In response to the elders’ death last episode, Mary leads
the men of Salem into the crags around the town to finish off the witches. They
go among all the dead bodies they have littering the outskirts of town (rather unsanitary)
and burn them all. And Mercy’s witches lying among them. Mary goes a step
further and has the men shoot the witches while they burn.
Mary continues to exhort against Mercy to the town while
in private Tituba keeps heckling her to get on with the magical master plan.
Apparently, the people have Salem haven’t learned their lesson and will soon
dump the plagued bodies in the crags (filly them with “hell blood”) a comet is
due and the combination of both will let their “dark lord” incarnate.
But there’s a loose end – Isaac being alive. Tituba wants
Mary to kill him.
Of to see the doctor who tells Mary everything is awful –
but Isaac is awake and repeating her name. She goes to see him – and fins him
all apologetic about not obeying her, blaming himself for the plague. A tearful
Mary can’t bring herself to poison him.
But she does begin the rest of her plan, convincing the doctor
to remove the bodies of the plague victims to the crags on the pretext of
fighting infection (much to the disapproval of the reverend and Hawthorne).
Hawthorne is outraged that good puritan bodies are being treated like slaves or
criminals.
At home her little demon child John Junior tortures her
husband George who she’s hexed to be unable to pretty much do anything.
That night Mary sees movement in John’s old house so
naturally goes to check it out – turns out Doctor Love Interest has moved in.
The doctor takes the chance to describe how he not only believes in the
equality of women but their superiority due to being able to withstand the pain
of childbirth. My aren’t they getting scandalous? I think his whole description
of pain is supposed to be sexy but it comes off creepy – and Mary puts him in
his place and leaves
John Aldren gets some final woo-woo presents from his
oh-so-helpful mystical Native Americans and heads back to town. On the way he
runs into Petrus who is wonderfully cryptic about whose side he is on or even
what he is. He’s also very hard to pin down to an actual answer – until he
finally tells John that Hale is dead and whoever replaces him will be Mary’s
pawn – and another witch. John then kills Petrus. Petrus may have been crafty,
but really working with the man who is all “magic, kill it!” is not sensible
for a man who is all about magic.
John makes his way to town, murdering an extra for his
clothes before heading into the plague hit, Knockers Hole (which, yes, I
giggled rather childishly about).
At the crags, a hand thrusts up through the blackened
earth. What? Surely you didn’t think Mercy was actually dead?
Meanwhile Anne gets a completely unwanted visit from the
very pushy Hawthorne. He makes lots of
really creepy comments about how alone and orphaned and
vulnerable she is – and how she needs to make the right choice in choosing how
to trust. He gets a spontaneous nose bleed and Anne nearly breaks the crockery.
A close call – she tries to leave but because of the
quarantine you now need a permit to travel; given by the selectmen or Mary. Tituba
tries to recruit her (at least selling her the idea of learning from Mary even
if she opposes her) but Anne won’t have it – instead she plays with her dad’s
nifty teleporting mask and ends up zapping herself to Mather’s doorstep. In Boston.
She tells him about the pox which he quickly realises is
the Malum and he was right. But he can’t do anything about it because he’s
totally been told not to. Anne isn’t impressed by him deciding all will be
doomed shortly but he can’t stop it because he’s grounded. Also he’s recognised
how utterly useless he was in Salem and, really, he’s such a bad choice for
saving the world.
Countess Ingrid drops in – she smells a witch and she decides to take a quick dip into Anne’s soul, introducing herself as Hecate, Medea, Bathory and the Swallower of Souls, the last of the first witches. Probably not a very nice person then. She talks about Anne’s bloodline, the Essex witches and her surprise that they (who she has a lot of scorn for) have managed to complete the Grand Rite. Added gems are that Anne is super special and murdering one’s parents is a quaint habit (and maybe why there aren’t so many witches around, given the givens) all the while being delightfully spooky and awesome
Anne does convince Mather to go to Salem and she stays
the night in his house (scandal!)
Speaking off, Countess Ingrid goes back to her ship to
talk about Anne with her son – and make out with him. She’s eager to
investigate Mary Sibley – and impressed by her, but wary about being recognised
among the “gutter hives” where they are not welcome. They plot and he’s
kidnapped a young woman for her as a present. How thoughtful.
Back to Salem and the first bodies begin to dissolve to
goo –which is just what Mary wants them to do. Tituba is also pleased with Mary
so allows her to bathe her son and enjoy “maternal intimacies”. There’s no way
this line wouldn’t have been creepy – but right after Countess Ingrid makes out
with her son is the worst possible time. And yes, it is intentional – because the
boy kisses Mary and not as a son would kiss his mother. Mary is duly disturbed.
Burned Mary goes to see her daddy. With a knife.
Tituba and Mary are still awful together – I actually
think Mary trying to pretend that she and her “dark sister” have had similar
experiences and face similar oppression is far worse than when they snarl at
each other.
It appears Puritan men are unable to express any kind of
attraction without pushing the creepiness to maximum levels. It would be the
creepiest part of this show if it weren’t also so very very very fond of
incest. No. Just… no. I… no. Really. No. Countess and her son were creepy – but
Mary and her actual child as in underaged – and him instigating as well? Far
worse – this doesn’t just present a child kissing an adult in a romantic/sexual
way – but the child being the one to initiate it. That’s a page out of a lot of
victim-blaming child abuse victims and I really don’t trust Salem to come close
to handling this.
Hopefully now John has left the Native Americans they
will cease in their role of providing essential woo-woo to the white man. That
isn’t representation, that’s resource mining.
Salem this
second season is already on shaky ground.
