Penny Dreadful (TV Series) Closer Than Sisters (2014) User Reviews

Brilliant display of acting, storytelling and overall direction; best episode of the season.

[arthurjf1211 · 10/10 · 27 June 2014]

This episode was truly something else. I was enjoying "Penny Dreadful" very much even before watching this, and even thought "Seance" would stand as the season-high episode, but "Closer Than Sisters" takes it to a whole new level.

It's not easy to make a "flashback" episode, so choosing this to be one — more than that, to focus solely on a single character's past for it's entirety — was a bold move but that ultimately paid off.

If the screenplay was great, focusing on Vanessa and her complex personality and conflicts, I must say that a great part of this episode's success must be thanks to Eva Green's absolutely stunning performance. Giving life and depth to the character, she went through the most horrific, outright cruel and brutal moments (wich I won't spoil here for you) to the most tender and sad scenes. Everything was so raw, so natural that it seems she LIVED through those moments. This is an Emmy worth achievement and I'll be baffled if she isn't at least nominated.

The art direction on this episode also deserves mention. "Penny Dreadful" looks gorgeous and we all know it by now, but the landscapes, the long, haunting corridors and mansions and a particularly eerie maze... everything, the costumes, the atmosphere of dread, even when the characters were just talking — the feeling that something wrong was about to happen was palpable.

"Closer Than Sisters" reaches out for too much at some points, but it never seems gratuitous as everything is realized with such passion and commitment. To dive into Vanessa's back-story was a great move, as it fuels the season to new expectations and shines a light into the story. This is the best episode of the season for me and overall one of TV's best this season.

Almost too much

[steven98664 · 10/10 · 9 June 2014]

OK, this episode is the topper! Lust, crazy sex scenes, and the best, drilling in the head! Jeez! I was laughing so hard and the (of age) family was reeling during the surgery scene.

All the others, gory, demons, man man lust things, jeez! This one is just over the top.

I would say watch this if you can handle extreme television.

Well, the opener is just the starter....all the episodes to follow are more shocking starting with 4 and 5 especially.

The eye thing always gets me too.

I keep thinking how much fun they must have filming this.

So really the episode is the first one

[jackDee-56565 · 6/10 · 10 July 2021]

I hate when the build and momentum of the season gets messed with by giving us a 59 minute episode set in the past to tell us what we basically already knew, thet should have just split these scenes up and across the previous four episodes or even just started with this as episode 1, it was a good episode but it was stupidly placed that makes the effort less impressive.

Dreadfully Penny

[bobbybits · 18 June 2014]

I was slightly enjoying this period series forgiving some of that Twilight'ness. Importantly Frankenstein should have been a German or rather a Dr Jekyll & Hyde creation but that would have been some sort of league rip off. Happily quite glad to see the Proteus mache.

Some other periodic blunders. 5 pound notes that look like a fiver, not that A4 sheet of paper. Rats on shore, but without that barrier and after the plague. Oranges given freely when seated within the theatre. Pet rats in a dog fight, not hissing, biting and digging upon being cornered. Wolves that human hands are then placed into their mouths. 6 shooters having more rounds which automatically reload. Etc, etc.

The seance's painful repetition. Aside getting to this episode. Dreadful obtains her powers from epileptic sex with the devil, wasn't quite all that same froth from a seize'her. But I am finding this plot to be quite questionable to this series intent? Having a person making a deal with the devil, selling their soul for power upon doing his bidding. Only to later pursue others who are also in league with those same demonic forces. Possibly only a pawn in the yin and yawn, Egyptian dayities, those forces of the night joining. Although this picture should lead to her demise, upon her not opening that ninth gate. Painfully related back to the Seance as her former self of who the f..k was Vanessa.

Or otherwise construed as a developed hole here. How can somebody not have another motive when in direct league with darkness, despite of her dreaded Jekyll'ness?

No rating given. Blandly clichéd for the twilight fanclub within some error but overall slightly enjoyable for its settings and actors