"SOMEONE WHO LOOKS LIKE YOU AND ME“ PENNY DREADFUL: CITY OF ANGELS, EPISODE 6

This review contains spoilers.

There is a room with its walls painted in seafoam green. It is housed in a big building which is located in a small, unincorporated town to the north of San Francisco. The small town and the large building carry the same name: San Quentin, for this building is the corrections and rehabilitation state prison for men. It“s the oldest prison, not just in Marin County, where it began receiving inmates back in 1852, but in the entire state of California. Though its history dates back to the days before the Civil War, which left California with a secession of its own in the 1860s, as many able-bodied men travelled east to fight for the Confederacy while those who they once called brothers secured the New Mexican Territory against the secessionists, the seafoam wall paint was a recent addition in the 1930s when folks presumed that this particular color was especially soothing. It needed to be, and by giving the room this specific design, seafoam green, the men in power could fool themselves into thinking that what they did there, in this tiny room, what they did to fellow human beings, was less cruel than it actually was. For this room was the gas chamber of the San Quentin State Prison. This was the place where many men died and where many stories concluded. Once you“re brought in there, barring a last-minute intervention from God or the governor, this was it. Not even something as mundane as a power outage could prevent the capsule containing cyanide gas from being dropped. Before they did it, they told the men who were condemned to die, to better take a few deep breaths. This way, it would be over quicker, the prison officials said as they were about to put a stop to a man“s life. But apparently, nobody did. Nobody did take in gulps of air to hasten his own demise. Instead, they fought it, they tried not to breathe at all. A human survival instinct thing to do one can surmise. No man wants to witness the last chapter of his very own existence being written, and certainly, no man wants to voluntarily speed up the process. So, they struggled, they held their breath. But the fact was, once they were in this room, with its soothing seafoam green paint on its four walls which seemed much closer once you were strapped down to a chair, the innocent and the guilty, they all realized that their stories had ended with the truth or the fiction they had concocted in another room. Either by coincidence or by design, in many cases, this room, the interrogation room at a police station, was painted in green as well. In the fictional world that “City of Angels”“ presents to its audience, the color green is both, a central motif and a metaphor. Its use throughout this show is no accident either. When Detective Tiago Vega (Daniel Zovatto) and Sister Molly (Kerry BishÃ©) have their meet cute in episode two, and the two end up talking through the night in the otherwise empty kitchen of the soup kitchen that is operated by Sister Molly“s Joyful Voices Ministry, the room lit in a dark green light by John Conroy, the show“s director of photography. The heavy green light that surrounds our two leads creates the impression that they“re locked in a tank of water, an aquarium, or that they“re out in the open sea at night with their fate and their status of survival yet to be determined. When Peter Craft (Rory Kinnear), a German immigrant and a rather successful pediatrician who“s unhappy in his marriage, fantasizes about having sex with Elsa (Natalie Dormer), the mother of one of his young patients, as he“s having sexual intercourse with his wife Linda (Piper Perabo), the green light takes over the room. Peter is also a man who“s lost at sea it seems, or at the very least, a man who is about to drown in his fantasy world, for unbeknownst to him, Elsa is a figment. Elsa is the demon Magda cosplaying as the woman a man like Dr. Craft might dream about, the type of woman he“s longing for. Elsa is flesh and blood, she“s warmth, but still she isn“t real. Neither is the dead man in her living room, the man whose throat Peter“s object of desire has slit, a man who she purports was her abusive husband, Mr. Branson. Yet Peter Craft is too far gone at this point to doubt her words. The bloody body is of flesh, though, and as such it does represent a larger obstacle and threat to the relationship he yearns for with Elsa, who pretends to be a native of Germany like him, an outcast among all the Americanness that surrounds her and Peter. If this man was still alive and if he was indeed her husband and not some unfortunate patsy, Peter might be able to use his money and influence to help her to escape from a marriage she claims is hell. But all of this is fiction, a story she tells him not to free herself, possibly with his support, but to trap Peter Craft in a room in which he will discover that the seafoam green walls appear much closer once he is strapped into a chair. After Peter makes the decision to help her to get rid of the dead man, and he buries him in a nearby forest while Elsa looks on and she reaches up to him once the deed is done and they make out atop the fresh grave, the green light is back and Peter is drowning for real. Little does Dr. Craft suspect that the man who he has just buried is not Elsa“s late husband but an unfortunate pick up of Elsa“s from a dance hall. Nor can he see beyond the show she“s put on for him the entire time. Still, especially with a man of some repute such as him, to