Evil possessed child is now fully evilly possessed
because Mary didn’t read the fine print and both she and John decided wailing
and despairing as a better plan than actually doing something. EvilJohn is
sleeping peacefully, Marburg is all happy, everyone else looks a bit grim. Mary
herself is very bitter and angry about her son dying – and this monster is not
her son. Marburg talks about how worthless and empty Mary’s son was – and that
doesn’t exactly make Sebastian happy though he does promise Mary will feel
better
Mary leaves, but first she throws a barb at Anne who is
all wounded that she’s now as bad as the rest of them. They’re all sure that
motherhood will bring Mary on side.
Anne goes home and hears Cotton making noises in her evil
witch blood room. Awkward. Cotton wants to know what she’s done with the boy –
she tries to play “hey ignorance is bliss.” That does work so she has to tell
him that she actually decided to give up a child’s life and damn them all
because of a vague threat against him. Cotton, who is already inclined towards
being dramatic and moping, sets his angst to 11. Anne explains her heritage and
how witchiness runs in the family but she totally loves him while damning the
world.
She tries to argue that she wants to use her power for
good – I would point out that she’s just sacrificed a small boy to the devil so
this argument is kind of laughable. Cotton goes for pointing out the power is
actually from the devil so doing good with it is not really on the cards.
She just wants a chance to show what she can do (in
between the love spells and, oh yes, the sacrificing a small child. In fact,
has she ever actually used her power to do good?). Anne, actually reasonably,
raises using magic in self-defence which he rejects. Cotton decides he has to
go to the Magistrate – so she magically restrains him and imprisons him.
Sebastian tries to get Mary to come play nice with
EvilJohn trying to invoke her unconditional maternal love for the meat puppet
that as once her mother. EvilJohn is all happy and child-like – but Mary is not
fooled, calling EvilJohn not her son but her son’s tomb. When Mary leaves
EvilJohn says he wants true love as befits being a god – Marburg offers saying how
she has never loved anyone else (yes Sebastian is in the room) but Eviljohn is
not interested, like everyone else he wants Mary
It’s Mercy’s turn to play supplicant in front of EvilJohn
– and for people who wanted freedom this involves a lot of kneeling and
averting their eyes. He decides to chew off Mercy’s finger because she took him
from Mary his sainted mother.
Marburg takes Mercy aside with Mercy complaining that she
didn’t get all she dreamed of (to be Marburg’s daughter, to marry Sebastian) though
Marburg points out that Mercy’s wishful thinking promised her all that, not
Marburg – and, hey, Anne is her daughter and also more special than Mercy. Mercy
is furious when Marburg calls her a servant and tries to hit her, declaring she’s
not a slave. That does not go well – she burns Mercy and kicks her out with
many threats to follow.
Mercy resorts to trying to grab an orphan child to use
her blood to heal – and is stopped by Isaac who is still furious about Dolly.
Mercy summons all the men she enchanted surrounding Isaac and the girl – Isaac runs
with the child while Mercy rants tearfully about being a queen.
Now it’s Tituba’s chance to kneel and beg at his feet –
but he frees her in order to banish her from Salem never to be seen again.
Except she’s attacked by demonic ravens as she leave town.
Marburg returns to EvilJohn and now it’s her turn to be
disappointed – see Mary is not just Eviljohn’s mother but also going to be his
Queen and bride because INCEST. Which means Marburg is out in the cold but
still has to follow orders like a servant.
She finds Mary and bitterly summons her to her son’s
side. Mary has some amusement in the fact that John doesn’t want Marburg – then
she locks them both in the church. The church made from the tallest trees in
the forest so you’re in the woods when you’re there. Mary’s woods. She then ets
the church on fire – she’s happy to burn to death if Marburg will as well. And
there’s no way Marburg can threaten her with now since Mary has lost everything
Magical duel in the church!
The fire distracts Sebastian having a drink with his
sister Anne – and it turns out that Sebastian has EVEN MOAR mummy issues since
Marburg has always told him about his super special sister. Anne decides to
intervene in the duel and put out the fires – with tears to quench the flames
(this is after Mary said Marburg never could because she had never shed tears).
Defeated Mary begs them to let her die – Anne refuses, calling it an easy way
out which none of them have.
Sebastian tries to convince Mary to give in and join the
dark side, as he’s long since learned to just keep going. But Marburg has a new
plan – kill Mary and keep her away from her son so EvilJohn will then turn to
her. Sebastian doesn’t agree with the plan – but Marburg insists and Sebastian
agree likes a good boy.
He takes Mary to the woods to kill her and Mary is all
resigned to it, she no longer cares about dying, though Sebastian has all the
sadness; and fakes it instead. She leaves Mary woozy from lack of blood but
also free to find John Alden. And, yes, Sebastian is doing this all for twu luv.
