Let There Be Light.

“The plan, the plan, the accursed plan was taking too long.”

So here we are at last, the final episode of Dracula, a series that had so much potential and buzz but alas didn’t quite live up to either of it. In its ten episode run, Dracula was at its best an unintentional parody of all things wrong with the modern vampire hype and at it’s worst a misguided attempt to tackle an ageless legend that took itself way too seriously for its own good. Despite it’s many flaws however, the show was amazingly still enjoyable. Ten episodes down the road, I’m still not sure what it is about this series that kept me hooked. It definitely wasn’t the show’s shallow characters, wobbly plotting, or its talent for making an episode seem busy when actually nothing is really happening. Maybe it’s Jonathan Rhy’s Meyers’s abs, hell, maybe it’s the Pimp Suit, whatever the thing about this show that captivated me may be, let’s pay homage one last time to this ~~butchering~~ retelling of the legend of Dracula by taking a look at the grades!

Dracula F

I could pin point the exact moment when I started to turn on Dracula, and it was the moment he swapped Pimp Suit with the checkers. Now, the checkers is out and he’s replaced it with a boring gray suit, and he and I are still not on good terms. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not just the suit, it’s, well, everything. I wanted to like him so badly when this all began, I REALLY did, because he’s the king of vampires and I love Jonathan Rhys Meyers, and this Dracula had all the potential of being such a compelling character. Now that the season (and most likely series) is over, I can safely say that if you take Edward Cullen, toss in a bit of Riper Stefan Salvatore, and throw in a teenage girl’s sense of entitlement and penchant to throw massive temper tantrums, you can make yourself a Dracula of your very own.

The finale revolves all around that wireless light bulb machine that we’ve been hearing so much about since the very first episode. It’s ironic that the whole series has been building up to a successful demonstration of the light bulb trick and yet, the only time the damn thing actually worked properly was in the first episode. Yup, that’s right, that big, fancy machine was sabotaged once again, and Alexander Greyson did little more than scream about it as it explodes and kills half of London and that was the end of that.

But the moment that really won him the F was the moment he killed Lady Jayne. It’s not so much that he killed her, but that he had to make her sit through a monologue about wanting life and light and wanting to be a human and not a monster and what not. You slap a woman around when she’s trying to kill you, fair enough, you throw her onto a giant wooden spike and pierce her stomach in the middle of a fight, I can understand that, but making her listen to the sappy, cliché monster angst anthem, “If only I weren’t a monster,” moments before she takes her last breath is just plain cruel! No wonder Jayne asked Dracula to just kill her and be done with it. You do owe her that, Mr. Greyson!

Lady Jayne A+

“Sorry Jayne, I’ve grown immune to all your toys.”

Remember a few episodes back when I accused Lady Jayne of being a terrible vampire hunter? I still stand by that assessment. She still can’t kill a vampire to save her life (literally!), but damn do I love that woman! Sure she’s a bit bitchy at times, sure her boobs has more screen time than all the members of The Order of the Dragon combined, sure she manipulated Lucy to commit acts that got the poor girl turned into a vampire, but she is fierce! She’s more fiery and interesting than the show’s leading lady, Mina, and with all her flaws she actually came out of it more sympathetic and relatable. Not to mention, what she lacks in vampire hunter skills she makes up in leadership skills, I mean just look at the way she commanded all those vampire hunters. Girlfriend runs a tight ship! Ironically, as progressive and feminist and strong as Mina was meant to be, Jayne ended up being all those things and more, while Mina ended up being…

Mina F

…useless. Yup, I said it, Mina was a perfectly useless character. Now, I know that she served a very specific purpose of being the love interest, but someone should send out a public service announcement to let all writers know that it’s okay for the female love interest of a vampire story to actually do something more than a) be in life threatening situations b) be saved by the vampire c) be involved in a love triangle and d) stand there and be adored by every character in her immediate surrounding and their mothers.

Remember when Mina had that little side plot of trying to conquer surgery so she can become a doctor? That plot was relevant for a total of two episodes, just long enough for us to get the full dosage of sexist Harker, before it became one of those things that you just mention on the fly. Also, as much as Mina’s snooping around Van Helsing’s office annoyed me, I could have sworn finding that blood that reanimated the rat was supposed to lead to something more for Mina, but nope, the series just ended with Mina falling into the arms of a hunky, broody vampire, after she spent the whole episode either crying, or screaming. Gag.

Renfield C

So Renfield died in this episode, presumably. Dracula didn’t spare two seconds to wonder where his trusty lawyer disappeared off to when he didn’t return after being sent to get Van Helsing.

Lucy C

Remember when Lucy got turned into a vampire at last in the previous episode and it was awesome? No, of course not, because it was an underwhelming, five second sneak attack (she didn’t even look that scared!), that was over in the blink of an eye. Well, I was hoping that at least Lucy being a vampire will have enough awesomeness to make up for it, but all she did was lay in bed the whole episode before she decided to snack on her mother. C for Lucy for being just an average vampire, an F for the writers for being unimaginative.

Van Helsing & Harker F & F

I thought I would spend this episode hating on Van Helsing for being an evil fucker, but it turns out, I didn’t. Don’t get me wrong, he is in fact an evil fucker, but at least he owns it and, also he just seems a little batshit crazy, that I don’t even want to mess with that.

Harker on the other hand almost redeemed himself for being Harker, when he was so appalled at learning that the machine was set to explode, but then he went back to being an unredeemable asshole when he only tried to save Mina out of all the innocent people standing by.

I was hoping this episode would tie itself up in a neat little bow, with no real cliffhangers, since it’s likely this series won't be renewed and I can’t stand cliffhangers that will never be resolved. For about three seconds, it almost looked like I was going to get my wish, until the last scene shows Van Helsing and Harker colluding to bring down Dracula. Thanks a lot you two for ruining everything!