Dracula (synopsis)

Dracula on NBC, starring Jonathan Rhys Meyers, focuses on Dracula who travels to London in the 1890s, under the guise of an American entrepreneur seeking to introduce Victorian society to modern technology. His true goal is to seek revenge on those who have wronged him. It is a "re-imagining" that has very little to do with the work of Bram Stoker. The first episode aired on October 25, 2013, and was canceled on May 10, 2014 after only 10 episodes.

Storyline

Centuries ago, Vlad Tepes (Lord of Transylvania) was captured along with his beloved wife Ilona, by the Order of Dragons. Vlad was a senior member himself, but committed an act considered unforgivable and the couple suffered a terrible fate; Ilona was burned to death a stake and Vlad was turned into Dracula (Lord of Vampires). And Wilhelmina died but was turned into a vampire. by the Order of Dragons to punish and torture him. Unfortunately, Dracula escaped and launched his own campaign against the order with his own sired legion of vampires, but he was ultimately captured and his army scattered; he was imprisoned and buried in a special-made coffin to prevent him from ever returning. However, Dracula wasn’t the only person that the order had scorned.

Around the 1800’s, Dr. Abraham Van Helsing, another victim that lost his entire family to the Order of Dragons was desperate for revenge. In order to exact his vengeance, he needed a person of great power and charisma to help him bring down the order; he would need Dracula. Learning of Dracula’s buried coffin and Wilhelmina's empty coffin , Van Helsing excavated and resurrected Dracula; he proposed an alliance and Dracula agreed to the deadly partnership.

Several years has passed now. Van Helsing and Dracula maintained their secret partnership, but temporarily parted ways to reach their goals. Van Helsing has established himself as a medical educator in London’s School of Medicine. Dracula, after getting acclimated in modern times, traveled to the frontiers of America to re-establish his wealth, resources, and created a new identity; he eventually returned to London with his newly established persona, Alexander Grayson (of Grayson Energies), a charming wealthy American inventor who wants to invest in London. With his trusted lawyer and confidant, R.M. Renfield, to help him carry out his tasks during the daylight, the stage was building to the men’s mutual goal of exacting vengeance upon the Order of Dragons.

Making a grandiose appearance upon London’s high society in a lavish party, Alexander Grayson (Dracula) displayed a brand new invention: wireless power. Wi-Fi power was still in its prototype stages, but Grayson believed if the technology can be perfected, along with acquiring resources into the order’s financial dependencies, they can financially break the Order of the Dragons and exact vengeance upon its powerless members. However, things would become complicated when Wilhelmina walks back into his life during that very party.

Believing she was dead, Dracula never imagined that his girlfriend be reborn into this century as Mina szilagyi (one of Van Helsing’s medical students). Against Van Helsing’s warnings, Grayson began drawing in Mina And fiancé, quincy morris (a lowly reporter, whom Grayson hired as his investigative agent), into his life. Although Grayson originally intended to watch over Mina and help morris become successful, both Grayson and Mina are drawn towards each other and others can see it as well. Now determined to bring down the order and to be with Mina, Dracula had Van Helsing develop a serum to help him walk into the sunlight once more as a man. However, after several trials ending in failure (and demise of Grayson's progeny whom he and Van Helsing first attempted to infuse the serum into), the serum only gave him merely four hours before suffering severe sun burn.

Meanwhile, the Order of Dragons are aware of Grayson’s threat to their financial stability; they have both considered recruiting Grayson as well as destroying him. With vampires gathering to London (due to Dracula's calling), the order correctly suspected he was a vampire (due to his nightly habits) and had their agent, Lady Jayne Wetherby (Vampire Hunter), investigate him; Dracula discovered Wetherby's true occupation during one of his nightly feedings and manipulated her to help him fool the order. Dracula played a dangerous romantic game with Wetherby by courting her and having a long term affair with her. Because he was able to prove he can walk in the sunlight (which no vampire should naturally do), the order dismissed their vampire suspicions, but still moved to contain Grayson’s threat to their financial holdings; the stakes were raised when the order discovered Grayson's affection for Mina.

