If you’ll indulge me for one moment, I want you to envision one of your favorite movies. A movie that has it all, full of ups and downs, and plot twists. A movie that really gets you in the feels every single time. Now, I want you to imagine that someone took that film, cut out all the joyful parts and moments of triumph, and only left the jump scares or the gut-wrenching and sad parts.
Still with me?
Now, what if that person took those images and placed them in your mind eye, forced you to watch them, and every time you saw those set clips or images you felt all of the emotions you felt when you first saw them. The images would be set to spring up randomly and follow you everywhere. Affecting your daily tasks and interactions, even your dreams. You would have zero control over when, why, or for how long they played. Building up until it became a layer of white noise, as though you were living in a reality apart from everyone else. On edge. Hoping for silence.
This is what it’s like to live with trauma and more specifically, PTSD.
Survivors know that coping with trauma can be a cold and lonely place and it is in this exact place we find Vanessa Ives in the original Penny Dreadfuls’ third season episode “A Blade of Grass.” Brilliantly portrayed by Eva Green, the usually poised and self - possessed Vanessa Ives, is now broken down to a desperate, clawing, feral creature alone in the dark. Her only human interaction is with an orderly played by Rory Kinnear who comes in and out to deliver food and clean the room.
I have always loved horror, particularly those that leaned towards the supernatural, allowing us as an audience to tap into our primal fears. By watching horror films one can have a sense of control over both the situation and over the feeling of fear. A sort of “emotional regulation.” Penny Dreadful was no exception. The quote, “we all have a monster inside of us” became more than just a tagline as we watched each character in turn struggle with their inner demons. I pretty much loved the show from the first time I saw the posters and just like everyone else I quickly zeroed in on Vanessa Ives. Her story became Penny Dreadful’s story. Vanessa’s hope for redemption, love, and forgiveness she couldn’t give to herself mirrors the minefield of coping with trauma. Told out of sequence, her story illustrates the devastating impact pain can inflict on one’s life and the daily mental anxiety a victim feels that things are never truly really over.
Dark Romanticism and The Dark Night of The Soul
“A Blade of Grass'' shows Vanessa at one of her lowest points. Gone is the self possessed enigmatic beauty who could be both charming and sting like a scorpion. She is isolated and alone in a padded cell in a Victorian mental institution. A true dark night of the soul. It’s shocking to see Vanessa brought so low after all that she has already been through. Or is it, will go through?
“A Blade of Grass'' actually exists in a crux in time. The episode begins with Vanessa placed under hypnosis Dr. Seward, played by Patti LuPone. Fans of Penny Dreadful will remember that once a season we treated to the traditional Vanessa flashback episode, here delivered through her therapy with the good doctor. During her hypnosis, she becomes trapped in her memories, unable to awaken from her state without first working through her trauma.
Penny Dreadful was always dark romanticism at its finest. a literary sub-genre reflecting the fascination with evil in the form of devils, ghosts, werewolves, vampires, and ghouls as emblematic of human nature. Or as critic G. R. Thompson put it:
"Fallen man's inability fully to comprehend haunting reminders of another, a supernatural realm that yet seemed not to exist..."
At this point in her life, Vanessa is tormented by an abuser that she cannot see or touch but, is ever-present. She tries to articulate that she is not crazy but is unable to find the words to describe what she actually is. Everything that Penny Dreadful is known for – the monsters, the production design, the gore – is stripped back for the majority of the episode. All we are left with is a stark white room. The horror in this episode is Vanessa’s suffering as she spirals downward. Locked in that little room, and shut off from the rest of the world, Vanessa cannot even tell if it’s day or night, or how many days, in general, has passed by. At one point, she has to be told that it is Christmas. Every day becoming more monotonous and mind-numbing, pulling tight like a straitjacket, including the therapy the asylum subjects Vanessa to in order to cure her but only really serves to confine her.
And yet, it is said the greatest source of suffering is the lies we tell ourselves. Vanessa is haunted by the tenets of a Catholic upbringing and her betrayal of her childhood friend Mina leads Vanessa to believe that she herself is evil and touched by Satan. That she has brought this punishment on herself.
