WiC Watches—Penny Dreadful: City of Angels season 1
By Dan Selcke
(L-R): Daniel Zovatto as Tiago Vega and Nathan Lane as Lewis Michener in PENNY DREADFUL: CITY OF ANGELS, “Santa Muerte”. Photo Credit: Justin Lubin/SHOWTIME.
Episode 1: “Santa Muerte”
The premiere episode of Penny Dreadful: City of Angels is confident, full of character, and drenched in atmosphere. My big fear about this show was that it bit off more than it could chew, but in the first episode, everything goes down right.
That said, there is a lot going on. We start with a flashback, where a young Tiago Vega witnesses his father get burned to death while laboring in a field. The fire was set by Magda, who is out to prove to her sister Santa Muerte (Lorenza Izzo) that humans are capable of obliterating each other if just given a chance.
Why does Magda have a grudge against humans? It’s not explored and I doubt it really matters. Magda is elemental, a representation of the evil humans can do. She shows up everywhere to whisper in people’s ears and get them to act on their worse impulses. She’s a put-upon mother who fires up a German doctor’s sense of nationalism. She’s a bureaucrat who encourages a slimy city councilman to go into business with Hitler’s Third Reich. But she’s at her best as the black-garbed Magda, sweeping majestically into the scene from nowhere and working her evil magic. At the end of the episode, she convinces a frightened police officer to shoot a protester and start a race riot in the Mexican-American neighborhood through which the city is building the Arroyo Seco Parkway, which will displace many people from their homes.
Image: Penny Dreadful: City of Angels/Showtime
Dormer is convincing in all of Magda’s forms, a vulnerable waif one minute and a vampy goddess of destruction the next. If anything, the show almost fetishizes her talent. She’s so good, and director Paco Cabezas photographs her with such flair, that she almost distracts from the more human drama that’s going to have to carry the season. Because like I said, Magda is elemental, and I doubt we’re going to be sympathizing with her or her only-slightly-less-creepy sister.
Happily, Tiago Vega’s story is worth paying attention to all on its own. We get to see him in a few different contexts. He’s the first Chicano detective in the LAPD, which puts him in a perilous position. Not only does he have a dangerous job, but he has to endure the racism of his coworkers. Some of them are worse than others, but “Santa Muerte” doesn’t let anyone off the hook. Even sympathetic characters like Tiago’s grizzled partner Lewis Michener (Nathan Lane), who genuinely seems to want to help Tiago grow professionally, think nothing of dropping racial slurs in front of him.
I was happy to see that the obviously detestable characters weren’t the only ones being racist, which is a trap too many period dramas fall into. Anyone is capable of bigotry, even people you’d otherwise like, which is what makes it so insidious.
Take the character of Peter Craft (Rory Kinnear, who played Frankenstein’s monster in the original Penny Dreadful), a German-American doctor who loves his two sons, tries his best to take care of his alcoholic wife, and keeps the best interests of his patients at heart. He’s also a member the German American Bund, a real-life organization that encouraged support of the Nazi Party in the years before World War II. When he tells a crowd of people why it would be foolish for America to get involved in Europe’s wars, he doesn’t sound like a frothing crackpot; he’s kindly, affable and charming, earning light applause and sunny smiles from onlookers.
It’s creepy but effective, and tells me that Penny Dreadful: City of Angels is going to treat subjects like racial intolerance and nationalism with the nuance they deserve.
(L-R): Natalie Dormer as Elsa and Rory Kinnear as Peter Craft in PENNY DREADFUL: CITY OF ANGELS, “Santa Muerte”. Photo Credit: Justin Lubin/SHOWTIME.
But back to Tiago: his position with the LAPD splits his family down the middle. His mother Maria (Adriana Barraza) and sister Josefina (Jessica Garza) are proud of him, but his younger brother Mateo (Johnathan Nieves) is more hesitant, and his older brother Raul (Adam Rodriguez) is dead-set against it. After all, as a police officer, it fall to Tiago to enforce the peace when the city tries to demolish the neighborhood where he grew up, and where his family still lives.
“Santa Muerte” does a good job of establishing the family dynamic before everything goes to shit at the end of the hour. Tiago may not see eye to eye with his brothers, but they still banter and joke around; the chemistry is real, if somewhat combustible. And I loved the scene where Tiago dances with his mother in the street, the two of them laughing and enjoying themselves. That scene went on for a while, but it was time well spent; I believe that this is a family who love each other despite their differences.
That’s why I wasn’t expecting the big finish, where Raul listens to Magda’s whispers and starts shooting cops dead at the riot I mentioned earlier. Tiago, on his second day on the job, must kill him in response. Already, Penny Dreadful: City of Angels is making big moves.
Not everything about “Santa Muerte” worked. A couple of the conversations between the Vega family went from zero to you-have-betrayed-this-family-and-you’ll-never-understand-me awfully quickly, and the episode brings out the sweeping string music a little too easily. I like melodrama, but let’s save the big flourish for when we really need it.
But overall, this was involving stuff and I can’t wait to see more! If this keeps up, we could have something really special on our hands.
Adam Rodriguez as Raul Vega in PENNY DREADFUL: CITY OF ANGELS, “Santa Muerte”. Photo Credit: Justin Lubin/SHOWTIME.
City of Bullet Points
- I should also mention that Tiago and Lewis Michener are investigating a multiple murder case of a wealthy white family. And the bodies were mutilated in a way that makes it look like Chicanos did it in revenge for the family’s involvement in the building of the Arroyo Seco Parkway. What, it was a busy episode?
- I almost wish they would have just left it to our imaginations how Magda produced a little teutonic changeling child, because the special effects when she shoved it back into her stomach were a shade shy of convincing.
- The dialog has a definitely film noir quality to it, which totally works. I was getting a Chinatown feeling from much of the episode, especially the bits with the crooked councilman. “What we want is a sympathetic ear, nothing more.” “And you’ll pay?” “Indecently.”
- Cool, Detective Michener has one of the crazy person conspiracy boards at home. It looks like he’s on the tail of the Nazi who’s doing business with the councilman.