WiC Watches—Penny Dreadful: City of Angels season 1
By Dan Selcke
(L-R): Adriana Barraza as Maria Vega and Natalie Dormer as Elsa in PENNY DREADFUL: CITY OF ANGELS, “Maria and the Beast”. Photo Credit: Warrick Page/SHOWTIME.
Episode 7: “Maria and the Beast”
Let it never be said that Penny Dreadful: City of Angels doesn’t make full use of its ensemble cast. There are a lot of characters in this drama, and the show actually does make use of them, even bit players like Councilwoman Beverly Beck (Christine Estabrook), who’s trying to divert Townsend’s motorway; she actually has a stones to confront Alex, daring to wonder who in the world she is. If she ends up discovering Alex is actually a death goddess trying to make “a racist demagogue without a single scruple the president of the United States” (subtle, John Logan)…I mean, what do you do with that information, put it to a vote? It sure would be entertaining to see her try, assuming Goss and his Nazi pals don’t off her first.
In general, we’re starting to see more characters acknowledge that they’re in a horror show. Poor Tom, Dr. Craft’s son, has to share a room with Elsa’s blob child Frank, who acting like a little Antichrist. I can’t be the only one who was seriously nervous during their scenes together. No, Tom, do not let Frank get in bed with you. Do not tell this strange little changeling you love him, and definitely don’t let him near your hamster. Little Santino Barnard is doing a great job as Frank, but it’s creeping me out all over.
Christine Estabrook as Beverly Beck in PENNY DREADFUL: CITY OF ANGELS, “Maria and the Beast”. Photo Credit: Warrick Page/SHOWTIME.
And Magda is finally starting to hint at the specifics of her plan. She’s molding Dr. Craft into becoming some kind of “important man” and trying to force the god-fearing Maria out of their lives. (Remember that Maria works as Dr. Craft’s housekeeper; it’s easy to forget these things considering how many plot threads this show follows.) Maria even has a straight-up chat with Magda (and Santa Muerte, still disinterested in human affairs) in her little shine; it reminded of when Dracula and Satan both visited Vanessa Ives in the asylum back in the original Penny Dreadful. It’s taken a while but City of Angels is starting to give me déjà vu.
That exchange ends with Maria resolving to fight Magda to her dying breath, and banishing her from her house. It’s pretty cool, but not what you’d call a climax. This show is so slow-moving and play-like, we rarely get those, but I like that it’s setting up a final reckoning that involves the supernatural sisters.
Elsewhere, Lewis pulls Tiago in on his plot to take down Goss, who they discover is working with Councilman Townsend and *gasp* Sister Molly’s wicked mother, which means Tiago and Molly have yet another complication to deal with in their relationship. Man, it just keeps coming and coming and coming for this guy. And Daniel Zovatto is so good at conveying Tiago’s aching vulnerability, like on the scenes on the steps outside his apartment. “I meet you as you are, Tiago, no better no worse,” Molly tells him. “And I love you.” Your heart breaks for him.
But should it, given that he and Lewis just railroaded an innocent man into accepting responsibility for a multiple murder he didn’t commit? I know this is a noir world and everyone is morally compromised, but with so much talk of police corruption in the news lately, I can’t say that sympathizing with a cop who would do that kind thing sat entirely well with me.
Daniel Zovatto as Tiago Vega in PENNY DREADFUL: CITY OF ANGELS, “Maria and the Beast”. Photo Credit: Warrick Page/SHOWTIME.
The rest of the Vega family is torn every which way, as well. After sitting on the sidelines for most of the season, Raul looks to be growing restless, and given how much use the show has made of its ensemble, I expect that anger to go somewhere.
The one scene that really didn’t work for me was Mateo trying to reconnect with his sister Josefina. She tells him she loves him, but that she loves her Father in Heaven more, and has he heard the good news? It doesn’t quite land for two reasons: 1) We never really got a sense of the close brother-sister bond these two apparently had, so I don’t feel too bad about it breaking, and; 2) Is it just me, or did Josefina turn into a glassy-eyed new-age zealot really quick? She’s always been the most underwritten of the Vegas and that hurt her scenes this week.
But overall, things are cooking. They always are, in the city of angels.
City of Bullet Points
- I liked how delicate Maria was around Elsa. “She is very clean and pretty, sir,” she tells Dr. Craft.
- The episode also makes good use of Dottie Minter (Lin Shaye), who gives a pep talk to the wishy-washy science student (Kyle McArthur) she and Lewis are trying to turn into a Nazi informant. Does he just want to make rockets, or does he care what the Nazis will use those rockets for? “That’s just politics, about which I honestly don’t give a fuck,” he tells Lewis, sounding like everyone else who excuses their complicity in unjust systems of power by saying they “don’t care about politics.” That’s one of the show’s subtler satirical digs.
