People want to believe in the lie. This is also a lesson the demon Magda (Natalie Dormer) is teaching in the guise of Alex Malone, the right hand of Councilman Charlton Townsend (Michael Gladis). Though it is pretty obvious to most people on the city council that she“s the brains behind their operation, Alex“s ready to stay one big step behind the councilman to let him shine. This of course serves her purpose. A man is much more palatable to voters, not just for a seat on the city council, but as mayor of the city than a woman during the late 1930s, especially with as far reaching as her plans for Townsend are. Even though she seems in league with Hitler“s main guy in Los Angeles, successful businessman and architect Richard Goss (Thomas Kretschmann), it“s another one of her deceptions. When Alex gets called out by the one person on the city council who vehemently and eloquently opposes Townsend“s plans, and thus his ascension to any real political power, or more precisely Alex“s plan“s for him, Councilwoman Beverly Beck (Christine Estabrook), Alex gives this much older woman, or so it would seem, a lesson in politics and the way of life in general when she calmly and coldly reveals the extent of her ambition. She“s going to prepare her boss for the highest office in the country. Naturally, the Councilwoman is quite shocked, and understandably so, given the man“s record and actions: “You are going to make a racist demagogue without a single scruple the President of the United States?… And who“s going to vote for him?”“ Alex“s answer is equally frightening as it is simple: “Every angry man and woman who feels that you and Mister Roosevelt have betrayed them.”“ However, like with Sister Molly, the truth is something Alex can“t have anyone know about her. Since she“s all about lies, with even her identity and the face she“s wearing but a disguise, her true nature, her true self is a secret and thus, ultimately, her greatest weakness. Unlike Santiago with Molly, with whom he“s deeply smitten, the Councilwoman does want to peek behind the curtain, especially since nobody knows anything about Alex. “It“s like one day you appeared out of thin air”¦ That means that you have a secret. And in politics, secrets are currency. And it will discover yours.”“ Alex is not a perfect kingmaker for nothing. All Alex needs to do, to agitate her boss even further where Beverly Beck“s concerned, who he already views as his one true nemesis, is to tell him a truth he knows about himself. He isn“t well like while she has a lot of support because she is popular. To a man this vain and pompous, yet at the same time with a huge chip on his shoulder, this must feel like high school all over again. Though Townsend is usually quite lethargic and not prone to showing much initiative, Alex“s words have him all riled up and ready to seize some dramatic measures. As it turns out, Alex, like Molly has it much easier with men, especially with the men these women tell that they are in love with. When in her disguise as German immigrant Elsa Branson, things do go considerably smoother for Magda. With his wife now committed to a rehab facility, it falls to wealthy pediatrician Dr. Peter Craft (Rory Kinnear) to prepare the ground for Elsa by informing his sons that their mother will be gone for a while since she has taken ill. Thusly, she must be quarantined. The boys can“t see her for the time being. No sooner has he broken this news to Trevor and Tom, the kids hear the doorbell ring. Right on cue or maybe a bit too early, there“s Elsa with her creepy son Frank (who is literally a part of Elsa“s flesh), and they“re happy to move into the Crafts“ nice mansion, with Elsa ready to assume the very recently vacated role of the lady of the house. And as so very often under such circumstances, there will be changes made, courtesy of Elsa who flashes her rather humble upbringing like it“s a badge of honor and who endlessly feigns much awe at the pricey material possessions the family she“s broken apart had accumulated. With Trevor and Tom too stunned by the new developments that“re severely disruptive to the family life they“ve known all their lives, to offer much resistance, Elsa quickly moves to dismantle the status of the other woman still left in the house, namely the Crafts“ longtime Mexican maid Maria (Adriana Barraza) who happens to be the mother of Detective Vega and his brother Mateo. As can be expected from a demon trickster who wears many human faces as she deftly manipulates those who feature into her plan, Magda in the guise of the seemingly somewhat uneducated and simple Elsa does not demand that Maria Vega leaves the household she is so deftly taking over. What she proposes makes much sense, so much so that Peter has no objections though he“s grown quite attached to the older woman. Now that Elsa“s son Frank will be living in the house with her, the kid needs a room. Since Maria is not exactly a live-in maid, the room she uses as her own whenever she does stay overnight, here is a perfectly fine room not used regularly. But instead of proposing that Maria moves out so that Elsa“s son Frank (Santino Barnard) can move in, she points out how strange this sudden change must be for him. Wouldn“t it be nice if he shared a room with Tom (Julian Hilliard)? With his older brother Trevor (Hudson West) fast approaching the age when he should have his own room, here“s a solution that makes perfect sense. Maria, who knows the house like the back of her hand immediately realizes what this means, but Elsa wants her to spell it out while she puts on a big smile. Unable to hide her sinking face, Maria asks: “Would you like him to have mine?”