Wonderfully melancholic

Penny Dreadful Season 3 finale was also the series finale. Sadly, the series won't be returning with a new season, leaving some audience asking for more. The Blessed Dark (the last episode) showed us how the characters who we have followed since Night Work (first episode) embraced, fought for, and claimed their destiny.

There were some ways I would have wanted to change the choices made by the characters but in the end, I understood that the creators of Penny Dreadful would want to show that the characters could not do so much to escape their fate.

The opening scene of the last episode was utterly moving, preparing us for the ending we would not want to come. The lullaby was a warning that it wouldn't be a happy ending. But who was actually expecting for a happy ending when we knew from the start that the characters are doomed and scarred by their own sufferings? Part of the lullaby was from an old bedtime prayer for children.

When I was young

And scared of the world 

My mother would sing me a song 

A tune that I keep in a sacred place

Because I know that my life won't be long

It tells of the place where you go

When your time here on Earth is through 

A beautiful place we call heaven

Is it true? Please God I pray that it's true

'Cause once this land was heaven on Earth 

Green hills were all you could see

But now it's soot and steel and brick 

So it looks more like hell to me

And each day brings more and more suffering 

And each night is silence and fear

And I wake to the sound of your voice 

But you're not here, why aren't you here?

So now I lay me down to sleep

 I pray the Lord my soul to keep

Please let me die before I wake

So the Lord my soul, can take

Then maybe I'll finally find you

'Midst the beauty of paradise

And you'll sing not of dying but living

Wouldn't that be nice?

Wouldn't that be nice?

Some of the scenes that I love from the finale are as follows. Dorian Gray and Lily conversed about the consequences of immortality and losing the passion to live as time wears one out. In the end, Lily chose to leave Dorian and claimed her independence from men.

The team fought against Dracula to save Vanessa Ives.

Ethan and Vanessa finally met after being miles apart for a long time.

 Sir Malcolm asked Ethan if he wishes to stay. Ethan acknowledged his family in London.

The episode ended with John Clare speaking some beautiful lines from William Wordsworth's Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood. John Clare who has always been poetic, wept the words perfectly with sadness and acceptance.

There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream,

The earth, and every common sight,

To me did seem

Apparelled in celestial light,

The glory and the freshness of a dream.

It is not now as it has been of yore;—

Turn wheresoever I may,

By night or day.

The things which I have seen I now can see no more.

—But there's a Tree, of many, one,

A single field which I have looked upon,

Both of them speak of something that is gone;

The Pansy at my feet

Do the same tale repeat: 

Whither is fled the visionary gleam?

Where is it now, the glory and the dream?

The ending might have felt rushed with some questions left unanswered. Somehow, I think that it is just fitting; although it leaves us melancholic, we can find comfort in the characters' acceptance of their scars and their confidence in moving forward. Penny Dreadful being true to its dark theme, delivered an apt ending that we can content ourselves with.

* Music playing in the background: Opening scene of The Blessed Dark sung by Sophie Meade