Television: Pennyworth

I was flipping through the cable guide when I saw a description with words to the effect of:

... and Thomas has to team up with his old foe, Aleister Crowley.

This caught my attention. Crowley was one of my obsessions in my teens and twenties. The show is called "Pennyworth" and seemed to be about spies in England. I was resting up from my second COVID-19 vaccine dose, so I started watching it from the beginning.

It soon dawned on me that this was the origin story for Batman's butler, Alfred. It's set in an alternate history where Germany controls most of Europe and everything else is close to our history but just a little off. There's a lot of torture, murder and sadomasochism. There's a lot of genuine weirdness, like a furry crossing the background of a scene set in a gentleman's club. No mention is made of this little detail, but someday Alfred will dedicate his life to a notorious furry.

"Pennyworth" is great. Lots of fascinating characters and unpredictable plots. Our hero does awful things. Alfred commits patricide to stop his fascist butler dad from blowing up the Queen. Also, Alfred has been banging the Queen since he rescued her from an unhinged but loveable henchwoman and her sister. And their S&M slaves.

Just let that all sink in.

I had never heard of this show, but it premiered back in 2019. I read some reviews, and many of them complained about deviations from Batman canon. AV Club was distracted by Thomas Wayne having a sister and not being a rich doctor. All I know about Bruce Wayne's dad is that he was killed in front of Bruce when they were leaving a theater, which was usually a movie theater, but could have been an opera house, so the canon doesn't seem that rigidly enforced.

Thank goodness this series doesn't try to squeeze into that straightjacket. It wouldn't make it any more entertaining.

Of course, this series violates my canon. The real Aleister Crowley died in 1947, and "Pennyworth" is (probably) set in the early 60s. He's far too young and fit. Plus, everyone, including Crowley, mispronounces his name. But he's a fun character, and this is all pretend.

It's so much more fun and interesting than "WandaVision".

Lastly, this series reminds me of a dream I had a long time ago. In the dream, some kids were peeking into a political rally held in a pub. A parallel rally was being held in a posh dining room. The dream cut back and forth between them, revealing that they were both in support of the "Working Magick Party", a fascist political party organized by wealthy Thelemites who were offering the working class access to magick in exchange for votes. Crowley was using the aristocrats to fund the thing, but was secretly building an army of magick using proles to topple the aristos later on. The WMP posters in my dream bore a striking resemblance to the Raven Society graphics in "Pennyworth".