“ Cleary, it“s what she has in mind. With another smile she suggests that there“s a room next to the garage which might be ideally suited for the help. This is when Dr. Craft shows up and when he learns of their conversation. Maria, who was raised in a culture in which the women kept the house in order, but their men made the decisions, makes a last-ditch effort to enlist the support from her employer. But as Maria must have known, like any man blinded by love or what he thinks is love, Peter sides with Elsa. But Elsa isn“t done with humiliating the maid. When Dr. Craft goes so far as to confirm that this is a “wonderful”“ idea, Elsa has her repeat the word to further acknowledge her defeat. Knowing full well that she“s lost, Maria offers to move her private things to the room next to the garage right away. Of course, she cannot know the extent of Elsa“s plans that are Magda“s plans. Though Maria is a deeply religious woman when it comes to the Catholic faith, her belief system is still closely tied to the gods of old that come from her culture. At her house she has erected a shrine to worship the many forms Santa Muerta might take on. Maria believes in the holy angel of the dead as protector for the living and the dead alike and for good reason. Santa Muerta (Lorenza Izzo) has appeared before Maria in the flesh and has even talked to her. And though the matriarch of the Vega family is keenly aware of the many evil spirits and demons that come from the world in which Santa Muerta resides, she is completely unaware that one of the demons stares right into her face, namely the evil sister of the deity she puts all her hopes in. Magda knows who Maria is and Maria has even spotted the demon in the form she does show herself to the human beings she“s stalking, but Maria is unable to recognize the demon in the guise she has put on to woo Peter into becoming her puppet, which makes this victory even sweeter for Magda, especially considering her run-in with Congresswoman Beck while in the guise of Alex. At this point some praise needs to be given to the three young actors who portray the kids on the show. West gives a fine performance as Trevor who is a loudmouth and a little show-off you can easily see growing up into a jock who loves picking on kids who are less athletic. Though there“s some simple intelligence to him, the boy uses it to brag in front of his dad and his younger sibling. Hadn“t Peter left his home, had he wed a German woman, Trevor“s fate of growing up in Germany instead would ultimately lead him to join the “Hitler Jugend”“, the Nazi youth corps which was used to indoctrinate every able-bodied male child in Germany with the fascist ideology of the Third Reich while preparing the boys for their military service in the “Wehrmacht”“, and the time when they were old enough to join their older brothers at the front. Naturally, the Nazi high command put a similar organization in place for the girl children of the country with a slightly different agenda. It was the role of all women, these girls learned, to give Germany many healthy children and to raise them in the Nazi ideal. Tom on the other hand is the kind of child that would have had a hard time in Germany in those days. The bespectacled boy, excellently played by Julian Hilliard, is sensitive and imaginative to the point of being effete, aspects that make Tom an easy prey for Frank who loves to tell creepy horror stories about mutilated dead girls who come back to haunt the living. Frank, who is played appropriately dead-panned by Santino Barnard, operates independently of Magda though he is not a living entity per se. Still, Frank knows how to subtly manipulate Tom into doing things he isn“t comfortable with. There“s a hint that Frank“s smarmy behavior is coded as gay, and that Tom is as well, with the latter kid not old enough to understand his sexuality or his sexual orientation. When Frank pretends that he is a bit afraid at night and he asks Tom if he can sleep in his bed, Tom is clearly uncomfortable with this arrangement. Not only because Frank makes him uneasy and he witnesses the dark powers the other kid has, but the violation of his room and the personal space of his bed feel like vile assaults on his most inner thoughts.