In between events, Mina begins to experience dreams of her past life as Wilhelmina with Vlad, as well as inappropriate fantasies about Grayson while being engaged to morris ; it only makes herself draw closer to Grayson and drive a wedge against morris. Although morris"s ’s social and financial status dramatically improved under Grayson’s care, he senses there's something between Mina and Grayson, making him uncomfortable. After Grayson used morris to bring down a “pawn” in the secret battles between the order and Grayson (which Morris was upset about), the order introduced themselves before morris in attempt to convince him that Grayson is an extraordinary threat to the country; Browning (leader of the order) wants Morris to help ruin Grayson, but his allegiances remain confused. In addition, Lady Jayne Wetherby, senses Lucy Westenra (best friend to Mina) carries a deep romantic desire for Mina and manipulates and teaches her to seduce and destroy morris so she could be with Mina; through Lucy's manipulation (Wetherby's influence), morris believed that Mina and Grayson are secretly romantically involved. It caused morris to see Grayson as his enemy and drove him resort to underhanded measures; the declaration of war would begin with Mina's assault.

Eager to gain leverage against Grayson, Davenport (member of the Order of Dragons) had secretly stolen a prized painting that Grayson longed for: a portrait of her. When Davenport realized Grayson loved Mina, he dispatched his men to assault and disfigure her face with acid; Dracula appeared and ruthlessly killed her attackers. While visiting Mina at the local hospital, morris wrongly thought that this was retaliation against him (due to him whistle-blowing against an agent of the order) and thought about reporting this to the authorities; Grayson manipulated morris's rage by telling him that Davenport is too powerful to be so easily arrested under circumstantial evidence; morris shot-dead Davenport and he later slept with Lucy to ease his troubles.

At the hospital, Lucy appeared to visit Mina and broke the news to her that she slept with morris . Devastated, she later confronted morris over the matter and demanded an explanation; morris said it was due to her feelings for Grayson and Lucy's advances towards him. Feeling betrayed by the people most close to her, Grayson's daily visits with roses was a welcomed sight. Mina would tell Grayson how Lucy slept with morris it resulted their breakup; she also was curious about Grayson's feelings. Mina asked Grayson's feelings for her, but he couldn't bring himself to admit his love for her, but he did admit Mina deeply resembles his beloved Wilhelmina , someone that Mina is aware of and has seen around growing up. Focused on the task of vengeance though, Grayson put his personal feelings aside for the debut of his completed resonator. Mina tells him that she is Wilhelmina because that's her name.

In between, Browning successfully recruited morris into The Order of Dragons because of their mutual hatred of Grayson. Playing the role of Judas, morris continues to work for Grayson while secretly working under the order to take down Grayson. Morris stole the schematics of the resonator to find a means to sabotage Grayson's resonator to ruin his company. On Van Helsing's side, Van Helsing had lost faith in Dracula as he often deviates from their plans and Van Helsing decided to act on his own; he kidnapped Browning's children for an apparent ransome, but it was really to lure Browning into a trap. Enraged that Lucy would do something so monstrous as betraying Mina's love and trust, Dracula decided to turn her into a vampire to make her into a real monster.

Nearing the big exhibition of Grayson's Wi-Fi power to the public, the order is also aware of the great gathering of vampires due to Dracula (although they haven't identify Grayson yet); the order intends to wipe out the vampires as well as Grayson. Utilizing a powerful seer, along with a holy relic that contains the blood of Christ, the order's huntsmen performed a major search & destroy mission to wipe out the vampires before nightfall.