simply call the police would be a reasonable course of action. At the very least, Dr. Craft must be conscious of the fact that he“s pitching his tent with a woman he hardly knows at all, a woman who from all that Peter“s aware of, has just slit her abusive spouse“s throat from ear to ear, which requires some savagery and malice one can safely assume. But like all men hopelessly in love with a person who promises to be all that you“ve ever dreamt about, he doesn“t want this mirage of his dream woman to go away. He doesn“t want to see beyond the faÃ§ade she represents and presents to him. Peter Craft is no fool, far from it, but he takes the bait, the hook, the line and the sinker. Though the right thing to do, if he doesn“t want to get the cops involved in what from all appearances looks like a domestic dispute turned fatal, is to run from Elsa as fast and as far as he can. Peter behaves like a man who keeps hitting the post and still insists he sees the ghost. Then there“s Detective Michener (Nathan Lane), Detective Vega“s partner in the L.A.P.D. homicide squad. Michener knows about the conspiracy that is happening around him with Nazi spies posing as respected businessmen like the architect he had two of his friends tail, Richard Goss, after Goss had met with a young American engineer. Now the badly burned bodies of his late buddies lie on cold metal slabs in the city morgue. Each man with two bullets in his head, with Michener having learned that Goss“s contact is assisting the Nazis in the development of the rocket fuel they“ll need to reach America with long-range missiles. Lewis Michener is a desperate man, and he does what men in his position will do. He seeks an alliance with a powerful man, a man he thinks will understand, because Benny Berman (Brad Garrett) comes from the same shtetl after all. This imposing, large man is a mobster, but he is also a Jew. And though Benny is an outsider among the Jews in Los Angeles, there is not one temple in Los Angeles that will accept a crook like him, he tells Michener with a lot of bitterness and self-pity in his voice, and with flowery words that are supposed to make him sound like a scholar, he knows how the game is played. “An eye for an eye”“ isn“t just an age-old adage, it“s a way of life. The mobster has his henchmen abduct the police detective and bring him to a room in a smoke house for fish. There, one of Benny“s associates is strung up like some of the large tuna. If they want to do business, Michener is to shoot this individual, Mr. Schiff, who“s double-crossed the gangster. It“s a simple trade-off. If the veteran detective wants Benny to take on his enemies, then Lewis Michener must view Berman“s enemies as his. As he puts a gun into Michener“s hand, we find ourselves in another room that has its walls painted in seafoam green. Schiff“s story will end here, but Michener“s story will get an extensive re-write if he does what Berman asks him to do. He refuses, and he remains the noble man he is telling himself he is. Schiff dies nevertheless, because violent lives will produce violent stories.

Detective Vega“s younger brother Mateo (Johnathan Nieves) is asked to make the same call in the same episode, episode four which kicks-off the first part of the second act of this season. Mateo wants to be part of gang of self-styled Pachucos, a group of young Mexican American“s who“re out to celebrate their understanding of what it means to be an American Mexican in the Los Angeles of the 1930s and who“re fed up with the race-based harassment they all experience on a daily basis while it“s also their heritage that keeps them down. Being a Mexican in this environment, means that you either have no job or that you are tied to low-paid occupation with little hope for change or improvement. You“re even forced to live in a certain area of town, and now the city and the transportation council are out to take that away from them with a new parkway that will run right through their community. Mateo has witnessed first-hand what happens when you try to mount a peaceful protest. The police will gun down your neighbors. Still, like Detective Michener (who is also part of persecuted minority), Mateo knows that strength only lies in unity and in numbers. He even has a gang tattoo to show for. And like the much older Jew, he“ll be asked to go much further. To simply have some ink put under his dark skin, the same skin that makes him target for men like Officer Reilly (Rod McLachlan), won“t suffice. Not according to their gang leader, the light-skinned woman who calls herself Rio (Natalie Dormer“s Magda in another disguise) or Fly Rico (Sebastian Chacon), Rio“s second in command. Especially not after Officer Reilly has beaten one of their members black and blue. This kid, Diego Lopez (Adan Rocha), was hauled into the police station for the color of his skin, for the Officers Reilly of this world, it“s plenty of reason to question Diego in connection with the murder of wealthy white family. In all fairness, this family of four was brutally slain in what on the outside looks like a ritualistic killing committed as a response to the construction of the motorway which is designed to give rich folks faster access to places like Pasadena. And once the protest to have the city council reconsider its ambitious construction project turned bloody, not just Mexican lost their lives, but four of Reilly“s brothers on the force, with his partner now missing an eye. But this is not how it started with Reilly. The man is a sadist, and Reilly“s a racist, like