Summary
“Julie Christie” was a slow and moody episode of Pennyworth, delving deeper into its satanic subplot and continuing to take the show in a surprising new direction.
This recap of Pennyworth Episode 7, “Julie Christie”, contains spoilers. You can check out our thoughts on the previous episode by clicking these words.
It has been a couple of weeks since Epix’s Pennyworth was last on the air, and three full days since Martha Kane (Emma Paetz) ventured into the domain of enigmatic Satanist Aleister Crowley (Jonjo O’Neill) and woke up stark naked on Hampstead Heath. Covering her modesty with a bedsheet, she ambles home — how’s that for a walk of shame? — and finds Thomas Wayne (Ben Aldridge) beside himself. His sympathies, though, aren’t really for his missing sister, Patricia (Salóme Gunnarsdóttir), but for the damage her drug-addled shenanigans might do to the family name.
Meanwhile in “Julie Christie”, Alfred (Jack Bannon), Bazza (Hainsley Lloyd Bennett) and Dave Boy (Ryan Fletcher) are on the trail of Captain Curzon (Charlie Woodward), who apparently killed Esme (Emma Corrin) in retaliation for a bit of a jape. He keeps her engagement ring on his uniform, which certainly suggests he’s guilty, but this whole plot seems way too contrived to be quite so simple.
As Alfie goes to visit the old boys of Curzon’s regiment for his next clue, Lord Harwood (Jason Flemyng) and Peggy Sykes (Polly Walker) go to visit Dr. Gaunt (Anna Chancellor) to make their presence felt — Bet (Paloma Faith) is left at home to sulk. Later in “Julie Christie”, both Bet and Alfie are led to the same place, where Alfie gives chase but is unable to catch his fiance’s presumed killer.
Most of “Julie Christie” is devoted to Thomas and Martha attempting to track down Patricia by returning to Crowley’s estate. Initially, Martha is treated with contempt; she returns after a three-day bender and starts blaming the devil for her absence? It isn’t the most believable story. But Crowley isn’t exactly secretive about her relationship with Lucifer. When asked by Thomas what he wants in exchange for Patricia’s return, he declares he wants Thomas’s soul, signed in blood with an official contract.
Thomas, unconvinced, wants to meet the devil — and he does, after a fashion. Taken into a basement, he’s shown projector footage of satanic sex, and promptly goes ballistic, strangling Crowley’s underling almost to death. Suitably convinced of hellish intervention, he takes Patricia and Martha and gets out of there. As to how Crowley knows that Thomas is spying on the No-Name League for the CIA, we’re none the wiser. Maybe the devil told him?
In a final scene, Dr. Gaunt conducts an insane right-wing political rally extolling the virtues of the Raven Society, and Alfie’s father (Ian Puleston-Davies) is seen enthusiastically clapping in the audience.
