Dracula Season 1 Episode 1 “The Rules Of The Beast”

There is a new vampire series on Netflix called Dracula. It’s dirty and gritty and dark. I have watched so many vampire shows and movies. I have often been disappointed. Not this one, however. I was truly surprised. Let me tell you about it.

Hungary 1897 is when we open. We open to a man with startling blue eyes. Sister Agatha addresses Mr. Harker and another nun joins them. Mr. Harker, Jonathan Harker, looks dead. So dead in fact that a fly crawled in his eye and he didn’t know. Sister Agatha wants to know all about his time with Count Dracula.

As Mr. Harker recounts his journey, he starts when he is left on the side of the road for the Count’s driver to find. All he is left with is his bags and a cross. Once he arrives he sees a meal prepared with wine. He is finally greeted by an old man claiming to be Count Dracula. Mr. Harker plans to return to England tomorrow until the Count tells him differently. The Count is very old and did not age well. He has long white hair. He is very odd.

In a series of small oddities, the weirdest one being someone scratched HELP US into the glass over the window. When Mr. Harker looked out the winder, there was no way someone could do so. Yet he caught sight of someone, a woman. We have small breaks from his story back in the present when he is conversing with Sister Agatha. She is a nun of a different cloth. She must be. She cares nothing for God and is very rough and demanding. Mr. Harker’s days run together and are simply trying to find the woman that he saw the first night but he keeps getting lost. The Count continues to get younger and more virile. As this happens, Mr. Harker looks as though his health is going downhill.

As he searches the castle he comes across bodies that are dead but not quite dead. They were shoved until they fit into boxes and nailed shut. The bodies kept saying kill me in Romanian. It is through the discussion with Sister Agatha that Mr. Harker comes to the realization of what Count Dracula is. Dracula wants Mr. Harker to write three letters. All are to Mina. They are to tell her lies so she thinks Mr. Harker is on his way home to her. It was then that Mr. Harker knew he must escape. He waited til morning and found the maps to find the woman. Then he was going to kill Count Dracula. It was when he found the woman he realized his mistake.

Mr. Harker gets to the point in his harrowing tale where he is about to escape when he is finally able to read what he wrote when he first came to the monastery. All he wrote is “Dracula is God”, “Dracula will be obeyed” and the like for pages and pages. He finishes his tale. He hurt Dracula but doesn’t know-how. Then they introduce the second nun. It is Mina. During the touching reunion scene, bats suddenly burst in and Jonathan Harker is left with Mina, alone. She is bleeding and it brings his teeth. He gives her a stake to protect herself.

Dracula is in wolf form. The transformation scene is pretty awesome. Definitely not what I was expecting. Mother Superior is supremely unhappy with Sister Agatha but is too scared to do anything to contradict Sister Agatha. Sister Agatha gets into a verbal dance with Dracula and at the end of it, Count Dracula names her. Agatha Van Helsing. After walking away from the Count, Agatha goes to check on Mina to find Mr. Harker dead and Mina sitting outside his room. Dracula climbs the walls of the monastery to find Mr. Harker. He finds him and tells him to invite him in.

Who survives the slaughter? Anyone? This was a truly fascinating episode. I loved it. Have you watched it? Let me know in the comments below. Til next week…