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Wicked City Premiere Recap: Ed Westwick Is Back to His Sexy Antics on ABC’s Killer New Drama!

Ed Westwick and Erika Christensen in Wicked City
Kent (Ed Westwick) charms Betty (Erika Christensen) in the Wicked City premiere.

For those who were looking forward to having Chuck Bass, err, Ed Westwick back on the small screen, then the Wicked City premiere most likely did not disappoint. Donning the role of Kent, the newest serial killer to hit the Sunset Strip, Westwick proved to be just as captivating as ever. Well, except for the part where his character is a cold-blooded murderer who likes to dabble in necrophilia. But everyone needs a hobby, right? Let’s dig in!

Deadly Dedication

Like most serial killers, Kent has developed a certain routine when it comes to targeting his female victims — which involves establishing a false identity that his prey will automatically be drawn to. Enter Karen McClaren (Taissa Farmiga), a struggling journalist who immediately fell for Kent’s charms when he claimed to have contacts in the music business. All he needed was her phone number to set up a meeting.

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But luckily for her, Karen was not the intended target of the evening. (At least not this time.) That grim privilege belonged solely to his date, Emily (Andriana Manfredi), whom he decided to drive off with for a little alone time.

But before he could slice and dice, there was one piece of his routine that had to come to fruition first. A song dedication that he made out to her came on over the radio while she was busy, um, “attending” to his needs. And as soon as those lyrics to Foreigner’s “Feels Like the First Time” started up, it was stab city for poor Emily. Talk about an unhappy ending!

There’s Something About Betty

Despite all of Kent’s flaws, he did have one redeeming quality: his love of children. So upon learning that his latest target, Betty Beaumont (Erika Christensen) was a mother of two, he opted to not only let her live, but to continue dating her.

But when you’re only used to being intimate with corpses, dealing with real-life human beings can present a bit of a challenge. So to help ease the transition, Kent decided to tie Betty up and basically have her play dead while he got down to business. But the craziest part of this wasn’t just the scenario itself — it was how much Betty enjoyed this deranged version of role playing. Looks like this lady has a dark side that perhaps even she wasn’t fully aware of… until now.

Jeremy Sisto
Jeremy Sisto in Wicked City

On the Case

No good serial killer show would be complete without a good-yet-damaged detective hot on the bad guy’s trail, which is where Det. Jack Roth (Jeremy Sisto) came in. After getting assigned to new partner Paco Contreras (Gabriel Luna), the two detectives began investigating the death of Kent’s first murder victim, Emily. Her headless body was found right at the scene of the Hillside Stranglers’ first kill (the city’s last big serial killer duo), and her head was later discovered in the apartment of Wanda Phillips, a former murder victim who was killed in a similar way just years before.

After getting a glimpse of the head (thanks to a little crime-scene sleuthing) Karen informed Roth that she’d seen Emily at a club called The Whisky the night the woman had died. In fact, Karen would be going back there later in the week to meet up with “John” (aka Kent), who had promised to hook her up with backstage passes to Billy Idol. Thinking that the killer was probably a creature of habit, Roth hatched a plan to go to The Whisky undercover that very same evening.

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Tainted Love

Upon examining The Whisky’s VIP list for the week, Roth noticed that the killer was using the name of one of the Hillside Stranglers, Angelo Buono, as a false identity. How did he know the name wasn’t legit? Because the real Buono was currently locked away in a prison cell. (In real life Buono died in prison in 2002).

But was Kent just a big fan the Hillside Stranglers’ work or is there a deeper connection buried beneath the surface? Right now, it’s too early to say, but at least this clue alerted Roth to the fact that Karen was in danger of being Kent’s next target.

The good news was that Roth managed to get to Karen before Kent could make her Corpse No. 2. The bad news was that Kent had seen Karen talking to Roth and knew his cover was blown, so he decided to lock in on another unsuspecting victim.

Just before the two of them were about to leave, Betty showed up to join in on the fun. But will she really become a killer so early in the game? Creepy role play is one thing, but taking someone’s life is a whole different bag of crazy. We guess anything is possible on the Sunset Strip.

Wicked City airs on Tuesdays at 10 p.m. ET on ABC.

Tell Us: Did the Wicked City premiere make a killer impression?

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