“WHAT EVIL LURKS IN THE HEARTS OF MEN“ PENNY DREADFUL: CITY OF ANGELS, EPISODE 2
Chris Buse (RIP)
NOTE: This review contains spoilers!
A curious thing happened after my review for the first episode of “City of Angels”“ got posted. As is often the case with modern audiences, there seems to be no “the middle ground between light and shadow”“, at least not on social media. But is there a better way to sample a cross-section of fan opinions? For us, who are interested in genre fare, and have been for a long time, Twitter has become the backroom of your local comic book shop where, some thirty year ago, you“d hang with like-minded people to discuss the latest issue of a favorite title which might happened to have a new storyline that promised “nothing will be the same anymore”“. Discuss we did. We take to Twitter now, to add our perspective, to be heard. I believed that the pilot episode (mostly) achieved what it needed to do. Was it groundbreaking or was the world left in awe? No. For all intents and purposes, we had witnessed sixty-seven minutes of a well-made drama created for television. For me, that was well-enough. Not that I don“t want to have a mind-blowing experience through a narrative that is nail-biting intense and keeps me on the edge of my seat from the first minute to the last with content that poignant and riveting at the same time. But that isn“t how the mechanics of dramatic writing work, be it for television, the movies or for other forms of media. Having done a bit of writing myself, I am not only very appreciative of a long set-up (some of my readers will tell you that my columns are often fifty percent set-up and they might be right), but I feel that only if the base of your narrative is built properly from the ground up, can you offer any kind of meaningful pay-off. Back in the day, you“d save up for a particular issue you saw displayed in the store window of the aforementioned LCS, and though the long wait was nearly killing you, you knew the reward would be so much better for it (and in my case, since the issue was Daredevil No. 181, for which I paid my full allowance for the month of September and then some in 1982, the reward was very sweet indeed). But now, there are no shop windows anymore (at least not metaphorically speaking there aren“t). We want our reward right away. What we“ve lost it seems, in the days of binge watching, is our patience to wait. We have access to a wide range of media, streaming shows, movies, digital comics, games all day, every day. We want to be captivated from the get-go. Entertain us, or we“ll move on. It would seem, that with so many options, time is the commodity that“s most scarce today. I find it telling that one person in our group that assembles on Twitter now, commented that “nah, he couldn“t watch more than five minutes, that everything felt overcooked.”“ Yes, I“d be the first to admit, “Penny Dreadful”“ is overwrought if by design or otherwise. The show has always been like that, and its sibling or cousin “City of Angels”“ won“t disappoint in that respect, or it will very much disappoint you if this is not your bag. Another comment, a bit angrily worded, bemoaned the lack of any actual characters from the pulps. The original show was (mostly) comprised of characters from British literature of the Victorian Era. Since “City of Angels”“ takes place in America and in the late 1930s, it would only seem logical to assume that you“d get some of the characters that this genre of thrills and cries for vengeance and war on crime spawned, like The Shadow, The Spider, The Avengers or Doc Savage. Or in the very least, if your show features the clandestine plot of a foreign country, with enemy agents secretly placed in positions of power, where was Operator # 5 to the rescue? And while a walk-on by a fella named Lamont Cranston with a little wink to the viewers, might be sweet, and I am not saying that building your narrative around a superteam of pulp characters in a new format wouldn“t work, it does and it did, see Warren Ellis and John Cassaday“s “Planetary”“, I“ll also admit freely that this hadn“t even occurred to me when I reviewed the first episode. As a viewer of the original show, I was surely thrilled when Victor Frankenstein showed up, and the charming Mr. Gray (Dorian not Christian), but ultimately, if a show or a book wants to be more than a pastiche, or a shadow (as you were) of better works that came before, this can only go so far. While you had Nosferatu, the Monster of