'Penny Dreadful: City of Angels' Episode 9 Preview: After failing to get Maria fired, Elsa tries charming her
In all her machinations since episode 1, the only person Magda (Natalie Dormer) has not been able to corrupt is Maria Vega (Adriana Barraza). Fans had already cheered for Maria after she firmly banished Magda from her Santa Muerte altar space, even after Santa Muerte herself had fled.
There was a hint in that episode as to why Magda is targeting Maria's children in particular -- she might be jealous of how Santa Muerte has become the family's protective holy angel after she abandons Magda.
In last week's episode, Magda as Elsa tries her best to get Maria fired. This is after Elsa's demonic spawn of a child, Frank Branson (Santino Barnard), channels Maria's dead husband to get her to leave her charges, Tom Craft (Julian Hilliard) and Trevor Craft (Hudson West). But he fails miserably. Tom, in particular, who Frank loves torturing psychologically, is now protected by her coyote amulet.
Maria might be rattled at how her own children are either leaving home or being harmed one by one, but she isn't one to settle for an easy peace with Magda. In this week's episode, she confirms her suspicions that the "house is cursed" as she tells Raul (Adam Rodriguez), her eldest son.
So even though Elsa is trying to make friends with her, changing her tactics from outright hostility to a false sweetness, Maria keeps an eagle eye on Frank whenever he is playing with the boys. Maria isn't letting her guard down in the least and Magda might have met her match in Maria the "old coyote".
As much as Elsa might make snide comments about "wild dogs" and Mexicans, she knows Maria has the power to protect the boys. This might be why Elsa spurs Peter Craft (Rory Kinnear) to take Tom (Julian Hilliard), Trevor (Hudson West) and Frank (Santino Barnard) to the movies and away from Maria at the house.
Last week's episode also saw Tiago Vega (Daniel Zovatto) and Lewis Michener (Nathan Lane) nearly get gunned down by a machine gun by a mysterious assailant, who might be Kurt (Dominic Sherwood), the Nazi hitman.
It is a declaration of war as far as Lewis is concerned and he tells Tiago this week that "if they come after us, we go after them". Things are slated to get a lot more violent in this episode as Lewis also oversees the prison transfer of Diego Lopez (Adan Rocha), which is just as chaotic as you would imagine.
Meanwhile, Raul Vega, who has been sitting on the couch being depressed since he got shot, is finally up and about. He visits Mateo (Johnathan Nieves) at the Pachuco hangout, the Crimson Cat nightclub. There, Magda as Rio tells him that his "baby brother is all grown up". Whether Raul will succeed in getting Mateo back home and tell him that there is another way to fight for their rights or if he will get seduced by Rio's war talk himself, remains to be seen.
If he joins Rio and Mateo, their Pachuco revolution will be supported by the workers union as well, making things a lot worse and playing to Councilman Townsend's racist agenda. In this week's episode, Townsend approaches his rich father for help, presumably to find a way to tackle Councilwoman Beck. Kurt has already refused to kill her, so he probably has no choice but to lean on his father. However, Townsend Senior's expression says it all about what he feels about his queer son in the trailer.
Sister Molly seems to be in a rebellious mood as she tells Tiago she wants to be "free of it, all of it", even as Tiago tells her that she "can't be out in public". Could Molly finally turn on her mother and help Tiago find a way to make her mother pay for her crimes and her links to the Nazis? But another confrontation is nigh as Tiago and Molly (Kerry Bishé) go dancing at the Crimson Cat, where they confront the rest of the Vega family.
'Penny Dreadful: City of Angels' airs at 10/9c on June 21.