karykeion:

i’d like to take Frustratingly Ineffectual Detective Dracula one step further, if I may, and envision it as a parodically extreme work in the genre of A Competent Woman (Probably Of Color) Solves Crimes With Her Pet Quirky White Man (Probably English), Who Is Ostensibly The Main Character But In All Actuality Basically Just Has A Really Helpful Superpower And Is Otherwise There To Be Comedically Out Of Touch.

based on the three greatest works of this genre (Elementary, Lucifer, and Sleepy Hollow Before 2015), i think it’s safe to say our protagonist, Mina Murray as portrayed by Naomie Harris in at least two leather jackets and very tall ankle boots, has a superb mind for numbers and does her paperwork by the book, and is by turns disturbed and amused by the dramatic goth antics and inexplicable clumsiness of Dracula, as portrayed by whichever white brown-haired English guy with an anime chin everyone wants to kiss right now.

It starts out pretty much just a procedural except a vampire is in it.
Renfield figures out Dracula is a vampire near the end of the first
season; it’s very tense but thereafter Renfield’s the only one who knows
and it’s hilarious because he keeps having to cover for Dracula’s
bullshit and break into places so Dracula can get in, because they’re
friends or something, I don’t know. Mina and Dracula’s friendship is
still the heart of the show though. Lucy is introduced in the second
season as a recurring character and she and Dracula probably flirt a
little bit but ultimately she gets engaged to Holmwood, who’s, like…a
politician, or something, and she’s their cover for fancy stakeouts and
she loves it.

Seward is there from episode 1; he’s a forensic psychologist with a
debilitating crush on Lucy and he Definitely doesn’t believe in the
supernatural but his bff Extremely Texan Ballistics Expert Quincey
Morris does. Quincey is gay in this adaptation partly to combat Texan
stereotypes and partly because half the cast being in love with the same
recurring character would be a narrative clusterfuck. He and Seward are
the Price and Zeller of this show and there are whole tumblrs dedicated
to the hidden love they apparently express only in completely normal
lines of dialogue.

We are continually amused by Dracula’s scheming to get invited into
places so he doesn’t fall over like a dumbass. A la Lucifer and Sherlock
Holmes, his useful superpower is that he knows who the murderer is
because apparently that’s a conceivable vampire power, so, okay, sure. I
don’t think he’s even actually on the police force, he just follows
Mina around because she saved his life or something and everyone is just
used to it.

Mina and Dracula, who is canonically Romanian and goes by “Vlad” despite his obvious RP accent that nobody questions, are ship teased for the first season before the writers realize nobody is here for that. Jonathan proposes to Mina right before the second season finale and they remain the official couple for the rest of the show barring a few episodes where one or the other turns evil for some reason and makes out with someone else, Dracula, or both. Dracula flirts with everyone unless he is being rude or dramatic and those are his only three emotions besides “bloodlust”, “counting”, and “ironic allusions to the book”.

There are oceans of deliberate homoerotic subtext, first with Jonathan, who Dracula straight up calls “delicious” upon their first meeting, and then with Renfield, who is either Dracula’s roommate, the coroner, or both. Dracula and Renfield have amazing screen chemistry because the guy cast as Renfield is hilarious and every scene without him in it is too long. This is The Ship everyone makes gifs about but it never happens.

van Helsing starts off as an antagonist in season 3 who’s a “serial killer” who is really hunting vampires; only Dracula and Renfield know what is actually going on and it’s very dramatic. we don’t get the “serial killer”‘s name until he very cinematically tells Mina what it is and everyone’s face is shocked and then the show goes to commercial. then shenanigans happen and by season 4 he’s showing up to help our heroes from time to time, having somehow evaded jail, like an academic extremist tuxedo mask. Mina probably finds out vampires are real in season 3 before the finale and confronts Dracula about it and he COULD eat her but DOESN’T and that’s what friendship is all about.

the show starts getting really weird around season 4 and the writers are trying to develop a “mythos”.
it turns into the shittiest parts of Supernatural and Sleepy Hollow at the same time.

Lucy gets turned into a vampire but her ghost shows up sometimes to point mina & the gang at clues. no other ghosts are ever mentioned in the whole show. people get possessed once in a while and it makes no sense. demons are probably real.

Mina absolutely, definitely gets vampire powers part of the way through season 4 but doesn’t get turned into a whole vampire, in the grand tradition of Lady Cop Has/Develops Skill/Ability Associated With Pet White Man. probably the antagonists for season 4 are dracula’s brides because from their point of view their boss went to london or new york or whatever and never came home. there is EXTREME FLIRTING on the part of at least one of the brides toward Mina because it just isn’t a vampire show without ladies kissing. at least two of the brides are killed, maybe all of them. one of the brides is definitely famke janssen and it’s amazing. it’s famke janssen, rosario dawson, and like, lesley ann brandt. rosario is the one in charge and she’s terrifying and lesley ann is clearly having the time of her life.

the Big Bad that they kill at the end of season 5 is the vampire who made dracula (it’s Nosferatu, they go there) and he’s somehow retroactively responsible for a conspiracy that ties together multiple serial killings and shit that happened over the past 4 seasons and the writers are clearly pulling it all out of their ass. he has a secret weakness and it probably involves dracula getting killed. you THINK quincey morris is going to bite it but he doesn’t and this, of all things, is the purists’ sticking point regarding this show for the next 10 years. jonathan tearfully kills dracula as part of The Plan and then mina kills nosferatu and london is saved from vampries for probably ever, case closed.

come and get me CW