected about face and realize that he didn’t want to lower himself to the same level as the man who ruined his life. That he finally understood that revenge would not bring his family back, nor would it make him feel better about losing the ones he loved. Instead, we got a fun set in the cabin, the inclusion of a trap door (how Scooby Doo, in a good way), and teensy vampires with creepy smiles, all of which I enjoyed. Also fun: Van Helsing making it rain on Browning.
-Very little Lucy, which was disappointing. I’m always intrigued by supernatural plots where humans have to adapt to losing their humanity and becoming something else entirely. The sinister look she gave in her first scene when her mother was walking away said enough, though.
-Favorite outfit: The red and black leather ensemble Jayne wore to the meeting of the huntsmen made her look especially amazing.
-Cool shots: Van Helsing destroying the lab; the raid of the nest on Lower Street; the lights in the streets beaming brightly once the resonator turned on; Jayne’s face when she realized Grayson was Dracula; Grayson popping up behind Jayne at the demonstration site; the pan to show the bodies from the explosion.
-I find it hard to believe that Grayson wouldn’t have somebody watching the resonator at all times on a day like the demonstration, especially given what was at stake. Perhaps all the promotion and press conferences demonstrated that he let his ego get in the way of seeing his mission through to the end.
-Best performance this season? Victoria Smurfit was aces as Lady Jayne - so much fun to watch, so incredibly bad-ass while still fitting into the world the show created. I also really enjoyed Katie McGrath as Lucy, though I would have liked her to be more involved in the main narrative.
-Harker still looks like he’s losing his mind. If the show manages to get a second season, I would very much be in favor of an off-his-rocker Harker trying to hunt down Grayson with the aid of Van Helsing.
-Although I really enjoyed everything featuring Jayne and Grayson at the demonstration site, especially the stealth brutality of the fight scene and Grayson’s last second compassion, it was something of a missed opportunity to not see Browning’s reaction to learning Grayson’s true identity, particularly in the presence of Lady Jayne.
-I would have eaten my sock if Scaveria said Dracula was in a van down by the river.
-Would you have sex with someone who claimed to know you in a past life and who had a painting of someone who looks exactly like you on their mantle?
-Thank you guys for following my recaps of Dracula this season. Overall, I can say that I liked the show and that I think a second season, which was hinted at being possible but not confirmed at NBC’s TCA session, could expand the world that was created during season one, likely fixing the pacing issues and crafting a story more true to what we think of when we hear Dracula. Here’s hoping the show gets the chance to explore such dramatically fertile territory.