As we“ve learned throughout this season, Nathan Lane“s Detective Michener is another character who is wont to play fast and loose with the truth. Though he wants to think of himself as the good guy who is driven to desperate measures, he is not above using violence and coercion with the young engineer Brian Koening (Kyle McArthur) who is a pawn in the game Nazi agent Goss is playing. And as Diego Lopez found out the hard way, Michener is also willing to force an (well-nigh) innocent man into a confession to send him on a trumped-up multiple homicide charge to San Quentin and the death chamber. Though Michener had made a big show of how he was ostensibly doing this to save Mateo Vega and ultimately the career of his partner when we last saw him on the show, now he“s come to collect on the favor. His attempt to enlist the support of a Jewish mobster as a possible ally in the fight against the clandestine operation the Nazi have going on in Los Angeles thwarted due to his unwillingness to indebt himself to the crime boss by killing for him, his next candidate is Tiago Vega. This should not come as a surprise to viewers who have seen the path he is on, and with a motivation his own heritage provides, but this new development finds Vega fairly unprepared. Indeed, Michener didn“t help him and his brother to go scot-free from the goodness of his heart. Michener is neither an errand boy nor is he sent by grocery clerks, still he has come to collect a bill. Though Vega is stunned by Michener“s request that he wants him on his little counter-intelligence mission against the Nazi operatives, with the veteran detective presenting all his evidence to his younger partner, Vega agrees to go along with it. While Michener was careful not to implicate himself in any criminal wrongdoings, he had simply suggested to Diego Lopez that he sign a confession because that would make it easier for him to survive his time in San Quentin until he would meet his ultimate fate in the seafoam green painted room that was designed to put an end to the lives of killers and to the lives of those who were wrongfully convicted alike, Vega feels he has now a moral obligation to his older partner. A debt, Michener is happy to remind him of. But when they tail Richard Goss for one night, Santiago learns another aspect about the veteran detective“s character. Michener“s willing to kill. While the two homicide detectives wait outside a restaurant, they“ve followed Goss and his chauffeur Kurt to, Michener tells Vega a story like he did with Diego. And while we sympathize with Michener and his plight and the plight of his people when we learn about the fate of his cousin who the Nazis put on display, who they tortured and killed because he was a Jew and a homosexual, the course of action he“s about to take poses its own moral dilemma. His answer is that they are going to gun down Goss and his driver, and he wants Vega to help him. Based on his own eye-witness account of what was going on during the interrogation of Diego Lopez, how Michener telling a story, followed by some severe intimidation tactics, had led to false confession, Vega“s understandably wary of the man“s ability to spin some yarn and even his personal experiences into a perfect lie. Michener rides the line between honest pain and clever deception with great skill that comes with practice, and we can tell that the man“s used to getting what he wants. We are indeed left to wonder how different this makes him from Magda and Richard Goss at all. As per usual throughout the season whenever something pivotal or fatal is about to occur, their scene is also lit in a sumptuous green light that seems like it“s a harbinger of a certain death. It“s not without some irony that Michener, who refused to kill for Jewish gangster Benny Berman when the man demanded a token of proof of loyalty from him as the price to be paid for his support, asks the same from Vega. As the detective takes out his service revolver he turns to his partner: “You with me?”“ Here“s a man who believes himself a good guy. A sentiment that“s echoed by Vega who lowers his glance before he proclaims: “To serve and protect, right?”