Night Mares Season 3
- cepmurphywrites
- 3 hours ago
- 6 min read
By Paul Leone
In our world, this show does not exist - but in another world, you can find DVD boxsets right next to Aella the Amazon and The Van Helsing Mysteries...
LAST TIME... The Brophy sisters, Anne (Emily Beecham) and Maggie (Molly C. Quinn), and their allies investigate paranormal mysteries in the weird west of 1870s California! The true diabolical nature of Thaddeus and Gloria Clarke (Terry O’Quinn and Rachel Nichols), leaders of the rival high-society Sphinx Club, has been revealed as they committed ritual murders in pursuit of relics of Atlantis... What will they do once they have all of them?!
There was an 18-month gap between seasons two and three, one which offered little to tide fans over with. The main cast appeared (in costume) in San Diego for the 2019 and 2020 Comic Cons and an alternate reality game called Athena’s Gate gave lore-obsessed geeks something to discuss, but most fans were preoccupied with whether or not the third season would be the last. Neither the showrunners nor the network planned on a fourth season, but that didn’t stop the fanbase from crossing their fingers and hoping one would somehow appear.
That talk faded when the third and final season appeared in April 2021. Everything comes to a head here, with the Brophies and their allies trying to keep pace with the Sphinx Club even as the Clarkes and their enforcer Poole (Max Martini) steadily pick off their competition while they lay the groundwork for the ritual culmination of their grand plan. There is an increasing air of desperation among the protagonists, not helped by Sister Isabel's (Tania Raymonde) crisis of faith and Maggie's existential doubt... before turning the corner in the last five episodes that lead up to the tectonic finale and the climactic battle between the Night Mares and the Sphinx Club.
Season three kicks off with "The Evil Eye," said Eye being the Eye of Harun, an ancient Atlantean artifact and the first of three the leaders of the Sphinx Club need in order to become immortal. Meanwhile, Anne's former teacher Caoimhe McLarney (Orla Brady) returns with a dire warning from a dream, a dream shared by all the supernaturally attuned characters both good and evil. It climaxes in a shoot-out in a ghost town full of ‘grave vomit’ (the show’s preferred term for zombies, which were already a little tired at the time). While our heroes just barely escape the slow-zombie horde, the Clarkes saunter off with the Eye of Harun. A highlight of the episode is the “Babel Scene” where Sphinx Club sorcery prevents the heroes from speaking English, instead forcing them to communicate in Gaelic (the Brophies), Spanish (Sister Isabel), Cantonese (Lewis Tan's Tang Zidaan) and a combination of grunts and gestures (Nick Frost's Sam).
"High Society" dials down the tension a little and is a Hannah-centric episode introducing Lena Headey as Isabella Bird (real life British traveler and writer; her travels in the American West did indeed take place in 1873). Sparks fly between her and Savage Sam, while the B story deals with the Brophies and company trying to figure out just what the Sphinx Club's plan is. (Your author owns the ‘fancy boots’ worn by Sam in his courtship scenes – his initials are indeed carved into the heels!)
Next is "Shadow of the Ghost," which focuses on the Zidaans and their rivalry with a street gang with occult shadings, ending with a bloody shoot-out in the back alleys of Chinatown; the B story with Isabella Bird and Savage Sam getting quite friendly with each other is charming but ends on a bittersweet note as Bird moves on to Colorado. (In the real world, there was what might have been a fleeting attraction between Bird and the ill-fated ‘Rocky Mountain’ Jim Nugent) Episode four, "The Old Mission," sees Sister Isabel and Maggie team up for another adventure, this time involving a ghostly nun, and ends with the two of them at the chapel at St. Eudoxia's convent, lighting candles for her.
Episode five, "Via Crucis," is a fan favorite directed by Amanda Tapping where Maggie begins to question her calling in the face of all the evil they've encountered and failed to stop, and ends with Caoimhe and Tang's Uncle Wahbo (James Hong) being abducted. Meanwhile, Sister Israbel endures a tense series of interviews with Archbishop Joseph Sadoc Alemany (an aristocratic but ultimately sympathetic Tony Amendola) about the supernatural goings on over the past few years.
