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Jan 21, 2022 · The BBC/Netflix series "Dracula" ended with the main character's death, but creators and actors have hinted at a possible resurrection. Find out the release date, cast, and plot of a potential second season of the vampire show.
- Should the Count be counted out?
- 'The Dark Compass' Ending Proves Divisive
- Will Dracula Get a Season 2?
- Did Dracula and Zoe Really Die?
- What Will Dracula Season 2 Be About?
By Matt Fowler
Updated: Jan 12, 2020 6:34 pm
Posted: Jan 12, 2020 6:33 pm
Warning: Full spoilers for Netflix's Dracula follow...
Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss' adaptation of Dracula, which aired on Netflix in the States and on BBC in the U.K., garnered mostly positive reviews, even from us here at IGN. But when it came to the third (and final) episode, "The Dark Compass," fans were a bit more divided.
As the biggest creative swing of the three chapters, "The Dark Compass" brought Claes Bang's Count Dracula into 2020, after he'd been trapped in a watery grave for over a hundred years. He was inadvertently awoken by agents of The Harker Foundation, which now employed Zoe, a descendent of Dolly Wells' Agatha Van Helsing. Dracula became a man of the modern age for the show's final Season 1 standoff, losing a lot of his luster and ending up defanged in a way that we'd never seen before.
So why were some fans down on "The Dark Compass?" A handful of reasons. Not only was it was the most different of the three episodes, but it took the most creative risks. It represented the "end" (for now?), it added even more new characters (after two episodes of meeting caring about characters who were only built to die), and it lacked the Dracula/Van Helsing feud dynamic until the final fifteen minutes or so when Agatha was able to take over the body of Zoe and the two old adversaries found each other once more. Also, it was the first episode of the three not to employ the "Interview with a Vampire" technique of storytelling.
Some fans didn't appreciate the final reveal of Dracula being a centuries-old coward, with all of the "rules" that kept him at bay being nothing more than psychological hang-ups stemming from his insecurities. Until the end of "The Dark Compass," Dracula had always been too afraid to test whether or not any of the rules (sunlight, needing to be invited in, etc.) were true, because he was so fearful of death. So they all wound up having a placebo effect on him.
Currently, Dracula hasn't been renewed for a Season 2, but that doesn't mean it won't get one. In fact, it seems very likely Dracula will be renewed for a Season 2 because it is a co-production between BBC One and Netflix, and Netflix tends to be generous with its Season 2 renewals for its bigger titles like this. Netflix notoriously does not release its ratings, but BBC said the first episode drew 9.4 million viewers in its first week of release between broadcast, mobile, tablet, computer and BBC's iPlayer viewership.
Basically, a Dracula Season 2 is likely, but you probably won't be seeing it until partway through 2021 at the absolute earliest, and potentially not until 2022. Moffat and Gatiss are the same creative team behind Sherlock, and in many ways, Dracula follows that series' storytelling structure. That show similarly would back its characters into corners in its season finales that seemed impossible to come back from, only for Moffat and Gatiss to dream up additional seasons.
While it's unclear what Dracula Season 2 will be about, there are a number of story threads set up that would be ripe to explore in a second season. The show was careful enough to sprinkle in enough doubt about what actually does and doesn't kill Dracula to leave room for his return. Can the blood of a cancer victim actually kill him or was that all in his mind? And if that was a fatal move, was Zoe's blood still poisonous after she drank Dracula's blood earlier in the episode? There's a lot of wiggle room here for both characters to come back.
Plus, given how Agatha Van Helsing was able to exist inside Zoe's mind (and even take over her body in the final scenes) because Zoe had consumed the Count's blood, there are also opportunities now for either Dracula or Agatha/Zoe to continue on as a mental construct, one who the other character sees and interacts with. If Dracula died but Zoe lived, then maybe he's inside her now, or vice versa. The "spirit bond" bloodwork was a huge part of Season 1 with regards to what Dracula could actually absorb and acquire from his victims, like, talents, memories, etc. This too could be a way for these dueling characters to come back.
Regardless of how the show brings back Dracula, and possibly Agatha/Zoe, the major story element that needs more attention is the mysterious Johnathan Harker Foundation - a clandestine research group, with armed guards at its disposal, obsessed with Dracula -- particularly, as it turns out, the capturing of Dracula and the use of his blood for possibly nefarious reasons. Introduced in "The Dark Compass" when the Count found himself in 2020, the Harker Foundation could obviously be after various cures for many rampant diseases, but their intentions could also fall along the lines of cultivating immortality and/or super-soldiers. You know how it goes. No one obsessed with vampires is ever pure of intention.
Whatever the case, it seems like too big an idea to just drop on viewers in the final chapter without following it up in a second season.
Additionally, he series had a lot of interesting spins on classic Bram Stoker characters -- like Van Helsing, the Harkers, Lucy, Renfield, etc -- but it left one name alive when all was said and done.
And in the same way, it feels like there's more story to tell with the Harker Foundation, the organization's junior medical student, Jack Seward, seems like a curious character to leave laying about. In the book, Dr. Seward was one of Lucy's suitors and head of the insane asylum that housed Renfield. Here he was portrayed as a lovelorn, and somewhat hapless, hero eventually forced to put Lucy out of her charred, cursed misery.
Jack definitely seems like a character who could return, even if just to get tormented by Dracula and killed off in the first episode of Season 2. It just feels like there's more story to tell with him and the Harker Foundation.
For more on Netflix's Dracula, be sure to check out IGN's review of Season 1:
Dracula is a horror drama television serial developed by Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat, based on the 1897 novel of the same name by Bram Stoker. The series, consisting of three episodes, premiered on 1 January 2020 and was broadcast over three consecutive days on BBC One before releasing on Netflix.
Dracula: Created by Cole Haddon. With Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Jessica De Gouw, Thomas Kretschmann, Victoria Smurfit. Dracula travels to London, with dark plans for revenge against those who ruined his life centuries earlier.
- (30K)
- 2013-10-25
- Drama, Horror, Romance
- 43
Jul 10, 2021 · We don’t know when exactly Dracula Season 2 will arrive on Netflix. It hasn’t even been officially renewed yet, though it hasn’t been ruled out either. For the sake of comparison, we can ...
Feb 13, 2020 · Dracula season 2 on BBC and Netflix - cast, trailer and release date. Here's what Claes Bang, Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss say about a potential series 2.
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Dracula: Created by Mark Gatiss, Steven Moffat. With Claes Bang, Dolly Wells, Morfydd Clark, Jonathan Aris. In 1897 Transylvania, the blood-drinking Count draws his plans against Victorian London.