many officers on the force. And given the opportunity and the protection his status as patrolman awards him, Reilly had let his fist do all the talking. And his hands, when Reilly sexually assaulted Josefina (Jessica Garza), Mateo“s underage sister, right in front of the teen who was held back by two of Reilly“s fellow patrolmen. It“s easy to see why it is almost impossible for Mateo to withstand the pull from Rio and Fly Rico once the older gang member puts a knife into the teens hand. Michener had the resolve and strength to reject Berman“s proposal. It is his life experience and his religious belief, his belief in who he wants to be even, that allows Michener to make his case. Mateo does not have this luxury. Like Peter, he isn“t able to see beyond the deception. Though Rico and Diego, we assume, have taken part in the brutal beating administered to Reilly as harsh retaliation, in the end, it is Mateo who must decide how the story of his life continues, and if the racist officer, this once seemingly all-powerful dragon they have brought down to his knees, has a future, or if these wild gasps for air Reilly takes in this room, will be his last. Mateo must decide if the many small racially motivated insults he has encountered in his short life so far are more than he can take, are more than he can possibly be asked to take, if the cruel attacks on his sister and himself that were perpetrated by such an evil man, this bigot, this sadist, this small-minded and rather small man, are reason enough for him to forfeit his own future. But ultimately, it“s not really his decision to make. Mateo is but a pawn, not only in Magda“s game, like in the game she“s playing as Elsa with Peter Craft, but in the game of life in which the deck is stacked against him from the start. Dr. Craft isn“t a happy man, in fact he is unhappy in a marriage that has fallen apart long before Elsa“s made the scene, thus she has no trouble to seduce him and to lure him into a position from which there won“t be any escape, his own little room with walls painted in seafoam green. Mateo“s a teenager, and as such, he already feels misunderstood and at odds with his traditional family. One of Mateo“s brothers is in the workers“ union, fighting for the right cause, while the other, Tiago, is on the police force, the same corrupt and racist force that picks up their friends and neighbors at will, to beat them into a bloody pulps whenever they feel like it. The same patrolmen who molest his sister are Tiago“s colleagues, and Tiago even shot their brother Raul when he was about to shoot one of the officers during the riot. Still, Mateo knows that their mother is very proud of Tiago. Once the knife is in his hand, there is the green light that begins to seep into the previously dark room. The green light is almost calling to him, as it does with Peter, and like it did with the protagonist of one of the most famous American novels, F. Scott Fitzgerald“s “The Great Gatsby”“ (1925). As Nick Carraway, the narrator of the text and Gatsby“s only confidant and friend muses at the end of the book after he“s witnessed the brutal demise of the titular hero: “Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgiastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that“s no matter, tomorrow we“ll run faster, stretch out our arms farther”¦ So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”“ The green light in this case is the light that Gatsby sees on the other dock from where he lives. It is the light that guides him to his love Daisy who is lost to him, even though he“s made a fortune and he throws one lavish party after the next, for this is expected from a man of means and as a signifier of the wealth he“s been able to acquire. Yet even as rich as Gatsby is now, after he“s remade himself, this holds little meaning in the world into which Daisy is born. As she was destined to do, Daisy married someone from her own world, and she can never break away from this world, even though her husband is a racist and a bigot. Ultimately, the book “The Great Gatsby”“ is about how deeply unbalanced the world is, and how unfair the great social experiment is we have come to call the American society. Even if you make something out of yourself, even if you manage to become a homicide detective, the racial slurs will not stop because of that, on the contrary, they“ll only increase since you“ve become an upstart, an intruder into the palace and the temple. Tiago Vega experiences this. Peter experiences it. Mateo“s on the lowest rung of the ladder. Race motivated hatred is his life. The color green is no coincidence in this season of “City of Angels”“ like the color scheme is handled by design in the arguably best movie directed by Roger Corman, “The Masque of the Red Death”“ (1964). Every room in Prince Prospero“s most impressive castle in medieval Italy is decked out in a different color, every color, except for red. It is the Red Death, the plague that has torn up the countryside, and only Prospero“s well-guarded residence seems like a haven from certain death. But this place is restricted only to the ruling class who are confident that in isolation they can ride this one out. The only other people who are allowed in, next to servants, are the peasants who were taken prisoner and artists to entertain the rich crowd who celebrates their parties like there“s no tomorrow, and there really isn“t. In the end, metaphorically speaking, all the rooms in the castle are red rooms, because cruelty and separation from those who have nothing while