Penny Dreadful had one of the weirdest flex in the history of television; they announced the show would be ending simply by putting a “The End” title card of what ended up being the series finale. No long march to the end, they just killed off Eva Green and before you start to wonder where the show would do without its lead, they just said peace out. Kind of wish more shows did that.
Four years later, the creator John Logan (writer of Gladiator) apparently wants to play in that playbook again but instead of a full reboot, he is making what he call a spiritual sequel. Where the original features a team up of a bunch of 19th century Victorian monsters, Penny Dreadful: City of Angels features characters from Mexica folklore set in the 1930’s. But where pretty much everyone in the original cast was a monster of some sort, only two members of the show are supernatural (or so far in the episodes I have seen, we did not learn Josh Hartnett was the Wolfman until the season one finale) and one of those is not even in the main cast.
Instead the show mostly focuses on the first Mexican-American detective on the Los Angeles police force plated by Daniel Zovatto (It Follows). It helps that with his haircut he can pass as just tan for those that are ignorant. But most of his family is still very weary of the cops so he is stuck between two worlds. Pulling him to the other side of the tracks is the only person on the force willing to be his partner, Nathan Lane (Joe vs. the Volcano) who happens to be the only Jewish cop in LA.
Making this divide worse is Natalie Dormer (Margaery Tyrell) as the dark goddess Magda who is a shape shifter (okay, they just put the actress in different wigs, though she does have a few other tricks up her sleeve) who is whispering in ears on both sides to speed up a race war. One of her biggest marks is an American first Nazi played by Rory Kinnear (Frankenstein’s monster in the original; feel free to think that after the event of the first show, he traveled to Germany only to later show up in Los Angeles). On the other side she is shacking up with some dude named “Fly Rico” and their scenes together just seem to ripped from West Side Story. Though Dormer’s explanation of how she is Hispanic is pretty convoluted.
I do kind of miss the folklore elements of the original as much of that takes a back seat to the historical crime cases that are featured here. Though none have supernatural elements, it feels like thirties crime in Los Angeles have been well documented. Dormer’s mythical counterpoint, Santa Muerte (Lorenza Izzo, The Green Inferno), the angel who takes souls up to heaven, is only listed as a guest star and is not as interested in involving herself in the lives of humans. Though there is still time for other supernatural beings to come forward. There are some religious characters introduced in the second episode that seem like prime candidates. But I do like the idea of Penry Dreadful turning into an anthology featuring different folklore. Maybe future series can delve into Native American, African, Japanese, the possible stories are endless.
Penny Dreadful: City of Angels airs Sundays at 10:00 on Showtime.
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