Meanwhile, morris returned to Grayson's side, telling him that he killed Davenport and his anxiety is due to murder, not the fact he's about the destroy Grayson. Still believing morris is on his side, Grayson allowed him complete access to the facilities and he welcomed fake reporters (order members) to gain access to the resonator and sabotaged its wiring. When morris realized the order intends to destroy Grayson with the resonator, the resulting explosion would destroy an entire street. Fearing for Mina's life, morris runs to find Mina and warned her about the impending explosion. Unfortunately, the resonator was already turned on.

As the resonator builds up energy, Mina warns Grayson and he realized morris betrayed him. No time to deal with his treachery, Grayson entrusted morris take Mina to safety as he tries to repair the damage. Unfortunately, the wires had already fused and beyond his control; Grayson's factory and the entire street suffered a catastrophic explosion. After the explosion, Mina is shocked and saddened to find Grayson's factory is decimated. Mina wanted to look for Grayson, but morris believed Grayson is dead. Angered that morris would resort to such destructive tactics, she called him a monster and left him on his own to find Grayson.

At the site of the explosion, Lady Jayne Wetherby appeared to face Dracula. She was tipped off by the seer that Dracula was at the exhibition; she finally made the connect that Grayson is Dracula. Finding him alive at the center of the explosion, Dracula told Wetherby to leave and appreciate life; Wetherby preferred mortal combat. Dracula had the upper-hand and disarmed Wetherby most of her weapons and had her pinned down when she used a sacred holy dagger to stab him. Appearing severely injured, Wetherby was going to decapitate Dracula, but he recovered just in time to evade and impaled her on a metal beam. Critically injured, Wetherby asked Dracula not to turn her into a vampire; Dracula obliged and killed her by sucking out her blood.

During the events of the resonator, Van Helsing decided to part ways with Dracula; he destroyed the machine, notes, and serum that helps Dracula walk in the sunlight. While destroying his work, Renfield appears and Van Helsing stabs him, leaving him to die on the floor as he prepares his revenge against Browning. Van Helsing lured Browning to booby trapped abandoned cabin, where Van Helsing finally revealed himself. Killing and hurting far too many people to even remember, Browning doesn't recognize Van Helsing. However, Van Helsing dropped Browning down to a cellar, where his children are waiting for him. To Browning's horror, Van Helsing used Dracula's blood to turn them into vampires and his own kids attacked Browning to feast upon him. Van Helsing then set the cabin to flames to poetically destroy Browning, just as he did to Van Helsing's family.

At the Grayson's home, Mina happily finds Grayson alive. After seeing a picture of his beloved Ilona, Mina realizes she is Ilona and that Grayson loves her. The two lovingly embrace each other and made love to celebrate their return, back together again after so many life times. Elsewhere, Van Helsing no longer holds a grudge against The Order of the Dragon with Browning dead; he now sets his sights upon Dracula. In order to defeat Dracula, he called for Morris to tell him the truth about Grayson and Dracula.

Cast

• Jonathan Rhys Meyers as Dracula
• Jessica De Gouw as Mina Murray/Ilona
• Oliver Jackson-Cohen as Jonathan Harker
• Nonso Anozie as R.M. Renfield
• Victoria Smurfit as Jayne Wetherby
• Thomas Kretschmann as Abraham Van Helsing
• Katie McGrath as Lucy Westenra
• Ben Miles as Browning
• Robert Bathurst as Thomas Davenport

Production

The series is written by Cole Haddon and produced by Colin Callendar, Tony Krantz, Gareth Neame, Anne Mensah and Reece Pearson. It is directed by Eli Roth.

Promo Images

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Videos

Dracula Official Trailer

Dracula Official Trailer

Dracula - BTS Video - The Making of Dracula

THe Making of Dracula - Behind The Scenes

Dracula Season 1 DVD Trailer Dracula

Dracula Season 1 DVD Trailer

Dracula and Wetherby 1x04

From Darkness To Light Clip

Dracula - Mina and Alexander - Ep.3 Goblin Merchant Men

Goblin Merchant Men - Clip