you have all and more, will avail you nothing. The Red Death beckons Prospero and his ilk like the green light called out to Jay Gatsby, Peter Craft and Office Reilly. Once you judge people based on an illusion, and you divide them into have and have-nots, or you divide them based on the color of their skin, you have invited the killer into your house. He may come as a mysterious red-cloaked figure while you“re busy with merrymaking, he may appear as a blonde woman who claims that she“s getting severely beaten by her spouse, or he might come in the form of a Mexican teenager who desperately wants to belong, and who can“t take the abuse any longer he, his family and his neighbors have experienced and are experiencing. Though some have been dealt a better hand in life, and they may hold dominion, eventually, all social injustices will be tallied up. All the cards that“ll come up, show your judge and jury, and you are in a green room.

In a break from how the narration had been handled so far, “How It Is with Brothers”“, the sixth episode, also the episode to start the second part of the second act of the season, is mostly set in one location exclusively. Written by Vinnie Wilhelm and helmed by returning director Roxann Dawson, it“s a locked room mystery and a game of cat and mouse. This location is the interrogation room at the police station, and its walls are painted in green. As it turns out, this is a room for stories, tales real and made up, that will lead to another room, the seafoam colored room that is the gas chamber of San Quentin. The tales that are told in the interrogation room are as old as mankind, going back to the oldest story, the story of Cain and Abel which saw its reprise in many conflicts, from the small, personal ones to the wars, like the American Civil War when one neighbor fought the other and brothers killed brothers over economic issues, national pride and the right of men to own men predicated on the color of their skin. Whenever we leave the room to which Detectives Vega and Michener have brought the man they“ve apprehended as one of the prime suspects in the killing of Officer Reilly, these brief scenes are also about the lies and the stories we tell ourselves and

other people. Now, in the middle of the season, with the major players and the central conflict properly introduced, even the world building is confined to the backseat for the entire episode. What we are left with feels more like character study in a stage play, with other, shorter character flashes interspersed throughout to support the overarching theme, which is storytelling. After Detective Vega had allowed his brother Mateo to escape during the raid of Fly Rico“s apartment, a fact he hasn“t yet revealed to his partner, like Michener is also in the dark about the real killer“s identity, it“s the young Pachuco Diego Lopez who gambles for his life, and just this once, the youth is convinced that the table is turned in his favor. When he learns that Vega knows that his younger brother is the officer“s actual killer and Vega has let Mateo escape anyway, that he was hiding these facts from Michener even now, he thinks he knows how to play this. By omitting the truth, Vega“s started a lie, and Diego will use this lie to build on it with lies of his own to gain his freedom from the room with its green walls to avoid the other green room up north. The three other characters we visit only briefly during this episode, are also playing a game for their freedom based on lies. They all seek to escape from an interrogation room and a prison of their own. There“s Molly who sees her romance with Detective Vega as an escape from the world of religious worship her mother has built around her. Sister Molly has invented so many roles and identities for herself she can slip in as easily as the different sets of attire she puts on for whatever the occasion calls for, that she thinks she“s lost her true self. Her mother Adelaide (Amy Madigan) can“t allow her any such freedoms. Being in a relationship with a man, let alone a Mexican, will destroy their ministry, because the carefully constructed and edited image of Sister Molly is one in which she is only promised to her faith. First, Adelaide tries to guilt-trip her daughter by telling her a lie. She herself has always been virtues, thus she can expect the same from Molly. Especially after all the sacrifices and the self-neglect the older woman had put on herself to pave the way for her daughter“s ascension into the hearts and minds of their congregation and her fans; the man and women who listen to her radio show and buy her records, either because they believe in what she represents and they“ve fallen for her spiel or simply because she“s a darn good entertainer. But the truth is a much more powerful ally to Adelaide. In fact, Molly might be in love with her calling, but she loves the lifestyle her religious work affords her a bit more. Molly loves being the center of attention in all of this, because ultimately Molly isn“t in love with her pastoral work or with God or Jesus, but she“s in love with herself, and the many roles she puts on attest to that. Whereas Vega first wasn“t able to look past her shifting personas, and once he could, he now longer wants to, and Molly likes to pretend that she doesn“t know who she“s any longer, here“s Adelaide to remind her that this is who she is and has always been. Adelaide knows that like Daisy, her daughter won“t ever leave her position of worship for a man. Molly is aware of this. All it needs is a mild tug