“ Clearly, the weight and the grip of their guns provide these men with comfort, though the double-edged idea of “might makes right”“ cannot be lost on either of them. Ultimately though, Detective Michener once again learns how impotent he truly is despite the cold gun he is holding in his hand or maybe even because of it. In this world, his power is simply limited to punching the young engineer in the face who is helping the Nazis, and to what he can do with many words in an interrogation room or when sitting in a parked car next to his partner. When they see that Councilman Townsend, accompanied by his assistant Alex, shows up to the table at which Goss is sitting, and shortly thereafter Adelaide Finnister as well, Michener begins to grasp the extent of the operation the Nazis have established in this city. Goss has managed that the State and the Church are sitting down with Nazis. With this new development in play, Michener suggests they abandon their planned ambush. But unbeknownst to the veteran policeman, his partner is also still hiding things from him like Vega did when he learned that his youngest brother was responsible for the brutal death of their colleague Reilly. Vega hasn“t told Michener about his affair with Sister Molly who might or might not be a murder suspect in the case of the slain Hazlett family, a case concluded as ordered by their Captain, but not solved. And now with her mother dining with the main Nazi he and his friends have been tailing, Michener wonders aloud if not the daughter might also be involved in the conspiracy. His suggestion alone makes Detective Vega uneasy. When Michener found out that James Hazlett had set up a secret love nest with funds he hid in the books of Molly“s ministry, he immediately suspected that Molly was having an affair with this father of two. And if he called that correctly, Vega himself is now left to contemplate, he might be right again. Maybe Molly is indeed in league with these agents of the Third Reich who“ve seemingly managed to infiltrate city hall as well. There is no answer to this question in this episode and also Michener“s very hastily put together assassination plot against a successful local businessman that he equally aborts as quickly at the first sign that the rabbit hole goes even deeper, finds no resolution. The reason for this is as simple as his freshly rediscovered ineffectiveness in the face of a vast fascist network that is sprawling ever further right in front of his watchful eyes. This is not his episode. He and we will have to wait how far he“s actually willing to go on this path that has already compromised the idea he has about himself.
This episode by the new creative duo of Colin S. Liddle (script) and Sheree Folkson (direction) is called “Maria and the Beast”“. As the title already indicates, what unfolds in front of the viewers is the story of Maria Vega. As it is the case with Maria herself, we are spectators to a handful of scenes from her life during which even more plights are added to the drama that has befallen her family. In this, the viewers are like the chorus of a play from Ancient Greece but rendered mute. This only seems appropriate with Maria struggling to find her own voice in all of this. A state that is only further exacerbated when Maria“s sole source of pride outside her family is also taken from her like her children. Once Elsa moves in with the Craft family, a lowly snake has entered into a domain that had been hitherto under her protection. With Linda Craft seeking solace from a failed marriage in excessive drinking, it had fallen to Maria Vega to keep the kids of this family on the straight and narrow while she also took care of their mother. But with Linda cast out and Elsa calling the shots where the household and Peter himself are concerned, it is her presence that is no longer needed or desired as exemplified by her banishment to the room next to the garage. Elsa is quick to undermine any goodwill and standing Maria might have with her employer in their relationship. Whereas Maria had quite easily adopted the role of surrogate mother for the boys as well as caretaker for two miserable adults, she finds herself in nearly the same spot she was in when she arrived on the doorstep of this affluent white family as their hired help. But Maria is not willing to go down without a fight. Once her initial shock and the gnawing sensation of degradation and the injury to her self-esteem have somewhat worn off, she does rediscover her voice. When Peter visits Maria in the rather dingy room that is her new place of residence in the house, she even offers him a cigarette as token of her friendship and to signal to her employer that she doesn“t harbor any hard feelings. With Peter seeking atonement and absolution for the way he“d allowed Elsa to treat her, she also regains her confidence. When her boss lets her know that he needs her help, and that she “has always been a part of this family”“, Maria is even bold enough to tell him: “I“m not going anywhere. That I can promise you.”