In "Fangs," the undead Elizabeth Bathory (Katja Herbers) returns and targets Maggie, who drives her off without any weapons except her faith. The episode is bookended by two powerful scenes: the opening, where Bathory stalks and devours long-time secondary character Violet (Renee Olstead), in which her turn from bored flirtation to desperate terror is a powerful performance that ends with her broken, bloodless body being thrown through the windows of Zorzi's bar, and the finale, where Maggie lays her bare, empty palm on Bathory's forehead and leaves a jagged scar in the shape of a cross, just before the countess bursts into all-consuming white-hot flame. Lera Lynn returns for a haunting rendition of "Stabat Mater." (This is said to be Quinn’s favorite episode.)
And then the show took a four-month hiatus before the final six episodes.
In the absence of information, rumors inevitably fill the gap, and that’s especially true in geek culture. Setting aside some of the wilder ideas (including a popular theory about virtual reality gone wrong that had some similarities to Beecham’s later Netflix show 1899), most of the speculation focused on what would happen in the last six episodes and in the fourth season most fans still anticipated. There was a deluge of fan ideas about Atlantis returning and all sorts of far-fetched plots that would have bankrupted AMC to attempt. Things calmed down, relatively speaking, when the first teaser trailers appeared two months into the break, and then heated up again even more when the words ‘series finale’ appeared. Neither the network nor the showrunners ever planned on more than three seasons (and given the shaky ratings, seasons two and three were gifts), but the outcry was still considerable – especially when the ratings inched up a little for the last batch of episodes.
The train starts barrelling towards the finale in "The Knife," where Caoimhe and Uncle Wahbo are killed by the Clarkes & Poole and the Left Hand of Macol, the second of the three artifacts, is recovered. It was definitely a low point for our heroes.
"Memento Mori" follows three threads: the funerals of Wahbo and Caoimhe, Anne and Zidaan's failed attempt at revenge on the killers, and finally the introduction of Ella-Rae Smith as Martha Brady, King's estranged daughter and aspiring occult investigator.
The aptly titled "Last Call" showcases the end of the line for Zorzi's, as Caterina Zorzi (Morena Baccarin), traumatized and guilty over Violet’s death, makes tracks for parts unknown (another popular topic for spin-off rumors and fanfic) while her remaining 'girl' Jenny (Leven Rambin) goes back to Texas. Meanwhile, the Sphinx Club locates the Heart of Elum, the third Atlantean artifact they need for their sinister plot.
And at last, we reach the grand finale, a three-part story that wraps everything up with a bang. It begins in "Tremors," where our heroes, their backs to the wall, try everything they can think of to get a leg up on the Sphinx Club, who are by now brazenly secure in their own power and unafraid even of the California militia and the Church. "Only a miracle can save us now," a dispirited Anne says towards the end of the episode, after she fails in her last-ditch attempt to gun down Poole and Gloria Clarke. "Then we'll have to ask God for one," Sister Isabel says just before the ground begins to shake and the credits roll.
Part two is "The Big One" and it delivers on what the title promises. A major earthquake strikes the city, causing panic and mayhem, but also an opportunity, as our heroes realize the physical and paranormal protections around the Sphinx Club are likely to be as tattered as the rest of the city. They gather what’s left of their allies and launch an all-out attack on the clubhouse, leading to a brutal and very well-choreographed series of battle scenes pushing ever deeper down into the maze below the club.
And finally comes "Aftershocks," which at long last has the Clarkes and Pool brought to justice, Old West style, as their ritual is disrupted just in time and all three are consumed by the Atlantean hellfire machine they sought to use to become immortal. With the Sphinx Club purged, Anne and Zidaan bring Uncle Wahbo's body back to China, Maggie takes her vows as a Sister of St. Victoria, Hannah becomes the head of a new (and decidedly less evil, one hopes) occult social club called the Phoenix Club, King accepts his daughter as an apprentice, and Sam goes back to England – maybe with his eye on a second try with a certain well-mannered traveler?
The credits roll with a reprise of "Stabat Mater" and so we bid farewell to the Night Mares.
Paul Leone is an author who, among other works, wrote the book In and Out of the Reich for Sea Lion.