‘Penny Dreadful’ Creator John Logan on Witches, the Occult and ‘the Horror of People’ 

Eva Green as Vanessa Ives in the third episode of ‘Penny Dreadful’ season two.

“Penny Dreadful,” Showtime‘s sex- and blood-soaked literary drama about monsters and supernatural misfits in late 19th-century London, has hit a new peak of insanity just two episodes into its second season.

The second episode, which aired this past Sunday, concluded with a gruesome scene — perhaps one of the most horrific in TV history — that likely tested some of its fans’ meddle. The show’s new villain, a witch named Madame Kali (Helen McCrory) removed an infant’s organs and placed them into a life-sized doll of Vanessa Ives, the psychic protagonist played by Eva Green.

That makes it the perfect time for series creator and writer John Logan, the Oscar-nominated screenwriter and Tony-winning playwright, to take a step back. This season’s third episode, which is called “The Nightcomers” and will air Sunday night, fills in some backstory blanks for Vanessa, the show’s most enigmatic protagonist, including details about how she learned to use her powers and how long Madame Kali has been pursuing her. The episode guest stars Patti LuPone as the Cut-Wife, who traines Vanessa in the supernatural arts.

Logan talked to Speakeasy earlier this week about the upcoming episode, the dark majesty of the Devil and what kind of direction “Penny Dreadful” may take in its third season. Edited excerpts follow.

Why do you think it was important at this point of the season to show Vanessa to go off to meet the Cut-Wife, who kind of reminded me of Yoda, off in the moors?

My great touchstone for thinking about this series and the story of Vanessa Ives, her history, what shaped her, her destiny, the supernatural forces at play, the social forces, the psychological forces, and I thought back about her history. There had to be an interesting interregnum, or something must have happened to her because here’s a typical Victorian child, admittedly an intense and interesting one, but at some point in her life she developed the ability to read Tarot cards and to sort of get in touch with her supernatural abilities. I thought, when and how did that happen? So I began to think about that period in her life when she met a mentor who taught her how to harness her supernatural gifts, and that’s really where this particular episode — of which I’m enormously proud — and actually this whole season came from. The focus on the supernatural, witchcraft and the occult all came from this story.

This adds another layer to the ever-growing character of Vanessa Ives, who is really the heart of the series. How can this help fans of the show look at the events of last season? Do you think it adds anymore dimension to what she was going through last year?

Oh, certainly. Really, it’s the first time Vanessa Ives falls in love. She finally has a mentor, a truly caring mother figure … What I find so interesting about episode three, this season, and what I think it so powerfully to why we all do this series, is that there’s really nothing supernatural in it. There’s some intense scenes between two sisters, who we call witches, there’s a strange pile of stones that have some sort of power. There are no monsters. There’s no real witchcraft. It’s about the exploration of the brutality and potential of human beings.

The greatest horror in “Penny Dreadful” is the horror of people, the horror of the way we interact with one another, not the horror of a witch or a werewolf or a vampire. So I thought it was very important, going into our second season, to write an hour that really dramatizes that. It’s something we would talk about. I talk about it in interviews. The actors talk about it, we talk about it on set. At heart, this is a story about people in pain, people searching and trying to find something. It’s not about the tropes of Victorian horror. I wanted to write an episode that really dramatized that for the character.

You mentioned the tropes of Victorian horror. One of the best things about the show is how you borrow from the structure of the literature of that era, most notably in the first season in an episode that took the approach of an epistolary novel. This time, you have a framing a device where she’s telling the story to Ethan Chandler (Josh Hartnett). How much does that inform your process in writing the show in general?

A lot. What’s so interesting, if you look at some of the masterpieces of Victorian horror, and even pre-Victorian horror, “Frankenstein” and “Dracula,” even Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,” are epistolary novels. And so the form of storytelling as it relates to telling these stories, having a narrator telling a story, is wildly important to many of the classic texts of the horror genre. So of course they influenced me, and every chance I got to exploit it and explore it, I absolutely did.

Interestingly, I’m working on season three, and I’m exploring it a lot more. I thought it was time to embrace that. In this season, there is this episode where she’s telling the story to Ethan Chandler that we’re seeing dramatized, and there are other things like that that happen during the season where people tell stories or describe events that may or may not be accurate the way they’re describing them. Obviously, the great joy of reading epistolary novels or sort of what we we call journalistic novels — there’s a bit of a diary entry, there’s a newspaper entry, there’s a cable; “Dracula” is a great example of this — is there no reliable narrator. There is no one reliable narrative voice. It’s a very scattershot form of narrative, which for me makes it interesting because it’s untraditional.