“ That is until he enlists her opinion about the woman he“s brought into the house. With Maria choosing her words very carefully, she comes to realize that he is lost to Elsa, and thus he is lost to her. Once she gets home, she does what is left for her to do. Maria puts out her best silverware, an object of pride, as she gets dinner ready for what has remained of her family. With Tiago out of the house and Mateo on the run, her oldest son is turning into a slouch while her only daughter is in thrall to Molly“s Joyful Voices Ministry with the teenager even rejecting her Catholic faith now. After a heated argument with Josefina, Maria makes her way to the room she“s dedicated to the worship of the angel for the dead who is also their protector according to her belief system. Like before, Santa Muerta shows herself to her. Maria is not blind to what“s going on, and if there was ever any doubt, we saw what she saw. When Maria was on the bus on her way to work in the morning, Magda revealed herself to Mrs. Vega is she was standing in her long black dress amidst the graves of a cemetery. Santa Muerta tries to obliterate any thought of self-importance Maria might entertain by telling her she isn“t anyone special and that this was nothing personal. But the old woman has had it with the deity“s oblique references, and she persists. The beast was close, so close that she can even smell it, Maria tells Santa Muerta. She can feel it breathing on her neck at this very moment. When Santa Muerta reminds her once again that it is her role to know what to do and how to protect her family, Maria angrily gets up from her knees and confronts the deity she“s worshipped all her life we suspect. This is when Maria learns that she“s deceived herself the entire time. Santa Muerta is not merely unengaged where the affairs of the living are concerned, she is as impotent as Maria feels herself. But still, there is a new strength to be gained from this realization, as devastating as it might seem. If Santa Muerta was never any help, she herself must find the power to defend them from the beast that is attacking her family. Chances are, the strength to do so rests within herself. Santa Muerta has turned her back on everyone, including her sister as the demon is quick to remind her when she again reveals herself to Maria. And with Santa Muerta abolishing all the love she might have had in her heart for her sister, and for all the shame and torment this brought her, the scales are heavily tipped in Magda“s favor. With tears streaming from her face, Santa Muerta lowers her head as if strung from a truth she might have hidden from her worshippers for untold centuries, least of all from herself. Santa Muerta is completely ineffectual in this realm. Not so Magda, who immediately focusses her attack on the only other person left in the room. She immediately mocks the woman for the name the deity was wont to address her by. “Mind if I call you Coyote?”“ Maria explains that this creature is her spirit guide. Magda immediately tries to wrest even this piece of faith from her by suggesting better animals to be associated with. “Why that sad little dog?”“ Maria, who refuses to be intimidated, claims and reclaims the spirit guide she“s chosen by telling her a little something about herself and with pride: “I am a dog!”“ But Magda is likewise unimpressed, and she continues to mock Maria“s faith and she begins to destroy some of her religious icons placed on the altar in worship of a deity who proved as hollow as the figures in her image, figures made of fragile China. Maria counters her actions by confronting Magda with her observations. The demon only knows about death and destruction while Maria“s created life like every mother does. This is her switching from one center of power which has been closed off to her to a belief deeply rooted in her culture and heritage, with motherhood literally serving as the cradle of civilization, and a woman“s womb seen as the well from which life springs forth. Like the devil she is, Magda tempts Maria with the offer to end her suffering by returning her family to her. But as Maria now rests within herself, she rejects Magda and her lies. But Magda isn“t easily dissuaded. If only Maria was willing to be as faithful to her as she was to her sister, Magda can bring her peace: “You“ve clawed through the mud, you“ve climbed hills with a broken back”¦ now you need to rest.”“ Maria answers: “Yes, my time for rest is coming,”“ Magda“s victory seems close at hand. But then, with her reclaimed confidence and with raw defiance, Maria is quick to add: “But not yet!… We are not pawns, we are kings and queens”¦ I will fight you till the end of days!”“ And just like that, with conviction and truth as her allies, she banishes Magda.
Rating for the episode: 3 out of 5.
Author Profile
Chris Buse (RIP)
A comic book reader since 1972. When he is not reading or writing about the books he loves or is listening to The Twilight Sad, you can find Chris at his consulting company in Germany... drinking damn good coffee. Also a proud member of the ICC (International Comics Collective) Podcast with Al Mega and Dave Elliott.
