'Penny Dreadful' season 4 cancelled; season 3 finale kills off Vanessa
Just as the card at the conclusion of the "Penny Dreadful" season 3 finale indicated, the popular horror/drama has truly come to an end.
"I can absolutely confirm it is really over, the end — that's all she wrote," "Penny Dreadful" creator John Logan told Deadline about the end of the award-winning series about a group of supernatural characters from the 19th century.
In the two-hour season 3 finale, Vanessa Ives (Eva Green) was shot dead by Ethan Chandler (Josh Hartnett) to save the world from Dracula (Christian Camargo). Afterwards, Vanessa's funeral was held, the Creature (Rory Kinnear) read William Wordsworth's "Intimations of Immortality," and the screen flashed the words "The End."
As if Vanessa's death wasn't heartbreaking enough, fans were understandably even more saddened by the possibility of the show's cancellation, as intimated by those ominous words.
Unfortunately, it was, indeed, the end of "Penny Dreadful." In an interview with TVLine, Logan and Showtime president David Nevins spoke about the decision to end the series and to not announce that it would end with season 3, and the possibility of the "Penny Dreadful" story continuing on.
As Logan told the outlet, he had known about the decision to end "Penny Dreadful" with season 3 for some time.
"The show, to me, has always been about Vanessa Ives and her struggle with faith," he said. "I knew, sooner or later, it would get to a point of apotheosis, where she would either accept her God or deny her God."
According to Nevins, while he had considered promoting season 4 as the final season of "Penny Dreadful," it seemed the wrong way to go about things.
"It wasn't in the spirit of 'Penny Dreadful,'" he said.
As the Showtime boss explained, he always knew that the series would not be a six- or seven-year show, but he had seen that the series was getting deeper and richer with every season. Unfortunately, Logan came to him with the announcement that Vanessa would die in the season 3 finale, and that was that.
When asked whether or not "Penny Dreadful" is truly over, Logan answered: "Some poems are meant to be haikus and some are meant to be sonnets and some are meant to be enormous epics, and this was always meant to be a sonnet. It was something of grace and beauty."
