The Frankenstein Chronicles (2015) s01e06 Episode Script

- A monster.
- A monster? What nonsense is this? Comes at night, takes the children.
I'm looking for a girl named Alice.
To find her you have to know the truth of the beast.
We wish to be married.
We'd very much like your blessing.
Well, you have it.
Thank you, sir.
'The remains of seven or eight children have been found, freshly dismembered, mutilated and rearenged.
' Perhaps it came into the water from somewhere else? I measured the tides.
It came from here, Greenwich.
'Sir William and Garnet worked together to resurrect the dead.
' It did got here by accident, but not that way.
It moved, Nightingale.
- Have you been here all evening? - Every blasted second of it.
- Is Sir William at work still? - Aye.
What of it? They won't be holding anatomy classes at this time of night.
Go and rest.
Sooner or later he'll give himself away and when he does I'll be here.
I'll find you at Bow Street tomorrow.
- Evening.
- Evening, Home Secretary.
Our vigilance has paid off.
The Home Secretary came to call last night at 10pm.
- It confirms my worst fears.
- Why? He knows what Sir William is up to.
I think he has done all along and this monstrosity reaches to the very heart of our government.
We need to gain access to Sir William's house in Hampstead.
I can't help you any more, sir.
I'm sorry.
Forrester's sure to find out and I need to keep my job.
I'll guarantee you a new one.
You'll be my right hand.
Why do you wear those gloves, sir? I know what it is.
I'm sorry.
I've been given a cure by Daniel Hervey.
I'd like permission to take Flora back to my lodgings.
I told you, when you're married, not before.
With respect, we discussed it last night.
She wants to come back now.
And I've given you my decision.
I'm thinking of you, Nightingale.
And I'm thinking of her, sir.
What do you mean? Her safety, sir.
I'll need that gun, too, sir, if I may.
It's in my name.
Here.
- Sir? - The answer's no.
I spoke to Joseph earlier and gave him my reasons.
I'm thankful to you, we both are, but I know my own mind, sir, I won't be confined.
You'll do as I say.
You're still my witness.
- This is where you're safe.
- If I'm so safe here then how did Billy find me? Billy found you? You never told me.
I was scared.
He threatened me.
So you've been lying to me.
- You're lying to me now, aren't you? - No, I ain't.
When you came to Bow Street and asked me to look after you, Billy sent you - so you could spy on me.
- That's not true, I swear it.
What are you doing?! Get off me! I won't let you take advantage of Nightingale, too.
What are you doing?! You're mad! I ain't lying.
We love each other.
Then why did you insist on coming back from the hospital? You'd just lost a child.
Anyone else would've been glad of a place there, but not you.
You had instructions from Billy to come back here.
What are you talking about? 'Dear Mr Marlott, The girl lost her child and would not be persuaded to stay.
She asks if she can lodge with you.
' That's what he said? - He lied.
- Why would he? I don't know.
He said I'd be better off with you.
Ask him yourself if you don't believe me.
- And chose your word over his? - I begged him to let me stay.
He wouldn't.
He made his servant bring me back.
I bled all the way, I could barely stand.
- Lloris? - I don't know his name.
The monster.
What did you call him? What difference does it make? I ain't lying.
Lloris the monster Is it possible? That thing crawled to the river and floated to Bugsby's Marshes, either from Greenwich or the other side of the river.
The Abbey.
Hervey's hospital.
I've been looking in the wrong place.
What thing? If that's where he took Alice and the others, it'd explain why he didn't want you there.
He couldn't kill you without drawing attention to himself so he sent you back here.
From Billy to Lloris to Hervey.
Hervey.
The last link in the chain.
So you believe me now? - You're staying.
- What are you doing? Get off of me! Let me out! Let me out! Please! Let me out! - What do you want? - To speak to you.
We have nothing to discuss.
Let me speak and you'll understand.
Not out here, inside.
Please.
- Forgive my intrusion.
- Say what you have to and leave.
You came to me once because you thought my soul was in peril.
I wish to return the favour.
The marriage is planned and I intend to go through with it.
It's not Sir Bentley I wish to talk to you about, it's Daniel.
What new accusation is this? Tell me what you know about his research.
I thought this malign speculation was at an end.
Sir Robert has had his way with us.
What further humiliation do you require? I fear Daniel may be steeped in blood in ways you can't even begin to imagine.
Just leave now.
Hear me out.
He's an abortionist.
Flora's child was killed, not miscarried, by his hand.
No.
I don't believe you.
This marriage you are embarked upon, not only will it put an end to your hopes of happiness it will fund evils such as this and others I dare not name.
What manner of evil? This research of his - Where does he practise it? - 'What evil?' I said.
