WiC Watches—Penny Dreadful: City of Angels season 1

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Natalie Dormer as Elsa in PENNY DREADFUL: CITY OF ANGELS, “Josefina and the Holy Spirit.” Photo Credit: Warrick Page/SHOWTIME.

Episode 4: “Josefina and the Holy Spirit”

Penny Dreadful: City of Angels is starting to sprawl. It’s not necessarily a bad thing, but every week we check back, the show seems to have more going on, with no resolution in sight.

Still, pretty much of all the many subplots remain worth watching, even if it’s hard to tell where they’re all going. Tiago and Molly confront each other with their new understanding close to the top of the episode. The bloom is off the rose and Tiago knows that Molly isn’t a perfect pure damsel in distress, which is something he could pretend during their trip to the pier last week. She has skeletons in her closet. The show does good by her character when he decides to be with her anyway. The episode ends with the two of them washing dishes in the Joyful Voices Ministry church. They’re taking the plunge, for better or worse.

And it may be for the worse, because Molly clearly has some issues to work out. This episode is the first time we really get to see her at work preaching, and it’s a full-on holy spirit possession. She doesn’t speak in tongues but she comes real close. Kerry Bishe’s magnetic performance is probably the most compelling part of the whole episode, but it sets off alarm bells: anyone that talented at demagoguery is someone to watch out for.

Tiago’s younger sister Josefina is among the many people swayed by Sister Molly’s preaching. She wanders into the church after that racist cop who’s been stinking up the show for a few episodes stops her and Mateo for no reason and violates her during a search. Mateo is furious and runs off to find his Pachuco friends so they can do something about that asshole, and Maria is upset about Mateo, so there’s no one for Josefina to talk to. Is finding acceptance in the embrace of a religious zealot the best course of action? Probably not, but I get why it happened. Josefina hasn’t been a big part of the show so far, but it looks like that’s going to change. I’m worried about her.

I didn’t like how the episode lurched into the police stop scene. It came right after another, more mundanely horrifying scene, where Elsa’s creepy son tells Dr. Craft’s children a scary story about a girl who was mutilated not a few blocks from their house, and later one of them sees a vision of it. Where that scene traded in jump scares, the scene between Josefina and the cop is intensely personal and sickeningly uncomfortable…I would have liked some more buildup, or warning.

(L-R): Johnathan Nieves as Mateo Vega, Adriana Barraza as Maria Vega, Jessica Garza as Josefina Vega and Daniel Zovatto as Tiago Vega in PENNY DREADFUL: CITY OF ANGELS, “Josefina and the Holy Spirit.” Photo Credit: Warrick Page/SHOWTIME.

The episode leaps from one passionate moment to another. If there’s one theme that ties the show together, it’s passion. Over and over, we see characters compelled to act on their heart’s desires, even if it’s not in their best interest. Tiago goes back to Molly, Josefina accepts salvation through demagoguery, Dr. Craft and Elsa finally consummate their attraction at a birthday party for Craft’s son (it looks like Craft’s wife Linda isn’t going to just accept that quietly), Mateo and his friends track down and kill the dirty cop, and Councilman Townsend has sex with Kurt (Dominic Sherwood) — he’s the dude who’s been driving the councilman’s Nazi contact around since the premiere — even though he must know on some level that it could be used against him.

Indeed, Alex records their encounter and plays it for Nazi-man Richard Goss (Thomas Kretschmann), reasoning that they can use the tape to better control Townsend, and to keep him from paying randos for sex, one of whom would inevitably talk and ruin everything.

If Alex weren’t actually just a guise for the demon Magda, she’d probably be the most interesting character on the show, a relentless manipulator who hides behind a mousy facade. Magda presents some strange questions for me as a viewer. Elsa, Alex and (to a lesser extent) Rio are all interesting characters on their own; I find myself forgetting they’re actually all the same person, and wondering if they need to be. Could they have just been human characters in this drama? Did this show need a supernatural element at all? As characters, I find them compelling. As covers for Magda, I find them a little confusing. Where is she going with all this?

I imagine John Logan has a long game in mind. He wouldn’t be confident enough to spend so much of these episodes on slow-burning character development otherwise.

Piper Perabo as Linda Craft in PENNY DREADFUL: CITY OF ANGELS, “Josefina and the Holy Spirit.” Photo Credit: Warrick Page/SHOWTIME.

The only character who keeps their head during “Josefina and the Holy Spirit” is Lewis, although he also does cross a line. Broken up over the deaths of his friends and doubtful that the racist police department would do much to help him, he connects with a Jewish mobster named Benny Berman (Brad Garrett, a million miles from Everybody Loves Raymond). It’s a risky move, but Berman is interested in helping Lewis flush out the Nazi plot in LA. The rub is that he’s doing it the gangster’s way, and kills one of his own men for selling weapons to the Nazis by the end of the episode. At least Lewis refused to kill the guy personally, but it’s hard to know what he may have to do by the end of the season.

The show is diversifying and deepening its characters. What it needs now is a crystalizing moment, a moment where we step back and see how all these pieces fit together. I have faith that will happen. Until then, the ride is reward enough.

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

City of Bullet Points

  • “We were someone else for a day,” Molly says to Tiago. “Now that’s over.” The show keeps coming through with the hard-boiled noir dialogue. Y’know, a line like that would probably sound cheesy in most contexts, but when everyone is wearing suits and hats and smoking and staring each other down in a rambling beachside house straight out of The Long Goodbye, it somehow works.
  • As always, the show looks tremendous. I love how the photography is crisp enough for us to pick up little details, like how the beer Dr. Craft taps sinks into his glass.
  • Dr. Craft and Elsa do it doggy style at the window and it looks ridiculous. What is it with sex scenes where people barely remove their clothes? Craft’s pants were fully on. How’s that supposed to work?
  • Whooooooooa, the scene where Tiago kills the cop is brutal. Mateo really takes his time sawing through the dude’s neck. Or rather, the episode takes its time in showing us.

Episode Grade: B-