on the reins. Molly cannot escape because the walls of the room she“s in, are made of gold. Charlton Townsend (Michael Gladis), the councilman who is pushing for the new parkway, is trapped in a room of a different design, but an equally unescapable one. Like a sulking child he“s struck up a relationship with Kurt (Dominic Sherwood), the handsome chauffeur of his nemesis and puppet master Richard Goss (Thomas Kretschmann), an affair that intoxicating because of its forbidden nature, and for his romance to spite his hated ersatz father. As it turns out, Townsend has a lot of romantic notions about the city of Los Angeles as a place where everyone who desires to do so, can remake himself or herself based on fiction. Townsend also yearns to live the kind of life he can only dream about. He had always wanted to be dancer like Fred Astaire he tells Kurt but in the same breath he admits that it“s the body he was born into that is holding him back when in fact it“s the other way ”˜round. Townsend cannot fully embrace the lifestyle he desires, not openly at least, since he fears the consequences for his status and the little of power he has as a mid-level bureaucrat whose big political ambitions aren“t even his own. But Charlton Townsend isn“t really held back by societal norms or because he is the coward he truly is, like his body size has nothing to do with him not realizing his dream of being a dancer. All can be overcome in a city that offers a perfect illusion to every man and every woman, a city in which every man and every woman can be a star, as Aleister Crowley once put it. Ultimately, the reason why Charlton cannot come out of the room he feels trapped in, the real and imagined prison of his body and his sexual orientation, is that he doesn“t want to. He wants to be the god son, despite his hatred for his father, and especially because of it. Charlton is serious about his affair with Kurt. It“s also the only aspect of his life Goss doesn“t control, or so he thinks. But giving in to who he really is, who he really wants to be, would prove his father right. It“s not without sad irony, that Charlton can only win his father“s approval if he plays by the man“s rules, if he becomes a political success story. We can image that this is an achievement his father has told him numerous times that he doesn“t have it in him. Maintaining a public persona of an upstanding politician who“s cut out for better things is what a good son does. Yet carrying on a sexual relationship with Goss“s underling and behind his back, Charlton thinks, is him using the self-same relationship to act out against both his fathers. It“s the puppet having revenge on his masters. Charlton Townsend does not leave the room because living a lie within a lie and self-deceiving himself at that, is his star-turning performance. Dr. Peter Craft wants nothing more than to leave the room, the gas chamber which lies at the heart of a marriage that has long turned toxic. “Let us be frank with each other, for once,”“ he tells his wife and then he tells her that he“s concerned with her well-being: “You haven“t been happy and we both know it.”“ But Peter is not going to be frank. Nor is he concerned with his wife“s happiness beyond their failing marriage. It“s Peter who wants out, and even though he might still be telling himself that he is the good guy, he will lie to gain his freedom, he will lie about Linda. He“s already lying when he serves Linda the age-old yarn with which many broken relationships, and those that seemed happy, often end: “it isn“t you, it“s me why this isn“t working.”“ Peter“s being gracious when he concedes that the reason why their marriage is dead, is because he“s unable to give her what she needs. Linda on the other hand, wants to stay married to him, not because she loves him, but for fear of loss of her status. Linda is also willing to lie, not maliciously but to save their marriage. Linda tells Peter that she can change, that she would be willing to pretend that she“s happy, since this should surely make him feel happy. But quickly she comes to realize, that this isn“t the kind of happiness he wants and that he“s been disingenuous with his whole argumentation. He isn“t concerned with what he can“t give her or her happiness. It“s about him, he isn“t wrong about that, this is all about what he wants, and about what he doesn“t want, and what he doesn“t want is being married to Linda any longer. Once this is established, she tries to use their kids as collateral to guilt him into staying: “What about the boys? They need a mother.”“ Linda is quite shocked when she realizes that Peter has already thought about their sons. His considerations have covered this angle as well: “They“ll have a mother.”“ She needs a moment to recover, then she lashes out. He quickly reminds his wife who has the power in this relationship: “You can“t stop me. You are a drunk, I am a doctor. No authority in the state will side with you.”“ He tells her about the lie he will be telling, and she“s expected to tell and also expected to live: “You will be checking into a sanitarium. To be treated for intemperance and hysteria.”“ If she dares to object, he promises her, she wouldn“t see her sons again. He“ll make sure of that. Though the lie Peter“s come up with is a convenient way for him to extricate himself from their marriage, to be free to live with Elsa, it“s Linda who offers some harsh realities: “I know you, Peter. You might feel strong right now but you“re not. Oh, believe me you“re not.”“ Peter has no lie to counter hers.

