Netflix's Dracula season 1, episode 2 recap: Blood Vessel

Dracula tells Sister Agatha the bloody story of his crossing to England on the ship Demeter. As the tale unfolds, it becomes clear that there’s a much more deadly mystery hidden at the center of it.

Despite the cliffhanger of episode one, we begin our story at an undetermined future point as Dracula and Sister Agatha share a game of chess and he tells her the story of his voyage to England. He warns her not to get too attached to any of the various characters he will introduce.

We meet Captain Sokolov (Jonathan Aris, who you will recognize as Anderson from Sherlock), Captain of the Demeter. His crew consists of the old superstitious Valentin (Clive Russell), the one-handed ship’s cook Olgaren (Youssef Kerkour), the nondescript Portmann (Anthony Flanagan) and the nearly identical Abramoff (Alec Utgoff), and the young and awkward Piotr (Samuel Blenkin), who stole the identity of the dead man who was originally meant for the job.

The Demeter is usually a cargo ship, but circumstances have brought together a diverse set of passengers. Dr. Sharma (Sacha Dhawan, who you’ll recognize from the latest episode of Doctor Who) is a scientist who has had painful first-hand experience with the undead. He is traveling with his daughter, who is deaf and dumb.

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Lord Ruthven (Patrick Walshe McBride) is on his honeymoon with the beautiful Dorabella (Lily Dodsworth-Evans), but we soon learn it’s all a marriage of convenience to distract from his relationship with his black African servant Adisa (Nathan Stewart-Jarrett). And Duchess Valeria (Catherine Schell) is an aging noble who is running out of money and has sold her life story to an Englishman named Mr. Balaur.

And of course, there’s Count Dracula, who rather than hiding away in his boxes of dirt and sneaking out at night for a snack, is mingling openly with the passengers. Plus, there’s a mysterious invalid in cabin number nine that no one is allowed to see. It’s like a locked room mystery except we all know who did it.

Dracula conjures a fog that will block out the sunlight and allow him to roam the deck freely by day. He spends a lovely evening dining with the passengers. Sister Agatha interrupts to ask why, if he doesn’t eat, did he come to dinner. Dracula counters that he enjoys company and he likes people. Fair enough. Dracula charms in his superficially sophisticated way, quipping in with Oscar Wilde type aphorisms. Drama is already brewing among the passengers. It seems to be plain to everyone that Lord Ruthven and Adisa are a secret couple, but no one addresses it directly.

Dracula dines with Duchess Valeria, who naturally slips into speaking German. Rather than admit he doesn’t understand, Dracula excuses himself to eat the Bavarian ship hand and returns able to speak perfect German (although with Portmann’s slight stutter). Dracula quite rightly comments to Agatha that his charming Bavarian accent was the only interesting thing about him.

It turns out that the Duchess is an old flame of Dracula’s. When he is able to guess that for her eighteenth birthday she received a pineapple as a gift, she suddenly realizes who he is and is stunned that he looks just the same after all these years. Later, she dreams of dancing with him when she was young as he consumes her.

The next morning the crew discovers that Portmann and the Duchess are both missing. A thorough search is made but no trace can be found. Meanwhile, cabin number nine remains undisturbed. Lord Ruthven overcompensates by making obscene comments suggesting he’s been rather busy having sex with his wife. Dracula gets a little handsy with him and he doesn’t seem to mind at all.

That night, Dracula shamelessly flirts with Dorabella as they stand alone out on the deck. As he eats her, blood drips through the deck boards onto Dr. Sharma’s daughter. She sneaks upstairs and watches Dracula as he drinks Dorabella’s blood. The next morning there is a large amount of blood left behind and Dorabella is nowhere to be found. Dracula naturally takes charge of the investigation, saying that the killer must either be one of them or someone who is hiding on board. Another thorough search is made, but with the Captain oddly insisting that no one but him is allowed to search cabin number nine. What is he hiding?

Captain Sokolov comes to the conclusion that the killer must be one of the passengers or crew, but if they stick together and watch each other carefully they should be fine until they reach England. Just then, of course, Abramoff comes falling out of the moonrakers and breaks his leg. He’s bleeding quite badly and Dracula has a hard time controlling himself. Blood isn’t just sustenance, it’s also an addiction. Below deck, they set his leg as best they can.

During a dinner conversation, it is revealed that Lord Ruthven’s silent partner, the one who made it financially possible for him to marry Dorabella and recommended the Demeter for passage, is the same man who is Dr. Sharma’s sponsor. Mr. Balaur, who also promised to pay the Duchess for her life story, is the reason all of them are on the Demeter. Mr. Balaur is Dracula, of course. The Demeter was a dress rehearsal for life in England, to dine with restraint and blend in among the natives.