Her saving grace is the Orderly. Though we never find out his true name, fans have come to know him as The Creature and later John Claire. The Orderly is representative not only of human interaction but, of the human capacity for empathy, compassion, and kindness. He is the one neighbor who offers food, the teacher who noticed and nurtured your talent, the one friend you can call in the middle of the night. Initially, there to do his job and nothing more, The Orderly soon softens and begins to provide small acts of kindness to Vanessa. Even, at one point offering a blanket. And, it is in these acts of kindness that Vanessa starts to live again. Moment by moment. Baby steps.
A Blade of Grass
Fear is a potent and powerful weapon in the hands of a perpetrator. Fed only by the need to control and destroy their victim. The Devil and The Dragon are no exception. Fallen angels, both squabbling over who gets to possess Vanessa. One wants her body. The other her soul. They claim to love her, but it's clear that to them, she is not even something that is alive. Only simply a means to an end and Vanessa is having none of that. She definitely rejects the both of them, in order to live life on her own terms. It is in this key moment, that an abuser’s ability to terrorize and dominate flares up. They quickly shift from professing undying love to threatening Vanessa with unending suffering. Promising that nowhere will be safe for her. Threatening to ravage her body, dog her every step and that even her closest loved one’s will pay the price. That her pain will be unceasing.
It is a victim’s worst nightmare.
And, I can personally speak to these things because you see. I am a trauma survivor and suffer from complex PTSD...
After a troublesome childhood, I grew up not understanding what love truly was and fell into an emotional abusive, narcissistic relationship with one man and later came to be stalked by another. Even after years of piecing my life back together and therapy I literally still found myself unable to perform as an actor or simply hitting the record button to do a voice over for a video would turn my blood ice cold...My creative gift, taken away...because Trauma is less about what happens in the moment, and more about how it affects everything moving forward. It is overwhelming, unbelievable, and unbearable…and most of all you are left with the question of what would happen if they came back?... The fear is that much like a blade of grass I could be chopped down, broken, torn up, and left to rot...This could be done because no one would miss me and even if they did it would be too late. Help wouldn’t be able to get to me in time and it would be a Sisyphean task to fight. They have all the power. I have none. I was no more than a blade of grass…
...And, yet I am.
Yes, we are wounded right now...But, our abusers did not birth us into this world and so have no right to take us out of it. You have the right to laugh, play, create, love, or simply be. It is this moment, that is the first step of a journey in love and forgiveness. A journey to love yourself. To forgive yourself. And no one can claim that they gave that strength to you because it was a path forged by you. Not by breaking you but by restoring you.
Vanessa Ives has this same type of moment in “A Blade of Grass,” when she stands her ground against both dragon and devil states that though, she has no more significance or importance than a blade of grass and that much like the blade of grass she deserves to exist. It’s the official starting point in Vanessa’s struggle and a moment of self-affirmation. And, it is magnificent and spine-tingling.
Especially, when she starts to levitate!
I grew up in the Baptist church, and can’t nobody speak in tongues, like Eva Green.
After standing in her power I had hoped that Vanessa would find more than momentary peace or at least continue to stand in her newfound strength. So, I’m going to use this time to weigh in on Vanessa’s eventual outcome.
She dies rather overwhelmingly.
As explanation, Penny Dreadful showrunner and creator, John Logan has stated
“Vanessa had to die because she's a character desperately in need of peace, and the mortal realm was not going to give it to her.”
And how sad. I’m not really upset with that she died, but with how she died. Which seemed just to be no more that suicide through another character. We look to our heroes to do the things we ourselves cannot. And with the death of this character, it felt like the confirmation of a survivor’s worst fear, that there will be no healing and there’s no way out. Not to say we should take all of our advice from entertainment but, I think it’s time for a new narrative. Vanessa Ives is a missed opportunity to bring an anti-heroine who was complex, sexually voracious, and not only understood, but integrated her shadow and through that experience, we as the audience would come to understand the difference between what is Dark and what is Evil.
Penny Dreadfuls’ “A Blade of Grass” was a poetic, often devastating look at loneliness and resilience while coping with trauma. As a flashback episode, it serves to remind both Vanessa and the audience that she has been here before and healing comes in cycles. That healing doesn’t mean the pain never existed. It means the damage no longer controls our lives. And, though demons come in disguise, Angels do too...