What Penny Dreadful Teaches Us About Writing Endings

SPOILER'S ABOUND. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

There has been a lot of hoopla over the end of the Showtime series Penny Dreadful. I, personally, while surprised that it was actually "The End" believed it concluded at a good spot, in a good way, and was actually always planned this way. The writer and creator John Logan had said he planned through 3 seasons back in 2014. And I originally took this to mean that he would write more as each season passed, but I believe with Showtime's not Game of Thrones-equal ratings, the network's likely reticence to continue past Vanessa Ives' death (played by Eva Green, the only actor who was continually praised as the main gem of the show).

During the season 3 finale E3S9, "The Blessed Dark," the Penny Dreadful twitter went silent. And the next day, the Penny Dreadful Youtube channel released 2 videos of John Logan talking about the end of the show, and the final moments on set. The day after, they started sharing images on their Facebook/Instagram that the end had been "foretold" by quoting past lines from past episodes of the show - I agree with them, and I'll go more in depth in a moment. And finally, yesterday, the Youtube channel released a video of Eva Green talking about the end, and one more video of John Logan talking about Eva Green's last scene she filmed for Penny Dreadful (spoiler: it wasn't her death scene).

Okay, going back into why I should have seen the end coming:The introduction of the Penny Dreadful "penny dreadfuls" (aka comics, see bottom of the post). Why would they need to use another medium for storytelling if the show was going to continue and they would have been able to reveal these stories in flashbacks like they had previously done so?Vanessa's debut of the Season. Broken down since Season 2's end and completely different from the Miss Ives we know and love from Season 1. You can read more of Penny Dreadful Seasons

Penny Dreadful Comics
​So, what can we learn from this? I take away 2 things:You may not please everyoneGood planning will earn respect, if nothing elseWhat did you learn? Comment below."Endings and @SHO_Penny" by @AuthZH #writetip http://bit.ly/PDEndings