The Dark Compass is the finale episode in this adaptation and it ends with a showdown between Claes Bang's Dracula and Dolly Well's Sister Agatha/Zoe Van Helsing. Nothing stopped these two characters finding each other after 123 years.
At the heart of this adaptation is the relationship between Dracula and Sister Agatha. This is to the credit of Bang and Wells' performances throughout and their verbal sparring is exciting to watch.
In this final episode, we see Dracula in the 21st Century, learning and speaking the different language throughout England. There flashbacks that reveal what took Dracula so long to get to England. We discovered it to be a sort of coma he was in until someone accidentally fed him a finger. We also learn that Mina Murray (Morfydd Clark) who survived Dracula in episode one ended up founding the institute dedicated to stopping Dracula, named after her late fiancé, Jonathan Harker.
It is obvious that Zoe is a descendant of Sister Agatha, although we do meet Agatha again after Zoe drinks some of Dracula's blood. It is interesting to see how different Wells makes Agatha and Zoe who inhabit the same body. There is a clear difference between both characters and her performance works so well when flipping between them.
This episode is similar to the previous two episodes in the sense the supporting cast aren’t around for too long. Therefore, it is difficult to have a connection with the new characters introduced in this episode as we aren’t given enough time to get to know them. For example, it sad to see Dr Seward's (Matthew Beard) heartache but when we don’t get much time to connect with him to really feel sorry for him. It is sad to see it as we all can relate in some way but we can’t truly feel bad for him as we know there is a high chance, we won’t see him again.
An important character that is finally introduced in this final episode is Lucy Westenra (Lydia West). Lucy is Dracula's main victim in Bram Stoker's novel. She comes across as shallow and self-centred, she only cares about herself and how she looks. West's performance is ok but it isn’t the most enjoyable to watch at times but that is due to the character she is playing. Unfortunately, Lucy gets a very grim fate of cremation. The final scenes of Lucy aren’t enjoyable, the performance feels really over the top especially at the end and you just want her to stop talking.
This final episode felt more like a struggle compared to previous two episodes as if there wasn’t as much for the writers Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat to work with. At the very end, Agatha uncover that all of Dracula's weaknesses like sunlight or being invited into buildings is self-inflicted and this is all down to the fact that he knows nothing can kill him apart from Zoe's blood as she is dying. This drama concludes with Dracula taking his life with Zoe/Agatha by drinking her blood.
Overall, this final episode isn’t as great as maybe we expected it to be. It was disappointing considering the previous episodes. It was also unsatisfying as the first episode was like a real horror film and the gore and the scare factor seems to have lowered and vanishes as each episode progressed. This series promised so much and that wasn’t delivered, the episode met all expectations, the second episode expectations weren’t met but it was still a great episode and this final episode was a disappointment. However, this final episode and series was still enjoyable in parts but the horror that we associate with Dracula seemed to disappear.
Dracula: The Dark Compass showcases the great relationship and performances between Bang and Wells. However, as the ending to a three-part series it felt a little stale and didn’t have too much excitement. The ending was overall a huge disappointment and something with a lot more energy was expected. This episode and the series in general have been entertaining to watch but certain aspects of what we know Dracula to be felt missed or forgotten. As mentioned above, the first episode felt like a real horror film and we saw the animal side of Dracula, the second episode we saw the very controlled and intelligent side of Dracula which wasn’t as gory or scary but still had an impact. In this final episode, we didn’t really learn anything new about Dracula and once the credits rolled, we feel like we wanted more and that the ending makes us crave a more satisfying and possibly gory ending. The series showcased some great performances, it is just a shame that the frightening and interesting nature of Dracula wasn’t carried through episode one to three.
