After their dramatic
fight against Pilgrim, the Widow travels home to find someone hiding in the
boot of her car. It’s Gaius, Baron Chau’s brother
It turns out that
Gaius and the Widow - or Minerva as Gaius calls her - have history. The Widow
was once the abused cog of Gaius’s evil father (who his evil sister pretty much
emulates). Gaius was all kind, evil sister was abusive and Gaius and Widow has
some kind of a thing going on, especially since he rescued her. There’s a
definite connection there
Not that The Widow is
willing to admit this since, as she tells Lydia, she pretty much distrusts all
men since they’ve all been abusive arseholes to her. Lydia can relate but she
also thinks that she needs to trust someone and Gaius is looking trustworthy
The Widow is also not thrilled with Nathaniel not killing Sunny or trusting his assurance that Sunny doesn’t want vengeance
Now that Chau doesn’t
have her own problems because Pilgrim turns up on her doorstep and says he
needs a 1000 workers from her. Or they’ll chop off more heads. The problem is
that Chau doesn’t exactly have a whole lot of people spare given the whole war
thing. Their answer is to send her troops to the Refugee camp and recruit
people with a whole lot of violence
Sunny and Bajie
finally find Ankara, Bajie’s old mentor and Bajie is really not happy. But she
does seem to have a way to temporarily cure Henry - or at least stop him drying
right now. It suspiciously involves drowning the baby but seems to work. But it
is temporary - she says there’s only one way to actually solve Henry’s problem
- take him to see Pilgrim. And she’s super super super excited about Pilgrim
She also does some delving in Sunny’s head - which throws her across the room. It seems he is “the Catalyst” which is ominous but unexplained. He has lots and lots of super Dark One power but has been blocked by some other ominous uber powerful figure when he was a child and my they’re dropping plot hooks galore for the next season.
As Bajie’s mentioned
before, he dedicated his entire life to following her quest for Asra putting so
much time and effort into sending out a signal for Asra which wasn’t answered.
Well Ankara disputes this - it has been answered, apparently by radio using
morse code. Y’know I kind of expected something more mystical than morse code
here… and she now has a message back from Pilgrim. Yes Bajie is the message
that Cressida and Pilgrim have been following. Worse the message Pilgrim is
sending back is full of ominous phrases like “cleansing” which Ankara is super
happy about because she expects the Badlands to be cleansed with chaos
Bajie wasn’t told
that bit of fine print and is super unhappy
His mix of guilt and
loyalty and complex Bajieness means he decides to stick to Sunny as he goes
looking for Pilgrim because no matter what actually happens; Sunny is concerned
about baby Henry
Nyx takes MK to
Pilgrim and Pilgrim and Cressida quickly lay on the love bombing to get him
recruited on side. They offer friendship and understanding and Pilgrim’s clear
ability to control MK’s power: they also are happy to commiserate with his
quest for revenge. He’s quickly hooked in which they’re especially happy with
because MK can go all Dark One without cutting himself.
One person who isn’t
happy about this is Castor who is savvy enough to know his replacement when he
sees it. He gets all agro in MK’s face but backs off when he gets an ominous
nose bleed: especially as he also realises how much more powerful MK is
Pilgrim at least
feels guilty about this, clearly upset by Castor’s decline and even willing to
shout Cressida down who seems more concerned with getting the most out of
Castor’s remaining life while he still is alive.
So Cressida goes
behind Pilgrim’s back and manipulates Castor into giving them one last grand
sacrifice for the cause - going into battle with Chau’s Regent and clippers
attacking the refugee camp
Ok… but why? I get
being ruthless enough to want to get as much from Castor as you can before he
pops his clogs, but surely use him on something useless? Did you really think
Chau needed a Dark One to take on refugees?
He joins the attack
and we finally get some shiny moves with lots of fighting. Odessa and Tilda are
there and they kiss and it’s romantic and I cannot be the only one who thought
that this kiss meant one of them was going to die! Especially when Tilda took
on Castor
But Nathaniel, the
Widow, Gaius and her clippers arrive just as Castor’s Dark One power goes on
the fritz. Chau’s Regent is driven off - he may be able to match Gaius but not
Nathaniel. The Widow brings down Castor but they all decide to retreat in the
face of superior numbers - taking Castor with them
Now will Pilgrim
avenge Castor? Or will he be angry that Castor has attacked his purported ally?
Especially since Castor is…. Expendable
Back with Pilgrim the
recruitment effort continues to convince MK they’re all friends… showing off
his excavation with big shiny speeches and they come back to find Cressida in
some kind of vision painting the wall with blood - she’s painting clipper
marks, which MK informs them of. And he recognises the pattern - it’s Sunny’s
Cressida declares him
to be the catalyst who must be protected… which doesn’t please MK
