Penny Dreadful: City of Angels 1×07 Review – ‘Maria and the Beast’

Ever since Penny Dreadful: City of Angels began I’ve been waiting for Maria to interact with Magda. ‘Maria and the Beast’ gave me just that, and I couldn’t be happier.

With the ongoing battle between Santa Muerte and Magda, it’s clear that the Vega family has a role to play. I liked seeing Maria realize that her family was being used as pawns in whatever chess game Magda was playing. I have no idea why Magda decided to focus on the Vega family, but Maria made sure to let the villainous paranormal being know that the Vega family wasn’t going down without putting up a fight.

There are only three more episodes left in this season, and currently almost every member of the Vega family seems to be off doing their own thing. Mateo, after murdering Reilly, is still under Rio’s influence. Raul doesn’t feel like his old self after coming out of the coma. Santiago is out hunting Nazis with Lewis. And Josefina has decided to join Molly’s religious cult. Maria’s on her own and I’m looking forward to seeing how (and if) she will be able to bring her children together.

Other than Maria’s family, Magda continues to dig her claws deeper into certain people around the city. It wasn’t surprising that Peter Craft decided to invite Elsa and her (demonic) kid to come and stay at his house. I don’t know what Elsa’s endgame is with Peter. Right now, he seems disconnected from the rest of the major plot points going on.

I also don’t know what Magda wants to do with Peter’s kids. Why is she using Frank to scare Tom? The scene where Frank asked to sleep in Tom’s bed was very creepy. Kudos to the child actor playing Frank. He’s doing an amazing job.

Now that Maria has talked to Magda and has banished the devil from her house, I wonder how Elsa will treat Maria at Peter’s residence. Elsa’s already started to keep Maria away from the kids. Will she make Peter fire Maria?

Coming to Santiago, having him experience guilt over forcing Diego to make a false confession was very understandable. Santiago has a lot of darkness inside of him and seeing him at least trying not to succumb to it is what makes his character human.

I don’t think Molly bought his lie when he told her about Diego killing the Hazlett family. I continue to think that the Hazlett family murder had something to do with Molly. We are seven episodes in and I still don’t trust her. With the big reveal near the end of ‘Maria and the Beast’ showing how Molly’s mother is connected to the Nazis, I wouldn’t be surprised if Molly ends up betraying Santiago somehow.

As for what happened in Charlton Townsend’s part of the plot, I really enjoyed seeing Councilwoman Beck standing up to Alex. The way Alex talked about how she plans to make Charlton the President of the United States was quite chilling. Beck was very surprised with how Alex’s ready to support a racist.

Alex’s line about how Charlton’s voting demographic will include racists and uninformed angry people felt very current. Beck can keep attracting the POC votes; all Alex needs is the support of the white supremacists to ensure Charton’s success.

The current episode also talked about Charlton’s past and his problematic relationship with Kurt. Apparently, Charlton has some kind of bloodline that Mr. Goss is very interested in. Goss’ warning to Kurt did make it seem Kurt’s started to fall for Charlton. I’m not sure if Kurt can be redeemed. But we shall see.

The good news is that Santiago and Lewis know that the Nazis have infiltrated the city’s council as well as the religious establishment Molly and her mother are running. Seeing Lewis and his friends trying to bring the bad guys down is going to be very interesting.

Did you watch ‘Maria and the Beast’? Let us know.

Author: Farid-ul-Haq

Farid has a Double Masters in Psychology and Biotechnology as well as an M.Phil in Molecular Genetics. He is the author of numerous books including Missing in Somerville, and The Game Master of Somerville. He gives us insight into comics, books, TV shows, anime/manga, video games, and movies.

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