Original Airdate: October 25, 2013
Romania, 1881. Two men drop into an underground chamber where a sarcophagus has been buried for a very long time. Pictures of impaled bodies adorn the crypt. One man goes straight for the treasure underneath the tomb while the other man contemplates the emaciated corpse’s hunger. “How famished he must be.” Good thing he brought dinner. The robber doesn’t see the knife coming. His companion holds his body over the tomb. “The blood is life,” he whispers. Soon the corpse begins to quicken as the blood drips into its mouth. We flash to a bath chamber, where the dark lord rises out of the water, surrounded by candles, like a phoenix rising from the flames. The corpse has turned into the sexy and enigmatic Count.
London, 1896. The Count gets dressed while his assistant, Renfield, assures him that all of the arrangements have been made. He’s an American industrialist, in London to give a demonstration. The Count looks into the mirror. “As American as guns. And bourbon,” he muses. His new name is Alexander Grayson. Of course, we know him as Dracula, or Vlad Tepes.
A ball is being held in the city. The costumes are breathtaking, and worthy of a cable show. This is already proving to be visually stunning. Jonathan Harker arrives and he is sandwiched between Mina and Lucy. He notes that the glass he is holding is worth more than a whole week’s salary. It’s more like a month for him, Lucy teases. She reminds him that he’s there as her guest and not as a journalist. She takes her leave of Jonathan and Mina and goes to chat with Alistair. Jonathan and Mina wonder how Grayson will make his entrance. Mina can’t understand how she let Jonathan drag her there in the first place, but he says he had to pull her out of her laboratory. She kisses him, teasing him that at least her work with toads might lead to a prince.
All around them, guests discuss the mysterious American and his intentions. They also make fun of his huge house. Renfield announces Grayson’s entrance. As he makes his way down the grand staircase, he locks eyes with Mina. He has a flashback to an earlier time when he was in bed with a woman who looked just like her (his wife long ago). He also had long hair. Shaking his head, he bids a warm welcome to everyone who is in attendance, asking that they please leave some of their happiness behind upon their departure. He pulls Renfield aside and tells him to find out everything about Mina and Jonathan.
Once the guests have returned to the party, Grayson is intercepted by a woman in an emerald green dress. She’d prefer to be in a nice warm bath, but she simply had to come see what all of the fuss is about. Her name is Lady Jayne, and the man in the uniform she is with is not her husband. Grayson takes them in and quickly takes his leave.
Next he moves to a group of older gentlemen and their wives. When he asks for assistance obtaining information about some of the patents that they work with to aid one of his projects, he’s informed that their job is to assist British imperialists, not colonials. Something tells me Grayson will get what he wants.
As the upper crust moves along, Jonathan Harker leans close and tells Grayson that the men have an inclination to gamble, though none are good at it. He might make use of that. And then Mina joins them. Grayson kisses Mina’s hand, and Mina tells him that she swears they have met somewhere. Grayson was thinking the same thing.
Renfield pulls Grayson away. It’s time for the big announcement. As they move toward the stairs, Renfield fills Grayson in on the duo’s background. Jonathan is an ambitious young journalist and Mina is a medical student. Her father is in charge of the local hospital. Very interesting. As Renfield calls everyone to the center of the room, another man looks around with more than interest in his expression. He’s looking for something. Or someone. Renfield approaches Jonathan and reminds him that the invitation said that the media was not invited, but that Grayson would like to do an interview with Jonathan the following day. Jonathan eagerly accepts the offer.
The lights dim, and it’s time for the demonstration. Grayson takes center stage and talks of stories his father told him about the Dark Ages and how humans need to find light to get out of the dark. Servants pass out light bulbs to everyone in the room. Grayson has done what Edison and Tesla were not able to do—using the magnetosphere, he has created a way to harness power. The old men scoff at the idea, but they also know that if this is true, it will have huge implications on their petroleum industry. Renfield calls in the order to the men downstairs, who are working in a huge boiler room full of tubes and levers. Nothing happens at first, but then they switch into phase two, and the bulb in Mina’s hand lights up. She shows Lucy, who stares in wonder. Soon everyone’s bulbs light up and the room is full of hushed whispers and amazed looks. After a few moments, the boiler room starts to overheat and the bulbs go dim. But the work has done, and now everyone can see what the enigmatic American can offer them.
Grayson glides down the stairs to where Mina is standing. Lucy, dressed in red, offers her hand to Grayson, who notes her stunning attire. Grayson tells Jonathan that he’s looking forward to their interview, and then he takes his leave after giving Mina a long look. Lucy teases Jonathan about being jealous, but Mina thinks that Grayson was just being polite. No, Lucy says, it was more than that.
Outside, Lady Jayne catches up to Grayson and tells him that she was appropriately thrilled by his demonstration. She invites him to the opera, but he turns her down. She doesn’t seem like the kind to be turned down by anyone.
Grayson says goodbye to his guests, and one of the pompous lords lets him know that he will never do business in their town. Ever. Grayson smiles politely at the challenge.
Jonathan’s roommate tells him that he needs to propose to Mina before someone else steals her away. Lucy teases her friend about the same thing, to which Mina replies that she enjoys having Lucy stay over at her house but she doesn’t appreciate when she belittles Jonathan. Jonathan has to agree with his roommate, but the reality is that Mina might just find someone better than he.
A carriage pulls up and one of the lords gets out. He never makes it inside, though. He is struck down by an unseen force. Blood splatters on the wall. That’s what you get for denying Grayson what he wants.
