Mary summons Increase Mather back from the dead (of
course the spell is disgusting, this is Salem).
He’s not a happy zombie and she does quite like tormenting him and controlling
him, feeding him blood to give him speech (well there’s strong mythology behind
that). He wasn’t surprised to be sent to hell because he’d always done evil
things for the greater good because he’s just that noble. It’s appropriate that
a man so arrogant is tormented in hell by himself.
They do have common cause when it comes to opposing
Marburg and, as well as revealing that Increase will know if Marburg is the
witch her fought he also tells Mary about an artefact that is responsible for
her long life. Not that he will tell her what it is.
Speaking of, Marburg hails Mary’s many achievements, including
the witch pox turning blood into hell portal fluid (or something) and generally
being very impressed by the evil awesomeness that is Mary. Of course they’re
both so fake you can almost see the second face – but Mary invites Marburg and
her son to dinner so the whole town can see how she is supported to try and
make up for the loss of authority due to George’s inconvenient death. She goes
on to play with Sebastian and convince him to destroy George’s body in exchange
for implied sexual favours.
Tituba has John all imprisoned in a spikey room of shirtlessness.
In between lots of sexual groping and licking she reveals she has plans to use
John against witches; oh and that she saved him from Anne, not the other way
round.
Anne faces the dilemma of casting a love spell on Cotton
and, therefore, not knowing whether his love is real. And Marburg appears to
instruct Anne on the proper feeding of one’s familiar (through a witch mark).
Marburg is also not pleased that Anne squealed about her to Mary and in
recompense she demands that Anne steals her father’s book of shadows.
Marburg returns to Sebastien to explain a bit more – she needs
to know if Mary has some nebulous thing (I’m betting on her son) to complete he
evil dark rite of evilness. She also plans to kill the whole Hive of witches of
course – and a newly restored Mercy is eager to get in on that action. Marburg
also plans to use Mercy to lure children for blood sacrifice (much to Sebastian’s
jealousy)
She starts by luring a small girl from a brutal sweat shop spinning factory.
At the Sibley household, Tituba and Mary snarl back and
forth, as ever, and Mary refuses to let Tituba take her son to the woods to
keep him safe. Mary continues to act like Tituba has terribly wronged and
betrayed her.
Dr. Wainwright is back in town to talk to Cotton and find
out he’s hopelessly and incurably in love. Which he finds rather less important
than the death plague (especially since he’s found a related pox which is
similar, but lack the black blood of demon portal opening). And to investigate
it he plans to kill one of the dying victims of the plague to experiment – with
Cotton rather nicely skewers
Anne has to get ready for the party which means dressing up (which is totally the worst part of two powerful witches trying to control and threaten you), in between wishing she was Native American so she wouldn’t have to dress for formal dinners (just dispense woo-woo to passing white guys) she wishes Cotton would arrive – and he does. Anne has another moment where she realises her relationship is all fake and coerced.
To the dinner and Marburg and Sebastien talk about how
Mary Sibley isn’t that amazing (though Sebastien disagrees) before the dinner
able – how rude! Marburg feels a little jealous of Sebastien’s like of Mary
Awkward dinner time! Everyone is rude and unseemly and at
least Marburg keeps her barbs subtle. Amid the sniping, Cotton proposes to
Anne. She flees the room to collect herself. Well to steal her dad’s book which
she does with great craftiness. Meanwhile dinner gets even worse with
Magistrate Hawthorne telling everyone how he killed Native Americans and Cotton
disapproves. Meanwhile the witches have a telepathic conversation about who
needs to die and who can live: Marburg’s choices not being the same as Mary.
Tituba tries to run off with the child while Sebastian
reveals that she’s done what Mary asked and disposed of George – they just ate
him. Nom nom nom. And then her child runs into the room – probably not what you
want to wave in front of Marburg.
Of course, after dinner Cotton would really like Anne to answer his proposal – and she says yes (possibly to hide the book she’s stolen as much as anything). Alas for Cotton, Wainwright arrives to summon him to the dissection which isn’t the body he wanted to be examining that night
Back to Tituba and John with Tituba actually comparing
her situation to John’s (both slaves to the same woman). She intends to use
John against Mary Sibley
Cotton and Wainwright go to perform the vivisection (not
an autopsy – because he’s alive). The minute they open the chest cavity, vile
toxic smoke sends them both reeling back. All his organs have liquefied into
black mush before it all spills through the body and out of his eyes, nose and
mouth. It is quite quite disgusting. Then it burns through the floor – burning quite
a pit.
Marburg is obsessed with Mary’s son – and, predictably,
this is what she needs to complete her Grand Rite. The boy is possessed with
their “dark lord” and she intends to let him out. At the boat they find Mercy
has made a grand mess of the girl she kidnapped and Sebastian continues to hate
her.
And Increase haunts his son – destroying his booze so he can’t
drink. Because Cotton doesn’t have enough daddy issues.
I have to have a moment of praise for Cotton cutting
through Wainwright’s talk of “sacrifice.” You can sacrifice yourself. If you’re
sacrificing someone else then it’s just plain old murder with fancy
self-serving words around it.
I also like Anne’s growing discomfort with the spell she
put on Cotton – though not so much for the coerced will she was worried about
previously, now she realises she’s effectively undermined her entire
relationship with Cotton. She can not trust any of his emotions to be
authentic, any wedding will be fake and even wore for the seeming genuine
affection he felt before hand.
Mary being all queasy over eating George seems… odd for
this show. We have seen Tituba eat Petrus’s eyes. Mary herself recently ate a
piece of Increase’s rotting skull. Is it, again, possibly due to genuine
affection? Or fear of the Marburg’s power (they have the woo-woo to mess with
her food without her knowing after all).
Does “scratch an itch” mean what I would expect it to
mean – Tituba raping John?
Tituba calling herself and John equally slaves? There are
not enough NOs in the world. The treatment of Tituba on this show is appalling,
her enslavement is only referenced in moments like this – to draw a comparison
with John of all people – and completely ignored the rest of the time while
Mary is playing the poor betrayed friend.
And can we not have Native Americans referred to every
other sentence just to make random comments about being “uncivilised” or
savage?
