Things go to hell for pretty much everybody in the Dracula finale

Those hoping that NBC's Dracula miniseries would bring the excitement for the season (series?) finale, you couldn't have been disappointed. Sure, not everything was resolved, but how upset can you be with a finale that included a great deal of murder, fucking, and the blood of Christ used as a vampire GPS?

I'm serious. It's the final showdown for Dracula and the Order of the Dragon; Dracula thinks he'll crush them when he demonstrates his free, wireless electricity generator, but the Order is not dicking around. They call in the Sicilian, a Seer with wonderfully anachronistic sunglasses to come in and find all the vampires Dracula has summoned to London; to augment his power, he's brought the blood of Jesus in a handy 19th century Tupperware container. The blood is so powerful it can literally give the Sicilian the vampire's street addresses. Lady Jane organizes a bunch of hunters to basically find and kill every single goddamn vampire in town; meanwhile, Harker's ordered to lead a secret group into Grayson's warehouse to sabotage the generator.

Grayson/Dracula should realize something's amiss when basically none of his compatriots show up on demonstration day other than Xaro Xhoan Renfield. Harker's been missing for two days, and even Dracula knows Van Helsing is busy, having kidnapped Patrick from Coupling's two kids. But since it's the day of the demonstration, they need to get it together. Harker arrives, explaining his two-day absence as stress-induced sick days after he murdered Davenport. Harker actually sells it well, and Dracula promises to protect him, assuming Harker does exactly what Grayson says — Harker would smile evilly if he weren't so bitter about Mina. Harker's first order of business is to bring in "three reporters from the Times" who want pictures of the generator, by which of course I mean sabotage it when no one is looking.

That leaves Van Helsing, so Grayson sends Renfield to go find him — which he does, in the middle of destroying his entire lab, along with all the formula that lets Dracula walk in the sun. Apparently, Van Helsing gets verrrrry upset when you agree to follow a plan and then don't stick to it, much as Dracula has. Xaro Xhoan Renfield basically manages to say, "WHAT THE FUCK" before Van Helsing stabs him in the gut and leaves him to die. Which he probably does, unless someone saves him off-screen — and it isn't Dracula, because he's busy.

But so is Van Helsing. As you'll recall, last episode he discovers he couldn't bash Patrick from Coupling's children's little heads in with his Magic Hammer, and thus sent Browning a ransom letter… but with one of his children's fingers, you know, just to let him know he's on the up-and-up. Browning leaves Operation: Kill All the Fucking Vampires to deliver the ransom to a remote barn. This goes rather poorly for Patrick, because apparently Van Helsing didn't fail to murder the children because of his morals, but because Browning wouldn't have suffered enough. He throws Browing into the barn's cellar, dumps the money after him, as well as a great deal of gasoline. At least Browning's children are down there… except they're vampires, because Van Helsing fed them Dracula's blood, and of course immediately start drinking their dad as Van Helsing sets the whole place of fire. Patrick from Coupling: Also probably dead.

It's at this point that Harker learns that the Order didn't just sabotage Grayson's machine, they rigged it to explode. I don't know why Harker didn't figure this out, given that Patrick from Coupling was very emphatic last episode that they should basically make sure no one even tries the free wireless electricity bullshit again, but whatever. He remembers that in a shitty spat with Mina earlier, he told Mina to go to the demonstration so she could hang with her new boyfriend Grayson; now Harker has to fight his way through the crowds to find Mina and drag her away.

He finds her, but Mina is — shockingly — a touch upset that her former fiancée is attempting to commit an act of mass murder, and instead of fleeing runs up on stage to warn Grayson. Grayson tries to shut the generator down, but it's too late — all Grayson can do is yell for everyone to leave and for Harker to take Mina away. Then shit explodes. BIG TIME.

Harker and Mina wake up in the rubble, and Mina immediately runs off to find Grayson. Harker sees that he's killed his best friend who hasn't shown up since episode 4 or something. He has a sad, but the kind of sad that he blames on Grayson, instead of himself or the Order of the Dragon.

