Decapitated nuns, my ex-girlfriend and vampire babies?
Yes, the BBC's latest adaptation of Dracula really... sucks
Okay, I'll delete my channel now
No, it doesn't suck but I still can't get over
The fact Dracula is able to use tinder when he can't even take a photo of himself. In this video
We're gonna take a deep dive into Dracula's ending, its relationship with the original Bram Stoker novel and some of its more mysterious
unanswered questions
So grab a nice glass of wine because here we go. The final episode of this three-part mini-series
begins back in Hungary in
1897
Coincidentally the same year the Brom Stoker novel "Dracula" of which it's based came out
This is a flashback to the end of episode 1 where Dracula has gained access to Saint
Mary's convent to hunt down and kill sister Agatha Van Helsing a woman obsessed with stopping
Dracula and his dark power. In the novel
This character is a dutch doctor by the name of Abraham
Van Helsing and has commonly been referred to as a vampire hunter. The name van Helsing has spawned several film and TV
Adaptations which usually surrounds someone from the Van Helsing family taking on vampires and other monsters
sister Agatha stands
alongside Mina Murray the fiancee of Jonathan Harker, this beautiful chap who was the focus of episode 1
Agatha pleads for her safety in return offering up herself to Dracula an offer he accepts
"You will be part of me"
"You will travel to the new world in my veins"
It's no wonder the episode begins with this flashback considering the two decisions Dracula makes here will eventually lead to his downfall
Letting Mena go allows her to travel back to England and start the Jonathan Harker
Foundation with the money inherited to her by her rich father the Jonathan Harker foundation named after her late fiance had a secret agenda
To find Dracula and perform research on him. The second decision to drink from agatha turning her into an undead would cast
Ripples throughout the next century as we'll find out
123 years later a great descendent of the van Helsing family. Dr
Zoe van Helsing has made it her mission to stop Dracula, something
She wouldn't have been able to do as I'll get into later if Dracula had never sucked her grand aunt's blood in the first place fast
forward to the year 2020
This is where we left off in episode 2 as we find out later
Dracula was able to escape imprisonment and evade the Harker foundation by dispersing into a pile of bats.
"Look at, it's freaking bats!"
Later breaking into a store to steal some fresh threads and hiding in a local home a home whose owner he conveniently
Stuffed in a fridge in case he wants leftovers. Having spent the last century at the bottom of the ocean
Dracula takes a moment to marvel how normal people today live better than kings and queens of the past
He's also able to see the Sun through the television or as he calls it the moving picture box
Dracula's obsession with the Sun is something we see in Episode one
He brings a dying Jonathan Harker to the roof of the castle as the Sun
Rises, wanting him to describe it to him as we'll find out at the very end
However, Dracula isn't susceptible to the Sun as we were left to believe but we'll get into that in a bit. In the mirror
We see Dracula's true form. He's now five hundred years old having lived by sustaining himself through the blood of others
You see the thing that intrigues sister Agatha about Dracula is
Unlike the other undead he's managed to live with his intellect and body fairly intact
She goes on to tell Harker in Episode one that there's a contagion in the world
Most who get inflicted with this disease become shells of their former
selves, slowly devolving into rotting pieces of flesh trapped within their own bodies
uncontrollable, these are the zombie like creatures Johnny finds in the crypts of Dracula's castle. Dracula
however, has been able to stave off the side effects. Agatha surmises this is partly because he is particularly on who he
feasts on, preferring intellectuals and aristocrats so he can gain their knowledge. By drinking one's blood
Dracula is able to gain that person's memories as he says to John Harker in Episode one
"Blood...is lifes"
This is how Dracula is able to figure out the name of John's fiancee as well as how technology works in 2020 by
Drinking Bob's blood aka fridge man. He's able to know most of how things operate in the current year
Dracula's respite is short-lived when Dr. Zoe Van Helsing tracks him down
He's essentially trapped since it's daytime and he can't go out into the sunlight
She sends him a coffin filled with
Transylvanian soil for him to get into as Bram Stoker outlined in his novel a
Vampire can only rest in soil from the land of its origins. It can't survive without it
But before he gets inside he wants to chat with Dr. Van Helsing
She agrees knowing if he makes a wrong move the house will be demolished and he'll die from the sunlight. Dracula
However has other plans
He decides to take a bite of Zoe but vomits up her blood not knowing that her blood is infected with cancer
"What if the dying is death to the vampire?" It's here that Dracula is finally captured by the foundation
We're then introduced to a cast of new characters including Jack Seward
Quincey and Lucy Westenra all of whom appear in the Stoker novel although in the novel Jack's name is John
But they likely changed it. So it wouldn't get confused with the other John character
John Harker. Jack gets a call from Jonathan Harker. See how it could get confusing?