Has he talked to you about raising the dead? I fear for your sanity, Mr Marlott, and for my safety, - now will you get out now? - On one condition, that if I find proof you'll turn from this marriage, not for my sake but for your own.
Promise me! Promise me! Anything if you will go.
Thank you.
Forgive me.
- Strong current today.
- Aye.
And against us.
Where do you drift to when it's like this? East, across river, on account of the bend.
- Bugsby's Marshes? - Could be.
Be still, don't fret, I promised I'd Stand aside.
Alice.
Run! Careful, Lloris.
Bind him.
- What have you done with her? - With who? Alice.
Lloris? - I don't know what he's talking about.
- The butcher's girl, - from Smithfield.
- What of her? I kept her, my lord, here.
Kept her? Why? I wanted to save one, my lord.
Just one.
Do you know what you've done? I'm sorry, my lord.
I'll fetch her back.
Bring Mr Marlott to the tower first.
Tie him in.
He'll kill her like the others when he finds.
You know he will.
Let me go.
Let me go and I'll help you.
You're a good man.
You oughtn't to have done it.
Shut up! Lever his head back.
Hold him steady.
No matter.
In seconds he'll be asleep.
Now go and find the girl.
Cavete Bestiam.
'Beware the beast.
' Oh, God! Flora! Flora! No.
This is a situation of no little embarrassment for me, Mr Marlott.
My newly-appointed Commissioner up to his elbows in innocent blood.
I can explain if you'll let me.
Start with the thing on your hand.
What is it? Syphilis.
I contracted it during the Peninsular campaign.
How advanced is it? - I don't know, I can't say.
- Then let me tell you.
It is late secondary stage, accompanied by dementia.
Daniel Hervey has been to see me.
He explained your condition.
Hervey? - He tells me he has been treating you.
- It was him who did this.
He murdered the girl, those children.
That is what he told me you would say.
Listen to me, sir.
I'm not a murderer! - You were found with her at your lodgings.
- Because he arranged it that way.
Why? I told you, it was him who made that corpse child.
He was stealing children from the streets.
But the Frankenstein murders have been solved, Marlot, you solved them, we already have a culprit, Garnet Chester.
The confession I secured from Billy was a lie.
Billy was supplying children for Hervey, not the surgeons.
That thing, that creature he created from them, it lived long enough to crawl from Hervey's laboratory down to the river.
Come, come, Mr Marlott, I saw that thing, too.
Hervey's work involves the reanimation of dead matter.
You really believe this to be true.
It was foretold.
- Foretold? - William Blake.
The beast with a man's face.
Hervey.
Him? Here? The most elaborate delusion, Hervey.
You were quite right.
Not unprecedented at this stage.
The patient misconstrues his doctor as the source of all his agony.
I'll kill you, Hervey! Damn you! I would like to continue his treatment on a charitable basis.
Have someone qualified certify him legally insane and it would save us both the embarrassment of a public trial.
That is a generous offer.
Thank you, Hervey, but, er, I think the law needs to take its course.
I will make arrangements for a trial in-camera here in Bow Street.
No public gallery and no journalists.
There's a child! His manservant kept her on his estate, but she escaped.
She may be still alive.
Find her and she'll corroborate my story.
- Her name? - Alice Evans.
And where might we find her? Not in his hearing.
Over here, I'll tell you.
I would advise against that.
Sir.
I'm sorry, Marlott.
Tell us what happened on the morning of Tuesday, 21st of April.
I went to his lodgings to go and fetch Flora, the girl, sir.
Why? We were to be married.
She lodged with him, he didn't want her to leave.
- I was worried for her so I insisted.
- Why were you worried? His behaviour, sir.
What of it? He was deranged, sir.
What happened then? There was no answer at the door.
I could see someone through the window.
I became anxious for the girl's safety, so I opened the door and that's that's when I saw it.
Saw what? She She was lying there, sir, her throat cut.
He was there, standing in front of her, blood all over him and the murder weapon in his hand.
No more questions, Your Honour.
Thank you.
Mr Nightingale, you may step down.
No further witnesses, Your Honour.
No witnesses for the defence, Your Honour.
Do you wish to submit any mitigating evidence? The accused has been diagnosed with advanced venereal disease and is clearly not in full possession of his moral and mental faculties.
We therefore ask for the dismissal of all charges on medical grounds.
Thank you, Mr Cusworth.
Your request for humane dismissal is denied.
Since no mitigating evidence has been submitted, and no witnesses for the defence brought forward, you have no choice but to find the defendant guilty as charged.
I will therefore proceed directly to sentencing.
John Marlott, you have been found guilty of the charge of wilful murder and are to be taken from this courtroom to a place of execution where you shall be hanged by the neck until dead.