Frankenstein and the biggest bad himself, Dracula, ultimately, the hitherto unexplored story of The Bride of the Monster was far more engrossing. You can always deconstruct existing characters, but how about a bit of constructing? “Penny Dreadful”“, the original show, did it, heck the whole second season is built around a character made up for the show, Vanessa Ives, and what a stellar season it was. It if this sounds like I am already making up a bunch of excuses why the show delivered when it didn“t, which I very well might be doing, but won“t need to do this much longer, ponder this: there were also responses that brought up the pile of [insert expletive of choice, meanwhile I“ll settle for “hot”“] garbage that was the Logan penned (and Sam Mendes directed) Bond movie “Spectre”“. And full disclosure, I did myself in my review. The man who was partially to blame for having added this movie to the legendary, storied Bond franchise, was facing an uphill battle any way you slice it. It“s a discussion worth having, that if a writer strikes out once or twice, must this mean that his or her other works can“t be any good, or does this creator “deserve”“ a second chance? Here“s the rub: Logan“s already redeemed himself. If you“re unfamiliar with the second season of “Penny Dreadful”“, seriously you“ve missed out, not only on great writing but arguably Eva Green“s best performance as an actress to date. Sure, Logan screwed the pooch badly with his sophomore take on the spy with the license to kill (I“ll do you one better, his script for “Skyfall”“ isn“t that great either). Even if that mattered where his other work is concerned, the writer does at least one thing excellently: Logan knows how to create and write compelling female characters. Oh, no! There I said it. It bears repeating, since Logan“s widely associated with his scripting work for the spy “On Her Majesty“s Secret Service”“, not a card-carrying advocate of women“s rights exactly, the rare exception notwithstanding. In the Bond franchise, Green“s Vesper Lynd is arguably the best “Bond Girl”“, ironically in the excellent “Casino Royale”“, not scripted by Logan. Since he isn“t a big name (yet) by any stretch of the imagination, not even among genre fans, this aspect of his work isn“t talked about much. It“s not like he“s broadcasting it in interviews or at conventions like some fan-favorite creators do, who also make this part of their “brand”“ (Joss Whedon comes to mind, though less so in light of more recent revelations), but indeed Logan knows how to do some magic in that regard, and from the look of things, “City of Angels”“ will get us into the territory in which he excels, only that as far as the pilot is concerned, he“d kept that card closely to his chest. But before people cry afoul, those who haven“t yet checked out “Dead People Lie Down”“, the second episode, the new female character isn“t taking over the show, nor does her inclusion “ruin”“ the series. As an experienced writer would, Logan equals things out when we see that this new character is smartly paired up with another character we“ve already met in the pilot, to magnificent results, which are surprising, because both actors bounce off each other perfectly. With Logan“s script delivering, they carry each other to what may very well be career best performances for both. As Logan turns this card with a sleight of hand, a trick so subtle we hardly notice what“s going on, there is still one burning question: where“s The Shadow in all this? You know, the aforementioned pulp character. On Comic Book Twitter, the little, quirky corner of social media where fans discuss all matters comics, B-movies and pulps like these are important artefacts of civilization (actually they are), we tend to take these matters and such questions seriously. And such a question bears asking. In short, wouldn“t we be better served with a show that featured the man who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? I“d love a show like that for sure. Alas, “City of Angels”“ isn“t that show. Clearly, it“s drenched in a certain pulp aesthetic, but it“s too self-aware and too self-referential to be pulp. Ultimately, it knows what it is, which kinda makes it the antithesis of pulp fiction as published in the 1930s. What it is, is a show which takes a modern point of view when it looks at a period of the past through the lens of a certain genre, that of the pulp detective, mixed with some horror tropes. In that, it“s very artificial, but to its benefit.