Leading us to believe the main character from episode 1 is still alive
however
The rest of the ID is cut off and it's actually a call from the John Harker
Foundation where he used to be a test subject you see, Dr
Zoe used to be Jack's teacher and offered him this job since it pays very well and would help him get through college
With Dracula back in the picture the foundation will need all sorts of blood for their tests at first Jack ignores the calls
but when he sees the love of his life Lucy accept a proposal from douchebag Quincey he decides to head back to the
foundation at the
Foundation Dracula is housed in a vault where their current sunrise and sunset are held on display Jack arrives and is told about
Dracula's discovery how divers found him in a quote
Restorative coma if you recall from episode 2 Agatha and the sea captain blew up the ship
Demeter in an attempt to stop Dracula from arriving in England
But he survived by enclosing himself in this coffin later when he bites one of the divers
He regains consciousness landing ashore sometime later
Dracula is held within this very expensive cell looking like it was designed for a Hannibal Lecter or some Bond villain here Zoe can beam
sunlight into the cell in order to hold back Dracula's advances
She's come to take his blood, blood which will become integral in bringing Dracula down for good
"Only in Blood, do we find the truth, Zoe"
It's also here where I had to roll my eyes on how
Dracula was able to get Wi-Fi on his iPad and not only that use it to Skype with a lawyer
I know they said they gave it to him so he could read books, but why not just give him regular paperbacks?
And why does this room even have Wi-Fi in it?
Moving on so the lawyer Frank arrives who is played by the show's
Co-creator Mark Gatiss who also worked on Sherlock and Doctor Who. Frank worked for Hawkins and Wentworth the same law firm
Jonathan Harker worked for and the one that sent him to
Transylvania in the first place Frank argues
Dracula can't be kept here against his will and thus must be released. This burst Zoe to do something drastic
Drink Dracula's blood which has the side effect of being able to transfer her great aunt's memories through her DNA
We're transported three months in the future and Dracula takes Lucy on the best tinder date of all time
To a local graveyard in the novel Lucy is best friends with Mina Murray and after Lucy begins to show strange symptoms. It's dr
Van Helsing who suspects it's Dracula's doing. This version is a bit different
After all that Brom Stoker could have predicted the horrors of tinder in the 1890s
I'd be very impressed. Lucy and Dracula have a strange relationship
According to Dracula. She's the only one in 500 years who willingly gave herself up to him. She's addicted to that dreamlike state
She puts him in while she's being bitten
among Dracula's many powers is the ability to lull his bite victims into a false state of dream kind of like how Jonathan
Harken would dream of his fiancee even though he was being bitten
Speaking of lawyers Frank does a crossword which is just Dracula written all over again
Kind of like how when Agatha shows John his letters
They're like something out of The Shining where he writes how he's gonna serve Dracula over and over again
Frank is under this same type of spell Lucy succumbs to Dracula's power and is sent to be cremated. But unbeknownst to everyone else
She's Undead, later returning as a burnt corpse
But it's only when Zoe is visited by Agatha through some
DNA dreamlike state that she asked Jake to take her from the hospital to visit Dracula
there's even a few hints that she is controlled by Agatha at this point like when we see Agatha's reflection in the mirror, or
After she says something odd and Dracula remarks, Dr. Helsing
You don't sound quite yourself
With Jack and Zoe at Dracula's. Lucy arrives calling herself the "bloofer lady"
which kind of sounds like it could be naughty, but it's not it's believed that the term bloofer is derived from the cockney accents of
The abducted children from the novel which translates to beautiful I could try attempting it
But it would sound something like folk. Look. That's bad. Lucy is obsessed with being beautiful pretty and married
So it's ironic that she becomes ugly burnt and a bride of Dracula's Jack in an act of mercy stabs Lucy with a steak
disintegrating her into ash
Which I think is a bit weird since the undead lady from episode one didn't disintegrate when she was stabbed in the heart
So whatever, Zoe asked Jack to leave which she says is for Dracula's own good
But I think it's really because she knows she needs to sacrifice
Herself in order for Dracula to be killed once and for all with Zoe and Dracula alone
She rips the curtains off exposing Dracula to daylight
But he survives, he's not affected by sunlight at all and Zoe knows it
Everything Dracula had been afraid of. The Cross, the sunlight, going into homes without being invited were simply habits
He had picked up over the years and believed to be true. Zoe needs to expose this to get at the root of what
Dracula is really afraid of... death
Everyone in Dracula's family died a courageous heroic of death on the battlefield while he sculpt about in the shadows of the castle
He became afraid of death and ironically fell in love with a girl who didn't fear death at all...Lucy. That's what made her
so attractive to him and why he fed on her over and over. His fear of the cross stems from the fact it
Represents the courage he longs to possess, the courage it takes to die
Zoe is the antithesis of Dracula ready to die in the face of the cancer that has taken over her body
The only way to conquer death she says is to face it without fear until Dracula is dead. She says to him
"We live forever...in shame"
With this realization
Dracula approaches the window in one of my favorite shots of the entire series his body wrapped in sunlight with the shadow of the Cross
Reflecting onto it two things that he lived in fear of he's now embracing
The only thing left is death as the screen fades to white we transition to the Streamlight state of him making love to Agatha
but in reality
He's drinking Agatha's poisonous blood. He knows that it will kill him and in the process also kill her
He has embraced death and let go of fear
walking away from an eternal life of shame
The final shot is of these two
Arch-nemesis together as one in bed as we fade to a picture of the Sun the thing he once feared but now calls beautiful
Dracula may not be the most original
Interpretation of the Brahm Stoker novel, but overall I found it to be a fun cat-and-mouse game between sister Agatha and Dracula
but I want to hear what you thought of the show below make sure to give the video a like and subscribe as
2020 will be filled with new episode breakdowns ending explain videos and tons of other surprises
until next time remember
"Blood
Is
Life!"