Exploring “The Alienist: The Angel of Darkness”

I was first introduced to novelist Caleb Carr when I was living in New York City. It was a pre-Kindle, pre-podcasts -time of books…and I would devour them while riding the train back and forth from Queens to Manhattan.

As with many great pieces of art, whether books, movies, even podcasts, I can remember exactly where I was in that moment of time when Carr’s “The Angel of Darkness” (the sequel to “The Alienist”) pierced me.

I was on the N train (maybe the W….possibly, the R….it was yellow!) above ground heading into Manhattan, right before Queensboro Plaza. It was there, looking outside the train window, imagining a NYC of the late 1800s…that the evil presence of the the murderous Angel of Darkness truly began haunt me.

When “The Alienist” premiered on TNT it took me a few tries to get into it, but I was eventually hooked by the chemistry of the lead actors, Dakota Fanning as Sara Howard, Luke Evans as reporter John Moore and Daniel Bruhl as our Alienist - Dr. Kreizler.

As I finished that first season’s mystery, fully invested, I greatly hoped for a 2nd season adaptation of my preferred “The Angel of Darkness.”

In “The Angel of Darkness,” Sara is now a private detective. Moore is still reporting for the Times and engaged the the goddaughter of William Randolph Hearst, ironically. And Kreizler is the resident Alienist at a home for troubled youths.

The series opens with a macabre scene of a mother in an asylum frantically looking for her lost child, stumbling upon a grisly, mysterious operation led by the wonderful “Game of Thrones” (and soon, “The Wheel of Time”) actor Michael McElhatton.

We then jump in time as that same young mother is set to become the first victim of NYC’s electric chair for the murder of that still lost child.

Sara and her team of female suffragettes head to Sing Sing to protest her sentence. Inside, where Kriezler has surrendered to the loss, Sara delivers a powerful plea for the mother’s release. It is one of many displays of Fanning’s skill in this role. Don’t let her lack of histrionics fool you. This is a highly skilled, multi faceted performance.

Near the end of the season, Sara and John have a conversation, where subtext has finally simmered to the surface. She says to him - “I think you know by now that I find it particularly difficult…and I have trouble...expressing.” It is a moment she delivers with perfection.

In the book and the series, Sara comes to Kreizler with a new case - another missing infant that will (no surprise) tie into the original missing child from the opening act. But in the book, Kreizler leads the hunt. That is not how the TV series plays. It is Sara’s team from the very start and Kreizler, Moore, and eventually all of NYCs “finest” take her lead in discovering and finding the Angel of Darkness.

Recently Dakota Fanning described the show as having a female energy, and she is right. The character of the Angel of Darkness (no spoilers here!) is the perfect antithesis to Sara. Where Sara is a rock, our AOD is a wild lava of insanity. And we also have Sara’s team of detectives, nurses at the Asylum and Moore’s fiance to round out the fantastic cast of female characters.

If you haven’t watched, you can find “The Alienist: The Angel of Darkness” on TNT or watch them here: The Alienist episodes on TNT