During the interrogation, Detective Vega is also trying to sell his own bill of goods. He spins the truth in ways he hopes will make this Greek tragedy go away he“s found himself cast in once Mateo has become a killer of one of his fellow officers and he had let his younger sibling escape. The continued lie towards his partner notwithstanding, a lie Diego is keenly aware of, Vega tries to make the murder suspect trust him. Like a smarmy salesman who promises a breathless crowd the sky, Tiago Vega plays every trick in the book to ingratiate himself to the young Pachuco who is being held in the interrogation room. There is the looming threat that if Diego does not cooperate, Vega“s supervisor will call in some of the officers who were Reilly“s buddies on the city beat. Vega even stoops so low that he plays the “race card.”“ Diego only has one friend right now; Vega tells the youth. It is them against the entire police force. Those men outside the door, Reilly“s colleagues, each and every one of them a vile racist like the slain officer, they“ll be looking for “someone to blame”¦ someone who looks like you and me”¦”“ But Diego calls his bluff in a heartbeat, because the insincerity of Vega“s words is writ large, on his face, in his body language, his voice; and his ulterior motives couldn“t be more obvious, not even if they were written in printed letters on the green wall behind his head. He brushes Tiago Vega off when the detective tells him: “I“m trying”¦ to help you.”“ He knows what Vega wants. He“s supposed to admit that he“s killed Reilly. He didn“t do it, and they both know that. Diego challenges Vega to beat a confession out of him, knowing full well that the Mexican American detective is already conflicted enough. He does misunderstand Vega“s restraint as weakness and with his opposite weak, or weakened by the circumstances, he thinks he“s the boss of Vega. Michener can tell this is going nowhere and he prompts the youth to tell it his way. Diego concocts an alibi for himself, a cock and bull story of him and his brother spending the evening with bird catching. The way he speaks about his brother is code directed at Vega. This is Diego turning the screw while the man“s partner is still in the room. When he has a brief moment with Vega alone, he tells him what they will do. He“ll get into a fight with Vega and Vega will allow him access to his gun. He“ll shoot his way out or he“ll tell Michener and the other men what he knows. When the homicide detectives leave the room, the interrogation doesn“t stop. Vega has gone from one room with green walls to another one that has green walls. He“s trapped and he gets interrogated. Michener wants to know what“s up with Vega, why he’s been acting so strangely. Vega tells him that he“s convinced that Diego is the killer, he“s desperate for Michener to see it his way, but the veteran detective is sure that the youth is innocent. Diego does not have it in him. When they run into some of the patrolmen, Tiago Vega is exposed to the usual racial epithets that have turned working at the station like running a gauntlet for him. For every dead Officer Reilly there seem to be two new officers who“re equally misguided by their racial prejudices. Even if the men are simply pulling his chain as men in a competitive environment will do with other men, especially with someone who“s an outsider, these officers clearly enjoy being racist and cruel. After a stern talking to in their captain“s office, Vega knows the clock is running out. In less than an hour Reilly“s colleagues will get a crack at the youth, hardened patrolmen who will make him talk. Maybe Diego will confess to a crime he didn“t commit, maybe he“ll give up Mateo and Vega in the process. It“s a risk he simply can“t take. Once he“s in the restroom, Tiago takes out his service revolver. Sure, he can give Diego access to his gun, especially if Diego attacks him. But when Tiago takes out the bullets, it becomes obvious what he“s planning. Diego will try to escape from the interrogation room and the precinct with a gun he does not know is not loaded. He will be shot dead without any other person harmed. But when some of his fellow officers enter the washroom who don“t suspect that he“s in one of the stalls, and they make more racist jokes, he puts the bullets back in. Vega“s completely surrounded by the green light and green wall paint. Once he returns to the interrogation room, it seems that he“s ready to go through with. But Vega isn“t willing to give the kid a loaded gun, but thusly put in a tight spot, he loses his cool or what“s left of his cool anyway. During an especially heated exchange, Vega pulls his revolver and forces the gun barrel against Diego“s head. Michener pulls him away and out of