Wicked City

Gabriella Maestri, News Editor

Los Angeles, 1982. Rock ‘n’ Roll, drugs, and sex were all the rage in the murder capital of the country, and ABC is returning to LA’s past with the new drama Wicked City, which premiered for the first time Tuesday, October 27th. Ed Westwick, the star of this new series, takes on a very different role than what Gossip Girl fans are used to. Westwick plays a serial killer by the name of Kent Grainger, who meets women on the sunset strip and lures them in with his many redeeming qualities. Pretending to be a record label executive, a talent agent, and most importantly a “secret admirer”,” he gets the girls out of the club and back to his car in a secluded area. There, they mess around until the song he so carefully selected comes on the radio. From there he stabs them in the skull, and later decapitates them; he disposes women’s bodies as if their lives were irrelevant.

Westwick’s character is set on being known as something other than the second “Hillside Strangler,” so his devilish routine with girls continues until he meets Betty (Erika Christensen). Before killing her, he learns that she’s a single mother and that strikes a chord in his heart as he too, was incidentally raised by a single mother and has a certain love for children. Though Kent is a sociopath, his connection with Betty is certainly there. He has finally found his match and the insecure Betty finds herself drawn right back to him. Although she does not yet know he’s a serial killer, it’s evident she’s up for anything in their dangerously dynamic relationship.

Detective Jack Roth (Jeremy Sisto) is all the while trying his hardest to find this copycat killer. However, he is cheating on his wife with an undercover cop (Karolina Wydra) who has an addiction to coke, which only adds to the crookedness of this story. Sisto’s character has a new partner (Gabriel Luna) who he is not so fond of, but regardless, he’s determined to find the murderer with or without his help.

The audience is definitely in some way intrigued by this thrilling new series. The killer couple (literally) that Westwick and Christensen play leave viewers hungry for more. Though the show is undoubtedly creepy and violent, that’s the way it was made to be. In this time period women were clearly mistreated, and this show patently highlights that with Kent’s degrading disposal of them. This show was meant to truly take the audience back to LA in 1982, the creators and characters want viewers to see and feel what this twisted city looked like then.

Obviously this show is meant for mature viewers who can handle a dark twist that they don’t usually see. But Westwick’s character somehow is still somewhat the protagonist. He’s blatantly charming and you see all aspects of his life, making you not want him to get caught quite yet. The show is strangely mysterious and the music in the show leaves you singing classic rock for the rest of the night. But Wicked City for sure caught my attention, and I plan on tuning in every Tuesday to follow the oddly charming characters and abnormal plot with the rest of America.