Lady Jane also arrives at the crater, as the Sicilian has finally revealed that Grayson and Dracula are one and the same (I guess the blood of Christ wanted to save the best for last? Maybe hJesushas to work in order or vampiric power? So many questions!); he even gives Lady Jane a special Pope-approved, Dracula-stabbin' dagger for the fight. While Jane examines charred corpses, Grayson/Dracula steps out, cool as a cucumber. The fight scene that ensues is great, not just because no punches are pulled — literally, Dracula casually disarms her of her weapons, then punches her repeatedly in the face — but because both before and after Jane stabs him with the Pope-dagger, Dracula is a badass. At the end, he casually tosses her across the wreckage of the building, where she's impaled on a pipe. In honor of all the times they had hot, crazy sex, he only drinks her blood, and doesn't turn her into a vampire. Lady Jane: Definitely dead.

Meanwhile, Mina is scouring Carfax Manor for Grayson, where she finds the Dresden Triptych and the paintings of her/Dracula's burned-alive ex-wife Ilona. Give that she's been having Ilona dreams since she was little, this does not skeeve Mina out; this is to Dracula's advantage, as when he arrives, they totally fuck. But a show this dark can't end with happy monkey sex, so instead we find Van Helsing back at his destroyed laboratory, carefully fingering the cross-daggers he used to pin Dracula's foot in the episode 2 flashback. This is when Harker walks in, and the two original heroes of Bram Stoker's novel more or less team up to kill the monster known as Dracula…. mostly because they're assholes and hate the fucker.

As the first episode clearly promised, this miniseries was one of the least accurate versions of Dracula I have ever seen, and yet it was massively entertaining anyways — not just for all the crazy additions to the story, but because of how it twisted the classic. I still can't forget how my jaw dropped when I realized Dracula and Van Helsing were working together. Season one doesn't really end on a cliffhanger, per se, but there's clearly so much more of this completely insane story to tell, and god I hope it gets the chance.

At the moment, NBC still hasn't decided if they're going to greenlight season 2. I'm not hopeful; the ratings have been so-so (it loses a lot of Grimm's audience each week), although they have improved over the last few weeks. But the show is co-produced by the U.K.'s Carnival Films, so NBC Universal doesn't have to front all the cost. And Friday night is always sort of weird, since it's such a ratings wasteland; NBC may decide it's worth giving it one more chance to see if it continues picking up. Of course, if Jonathan Rhys-Meyers gets cast in Star Wars: Episode VII, as was once rumored — or another movie — I guess all bets are off.

But hope, like Lucy's hope of getting some girl-on-girl action with Mina, springs eternal. So here's hoping there's more vampiric business acquisition, 19th century mud-wrestling, and evil cast members of Coupling in our future.

Things go to hell for pretty much everybody in the Dracula finale

Assorted Musings:

  • When Mina tells Harker she's going to Grayson's demonstration, and Harker hisses "Good", did anyone else think he was being super-cold and was happy she was going to blow up and die? Just me?
  • Do we have any idea why the Order and Patrick from Coupling thought it was necessary to murder Van Helsing's entire family yet leave him alive?
  • The Order of the Dragon saboteurs "switch the wires" on the generator, thus causing it to explode. Man, they really did some intensive scientific research for that one, I tell ya.
  • So between the Pope-approved dagger the Sicilian gives Lady Jane and, you know, the blood of Christ, I'm still super-interested in the theology of this show. God is pretty clearly on the Order of the Dragon's side here, despite their nasty habit of murdering a shit-ton of innocent people.
  • The plot point I failed to mention above, because it didn't connect with the main story at all, is of Lucy. Lucy eats her mom, and with no moral qualms. Assuming Dracula returns for a second season, it'll be fun to see a vampire who is 100% evil for a change.
  • Seriously, NBC, GREENLIGHT ANOTHER SEASON. Let's not pretend you have a ton of other options here, okay?