Dracula 2020 BBC Netflix - can they retain the balancing act into Season 2?
So I finished watching the BBC Netflix adaptation of Dracula recently, having been too busy around New Year to watch it on its original timeframe. I’ve now watched the whole series twice, partly because I was so gripped by episode 1 & 2 and especially their incredible casting. Episode 3 did slip for me, but this is because I think the writers spent too much time trying to shoehorn Lucy W in rather than work with the main story foundations that were working so well in their adaptation.
So why did episodes 1 & 2 mainly work so well?
First of all, I think one of the main reasons that the first 2 eps felt familiar but also fresh was that they fully allowed Dracula to be a real character walking the perfect tightrope between horror and delight, while being absolutely fine about that.
It’s really hard to make Dracula more relatable without undermining his horror. Most shows don’t bother. This one however tried, and tried spectacularly. They did this by making him delightful - not just by making him gorgeous, but by making him funny. Purists may not agree, but for someone who has for years wanted to actually see Dracula become a real boy, the particular balance between his dark humour and the horrid things he did moments later made him so much more compelling. This Dracula had a fabulous mixture of boyish, impish delight, incredible charisma, and hideous evil. You were never sure if he would just be funny/evil, hot/evil, funny/hot, or just evil, and in all cases, one aspect seemed to accentuate the other.
What’s more, you knew that Dracula was really okay with himself, as well. Sure, he’s looking for a bride. He’s lonely. He’s also got some fears and insecurities, but overall you know he’s at peace with his diabolical nature, while still being able to find delight in still existing in the world. After 500 years this is no mean feat. He asks for no apologies, and we offer none. This is no emo Dracula, which is refreshing when they could have gone the route of ‘misunderstood angel’.
Secondly, they created a second character that further emphasised all of these elements of the new Dracula, while also coming into her own. The wonderful central ‘dyad’ created between Dracula and Agatha made him even more delightful, hot and evil, while also making Van Helsing a better character overall.
Dracula, you get the impression, hasn’t met quite so many people as interesting and compelling as Agatha in his lifetime. He’s done his best to stay engaged, learning how to find, enjoy - and then eat - interesting people, but meeting Agatha gives him the biggest kick he’s had in some time. You could say he’s never been happier to be undead to meet someone who really wants to understand him. To know him. To challenge him - no, not to make him a better person - but to make him think.
Meanwhile, Agatha is rather lost before she meets him, but when she does - he’s fascinating, clever, a mystery, a challenge - but she also reignites her purpose, which is to find meaning through God. Van Helsing’s character has never seemed so vital. I’ve watched so many turgid versions of the bland good guy, fighting for the good of humanity. This Van Helsing literally comes alive in Dracula’s presence, not because she hates herself, but because through him she does see a dark compass to the light.
Yes, there is a sexual undertone there that is fully realised in episode 3. But the chemistry they have for most of the show is not about turning Drac into a romantic hero - rather more telling the story of two people who sense true purpose in each other, two magnets finally finding their opposite that promises something beyond their own self-destruction.
Yes, you’re never sure if Drac may at some point humanise, or whether she may darken - but this adds to it further. How long can their dance continue and how might it end?
So how could they make this work in season 2? Agatha is dead! Dracula is dead! And wasn’t he humanised? Didn’t they make out? And didn’t Dracula in modern times suck?
First of all, let’s check out what this season seemed to establish or at least suggested to me.
1. Dracula is now a fully freed character. He is not just a monster who can’t walk in the light, or touch garlic, or look at a cross. He can wreak havoc anywhere at any time. This sounds incredibly interesting to me and worth exploring further.
2. Dracula can adapt to any time. I know the 2020 setting didn’t work for everyone, but I think it wasn’t the time setting but rather the messy storyline that was the issue in episode 3. I would be happy to see him mainly living in 2020, but with his whole lifetime played out in various stories, with lots of amazing flashbacks to many points throughout time. 2020 does not need to tie Drac, it can free him. Crucially, if Agatha is in his blood, it might also free her...
3. Dracula can still be bloody scary in the modern world. Yes its harder when he’s not dressed in a cape and the Transylvanian sets certainly help. But the creepy child and listening into the sounds of the undead trying to claw their way out of their tombs were truly horrifying - and I would like to have seen more of that. It would require more thought about how Dracula’s brand of horror transfers to the modern-day, more use of super scary- contortionists, but the true horror of this Dracula was surely his full acceptance of his delight in being with, playing with, and then casually killing people. Let’s focus on that.
4. Dracula changed the game in his relationship with Agatha - but we cannot be sure that he was asking for redemption or showed real love for her. I think what we really saw was that Dracula realised finally he had found his real perfect bride in Agatha - which he had been trying to create for years - and reacted accordingly. I think we saw a flash of something new in his realisation he no longer wanted to be undead without her - but that is all, at least for now.
5. We are not totally sure that Agatha is dead, or Dracula is either. Dracula can be brought back to life easily, it's his superpower. And as for Agatha - have we not just seen that she can now live through time? Why could then they not create something feasible enough that she can also effectively take over her ancestors - as well as her descendants?
Taking all of the above, there are the threads of some amazing stories that could be created in all kinds of times and also, with both Dracula and Agatha moving together through those times on a long, bloody fight to a final, mysterious end.
1. They would need to keep Dracula fully fanged. I do not want to see Drac's horror played out in a meta way, eg Drac is the new evil face of Facebook stealing our data. He is at heart a bloodthirsty monster and we need to always be reminded of it.
2. Drac needs to not be in love with Agatha in a way we would recognise it. They still need to keep the will-they-won’t-they dyad between Agatha and Dracula but they need to take it into a new direction now that we think we know he would rather not be undead without her. He may think he is in love with her, he may stalk her, or he may want to get rid of his own need for her, all of which I would love to see Drac cope with while still being terribly evil, handsome, funny and charming.
3. Agatha still needs to need the light and her God. With this in mind, she cannot be dark Agatha (for any long periods at least) or be realistically in love with Dracula. Again I would like to see moments of weakness, as she wishes and dreams of his redemption before God through her influence, but she needs to rarely if ever believe it will happen.
That’s it! Really hoping season 2 happens though....
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