WiC Watches—Penny Dreadful: City of Angels season 1
By Dan Selcke
Episode 9: “Sing, Sing, Sing”
The point of “Sing, Sing, Sing” is to get all the members of the Vega family, along with Molly, to that nightclub at the end of the episode. As we’ve gotten closer to the end of the first season, I’ve been wondering how a show as sprawling as this was going to bring all of its plotlines to a head in time for the finale. So far as the simmering tensions between the Vega family are concerned, the answer is to revolve pretty much everything in one long sequence where they all bump into each other and have them talk, yell, drink and dance their problems away.
That’s a little glib, but I think this sequence deserves it. Maria is furious with Mateo for becoming a Pachuco gang member, but Mateo convinces her to look past it with a heartfelt talk about finding his pride. Josefina has left home to live at a shady temple, but her hair is different, so Maria and Raul can put it behind them. Maria is far more mad at Molly for taking her daughter away from her. In fact, pretty much everyone is mad at Molly; that includes Josefina, because Molly didn’t say anything about her relationship with Tiago, I think? I still think Josefina’s conversion is pretty underwritten.
In any case, this time, it’s a touching speech from Tiago that convinces everyone to simmer down and get along. I did enjoy watching some of these resolutions because I like the characters and it’s heartwarming to see them being good to each other, but seeing them come one after the other after the other felt a bit forced. I feel like any of these moments could have worked as their own scene, but the show needs to step on the gas ahead of next week’s finale.
But the club sequence wasn’t just about good vibes. It was cross cut with a horrifying scene where police officers lynch Diego, the guy taking the blame for the murder of the Hazlett family, even though he didn’t do it. Lewis watches from the squad car. It’s a brutally uncomfortable scene; even watching the Vegas make nice at the club, I knew their happiness couldn’t last, and the episode lost no time proving me right.
This also sets up what I imagine will be the final conflict of the season: a Mexican riot after Diego’s body is found, which will put the Vegas on opposite sides of the conflict once again. As always, I’m curious to see what comes next — the show is consistently good enough that my interest is never in question — but it almost has too many moving parts for its own good.
Elsewhere, other pieces are moved around the chessboard for the final maneuver. Lewis confronts Goss at a high-end restaurant in a classic tough guy cop scene, and then reconnects with Jewish mob boss Benny Berman to hide Brian Koenig — that math whiz kid Goss wants to use to make rockets for the Nazis — somewhere safe. But Kurt is on their trail. Drama!
We’ve also got Councilman Townsend visiting his father Jerome (Brian Dennehy in his final TV performance), a fantastically wealthy industrialist who helped build Los Angeles when it was just rising out of the desert. Townsend is here to ask for support to build his highway right through the heart of the Mexican part of the city, but is brutally turned down, not because his father thinks the idea unconscionable, but because he’s a prideful, selfish monster with nothing but contempt for his son, and no interest at all in what’s good for the people of the city he helped build, unless it can help him make money.
I’ve liked what the show has done with Charlton Townsend’s character. It isn’t letting him off the hook for any his loathsome behavior, but it is giving us a good idea of how he got this way in the first place.
“Sing, Sing, Sing”is a place-setting episode with some long-in-coming emotional payoffs for the Vega family, but I can’t help but think much of the reconnecting they did here will be undone by next week…
City of Bullet Points
- John Logan was back behind the word processor this week, which meant a return to the pulpy noir dialogue I’d come to love on this show. Molly: “I feel like we’re in prison.” Tiago: “I guess we are.”
- At the Craft household, Maria continues to engage in passive-aggressive battle with Elsa. There’s no real movement there. I liked the scene where Peter talked about how seeing a movie for the first time opened his mind to the possibilities of the world. It reminded me of something Roger Ebert once said, that movies are a machine for creating empathy. It’s a lovely thought.