We’ve seen Vanessa come into contact with The Master or the Devil before. She was possessed, she had that episode where she had relations with him, but now we have Madame Kali and her coven coming after her. Why does the Devil need witches to go after her?

You’ll find out as this season progresses. Every villain has their minions. The Wicked Witch has her winged monkeys. There are some things that are demeaning for the Devil or for Dracula to do. These are great, imperious creatures. If you look at the idea of Satan as the fallen angel from Milton, which is what we’re exploring this season in “Penny Dreadful,” there’s a grandeur and a majesty to that character, and not the kind of character that necessarily breaks through windows and tries to grab people, know what I mean?

With this season, specifically the character of Madame Kali, one thing that’s come up is the rooting of all this evil in the Christian concept of God and the Devil, is there a more ancient concept of evil at work? Is it necessarily limited to the Judeo-Christian myths?

It’s certainly not. One of the reasons I wanted to put episode three into the moors is because of Druid iconography and pre-Christian iconography, And indeed, what’s interesting is all during this season — Sir Malcom and Vanessa, Ethan and Ferdinand Lyle — is they’re putting together these relics, which is telling a story, and that’s completely a pre-Christian story. For our purposes, it echoes part of Milton, it echoes a bit of the Fallen Angel stuff, and that’s such a beautiful, dramatic literary creation, but it’s decidedly pre-Christian.

There were a lot of strange tableux and imagery in the era, and you get into that, which sort of helps you transcend the Universal Monsters concept of these characters. What can people expect this season, without giving too much away, what kind of horrors can people exepct?

I think the horror is very personal this season. I think last season they were battling their own demons, but they were pretty much battling vampires. The insinuation and threat of witchcraft, of the supernatural, of the occult is much more personal. They’re assaulting them on a much much more primal, personal and emotional level, I believe. Also, we have a magnificent antagaonist. We actually have Madame Kali. Helen McCrory is such an amazing actress. I was able to build an actual villain. You always want your Moriarty. You want that person that can articulate certain things to say to your protagonist. We didn’t have that last season, so I thought it was important we create that this season. We have a genuine villainess.

Eva Green as Vanessa Ives and Ronan Vibert as Sir Geoffrey Hawkes in the third episode of ‘Penny Dreadful’ season two.

There was a great moment in episode two, when the Creature talked with Vanessa, that encapsulated the show’s exploration of the natural of evil and existence. Would you care to elaborate a little more on that? What side do you think the show will come out on: the side of the rational yet romantic view of the Creature, or the spiritualist view of Vanessa?

I think you’re right to say that’s an important theme because one of the great strengths of this season, one of the things I wrote toward with the Creature and Vanessa, is that they’re both deeply flawed characters that are struggling to find peace, and struggling in different ways, as you say. Vanessa is grappling with her faith, and the Creature is grappling with his heart, and I would like to think “Penny Dreadful” works on a fulcrum where those things balance — the rational, the theological, the supernatural and the romantic — balance themselves out. It’s an ongoing one. … You have choices and they all have consequences. At the end of the day, what made me write this was aspiration, with Wordsworth, with Keats, with understanding the human need for acceptance, as monstrous as you may feel, and human benevolence of accepting and forgiving and redeeming those that might be considered monstrous. I’m assuming those themes will play as long as the show is on the air.

There is a book that the Cut-Wife shows Vanessa in episode three. She says it contains the poetry of death, and it reminded me of any number of books of the dead, including the Egyptian Book of the Dead inscribed on the vampires’ flesh in the first season, but also reminded me of the Necronomicon from H.P. Lovecraft. Is there any kind of influence of that wing of the horror genre?

Not really so much. I think I’ve read of “Call of Cthulhu.” I’m not a huge Lovecraftian, although I probably should be. Certainly, my affection for the Necronomicon would have to do with Sam Raimi and “The Evil Dead” more than H.P. Lovecraft. They are part and parcel of the same thing.

Vampires in season one, witches in season two. In season three, what monster will you get into? I know we talked about the themes and the big questions, but there’s a really strong horror geek element to this show …

Of course! I would like to say we would explore practically everything. I don’t want to give anything away while we’re working up to season three because it’s … all I’ll say is it’s very different. And this season leaves the character at a crossroads, and that’ll be what next season is about.

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Speakeasy is a blog covering media, entertainment, celebrity and the arts. The publication is produced by Barbara Chai and Jonathan Welsh with contributions from the Wall Street Journal staff and others. Write to us at speakeasy@wsj.com or follow us on Twitter at @WSJSpeakeasy or individually @barbarachai.

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