It would appear awfully strange, and it does just that upon first viewing, that Detective Michener should reference a certain film when discussing the case of the murdered Hazlett family with his partner Vega, and in another scene we see two little boys on the beach re-enacting one of the most pivotal sequences from the same movie with their toy soldiers as actors and a sand castle of their own design as set piece, especially when one considers that this Gary Cooper vehicle would be released to cinemas in 1939, one year after these events take place. The boys are the sons of pediatrician Dr. Peter Craft (Rory Kinnear), to whom were also introduced in the premier episode. Craft is an immigrant from Germany who is very conflicted. On the one hand, he“s ashamed about his accent that gives his heritage away, but then, he“s also a member of German American Bund which he uses to promote the idea of isolationism. He seems like a carrying, yet somewhat stern father, but he“s unhappy in his marriage. Then there“s Elsa, a young woman from Germany whose little son Frank is one of his patients. But unbeknownst to him, the blonde Elsa, who seems to have so much in common with him, least that she is unhappy in her marriage, isn“t real, and neither is her boy. This is Magda again who cannot only shape-shift, but who has the ability to create a separate entity from her body. The picture that is mentioned in the two scenes is “Beau Geste”“, which is a movie about the three Geste brothers who serve together in the French Foreign Legion. The time is shortly before the First World War and the main narrative takes place at a French stronghold in the desert. Once the brothers and their comrades come under attack from enemy troops, the Arabs, it soon becomes apparent that their cause is lost. With more and more men dying in the siege, here is an idea. The remaining men prop up the dead soldiers behind the parapets to make the Arabs believe that their number is legion and that there“s just no way that they“ll be able to invade the fort without greater casualties to themselves. The film is based on a novel by British writer Percival Christopher Wren, whose very detailed description of the life in the Foreign Legion and North-Africa gave rise to the idea that the author had to have been a member of this elite military corps at a point in his life, when in fact there is a case to be made if he ever served at all in any militaristic capacity, in the Legion or otherwise. Further, Wren looked at history rather than coming up with the trick that is in the center of his book. During the 17th century, with the Austrians expecting an attack from the invading Turks, the army created life-size puppets, dressed in military uniforms which they put on display on the walls that surrounded their city. Legend has it, that the sheer number of enemy combatants they“d have to confront struck fear into the hearts of the cowardly invaders that they beat a hasty retreat. Bravery and cowardice are also brought up in a different context in the same episode. But that Logan should choose “Beau Geste”“ is interesting. In Detective Michener case, the reference serves two purposes. Michener refers to “Beau Geste”“ while discussing the Hazlett case with his partner Detective Vega. There is the staging of the murder victims. The family members were found naked, and they had their faces painted with DÃa de Muertos makeup. And there“s a message written with blood and in Spanish, “You take our heart. We take yours.”“ Clearly, this must mean that this was a ritualistic killing, meant as retaliation from the Mexican community with Hazlett“s company responsible for the construction of the highway that would ultimately destroy their neighborhood and livelihood. Only Michener isn“t buying it. He feels this must “a big con”“. Thus, viewers learn that there is more to the case and that our detectives are on to it, and when we see how the little wheels inside Michener“s head suddenly click into place like clockwork, the writer tells us that Michener is actually a smart cookie, which makes the scene in which he was asking Vega for directions even more jarring. Yet the potatoes and meat are with the second scene and this is where Logan and his two actors, and even the three kid actors, truly excel. It“s at the beach that Dr. Craft meets Elsa and her son again. In fact, her son, who“s at the same age as his own children, offers him the perfect pretext to invite them over to where they are sitting. While the grown-ups go for a walk to do some talking, Frank joins Peter“s kids. After one of his sons has explained to Frank that most of the toy soldiers “are dead”“ since they are re-enacting the siege of the fort in “Beau Geste”“, Frank takes one of the figures and puts it flat onto the sand of the tower of their castle, while observing that “dead people lie down.”“ This is a subtle, but very eerie gesture. Talking to Peter, Elsa reveals her sad backstory to him. She confides in him that when she and her sister had no food in Berlin after the war, there were all these men in uniforms who could offer them what they needed. Without so many words, she implies that the situation forced her to prostitute herself in exchange for sustenance. Now, she is trapped in a marriage that should also provide her with everything, also love, but like with Peter“s own marriage, this is not the case. Ultimately, Elsa“s backstory is fiction, as we know as viewers. It“s a fiction within the context of the fiction that is the story of “City of Angels”“, because that“s what this show is, a fiction. This goes a long way to explain why the buildings we see are so pristine and do feel like movie sets. This is a fictious world. It is a pulp world that follows its own rules. We aren“t watching reality; we are reading one of those cheap magazines that offered us exciting thrills in a world that wasn“t real. The Shadow wasn“t real. He only existed in the context of the narrative that chronicled his adventures. In his world, his adventures and his whole world was real, and thus, as a fiction within fiction, Elsa“s story