the room. This is when Tiago finally fesses up to his more experienced partner. All he wanted to do was to protect his younger sibling, and he blames himself for how Mateo has acted. Mateo witnessed Vega shooting their older brother Raul when he got all crazy (thanks to Magda) and he was about to shoot Michener. It“s all connected. Things don“t just happen in a vacuum and without any correlation. This gives the veteran detective the script how to play this, and that“s what he does, as he tells Vega not to say a word before they go back into the room with the green walls, this room for fiction, storytelling and perhaps, now and then, a truth that serves those who are willing to disseminate it for what ulterior motive they might have. Michener has only one goal. It“s Vega“s reputation against Diego“s life. The choice is obvious. It“s also a choice that is similar to Benny Berman putting a loaded gun into his hand, only this time it weighs on him much more. Even before he and Vega have returned to the room, Michener has made his decision, yet this time around, though, he won“t choose life. All three actors at the center of this episode are great, but it is during the final minutes of “How It Is with Brothers”“ that Nathan Lane reveals what a powerhouse actor he is, and that he is the MVP of this episode by far. His performance is riveting and multi-layered as it is downright chilling. Lane makes it next to impossible to take your eyes off him. This is no actor chewing the scenery, it“s one hell of a masterclass in acting, and the play-like staging of the scene definitely plays to Lane“s strength. With this episode being about storytelling, this room becomes a metafictional stage of life itself. Since this is Michener telling a story, he begins to talk about his own upbringing in a poor neighborhood in the east and how his father delivered blocks of ice to the mansions of the rich on 5th Avenue. But Michener isn“t bargaining for Diego“s sympathies to lure him into a trap like Vega had attempted earlier. The detective is telling his tale to do some worldbuilding in Diego“s mind, to show the youth that things are connected, how in the end those who have nothing will be asked to pick up the slack, to clean away the horse shit.

Diego hasn“t a clue what Michener“s going on about but then again, he knows exactly what he“s saying. The officer falls silent. The first act has ended. With the introduction out of the way, it“s time to address the overarching conflict. Michener is not here to tell Diego a story about how his dad made ends meet. Instead, him talking about the rich who live in clean neighborhoods and the poor who can never escape all this shit, like not even Gatsby could, leads to him talking about the murdered affluent Hazlett family. He pauses and breathes in. His body becomes tense with concentration. He is like a stage actor now or like Molly in the moments before she enters the stage for one of her religious performances. It“s all one big con, a gospel, but in an unfair world, it is also the truth. In this room with its green walls, stories are told like this was a miniature version of the famous Globe Theatre on the south bank of the Thames. As with the fictional world that is the works of William Shakespeare, it“s a place for fiction and storytelling. But as with Shakespeare“s plays, there is an underlying reality, the truth that will neither yield nor bend no matter how hard you try. There are winners and losers in this world the characters of “City of Angels”“ know as their reality, the have and have-nots like in the world of “The Great Gatsby”“. Diego is the latter. He“s aware of that and so is Detective Michener. The veteran homicide investigator knows this room as well as the back of his hand. Here you tell stories you can shape and twist around to make them sound convincing, until what is real, what is undeniable true, becomes the most convincing lie. A kid like Diego Lopez can spin many yarns, he can even deceive himself into dreaming of himself as a rebel, as the one who sits on a full house. But like with Townsend, there“s no conviction. Like Townsend, Diego lacks any real power, at this game and in the world outside from the illusion. Michener, not unlike Goss ironically, is a master actor who is also his own playwright and director. Once Michener comes out of this moment in which he was collecting himself, like the older detective was winding himself up like a coil spring, and he re-enters stage left, he“s ready to reveal a harsh reality to Diego like Linda was with Peter. Diego isn“t the puppet master. The youth is the puppet, he“s been a puppet from the day was born. In a world that is this unfair, guys like Diego never have a chance. “Now, just look where we are,”“ says Michener with feigned sadness in his voice. He is a good cop and a bad cop all rolled into one. His line is the equivalent of “Look at what you made me do,”“ which is something that must be familiar to Diego. The abused are getting abused even further. Only now Diego will be asked to say thank you for it. Detective Michener is like a writer who pauses once he“s put all the pieces for his story on the board. It“s all there, now to make the tale unfold. When he speaks again, he reveals that it“s he not Diego who“s holding a full house: “But if you go back to the beginning. Hazlett was the beginning.”