Elena is strapped to a gurney with random people silently
taking samples from her (90% of the POC on this show are sinister agents of
Alistair’s, I’d like to point out) while a woman assures the drugged Elena that
everything will be fine, they’re just examining her. Oh well that’s perfectly
acceptable! They also strip her down to her bra for Reasons.
There’s lots of sinister sample jars all around her.
Alistair arrives to declare her blood is the answer to allow them to achieve the
“undoing”
I’m going to take a wild guess and assume we don’t want
him to achieve the undoing. The undoing sounds like a bad thing.
He touches her and burns his symbol into her neck with
the palm of his hand.
Next time she wakes up, she’s in a cell. After looking
all around for a route of escape she manages to tear a small hole in the wall,
but it’s braced with metal and there’s no way she could fit through it. But it
does allow her to speak to Savannah in the next cell. Before they can have a
conversation, guards with tasers and a catch pole come to collect her.
Back at Stonehaven, Jeremy, Clay, Ruth and Paige are all looking
for Elena and Savannah (and, hope, reflecting on their terrible
performance last episode). They manage to get in touch with Savannah through
Paige and trying to convince Savannah that Alistair is a bad guy. Despite the
kidnapping and being put in a cell, Savannah is having trouble remembering this.
They also learn that Elena is there
Back to Elena and the female doctor trying to be all
friendly and enthusiastic about her experiments. Elena tries to reason with her
but she’s all gung ho for the undoing as well
Savannah has another chit chat with Alistair in which he
uses his “I am the lock,” “I am the key” mantra to bring her back into acquiescence
when she refuses to go along with the idea that the witches just want to control
her and how being locked up is a totally good thing. He’s also using his faked hypnotically
induced rage to try and focus Savannah’s growing magic
Alistair considers this good news and tells the sinister
doctor lady who doesn’t understand why he doesn’t just brand her and bring her
to the “inside mind” whatever that means. Woo-woo means this is a bad idea,
apparently. Also the blood tests the doctor’s doing haven’t don’t what they
want them to. They haven’t used Elena’s blood because she hasn’t turned yet –
all the ways they used to turn the other wolves
haven’t worked on Elena –which the doctor takes to mean Elena is super
special. The doctor, Sonja, gets super duper excited by all the potential of
experimentation but Alistair gets all sinister – they need Elena’s wolf blood,
science isn’t his goal. Sonja professes her devotion.
Perhaps inadvisably, Sonja tries asking Elena for a vial
of blood when she’s in wolf form. Elena is not inclined to co-operate. Sonja
keeps up her true believer shtick. Elena is still not impressed and is taken
back to her cell
There she talks to Savannah – but she’s far more interested in her new powers and under Alistair’s influence. Savannah calls the guard and says the werewolf is bugging her and is then shocked when she hears the guard attack and tase Elena (how Elena can’t bring down one guard I don’t know).
Elena is taken to a new cell – one made of glass. She’s being put into a death match with Richard, a non-pack werewolf they’ve captured. She tries to reason witch Richard, but he refuses to listen; he changes. Elena refuses to, much to Sonja’s worry since she assumes the other wolf will kill her.
The cages open – and rather than fight she submits and
Sonja and Alistair send in guards in a panic –one of which Richard eats while
Elena takes down the one who tased her earlier.
Back at Stonehaven, Nick makes nice with Paige which is
kind of like making nice with a porcupine but he gets through and reassures her
feelings of powerlessness. More productively, Ruth wants to use woo-woo on the
dead cultist from last week to find out where Alistair is.
Paige doesn’t agree with this at all because contacting
the dead is dangerous and black magic. Ruth considers it necessary because of
how close Savannah is to coming into her powers; they also drop some more
exposition saying they know Alistair is a witch (previously they had said all
witches were female) which means someone has broken a commandment.
Jeremy questions Ruth while helping her set up the spell,
learning that Ruth’s coven is now just Ruth, Savannah and Paige and that there
are several small covens across North America, though the others are not
involved in the hunt for Savannah. He also guesses Alistair is a witch though
Ruth dodges the question on how a male witch can exist. Naturally, Jeremy can
tell she’s hiding something
Logan’s also lurking around the compound and sees Rachel
being approached by sinister nurses with needles. He takes out a guard and gets
Rachel out, though he can’t wait as he planned. Jailbreak! Their jailbreak
happens at the same time as Elena’s so lots of panic and alarms
Elena is shot with a drugged dart but at least she gets
the guy who shot it in the eye. As they approach the end of the property, the
brands on their necks flare painfully; there are wards on the trees all around.
All three are recaptured – the wolf explodes. Yes, explodes, this ward is
serious about security.
Back to Stonehaven and with the name of the dead woman,
Melanie Lau, it’s dark magic time! Which gives crypticness about moonblood,
keeys, locks and undoing. Paige tries to stop it as it all gets a bit much for
Ruth, but Jeremy holds her back and keeps asking questions and gets one
concrete piece of information: Dr. Bauer.
When Ruth returns to herself it’s clear she and Paige
still aren’t fans of the werewolves. Equally Jeremy shares important info about
the witches with Nick and Clay and that the alpha council will turn on them if
they find out the witches know about them. Nick’s the one exception willing to
trust.
Back to Alistair and we learn Sonja is Dr. Bauer.
Alistair ups the ante: Elea shifts or he kills Rachel. Elena gives in while
Sonja has an ethical crisis in the corner. Elena strips and Alistair is
creepily sexual about it. She shifts – and it’s the first time Rachel has seen
a werewolf turn
Sonja performs her tests on Elena’s wolf blood – and it
doesn’t seem to go to plan. Elena is returned to her cell and Savannah
tearfully apologises for calling the guard. Elena talks Savannah through her
conflicted trust issues and they identify over both being orphans.
Now for something completely different; Alistair having
sex with a woman surrounded by robed cultists and she stabs herself in the leg.
It’s a woo-woo thing. Or a kink thing. Or possibly both.
I keep making comparisons with the books, which I suppose
is inevitable, but it does mean I keep having odd character complaints. Like Sonja
a passionate and immoral female scientist isn’t a bad character – but her
seeming devotion to Alistair doesn’t work nearly so well for me. Why couldn’t
her passion for science and the chance this gave her, even if deeply evil, be
her motivation – why through in this devotion as well? She had agency –agency to
be evil, why add in this extra control? In the book Sonja is also a deeply
flawed character, a spoiled rich woman looking for excitement and her own
control – she was entirely defined by her quest for agency.
I think I’m also going to be very irritated if the wolves
never slap the witches back at some point. Obvious at this stage, infighting
would be a bad idea, but the wolves have utterly failed to establish themselves
as a power and have taken a lot of crap from the witches I would hope they’d find
intolerable. At some point that needs to be answered, to remind us that the
pack is a power if nothing else. Not just Nick’s sexy charm.
Another change is the nature of witches – I’m curious
where this is going with a male witch.
I think Bitten
is actually doing well hitting a balance between being close to the source
books, but changing enough that it’s still intriguing and different
