Ruth Ammon On Designing Sarah Howard’s Office and How The Gilded Age Predicted the Selfie in TNT’s ‘The Alienist: Angel of Darkness’

When I started watching The Alienist: Angel of Darkness, my eyes bugged out from how gorgeous everything is. The first season was lauded for its attention to detail, but Angel‘s designs feel darker and even more steeped in history. Production designer Ruth Ammon was tasked with showing how New York City has changed from the events of the first season, and her designs show us how a booming young city can leave people in the shadows.

When you look at the sets from Season 1 to Season 2, it feels like ten years have passed. In reality, Angel picks up shortly after Sarah Howard, Laszlo Kreizler, and John Moore solved the mystery of the boy on the bridge, but New York has changed so much that Ammon couldn’t rely on the designs from the original season. She had to change almost as quickly as the city itself.