“ Michener has his eyes still closed as if he“s just now putting the pieces together in his mind. There“s also genuine pain. It“s now that he makes use of the gun that was put into his hand to take a life, and like Peter Craft desperately wants to believe in the illusion that is Elsa even though the cracks are showing and Charlton Townsend lives a lie in a city that is all about lies and deception, Michener still wants to believe that he“s a good guy. But like Peter, Townsend and Molly, he hits the post as he insists, he sees the ghost. When Michener looks up and he opens his eyes to look at the kid, his eyes are like the headlights of a car that is fast approaching in your lane, a car you did not see coming because you were distracted. “You killed him. Him, the wife, the kids. Reilly, too, of course”¦ Let me tell you what cards you are really holding. You are going to San Quentin. And you are not coming out. That“s gospel already. All you still get to decide is if you go as a rat or as a goddamn legend. Now that seems like a pretty simple choice to me but let me spell it out for you.”“ That he does. Diego will not survive in a prison without hope, a prison with a gas chamber with walls painted in seafoam green for the soothing effect this might or mightn“t have in a man“s hour of a death foretold. But if a guy was willing to take on the weight, he might have it quite good up there, and the more weight he“d be ready to assume, especially the weight of having killed a white family “of swells”“ and an officer, “a guy like that might just be the king of San Quentin”¦ a hero to his people.”“ Michener would see to it “that word got around about what he did”“. Or, just like that he might make it go away and Diego would end up in San Quentin with a snitch jacket. Diego has a decision to make which isn“t decision at all since Michener reminds him of Reilly“s colleagues waiting outside the door to the interrogation room who all want to take a crack at him “and start putting cigars out on your tongue.”“ For Diego, the world is full of shit. It“s shit he“s stuck with in the end. With tears in his eyes Diego nods in acknowledgement. Michener keeps pushing, the gun he handed back to Benny Berman long since fired: “You killed them all?”“ Again, a nod. “All by yourself?“ Another nod. Then the camera stays on the detective“s face. “That“s the smart play, kid. You are doing the right thing.”“ With Diego sobbing uncontrollably, the camera begins to pan wide as it lingers on Michener and the youth. This room with its green walls is a place for stories. Maybe for the truth as well, only that with kids like Diego, who were born with the wrong skin color, they don“t get to tell their stories, their voices and their narratives aren“t heard. It“s the white men who tell the stories that matter, who decide what stories matter. The truth for boys like Diego is that they“ve never left the room with the green walls. The men however who get to tell the stories that“re accepted as the truth, they are the heroes. Like Michener and Vega. They got the kid who killed Reilly and they“ve solved the Hazlett case in one fell swoop. The camera goes into slow motion as Michener, and by association, even Vega are celebrated by their fellow officer and their captain. Even the racist patrolmen who were giving Detective Vega a hard time just minutes earlier, seem to have come around as they now consider him one of their own. Detective Michener is a good man. And so is Detective Vega. But in this world, a world that might not be so different from our world, even the good guys lose their way. They both know this while they look at each other and they“re both changed. The truth behind this story is a simple one. The real demons are not those from legend, but men trapped on this mortal coil, and in a small room with green walls. The truth is the lie men like these tell each other, the lie we tell ourselves. That we“re good people, that we strive to do the right thing. But as long as we stay in the green room, it will be lie.

Rating for the episode: 4 out of 5.

Author Profile

Chris Buse

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.