Warning: Full spoilers for Netflix’s Dracula follow…
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Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss’ adaptation of Dracula, which aired on Netflix in the States and on BBC in the U.K., garnered mostly positive reviews, even from us here at IGN. But when it came to the third (and final) episode, “The Dark Compass,” fans were a bit more divided.
As the biggest creative swing of the three chapters, “The Dark Compass” brought Claes Bang’s Count Dracula into 2020, after he’d been trapped in a watery grave for over a hundred years. He was inadvertently awoken by agents of The Harker Foundation, which now employed Zoe, a descendent of Dolly Wells’ Agatha Van Helsing. Dracula became a man of the modern age for the show’s final Season 1 standoff, losing a lot of his luster and ending up defanged in a way that we’d never seen before.
Only by the grace of a supernaturally sycophantic lawyer, this series’ version of Renfield (played by Gatiss), was Dracula allowed to roam free and use dating apps to try and track down contenders for the “perfect bride.” It’s a quest that ended when Dracula found Lydia West’s Lucy Westenra, a young woman who he saw as the ultimate opportunity to spawn a flawless undead creation.
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‘The Dark Compass’ Ending Proves Divisive
So why were some fans down on “The Dark Compass?” A handful of reasons. Not only was it was the most different of the three episodes, but it took the most creative risks. It represented the “end” (for now?), it added even more new characters (after two episodes of meeting caring about characters who were only built to die), and it lacked the Dracula/Van Helsing feud dynamic until the final fifteen minutes or so when Agatha was able to take over the body of Zoe and the two old adversaries found each other once more. Also, it was the first episode of the three not to employ the “Interview with a Vampire” technique of storytelling.
Some fans didn’t appreciate the final reveal of Dracula being a centuries-old coward, with all of the “rules” that kept him at bay being nothing more than psychological hang-ups stemming from his insecurities. Until the end of “The Dark Compass,” Dracula had always been too afraid to test whether or not any of the rules (sunlight, needing to be invited in, etc.) were true, because he was so fearful of death. So they all wound up having a placebo effect on him.
All that aside though, the story ended, ostensibly, with a murder/suicide. Dracula and Van Helsing (in Zoe’s dying body) both perished after he drained her of her blood and ingested cancerous crimson that’s supposed to be fatal for him. Is this the true finish for both characters — and the series — though? Can Dracula rebound for a second season/series? Here’s a quick look at all the elements remaining that could bring Dracula back for another bloodletting.
Will Dracula Get a Season 2?
Currently, Dracula hasn’t been renewed for a Season 2, but that doesn’t mean it won’t get one. In fact, it seems very likely Dracula will be renewed for a Season 2 because it is a co-production between BBC One and Netflix, and Netflix tends to be generous with its Season 2 renewals for its bigger titles like this. Netflix notoriously does not release its ratings, but BBC said the first episode drew 9.4 million viewers in its first week of release between broadcast, mobile, tablet, computer and BBC’s iPlayer viewership.
Basically, a Dracula Season 2 is likely, but you probably won’t be seeing it until partway through 2021 at the absolute earliest, and potentially not until 2022. Moffat and Gatiss are the same creative team behind Sherlock, and in many ways, Dracula follows that series’ storytelling structure. That show similarly would back its characters into corners in its season finales that seemed impossible to come back from, only for Moffat and Gatiss to dream up additional seasons.
If we’re using Sherlock as a model, that series’ second season didn’t air until a year and a half after the first — with later seasons taking even longer to be released — so we can likely expect the same for Dracula if it does get a second season. Moffat and Gatiss have delayed seasons of Sherlock as the hone in on new ideas for the series, and they could take a similarly unhurried approach to conceptualizing a second season of Dracula.
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Did Dracula and Zoe Really Die?
While it’s unclear what Dracula Season 2 will be about, there are a number of story threads set up that would be ripe to explore in a second season. The show was careful enough to sprinkle in enough doubt about what actually does and doesn’t kill Dracula to leave room for his return. Can the blood of a cancer victim actually kill him or was that all in his mind? And if that was a fatal move, was Zoe’s blood still poisonous after she drank Dracula’s blood earlier in the episode? There’s a lot of wiggle room here for both characters to come back.
Plus, given how Agatha Van Helsing was able to exist inside Zoe’s mind (and even take over her body in the final scenes) because Zoe had consumed the Count’s blood, there are also opportunities now for either Dracula or Agatha/Zoe to continue on as a mental construct, one who the other character sees and interacts with. If Dracula died but Zoe lived, then maybe he’s inside her now, or vice versa. The “spirit bond” bloodwork was a huge part of Season 1 with regards to what Dracula could actually absorb and acquire from his victims, like, talents, memories, etc. This too could be a way for these dueling characters to come back.
What Will Dracula Season 2 Be About?
Regardless of how the show brings back Dracula, and possibly Agatha/Zoe, the major story element that needs more attention is the mysterious Johnathan Harker Foundation – a clandestine research group, with armed guards at its disposal, obsessed with Dracula — particularly, as it turns out, the capturing of Dracula and the use of his blood for possibly nefarious reasons. Introduced in “The Dark Compass” when the Count found himself in 2020, the Harker Foundation could obviously be after various cures for many rampant diseases, but their intentions could also fall along the lines of cultivating immortality and/or super-soldiers. You know how it goes. No one obsessed with vampires is ever pure of intention.
Whatever the case, it seems like too big an idea to just drop on viewers in the final chapter without following it up in a second season.
Additionally, he series had a lot of interesting spins on classic Bram Stoker characters — like Van Helsing, the Harkers, Lucy, Renfield, etc — but it left one name alive when all was said and done.
And in the same way, it feels like there’s more story to tell with the Harker Foundation, the organization’s junior medical student, Jack Seward, seems like a curious character to leave laying about. In the book, Dr. Seward was one of Lucy’s suitors and head of the insane asylum that housed Renfield. Here he was portrayed as a lovelorn, and somewhat hapless, hero eventually forced to put Lucy out of her charred, cursed misery.
Jack definitely seems like a character who could return, even if just to get tormented by Dracula and killed off in the first episode of Season 2. It just feels like there’s more story to tell with him and the Harker Foundation.
For more on Netflix’s Dracula, be sure to check out IGN’s review of Season 1:
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Matt Fowler is a writer for IGN and a member of the Television Critics Association. Follow him on Twitter at @TheMattFowler and Facebook at Facebook.com/MattBFowler.
