The Blood Is the Life

"The Blood Is The Life" is the first episode of Season One of Dracula and the pilot episode.

Summary
New to England, Alexander Grayson hosts a lavish party. He becomes fixated on Mina, a beautiful young woman who looks like his dead former love. Newly engaged to Mina, Harker grapples with worries over providing Mina the life she deserves.

Synopsis
Dracula and his manservant Renfield come to London in 1896. Dracula poses as Alexander Grayson, a wealthy American entrepreneur who has come to London in search of investors for his new power source that uses the power from the magnetosphere. In reality, he is there to destroy the Order of the Dragon, a secretive cult that, ages ago, ran across the countryside, raping and pillaging and burning every village they came across. One of those villages was Dracula’s. His wife was burned at the stake and he was cursed with immortality. Nowadays, the Order rapes and pillages with wealth and power, including a complete monopoly on oil concerns in England. It is a blatant allegory for today’s one percenters.

Dracula holds a formal ball to introduce himself to London society and show off his new mode of power. The old money hates him because he is new money; the society-types hate him because he is an American; and the oil barons hate him because if his new technology works, it will destroy them. At the party he meets Mina Murray and her “friend,” Jonathan Harker. Jonathan and Mina are not yet engaged. Dracula is immediately drawn to Mina - she is the spitting image of his dearly departed wife. Mina, too, is somehow drawn to Dracula, as if they had met before. In this version of Dracula, Mina is a medical student, the only female in her class, and her professor is Abraham Van Helsing.

One of the most disparaging of his partygoers is Sir Clyde Wetherby. He is a majority shareholder in the oil concern. He is also part of the Order, but Dracula doesn’t know that yet - he doesn’t know any of the members yet. Even still, Dracula is offended by his treatment, so after the party, he rips him to shreds. Another member of the Order, and experienced vampire hunter Herr Krueger, sneaks into Sir Clyde’s home to check the corpse for signs of vampirism. Clyde was decapitated and had his head sewn back on, so he can’t check for neck damage. To be sure, he cuts off Clyde’s head, stuffs it full of garlic, and delivers it to Clyde’s widow, Lady Jayne. Jayne is not too concerned with her husband’s death; one gets the feeling that their marriage was purely a matter of convenience. Less than 48 hours after her husband’s death, Jayne is all over Dracula. She invites him to share her box at the opera with her. Dracula has his own box, but gives those tickets to Jonathan and Mina and spends the evening in Jayne’s box - literally and suggestively. They sit in the shadows, unseen by other patrons, and he starts kissing her passionately while his fingers are busy beneath her skirt. The whole time, he is watching Mina across the theater.

After the opera, Dracula is hanging out on a rooftop (as you do) when Herr Krueger attacks. There is a very strange, seemingly out-of-nowhere fight scene that was shot like a fight scene in 300. Krueger ends up dead.

Finally, Dracula returns home and finds he has a guest waiting for him: Van Helsing. Van Helsing is pretty pissed off that he killed Clyde, finding it unnecessary. Dracula found it all too necessary, as Clyde was rude to him. In this version, Van Helsing and Dracula are actually working together. Van Helsing’s entire family was wiped out by the Order of the Dragon, and it was Van Helsing who freed Dracula from his iron tomb.