The old superstitious Valentin decides to leave the ship before it’s too late and takes most of the crew along with him. They steal a lifeboat and sneak away, leaving the Demeter with a skeleton crew. Dracula finishes off the injured Abramoff and those who are left demand to see inside cabin number nine themselves. No more hiding behind the Captain.

At this point in the story, Sister Agatha begins to realize that she doesn’t know where she is or how she got there. The last thing she remembers is being at the convent and trapped by Dracula. He let Mina go, but that’s all she knows. She’s been dreaming since the victim of the vampire’s kiss. She is the invalid in cabin number nine and Dracula has been slowly feeding on her the whole time. The Captain was commissioned by Mr. Balaur to watch over his sickly wife and that’s why he’s been so protective of her.

Dracula frames Sister Agatha for the murders and encourages the others to carry out their lynching. Captain Sokolov is more restrained and argues against it, saying that she couldn’t possibly have the strength to murder all those people. Finally, she stops them by claiming she’s a vampire and that hanging her won’t stop her from killing everyone. Dracula challenges her, but when she bites her lip and tempts him with blood, he is revealed as the true vampire.

Dracula distracts everyone by kicking the barrel out from under Sister Agatha. Rather than attempt to capture Dracula, the crew and passengers opt to prevent Agatha from hanging. She doesn’t appreciate it much, considering that she’s dying anyway. Priorities, after all. She takes over command of the ship and of the investigation. I’m starting to think she was named for Agatha Christie because she’s a pretty good detective.

Meanwhile, Lord Ruthven passes the time with Dr. Sharma and his daughter as he tells him about his experience with the undead. Lord Ruthven begins to suspect that Dracula chose him for a special purpose and draws the blinds to allow him inside. Dracula wants Sharma for his scientific knowledge but he wards him off by holding up crosses. Lord Ruthven threatens his daughter with a gun, forcing him to give himself up. Then she drinks poison, taking herself out of the equation.

Sharma attacks Lord Ruthven in a rage and is killed in the process. Dracula stands by in a vaguely interested manner and watches the whole scene play out. He’s rather disappointed by Sharma’s death since he didn’t get to consume is knowledge. And what Lord Ruthven saw as his special purpose was really just a means for Dracula, as his silent partner, to inherit Dorabella’s wealth after their untimely death. He’s pretty useless otherwise, so Dracula eats him. Piotr stumbles across this scene and reports back to the others.

Sister Agatha and crew dispose of all but one box of Transylvanian earth so as to leave Dracula only one place of refuge. Then they nail a circle of Bible pages around the helm to create a barrier that he cannot cross. It occurs to them later that Dracula could have crawled inside Piotr and is using him as a disguise. They make him step out of the circle and jump back in to be sure, but he’s nearly snatched by Dracula in the process. Adisa doesn’t believe in all this vampire superstition and steps out of the circle to shoot Dracula for killing the love of his life. Of course, Dracula does not die and instead kills Adisa.

The others begin to rush him one by one, each getting tossed aside like ragdolls. Dracula ends up on the floor below, pinned to the deck by knives through his cape as he becomes doused in spilled rum. Agatha lights him on fire and Dracula throws himself overboard.

The rest think he must be dead, having no place to retreat to and not having returned to his one box of earth. Agatha doesn’t believe it for a second. Regardless, she issues instructions for the remaining few to abandon ship while she stays behind to destroy it before it reaches shore. It is, after all, a ship of contagion. Captain Sokolov stays behind with her to go down with the ship.

They share some companionable moments but realize too late that Dracula has made a bed of earth for himself underneath the mattress of his actual bed. He’s been hiding aboard the whole time and now attempts to stop them from blowing up the ship. He basically tears Sokolov’s throat out but doesn’t realize that he’s not dead yet. Sokolov is able to tell Agatha to keep Dracula talking while he drags himself down into the hold to light the fuse.

Meanwhile, Agatha and Dracula share some companionable banter. Dracula says he fears the cross because he’s inherited centuries worth of superstition from drinking God-fearing peasants, but she doesn’t buy it. He realizes too late that she’s stalling for time and the ship explodes. Sister Agatha, dying already, drowns as the ship sinks. Dracula is able to close himself in with his last box of earth and sinks to the bottom of the sea.

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He emerges from his coffin and walks ashore along the bottom of the ocean. Once on land, he is surrounded by a helicopter and various vehicles containing mercenaries carrying tactical weapons. He is greeted by a woman who appears to be a modern version of Sister Agatha. “Welcome to England, Count Dracula,” she says. “What kept you?” Dracula is understandably surprised, because what a delightful twist!

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