rhodrymavelyne

I’d forgotten I loved Bram Stoker’s Dracula as a child, particularly the part where Johnathan Harker goes to stay with Dracula as his guest. The courtly courtesy with which Dracula treated his solicitor, revealing something of the monster and the man while imprisoning the young mortal, claiming Johnathan Harker as his, protecting him from his brides, yet offering him to them as snack was fascinating; a suspenseful tale which kept me hanging on the edge of the seat.

I’ve seen so many disappointing Dracula movies; emphasizing a romance between Dracula and Mina, something I didn’t feel was there. Lucy always struck me as a more likely candidate. I was saddened to see Johnathan reduced to simply a rival for Dracula’s bride. I became aware of the even more depressing legal restriction, not allowing male vampires to bite other men on camera. (I salute Jerry Dandridge and Tom Holland in the 1985 Fright Night for finding such an elegant way around that, enfolding the victim in his coat).

The Netflix Dracula brought the old love back. I was fascinated by the take which Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss took on Johnathan Harker’s visit to Dracula in his castle; how Dracula sucked the youth, the knowledge, the very Englishness out of his guest along with his vitality. Johnathan Harker transformed Dracula into exactly what he wanted to be, a dapper English speaker ready to take London.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a cheerful Dracula. He was comfortable being a monster, intimate with his prey without apology. He enjoyed meeting people, eating people, took great delight in humanity’s innovations, smiled a lot, and was no less scary for all of this. His ending was a melancholy, romantic one, involving more intimacy than actual romance, and showed a curious character growth.

I loved the finish, but I wanted more. I realized there was potential for more, taking what was in the book and reinventing it in the context of this series.

Mark Gatiss’s Renfield was fascinating, a lawyer whom was hilarious in how he foiled the Johnathan Harker foundation, a lawyer from the very firm Johnathan Harker was from. (Was Harker an offering to the master? Very likely.) Frank Renfield still ate bugs and was partial to lines praising his master, but he had his plans and dreams for his dark lord.

Did those plans and dreams die with Dracula? Or would Frank Renfield hold onto a hope of bringing him back, finding another vampire to serve, or figuring out another way to achieve them?

Dracula seemed to be his reason for living, but Dracula is gone.

Jack Seward lost the girl he loved and his mentor in his last encounter with Dracula. Both are gone.

What if Frank Renfield and Jack Seward to meet and have their therapy sessions, a variation on what happened in the book after the series ended? What if Frank Renfield offered to talk in detail with the Johnathan Harker foundation, share everything he knows about Dracula and vampires in general?

There’s just one condition. He wants to talk to Dr. Jack Seward. He will only confess all to him. In return, Dr. Seward will help him with his therapy. After all this is what Dr. Seward has been training to do.

The question Jack and others would be trying to figure out is why? Why does Renfield only want to speak to Jack? Why is he offering to talk at all? What’s he up to?

It could be Frank Renfield does, indeed, need therapy. It could be he sees a kindred spirit in the young doctor who lost the most important person in his life, a person he himself didn’t matter to. It could be he’s searching for information about Dracula’s demise, what happened on that last night? It could be he’s trying to get into the head of Van Helsing through Van Helsing’s student. He may have much deeper motives for having conversations with Jack Seward in which he shares his own ideas about life, lives, Dracula, and his place in the world.

This has potential to be quite a story.