There’s no rush to get every series regular into every hour.
There isn’t even a rush to make Vanessa leave her chair.
What’s happening now is only part of the story.
Credit: Jonathan Hession/Showtime
There is no forward movement here beyond her revelations.
From her perspective, the action never leaves a different room: her padded cell at the Banning Clinic.
Within those walls, Vanessa’s only interaction was with the orderly who would become the Creature.
At the start, he toes the company line.
Vanessa calls her treatment torture; the orderly counters, “They’re making you well!”
Vanessa refuses to eat; the orderly shoves a funnel down her throat and force-feeds her broth.
He genuinely believes that he’s doing the right thing.
He’s like the Creature in that sense.
He brings her a blanket.
He’s a cog in the machine as much as anyone.
Thanks to the straightjacket, Vanessa and the orderly start to get real.
A cog in the social machine."
Anyone who deviates is a “freak.”
It’s the social structure that refuses to see women as people.
She cries that she doesn’t feel like Vanessa Ives here; her identity and purpose have been erased.
I didn’t fight him strongly enough.
I don’t know that I fought him at all."
Either way, it’s more than Vanessa wants to relive.
She asks Seward to pull her back to the present, but the doctor can’t do it.
At least she has a friend.
Even at Banning, Vanessa wasn’t entirely alone.
All of this is against regulation, but when torturing patientsisn’tagainst regulation, the rules become relative.
There’s something in this interaction that buys into the system Vanessa rallies against.
Her humanity and identity are still being linked to her appearance.
But there’s something in Vanessa that, maybe despite her wishes, buys into it as well.
Her looks and her sense of agency are linked.
There’s no shame in wanting to present yourself to the world on your terms.
“I’m sorry,” the orderly says as he wipes off her makeup before he goes.
As the orderly opens the door, he turns back: “It’s Christmas today.”
NEXT: O brother, where art thou?
“I’ve only been with one man,” she says, pulling him into her arms.
Not for the first time, he begs her to get better before the doctor resorts to surgery.
He’s seen the aftermath of Banning’s crude lobotomies.
“Do you know what they are, all of them?”
“A broken thing.
Either he’s been reading more poetry (Blake?
), or he should be a poet.
Lucifer himself cowers in the corner.
“I’m only concerned with the faith of one,” Lucifer replies.
That’s a lot of pressure on Vanessa.
Sound like anyone we know?
Dracula is the devil’s brother.
That explains his obsession with Vanessa.
“One kiss and you’re free of all this,” he says.
“In this mortal world you’ll always be shunned for your uniqueness.
But not with me.”
He knows how to speak her language.
Her soul and body are “promised to another.”
Anyway, blade of grass or not, she’s banished the devil before.
Vanessa recites the Verbis Diablo until she levitates, coming back to reality with the orderly by her bed.
He shaves her head in preparation for the surgery that we already know he’s going to perform.
He doesn’t have another job.
He just can’t do this anymore.
But he won’t leave until after she’s gone under.
Vanessa deserves to hear that she’s loved.
She takes his face in her hands and kisses him.
Vanessa comes to in Seward’s office opposite the startled doctor.
How long has it been?
It feels like days.
After everything we’ve seen, the absurdity of the apology is almost funny.
Vanessa remembers everything she just relived, and not like a dream all of it.
I love it when Vanessa terrifies people.
“You once said we name things so they don’t frighten us,” she says.
“I’m not frightened.
His name is Dracula.”
Give this play a standing ovation and walk it out.
