Murder, Los Angeles, Satan, the Third Reich, anti-Mexican bigotry, an Aimee Semple McPherson-style evangelist and Nathan Lane with a Tommy gun – the new trailer for Showtime’s Penny Dreadful: City of Angels packs quite the wallop.
Billed as a “spiritual descendant of the original Penny Dreadful story,” the new series, kicking off next month and mixing historical reality with the supernatural, opens in 1938 Los Angeles with a grisly murder shocking the city (we see the mutilated, Joker-looking corpse in the trailer). Detective Tiago Vega (Daniel Zovatto) and his partner Lewis Michener (Nathan Lane) investigate the crime, getting drawn into a tale that encompasses the building of L.A.’s first freeways, the city’s traditions of Mexican-American folklore, Nazi espionage, and the rise of radio evangelism. Before long, Vega and his family “are grappling with powerful forces that threaten to tear them apart.”
In addition to Zovatto (Here and Now) and Lane, the new Penny Dreadful stars Natalie Dormer, Kerry Bishé, Rory Kinnear, Adriana Barraza, Michael Gladis, Jessica Garza and Johnathan Nieves. Tony winner (for Red) and three-time Oscar nominee John Logan, the creator, writer and executive producer of the original Penny Dreadful, continues in those same roles. Michael Aguilar serves as executive producer, along with Sam Mendes and Pippa Harris, both of Neal Street Productions. Logan’s Desert Wolf Productions produces, and James Bagley serves as co-executive producer.
Penny Dreadful: City of Angels premieres Sunday, April 26 at 10/9c on Showtime.
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