Everyone Lies, Penny Dreadful “Memento Mori” 

I like it when lies are exposed. It’s always interesting to see how the lie is revealed or uncovered and how the truth affects everyone. So this week in “Memento Mori,” we see Lyle continue his deceptions on both fronts, Lily lies to the two most important men in her life: Victor and The Creature, Malcolm lies to Rusk about Ethan and Mina and Dorian punishes Angelique for what he believes is her lie, although I think we all suspect she was telling the truth.

Lily is a very interesting creature, isn’t she? I didn’t understand why she felt the need to kill at the end of last week’s “Little Scorpion,” but when she confronts John Clare, we get a reason. She’s seen how women are treated, what is expected of them and how they suffer all because of men and she’ll have no part in it. She knows who she was made for, but she wonders what kind of relationship The Creature thinks they can have. While he seems content to believe the world is something it’s not, Lily can’t. She recognizes The Creature for what he truly his — her match. He is unlike any other man and together they will wreak havoc upon this world.

Can I just say how much I love this version of Lily? God, I want her to remember her life as Brona — and part of me thinks she has to in order to feel the way she does. It would make sense that all that pent up frustration and anger with men and humankind in general, would lead to the creature she’s become. Was I imagining it, or did it actually sounds like Lily slipped into Brona’s brogue for a few moments? Whatever the case may be, I want to see what she and The Creature do together. I fear for Victor’s life, but he’s otherwise engaged at the moment and hopefully saving Vanessa’s life will keep him out of harms way for the time being.

When we met Lyle back in season 1, I had no idea how much I would come to care about him. He can be so pompous and self-important, but he does care about Vanessa Ives. He calls himself Evelyn Poole’s creature, and to an extent I think he is. He knows that there’s only so much he can decieve her, so he’s smart about what information he’ll allow himself to know or be told. While he continues to play the part Evelyn has mandated for him, he also rebels as best he can. Hecate tells him Evelyn has made promises she has no intention of keeping, but this can’t be news to Lyle. If he aligns himself with her, at least he’ll live longer.

Despite Angelique’s jealously, Dorian continues to see Lily. And it’s not like there’s much Angelique can do about it. She’s living with Dorian and I’m assuming he’s taking care of all her needs. But it’s when she’s waiting for him to return from his date night, when she discovers his secret passage. When Dorian finds her later, she’s looking at his portrait. I guess it can be considered hideous, if you compare it to Dorian’s current visage. But what one of the things I liked about Angelique was, is that she wasn’t about surface appearances. How could she be, considering the secret she was hiding? So when she tells Dorian she could love the monster, I believed her. Dorian didn’t, and killed her. I knew Dorian eventually resort to murder, because we already know his story, but I didn’t expect it to happen quite this quickly.

I’m still unsure of how Sir Malcolm managed to break Evelyn’s enchantment. She was able to control him for a short while until Sembene intervened and demanded that Malcolm remember who he is. I’m assuming the (powerful) memory of his family let him sever the hold Evelyn had on him. And it was weird to see Malcolm so happy, wasn’t it? He’s an angry man who shut his family out of his life because of his adventures in Africa and become famous for it. So when that anger returns, Malcolm’s determined to make Evelyn pay. It seems like she might have actually developed some feelings for him when she offers him eternal life, if he’ll be at her side. But Vanessa is more important to him than anything or anyone and he won’t see her sacrificed to the devil. So Evelyn leaves him to his memories, which are embodied in the corpses of his dead family.

Malcolm also seems intent on protecting Ethan Chandler. When Rusk visits, he’s armed with quite a bit of information. He knows Malcolm become a sort of regular at Scotland Yard the year prior when he was looking into Mina’s disappearance. But he soon stopped visiting altogether and many months later, Mina was buried. Malcolm doesn’t seem repentent for breaking the law — entitled men rarely are — or keeping the truth from Rusk. But Rusk has proven his tenaciousness, so I know we haven’t seen the last of him. I wonder how he thinks he’ll catch Ethan, though. The only thing I can think is that he’ll see Ethan as the Wolfman. But I doubt he’ll survive to tell the tale that encounter.

Lyle Completes the Story

We finally learn the end of this story and it turns out the Vampire Master and Lucifer are brothers. They were both cast out of heaven by God, the vampire to earth and Lucifer to hell. Both of them feed on lost souls and were seeking out the mother who would allow one to return to heaven and cast God out, bringing about the apocalypse.

Lyle: “Apparently Lucifer isn’t an only child and like may brothers, they don’t get along.”

The vampire tried and failed to use Mina to lure Vanessa to him and Lucifer tried and failed to posses her soul. Now Lucifer has turned to the watches to do his bidding. But why Vanessa? She’s a “chosen minister of evil.” No one else will do. Of course, the mystery guest to the party is the wolf of God. This figure is a threat to the demon’s plans.

So it seems like it was written in the stars — or the heavens — that Vanessa and Ethan were meant to meet and care for each other. It’s Ethan who can thwart Lucifer’s plans, but how and will it destroy him? I know he’d give his life for Vanessa, but I hope he won’t have to.

Penny Dreadful airs Sundays at 10/9c on Showtime.