I'm not here to contest that Penny Dreadful was somehow not a set three-year arc plotted out from the get-go by creator/writer John Logan, but I do call into question Showtime's decision not to tell us all ahead of time that this was the final season - only dropping the bomb the day after a definitively show-ending, or at least Vanessa-ending, finale aired.

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Why not tell us? Many already suspected it back when this season came with one less episode than Season 2, despite Logan's stating that it didn't mean anything and that it was simply the amount of episodes he informed Showtime he needed. But still, it was hard not to have doubts. Then when Dracula finally returned to the story, full circle, it began to look even more like this was the end. Both Satan and Dracula tried their hand at Vanessa's soul in Season 1 and then it was all the Devil in Season 2 (with the help of his Nightcomers). Now Dracula would make his big play for the cursed Ms. Ives and it had all the makings of a final showdown.That, plus the fact that we fully learned Ethan's backstory while Sir Malcolm's retribution began to firmly take hold. So then why make us wonder throughout the run if this was the end? I can't tell you the reason, though I also have to say that there were definitely elements to this season that felt designed to springboard into a potential fourth season. Only Vanessa perished in the end, leaving the other regulars (plus a few new faces - played by Patti LuPone, Wes Studi, and Perdita Weeks) to form a new monster hunting team. The Henry Jekyll character never paid off despite the show focusing on him a lot - even going so far as to show the day/night transformation his serum could create - and then there was a nice plump Mummy hint within Ferdinand Lyle's trip to Cairo. Oh, and Dracula lived.So ultimately, I believe that Logan had a three-year tragic arc for Vanessa, but that perhaps other elements were inserted into the story just in case the show returned without her. Granted, I think we can all agree that she was the beating heart of the show. The doomed nucleus who was, in the end, the very reason everyone returned to London and banded together.That all being said, Penny Dreadful's Season 3 had some amazing material in it. The Victor/Lily arc -- and all the characters that story held within it -- may have dragged until the final few episodes, but the New Mexico wild west storyline involving Ethan and Hecate being hunted by various parties, both friendly and other, was great. I loved the terrain and how much it stood in contrast to London, and Ethan's story turned out to be even more tragic than imagined. And, naturally, Brian Cox was terrific as land baron Jared Talbot. Overall, at the time, it felt like Hecate had more to contribute to the series and was taken out too soon, but that was before we knew there'd be no room more for her, as the show was coming to a close.Dexter's Christian Camargo was ferociously fun as Dracula - and his meek alter ego Dr. Sweet - though I felt like the story fizzled a bit toward the end, in the final two episodes, when Vanessa all but vanished from the screen. Left out of the short penultimate episode altogether, she'd only appear twice in the finale, and one of those scenes was her only scene in the entire season with Ethan, outside of a brief dream sequence - and it was the scene of her death. This was another reason why it felt like the show was revving up for a fourth season, as there was so much focus on everyone but Vanessa as the curtain fell.The bottle episode "A Blade of Grass" was the tremendous, standout chapter of the season, giving Eva Green and Rory Kinnear a fantastic stage play-type script to sink their formidable and talented teeth into. Not only did it tell us a somewhat separate story - a powerful and unique friendship formed between two unlikely souls - but it also helped build up Dracula more as a force that was more powerful than the Devil. And it gave John Clare's present timeline attempt to reclaim his family more weight and sadness.Not surprisingly, Penny Dreadful was ultimately a tale of sorrow. Despite Vanessa being saved and finding God again, right in the final moments of her life, her endeavors for a normal life were fated to be a lost cause. John Clare, Lily, and Dorian now get to live out their immortal existences in varying states of stasis and solitude - Dorian perpetually bored, Lily and John forever cursed with maudlin memories. Though the rest of the characters, including Victor who quickly (and strangely) got swept up into the final battle against Dracula, seemed to find strength and emotional support in numbers, forming a new group that seemed to show all the signs of sticking together in ways that they couldn't back at the end of Season 2.