John, meanwhile is all woogy and dying when his happy
Native American woo-woo merchants show up to help him because even when they’re
dead they have to help this White guy. They try to take him to the afterlife (gods
stuck with him for ever?). His body is found by Mary who decides to have his
corpse drink her blood – by the chanting I assume this I resurrection mojo
Marburg tells EvilJohn that Mary is gone by suicide and
gets stabbed in the neck for it. Turns out lying to evil devil kids doesn’t work.
Marburg is brutally stabbed to death and Sebastian runs to her phylactery which
begins the resurrection process. He decides not to speed things up and instead
seals her tomb.
Anne returns to her imprisoned husband and Cotton has
decided that the solution to all of this is to run away. Anne vetoes that – she
doesn’t want to give up her power, she hates that she is so helpless and
ignored as a woman, something he can never possibly understand – and she’s not
going to throw away something so vital that gives her so much power; the power
that allows her to make a difference. Oh, also he doesn’t really love her, she cast
a spell on him – and Cotton is outraged because he DID love her and now she’s
robbed him of that natural love, but she counters she didn’t have the time for
that, no choice for it.
She then forces her familiar down his throat – just as Mary Sibley did to George.
Closing montage of everything being terrible and sad. And
John Alden is alive (see, everything terrible and sad) but Mary may have died
to achieve it for MAXIMUM MANPAN!
I am so frustrated by this show. It tries and hints here
and there about how marginalised and oppressed people are struggling
desperately for any kind of freedom, any kind of agency even enough power to be
safe. We saw it with Tituba and Mary and Mercy and Anne and all of them have
mentioned it at some point in this season and the last – how powerless and
vulnerable and frustrated and abused they were
But it’s only touched on now and then and never developed
– very few of them actually USE magic to achieve this power nor does this power
give them any freedom. Mary throws away any chance of power and decides her
real dream is a very domestic, wife-and-mother one. Tituba rails against
slavery – but even in her magic she is just a slave to another witch. Anne
talks about wanting the power to live out her hopes and dreams but never actually
does that. Mercy is just eternally abused and uses her power only to victimise
those who are even weaker than she.
And what does their power get them? A power which, it is more than implied, requires them all to be raped by demonic forces? Kneeling and lowering their eyes before a boy-child patriarch? Mutilated, banished, enslaved again, cast aside? Marburg – honoured, respected magically might and feared and adored – yet she is aiming to become the lackey of a boyking? Why did they want this? Why did they fight for this? Why did these powerful, passionate rebels then SUBMIT to this?! It’s like they want to make escape from oppression the powerful motive – and it is an extremely powerful one – but never really followed it through
There was even scope to have made an excellent point
about desperate measures forcing people to become what they despise: Mercy
abusing the abused, Anne mirroring Mary with her control of Cotton. But, again,
there’s been so little time actually invested in that.
Anne Hale – this kind of frustrates me as well. Here we
had a chance to make magic a more neutral force or have some ways of using it
that aren’t demonic or evil which would have helped a lot with the depiction of
witches here. It would also help because, as Anne shows, magic and being a
witch can be hereditary as well as a free choice – Anne kills her parents with
magic completely unintentionally and without even knowing she has magic. Anne
has no choice other than to be a witch – which makes her inherently damned. So
they could have worked with that – either show that damnation is not inherent
and you can struggle but he a good witch or show the despair and unfairness of
being inherently damned from birth
But they don’t, not with either. In fact, at no point
does Anne ever TRY to use her magic for good. She never tries to make things better
with her power. We have a lot of her conflict of being forced to do bad things because
of the injustice for the time and terrible people around her but never any
actual good magic from her: so she uses a love spell on Cotton to protect
herself from Hawthorne or she uses magic to kill attackers – but these are all
reactions and trying to turn outright evil or at least scary magic to necessary
protection purposes.
We have the threads of so many ideas but they never
really were developed properly and instead we have a jumble of confused
plotlines that never reach their potential. What was the point of Wainwright? Is
there an actual point with Sebastian and his pining for Mary? What use does
Mercy actually serve this season, why is she even there - and Isaac and Dolly?
Why spend an episode bringing Increase Mather back? Did they even destroy
Marburg’s phylactery or not? Why does Hawthorne just literally disappear for
several episodes when they want to get on with their witchy-woo? As does John
Alden and Tituba – because there’s too many people with too many semi-storylines
none of which actually develop – they just begin then fizzle. Wainwright and
science, Mercy and her own little empire, John and his witch hunting, Isaac and…
anything – fizzle fizzle fizzle. And because we have all this fizzling the real
powerful points they’re trying to make do not get any attention.
Marginalised people – well I’ve laid out how they try to
approach gender on this show – with some references to misogyny and challenging
it but never really following through. Much the same applies to Tituba, she
will, rarely, mention race and slavery and how she has been treated but there’s
no follow through in that, she still serves the Essex Witches, still tries to
bring about EvilJohn who, in the end, kills her. Her seeking power and revenge
just added another set of abusers and enslavers. There remains no LGBT people
in this large cast.
