YMMV / Penny Dreadful: City of Angels

• Complete Monster: Magda believes that humanity's true nature is as of a monster, and they simply need to be told so to embrace it. Starting the series by burning multiple humans alive, Magda provokes tensions in 1930s LA, starting bloody race riots and manipulating multiple key players. As "Rio", she exacerbates tensions between the Latino community and police, having her gang murder a rapist officer to enrage the LAPD so they'll lynch the suspected killer. Magda murders the head of the Pachuco gang to give its leadership to her pawn, while in another guise, "Elsa" manipulates her lover Peter to eventually begin supplying weaponry to the growing Nazi factions, with Magda intending on a grand war to erase humanity.
• Harsher in Hindsight: Molly's assertion in episode 3 that she isn't going to get kidnapped is ironic when you realize her character is based on Aimee Semple McPherson, who was either kidnapped or faked her own kidnapping. Considering Aimee's "kidnapping" was in 1926 and "City of Angels" takes place in 1938, perhaps this has already happened once, and Adelaide has reason to be worried?
• Ho Yay: Mateo and Fly Rico. First, Rico saves Mateo's life in the hospital when the police officers are beating him, then buys the kid a soda and invites him to the pachuco club. When Mateo does visit the club, Rico dances with him in a manner identical to the way he was dancing with several women earlier, and the two have some seriously prolonged eye contact. Rico then starts calling Mateo "baby" and "baby boy". Considering that Rico joins Mateo and Rio for a threesome, this is canon as of episode 5.
• Just Here for Godzilla: Viewers who were not interested in the premise continued to watch the series only to see Natalie Dormer give a masterful performance as a demon who takes four separate guises, all of whom are played by Dormer herself.
• Nightmare Fuel: The scene in episode 4 where Tommy Kraft sees the living corpse of murder victim Florence Moore (the girl from the story that Frank told). Her eyes are wired open and her arms and legs are cut off, still bleeding.
• Spiritual Successor: It's got strong elements of the book/film L.A. Confidential and Carnivàle.
• Tough Act to Follow: Compared to the original Penny Dreadful, City of Angels was met with a lukewarm response. With regards to the choice of title, many fans expected the show to somewhat tie into the old series, yet were presented with a completely separate work. While viewers praised the highlighting of racial tensions and focus on LA's Latino community, others felt the show lacked the excitement and quality dialogue of its predecessor.

---