You've got five minutes.
Obliged.
I was told no visitors.
I'm leaving the newspaper business, Mr Marlott, going freelance with a book of sketches.
I thought perhaps this visit might form the basic for one of them.
A glimpse into the wretched soul of the condemned the eve before he shuffles off his mortal coil.
- I'm innocent.
I can prove it.
- Please, this is painful enough.
It's true, a better story than the one you had planned.
A deranged lord intent on creating life from dead matter.
I beg your pardon? The Frankenstein murders.
Daniel Hervey is the culprit.
Not Garnet Chester, not Sir William.
Hervey.
The story is yours if you can find the one person who can prove it.
Who? Alice Evans, a ten-year-old girl thought murdered.
I watched her run free from a place of confinement at Hervey's hospital.
Her family live in Long Lane.
Her father is a Smithfield butcher.
Here my prayer, o Lord, and let my cry come unto Thee.
'For my days are consumed like smoke.
' My heart is smitten and withered, like grass.
I want to be with you again.
Patience.
You will be.
You can leave us.
Why have you come here? I've struggled to come to terms with the terrible things you've said and done.
Daniel has told me of your condition, how it deranges the senses.
I needed to find it within myself to forgive you and to see you one last time.
Your brother is mad, a murderer and a blasphemer.
He is a genius.
He's sacrificed your happiness for his own ends.
What brother would ask that of you? What hold does he have over you? Tell me and I can help you break his spell.
Help me.
You don't understand us, Mr Marlott.
We're not like others.
If your brother succeeds in what he's doing it means not just my damnation but the entire world's, a world without God.
You must understand that.
If you let me go to my death now, without speaking, knowing what I've told you then you're as guilty of his crimes as if you had done them yourself.
I cannot betray him.
I will pray for your poor sinner's soul, Mr Marlott, and ask him to try and do the same for mine.
You let me out.
He is the Alpha and the Omega.
Do you confess your sins before him? I'm guilty of much, Father, but not of those sins of which I stand accused.
Repent, turn to God, so that he may wipe your slate clean before it is too late.
I cannot perjure myself before God.
The prisoner has refused confession and is to die unshriven.
William Bishop, Arnold Saxon, John Marlott, Hilary Bishop, Jonah Hart, you are being condemned to hang this day, April 30th, 1827, of the said crimes of murder, murder, murder, rape and theft.
Wait! Wait! You have been adjudged by the laws of this country unworthy any longer to live, and that no further good to mankind can be expected from you, only the example of your death.
May God have mercy on your souls.
He lives.
He lives.
Look.
You see? You are cured.
You are the next step, an existence where there is no suffering because there is no death.
At the very least, make sure he drinks.
Let me show you where you were born.
Perhaps you were expecting electricity.
The keys to life lie deeper than that, much deeper.
Inside us.
Not around.
My teacher, Johann Dippel.
He hated the surgeons as much as I did.
He wanted to comprehend life, so I studied under him, birth, gestation, generation.
When I terminated that poor girl's child I was harvesting raw material for my work.
The substance that brought you back from the grave came from her foetus and thousands of others like it.
It was in that tincture I gave you.
That was your first encounter.
My first creatures were children, like the one you found.
I wanted them to have the chance to grow, but they couldn't survive the trauma I had inflicted upon them.
Not for long, anyway.
Something else was needed, something stronger.
I won't pretend I wasn't unsettled when I saw how Jemima loved you.
Whatever qualities she saw in you must surely have been virtuous once.
Then as you came closer to uncovering my secret I knew she was right.
That's when the idea came to me.
To make you the one.
My Adam.
Don't hurt him! Don't hurt him.
- I feared something like this.
- What's happened? I'm quite all right, I promise.
I strained myself during an experiment.
It's nothing.
Really? I wanted to give you your wedding gift.
Couldn't it wait till tomorrow? Why not? You'll understand when you see it.
He lives.
You rescued him from the gallows.
No.
Wh Then what? From the grave.
My creation.
An end to death.
No.
Sister.
Oh, my God.
No, no, no, no.
Jemima.
Take him away! Away! Leave us.
It is not safe.
If you want my help, you'll do as I ask.
Daniel tells me that you refuse to eat, that you wish to die.
That will not stop him.
There will be another one after you and others after that.
Do you remember what you told me when I visited you in the cell? That if Daniel succeeded we would be in a world without God and I would be as guilty for it as he? Well, he has and I am.
Think, then, what awaits us now in the hereafter.
Heaven is surely close to us both, in which case we must make this stale world our heaven.
If you will agree to live then I will help make it so.
It'll be my life's work and my penance.
Feed me.
On one condition.
Do this for me.
For me.