might very well be real as well. There is also a fiction within the world of “Beau Geste”“ which mirrors what is happing here to a tee. For one, the book and the film are named after one of the Geste brothers (portrayed in the movie by Gary Cooper), but it also means “beautiful gesture”“, though it is used in French with the understanding that it describes something that is futile and of no consequence in the end. Through a flashback sequence we learn that Beau Geste had originally enlisted to escape prosecution. It would appear that he“d stolen a valuable sapphire from the women who served as a caretaker of the brothers, the only item of material value in her possession. It is when she“s forced to sell the gem, that Beau takes it. Only when Beau dies, do we learn the truth. His theft was a con. He was well aware that his surrogate mother had already sold the sapphire many years prior in order to support her foster children. Yet she had a duplicate made, which she now intended to sell as the real deal, because like with Elsa, there was no food in the house. Beau“s beautiful gesture is his attempt at protecting her from a crime. It“s he who pulls off a con, so she doesn“t have to. But in the end, this avails him nothing. While there is still no food, he dies in a foreign country. Though he is able to fool the Arabs with the bodies of his dead comrades, he dies anyway, and he dies lying down. Further, the movie itself is con of some sort, since it is a scene-for-scene remake of an earlier adaptation, albeit a silent movie, released in 1926 starring Ronald Colman. Logan is aware that his double reference is out of sync with the “real world”“ when he has Peter read a copy of Margaret Mitchell“s epic historical novel “Gone with the Wind”“, published in 1936. The book is brought up later in the episode again, when four characters have a Quentin Tarantino-esque discussion about who should be cast as Scarlett O“Hara, and if Scarlett, in the fiction of the novel, was a virgin, and if, in the context of the characters fictitious world, this would mean that the actress needed to be a virgin as well. In fact, “Beau Geste”“, the Gary Cooper remake that is, has gained some notoriety since it was replaced during an unannounced test screening in favor of another film, namely the movie adaptation of “Gone with the Wind”“ (also 1939). When Else tells Peter that she dreams of a better world, a place she could sail to with her son, the destination she envisions is “Tahiti”“. But she isn“t talking about a real place, not at all, and Peter understands this. They are both building their own fictional narrative, thus when she asks him where he might go, as she senses his loneliness, Peter pauses for a moment, but then he gives her the answer that indicates that they are both on the same page with this story, he acknowledges that he has understood the subtext of the text they are writing: “Ja, I think Tahiti for me, too.”“ And in all fairness, Paesano“s score is pitch perfect. It is not evocative of the period this is set in, because in real life there is no score that accompanies us while we talk, not now nor in the past, this is the music you hear in films that are a bit nostalgic and are about doomed, forlorn matters of the heart. And when Elsa and Peter fall silent and look at the beach and the Pacific and beyond, as the composer hits all the right notes, Dormer and Kinnear make us believe. John Paesano score actually resembles Michael Nyman“s score for “Gattaca”“ (1997) in spirit now, a film that is also about escape, with water as a central metaphor for birth, freedom and rebirth. We buy it all, but like Detective Michener, we know that like “Gattaca”“ is about false identities, this is all a big con. We“re not in 1938 in the same way “Gone with the Wind”“ is not a book about the real history of the American South. Elsa is not who she says she is, and even before he knows this himself, Peter Craft is not the man he thinks he is. The Wizard of Oz made the Lion realize that he had courage in him all along. Alex made sure, that Townsend would finally become aware that there was courage in him as well. Still, under the guise of his assistant Alex, Magda also showed him that there was something else that lurked deep in his heart. This is the moment when the ambitious, mid-level bureaucrat discovered that he was not just a small man, but an evil man. Magda, in the skin of Else is there once again when the episode makes us observe Peter as he is making love to his wife Linda (Piper Perabo). The scene is uncomfortable. Peter“s on top and he“s looking down on Linda who seems fully clothed, and she can“t stand his gaze. She won“t give in to any shared intimacy on this level, not spiritually. Then her hair slowly changes from brown to blonde, and as she faces him and looks at him, it“s Else who is with him. With a smile she gives Peter all he has ever wanted; she sets him free. Peter cuts loose, and Elsa only spurs him on. With her, he doesn“t need to hold anything back, with her, he can be himself. There is violence in him, brutality, and still she is there with him all the way. When he climaxes, Elsa“s face is flushed with a sense of triumph. Perhaps she was there, or she was only in his head, but as we cut, there is Linda in bed, smoking and telling him that she feels embarrassed by him and his actions. With a quick “Ja, sorry”“ Peter acknowledges her ever so briefly, but as the camera pans closer on his face as he“s sitting on the edge of their bed in the semi-dark room, we can tell that he isn“t sorry. At long last, he realizes this as well. We can tell that he“s done with apologizing, that the time when he was willing to act like a milquetoast is over. He is through with the pretend play. This is Peter“s rebirth. Else has rewritten his script, and from the looks if it, he is fine with that. Elsa didn“t even have to say a word to him when they were having intercourse, imagined, yet real, since “Dead People Lie Down”“ isn“t about whispers or words. This episode is about silent gestures.
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.
