Penny Dreadful: City of Angels – Wicked Old World Spoiler Free Preview
It’s that time of the week again. Penny Dreadful: City of Angels is back tonight so it’s time for our Wicked Old World Spoiler Free Preview.
Wicked Old World Synopsis
Tiago (Daniel Zovatto) and Molly (Kerry Bishé) visit Santa Monica Pier in an effort to escape their complicated lives. Livid at the murder of his friends, Lewis (Nathan Lane) interrogates Brian Koenig (Kyle McArthur), a young Cal-Tech student. Townsend Michael Gladis) and Alex (Natalie Dormer)’s political agenda is jeopardized when Councilwoman Beverly Beck (Christine Estabrook) vows to fight them. Peter Craft (Rory Kinnear) discovers a dark truth when he visits Elsa at home. Mateo (Johnathan Nieves) visits the Crimson Cat dance hall and is invited into a seductive, dangerous new world.
Trailer
Magda’s Machinations
Magda’s schemes are in full flow this week, as we see her working through Alex and Elsa to influence Councilman Townsend and Doctor Craft. The Elsa/Craft storyline is interesting, it became apparent in this episode exactly what she’s trying to do there.
I was intrigued to see what happens with Alex and Townsend, that her influence doesn’t seem to be complete.
The humans she is manipulating still have their own free will. And she does NOT like that at all. We also meet her 4th incarnation – the jive dancing Rio – who has Tiago’s brother Mateo in her sights.
Also…never thought I’d say I find flying monkeys attractive but, well, you’ll see.
Crimson Cat
My absolute favourite thing about this episode was the Crimson Cat club. Mateo goes there to meet with Fly Rico (Sebastian Chacon) and encounters Rio. There was just so much life and energy in the club I literally didn’t stop grinning from the moment Mateo walked in until they ran out of there. I loved the look and feel of everything about it, especially Fly Rico and Rio who both just ooze charisma from every pore.
Popeye
Sister Molly and Tiago spend a day together trying to distance themselves from the various issues in their lives and their budding relationship is truly lovely. We find out a lot of background on both characters, making them both feel more real. It does also result in the single creepiest moment of the entire episode, one that has absolutely nothing supernatural about it.
A Little Lacking
I was a little sad that some of the plot threads from last week didn’t really seem to have as much follow up as I expected. Mateo tells Raul what happened when he was shot and Raul…doesn’t really do anything. Sure he’s had a traumatic brain injury but I just kinda expected a bit more. We see Lewis with the young student he followed last week but that plot thread just seems to hang without any resolution, while Lewis goes back to studying the books from Sister Molly’s church.
Likewise I can’t help feeling like the supernatural elements are not quite there. Sure we have Magda doing her demonic thing and influencing things, but this feels like a story of more human evils than supernatural ones like its predecessor. I do feel like there’s a sterling opportunity to tie things together, given the revelation about Townsend at the end of this episode, using one character from the original Penny Dreadful who could feasibly feature.
Penny Dreadful: City of Angels episode 3, Wicked Old World airs on SHOWTIME May 10th at 10/0c. We will be back in the week with a full episode review so check back then.