The following day, Grayson and Renfield are laying out photos in the study. They’re trying to figure out who might be members of the Order of the Dragon, and organization fraught with corruption and not afraid to break the law to get what they want. Clearly, Lord Davenport and Lord Laurent could be members of the council. Renfield jokes that they should probably hang a sign over the door warning guests of the risk of entering Grayson’s house if he intends to kill them for crossing him, but Grayson warns his faithful friend that these people are dangerous and will strike him down without a second thought. He recalls a time, five hundred years prior, when the Order of the Dragon took out whole villages just to get what they wanted. They’d burn women alive, claiming heresy. Now they seek political office to gain power, and they think that oil is the energy of the future. If they control it, they control the future. But if Grayson can use his technology, then he can seek them out and then there will be no more Order of the Dragon.
A man breaks into the dead lord’s house and steals the lord’s head. He goes to the military outfitter’s store and passes the head along to a woman who takes it down a long corridor to a study, where a man waits to hear her news. After a thorough examination, Lady Jayne has concluded that it’s inconclusive whether or not a vampire killed him. There was too much damage to the neck and throat. The man sighs, musing that it has been almost a decade since they had a vampire in the city. Back then, they had to make up evidence and write letters to the press to throw them off of the case. Jack the Ripper, indeed, he scoffs. She suggests that they maintain extra security at the council member houses, and he insists that they consider the incident the result of a dog attack.
At the college, Mina’s classmates get caught reading the newspaper and she covers for them, telling the professor—Professor Van Helsing, by the way—that they were merely comparing the article about Grayson’s demonstration and the professor’s lecture. Van Helsing agrees that the article is interesting, but he tells them to read the paper outside of class.
Jonathan arrives at Grayson’s house. While he waits for Grayson, he opens one of the blinds and light pours in. When Grayson enters, he pauses before shaking Jonathan’s hand in the middle of the light. He turns to pour himself a drink (whiskey, very American) and rubs the burn that is quickly healing on his hand. Grayson knows that he ruffled feathers at the party and he wants to set the record straight. He explains that he comes from a very old family, and England was the home of his great-grandparents and so he sees this as a homecoming of sorts. He thinks that he’s working to help mankind evolve, and he thinks that Europe is the place to do that. Jonathan points out that he had been spurned by Thomas Edison, which Grayson acknowledges. While they talk, Jonathan takes a few notes: “Visionary. Delusional. Egomaniac.”
Mina meets with Van Helsing after class to discuss the opportunity to become the professor’s assistant. She has had the highest grade in the class from the start, but her surgical technique leaves a lot to be desired. She says her hands start shaking as soon as she cuts into the skin, and he tells her that she needs to relax and do things as they come to her. The heart never lies.
Grayson watches a woman and it looks like he’s going to hunt her, but he turns and chooses another woman instead. She writes and moans in blissful agony as he feeds.
Mina remarks to Jonathan that it is kind of Grayson to allow them to use his box at the opera. Jonathan thinks it’s a bribe so that he writes nice things about him. All around them, well dressed people ascend the grand staircase to find their seats. She comments that Grayson has so many things, but he doesn’t have her. She laughs and gives Jonathan a kiss.
Lady Jayne enters and takes her seat as the performance begins. She doesn’t notice as Grayson enters the box. He says that the view is better from deeper inside the box, and when she joins him she agrees. He notes that her invitation said to be discreet, and so he slides his hand under her dress and kisses her while rattling off the words that he, as a silly American, had to look up. “Insatiable. Incorrigible.” He stares across the theater at Jonathan and Mina. He might be kissing Jayne, but he’s thinking about Mina.
Lords Laurent and Davenport discuss how Grayson swooped in and bought up the interest in the cooling patents from the deceased lord’s widow. The lord had considerable gambling debts and so she sold the stock willingly. He doesn’t have full control of the board, but he has a seat on the board. When they emerge from the carriage, they don’t realize that Grayson is watching them. Unfortunately, someone is watching Grayson. The man manages to fire an arrow at Grayson, but that’s as far as he gets. Grayson takes him out, but not before telling him that the man will soon be joined in hell by his brethren. The man realizes that Grayson is none other than Dracula. Dracula smiles and bends down to drink.
Lady Jayne is practicing her weapons training when the vampire in the cage starts talking. The female vampire tells her that there will be others that follow.
Grayson returns home. Van Helsing is there waiting for him. He says that Grayson should have been more careful making his move against the dead Lord Clive. He cannot risk calling out the attention of the order just yet. Now we learn that Van Helsing was the man in the cavern who freed Dracula from his slumber. They have worked together for almost a decade building the cover story so that they could arrive at this moment to take down the Order of the Dragon. They are both looking for revenge—the Order killed Van Helsing’s entire family. This explains why Mina pointed out the newspaper article and its similarities to her professor’s work—it was his work. Alexander Grayson is a cover for them. Dracula is seeking revenge for the death of his wife, who is a dead ringer for Mina. He will have his vengeance.
Mina awakens from a deep sleep. She’s had a nightmare….
Well, that was the first episode of Dracula. I think the writers did a great job of setting everything up for us. I feel like we know what is happening and where the lines are drawn. But what we really have to note is the incredible costumes and the way the writers have managed to make the 19th century dialogue relatable to the modern-day audience. After seeing the preview of what’s to come, I have to say that I am excited about this show.
What about you? Did Dracula quench your thirst for a new must-watch series? Leave your comments below!
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