Penny Dreadful - 'This World is Our Hell'

I've been through the desert on a horse with no name...

After last week's Vanesstravaganza, we return to our other protagonists and subplots, most notably those taking place in New Mexico.

With the posse on their heels, Hekaty-poo and Ethan discuss the shortcomings of their parents, and cutting between Kaetenay and Ethan we hear the story of his past sins. It turns out that he was part of a massacre of Apache during his time in the army, before killing his CO and handing himself over to the Apache. Kaetenay decided he should work out his guilt and used Ethan as a weapon in the Apache's war of survival. He took them to his father's ranch to steal guns and horses, where blood was spilled.

Tiring of the fugitive life, Ethan agrees to let Hecate use his blood to summon creatures of darkness against their enemies, and even as Kaetenay is setting out to murder the posse, snakes burst from the ground. I won't say all Hell breaks loose, because they're probably saving that for the finale, but there is certainly a quantity of Hell operating under less than absolute supervision. In the confusion, Sir Malcolm shoots Rusk's sergeant, and Rusk swears bloody vengeance on Ethan.

"And you're sure you know how electricity works?"

Back in London, Frankenstein 'electrifies' Jekyll's serum for injection into Balfour's prefrontal cortex, promising it will remove his madness, along with all memory of bad things, leaving him as innocent as a lamb. He chides Jekyll once more for his temper and they begin to prepare for the capture and 'treatment' of Lily.

Stopping off in a cave, Ethan tells Hecate the story of the first Apache, which I suspect may not be entirely genuine mythology. He explains that Coyote stole the son, allowing the creatures of darkness forth, until one man drove them back and restored light. Hecate suggests that this might be prophecy, not mythology.

Approaching the Talbot Ranch, Hecate and Ethan's horses die. They, Sir Malcolm and Kaetenay are all captured by Talbot's men, and Ethan instructs them to leave Kaetenay to die in the desert. The rest of them are brought to the ranch, where Sir Malcolm meets Talbot Snr, a worthy slaughterer of Indians and all around racist empire-builder played by Albert Finney. He also feels it necessary to dump on scotch for no immediately apparent reason.

"I may be an American, but I'm so evil I'm played by a Brit."

Talbot explains that he wants Ethan to repent. In conversation with his son, he describes the Apache attack, when Apache armed with his own guns broke into the chapel and murdered the rest of his family, including his other son and young daughter. He demands that Ethan repent or die, to which Ethan replies that he is done with guilt and repentance.

'This World is Our Hell' suffers from following the excellent 'Blade of Grass' and thus being the episode to lead us back into Season 3's increasingly diverging plotlines and the general problem of my not giving a flying fuck for the lives of any of these characters. Seriously, they can all die in a fire for all I care. Hecate is rapidly emerging as the moral centre of the New Mexico storyline, simply by virtue of not pretending to be anything else but the Devil's attack monkey.

I also have no idea why people keep casting Albert Finney - a fine actor, to be sure - as Americans.