WiC Watches—Penny Dreadful: City of Angels season 1

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(L-R): Daniel Zovatto as Tiago Vega and Nathan Lane as Detective Lewis Michener in PENNY DREADFUL: CITY OF ANGELS, “Wicked Old World.” Photo Credit: Warrick Page/SHOWTIME.

Episode 3: “Wicked Old World”

Man, I loved that dance scene. Towards the end of the episode, Mateo takes Fly Rico up on his offer to become a part of the Pachuco culture and meets him at a nightclub. After he’s introduced to the latest incarnation of Magda, a Pachuco leaded named Rio, we’re treated to a fabulous Zoot Suit dance number that looks plucked from some technicolor movie from the 1950s. Johnathan Nieves, Natalie Dormer and everyone else kill it on the dance floor. It’s a blast.

And the scene isn’t just there for its own sake. It also drives home how flashy and seductive and cool and new this is for Matteo, who’s clearly intrigued by Rio’s idea that the Pachuco gang members “make Los Angeles bleed” by launching some kind of insurgency.

But mostly, the scene is here because it looks great. The plot doesn’t really move much in “Wicked Old World,” but I don’t really mind because even when not a lot is happening, Penny Dreadful: City of Angels is just nice to watch. The word I would use for the photography is “sumptuous.” It’s rich and full of color, with everyone gliding across the screen dressed not so much how people in the ’30s actually dressed, but how we think they dressed in our collective memory. This show goes in the eye real easy.

So what does happen? Mostly slow-burning character development. Tiago and Molly get closer during a visually sumptuous (there it is again) trip to the Santa Monica Pier. It’s pretty standard meet cute stuff, but I bought all of it. Their attraction was obvious last week and it’s kicked up a notch here, as Tiago alternates between baring his soul to Molly and adorably using his police training to win her a Popeye doll at the carnival shooting gallery. They have a classic star-crossed love story and the show is selling it.

(L-R): Daniel Zovatto as Tiago Vega and Kerry Bishe as Sister Molly in PENNY DREADFUL: CITY OF ANGELS, “Wicked Old World.” Photo Credit: Warrick Page/SHOWTIME.

That said, this is also a noir story, so I wasn’t too surprised at the end to learn that Molly has a dark secret: she was apparently sleeping with James Hazlett, the patriarch of the murdered family at the center of this investigation. “You didn’t really believe her spiel, did you?” the grizzled Lewis asks Tiago. “Grow up. It’s a wicked old world and it’s only got me and you to save it.” It’s hard-boiled down to the bone and I love it.

Meanwhile, Dr. Craft is clearly falling hard for Elsa. When she doesn’t show up to his office, his cancels the rest of his appointments (even though Mrs. Wayne was right there) to go visit her at her house, where he finds her son on the lawn crying and her treating a wound given to her by her non-existent husband. Just as between Tiago and Molly, the vulnerability is too much to bear, and Dr. Craft kisses Elsa, taking his infidelity to the next level.

The parallels go deeper than that. Both Elsa and Molly aren’t telling their new beaus the whole story, although obviously what Magda is doing is worlds more sinister than Molly choosing not to reveal her affair with Mr. Hazlett; if I know my film noir, that story will have more twists before it’s over.

Finally, Councilman Townsend tries to throw his weight around with his Nazi benefactors, and gets told to fall in line or fall off a bridge. Humiliated, he blows off steam by picking up a gigolo, something Alex was really hoping he wouldn’t do for fear it’ll get out and hurt his presidential bid.

So yeah, not a ton actually happened. But again, the show is well-done on pretty much every level, from the acting to the direction to the production design to the costumes to the music, so I’m willing to go along with it for now.

Natalie Dormer as Rio in PENNY DREADFUL: CITY OF ANGELS, “Wicked Old World”. Photo Credit: Justin Lubin/SHOWTIME.

One thing I did think was worthy of a raised eyebrow was Dormer’s work as Rio. She’s been uniformly excellent in her multiple roles so far, but this is the weak link. It’s a weird choice for Dormer, a white woman, to play a Chicano gang leader. To its credit, the show doesn’t just act like she’s Chicano herself or, heaven forbid, put her in brownface — Rio has a backstory where she’s a white woman who was born in Spain and grew up in Mexico — but it’s still odd to give this character the speech about Chicano pride when Fly Rico, for example, is right there.

Most of the time when Dormer is inhabiting one of her many characters, I don’t think of her as playing Magda. I see Elsa or Alex, and to a lesser extent Rio. Through these guises, Magda is trying to sway people to embrace tribalism and nationalism, but her characters are specific enough that I feel they could exist as people on their own, without the demonic influence. Even though Magda is everywhere, I feel like the supernatural element on Penny Dreadful: City of Angels is pretty light, especially when compared to the original show.

I don’t yet know if that’s a point for or against it yet, and I’m happy to keep watching Dormer do her thing.

(L-R): Natalie Dormer as Magda and Rory Kinnear as Peter Craft in PENNY DREADFUL: CITY OF ANGELS, “Wicked Old World.” Photo Credit: Warrick Page/SHOWTIME.

City of Bullet Points

  • Tiago asks if Molly makes a habit of “button-holing policemen at bus stops.” Apparently that’s an old-timey word for distracting someone with unwanted conversation. Time to bring it back.
  • More hard-boiled dialogue from Tiago: “As I remember, he was a decent man once upon a time.” Also kinda emo.
  • The news that Molly was sleeping with Hazlett throws suspicion for the murders on both her and her creepy mother, who welcomes her daughter home after a day out with Tiago by sitting in the dark and singing the Popeye the Sailor Man song. This is fine.
  • Adelaide found out what her daughter was up to by getting a Joyful Noise Ministry goon to tail her. The image of him grimly eating a puff of pink cotton candy at the Santa Monica Pier is pretty fun.
  • The bit where Magda explodes storefront windows as she passes looks cool, but seems to be there just because. When I saw it in the trailer I was hoping it would have some greater significance.

Episode Grade: B-