Setting the theme for the episode – Increase prays by
torturing himself and telling god what a terrible, wretched person he is
Well, Increase finally said something I agree with.
Mercy’s little coven disposes of the body
of the town drunk they killed, they’ve turned Mercy into an almost deified
figure. Mary is also focused on finding Mercy after she threw Tituba to the
wolves last episode – and finds Mercy cowering under her dining room table.
While telling Mercy it wasn’t her decision to make, she crushes a tarantula
lurking under the table as well.
At the Hale household, Anne decides to explore her dad’s
creepy office and finds a creepy mask. She looks through the eyeholes and sees
the forest – and then it latches on to her face. She struggles with it and it
teleports her to that forest. Well, there’s one form of transport- creepy mask
wrestling.
Hale himself is not bothered by Tituba being captured, he’s
sure the awful life she’s lead will ensure she can handle torture and use the
situation to their advantage – Mary is outraged that he is looking for a bright
side to Tituba being tortured.
Increase has turned the brothel into his torture chamber
(the house of pain). Mary speaks up on behalf of Tituba and how she’s not just
a slave, but a friend which Increase takes as further evidence of a bad thing
and considers Mary herself in his chamber – something even Cotton feels the
need to object to. Increase makes it clear he is very suspicious of Mary and
refuses to release George or Tituba. He makes a further comment of Mary living
in George’s house.
In the torture chamber, Increase shows all his evil toys
to Tituba while Cotton, reflecting on how he once pressed a man to death, begs
for a different method also adding just how pointless torture is for getting
the truth. Unsurprisingly, Increase doesn’t care, not even when Cotton points
out he’s using the tools the Inquisition used against Puritans. He tortures
Tituba and Cotton runs, holding his hands over his ears to try and block her
screaming. The torture continues even as Tituba gives up names because Increase
discounts them, basically until he gets the ones he wants, now turning to a
choke-pear, an implement of dubious historical record.
Tituba demands to at least give the reason for why she serves
her masters: Justice. she denies being a witch or a puritan. She says she’s of
the Arawak tribe and describes the horrors and abuses the slavers brought to
her and her people but rather than add any kind of drive of vengeance of freedom,
she adds glowing red eyes that claimed her which Increase naturally calls Satan.
Increase asks when she sold her soul – and she talks
about all the times she has been sold as a slave. And even if Mary treats her
as a sister (since when?) she was still a slave. It was only in the woods
around Salem when she met a blood stained man who was there to “save her, save
all of us.” He gathers all those who hurt. Tituba lashes out with Biblical
quotes, people who were slaves calling out in the wilderness to a god that
answers.
After more torture Tituba again says she won’t give up the leader because she loves them – but Increases asks her, honestly, if she thinks the witches love Tituba as much as Tituba loves them (which is a good hit, given how Mary treats her). She whispers a name to Increase
At the Hale household, Hale and his wife have noticed Anne
is missing and that she put Hale’s mask on – something his wife knows all about
and she is finally willing to stand up to (and slap) her husband over their
daughter. Unfortunately only one person can use the mask at once and Anne has
no idea how to use it to get back – Hale destroys the mask and heads to the
woods himself to find her – and he better or his wife will deliver him to the
pyre herself, even if she ends up burning as well.
Hale decides to recruit John (the writers have realised
his true value to the show and quickly removed all his shirts from the costume department)
to help
Anne is trying to convince herself it’s all a dream and runs into a Native American. Oh… dear… there is no way this is not going to fail.
Interlude for Cotton and his daddy issues. Whatever.
After drunkenly rambling around the woods, he finds a skull the witches have
hung up with a butterfly in it – which he considers the face of god – or possibly
more drunken rambling. Can he be eaten by a Wendigo or something?
Sadly no, instead John and Hale tracking someone erratic
and lost in the woods find Cotton. Who has lost his trousers somewhere. Wisely,
they decide to leave him and his drunken rambling.
John picks up the real trail and they come across the
Native Americans. Who… sniff them. John tells Hale to keep quiet and speaks to
them in their own language (Hale gives horrified outraged-eyed to John for
being a linguist). They saw Anne but left her alone because they thought she
was “crazy” which, to them, is synonymous with holy.
Anne wanders around the forest, in the dark and the rain
until she sits and hears a demonic voice say “at last, you found your way home”. She sees the blood stained man and runs
screaming from him. She’s chased until she runs into John’s arms and the arms
of her father. She gasps “how” several times to her father before remembering
herself and asking how they found her. John himself is astonished at how far
she managed to get in the forest without leaving a trail; she makes up a story
of running into the woods in a fit of petulance and blames her lack of tracks
on the rain.
At Mary’s house, Mary is weeping when Increase arrives. He talks about love, of Tituba’s head witch being her lover and of Tituba realising she was loved less than she loved in turn. Tituba has accused Mercy. He draws out the accusation for a ridiculous long time before leading her outside where they can get a good vantage point for the arrest
Which is when Anne, Hale and John return home to find a torch wielding crowd waiting for them. Tituba has accused John Alden. In her cell, Tituba smiles.
So Tituba finally has her past and her story examined –
turning her into more than Mary’s slave. But it happens during some torture
porn for half of the episode. Which she is, in part, enduring due to sacrifice
for Mary, her owner.
One of the themes Salem has always maintained and it’s
actually something decent they’re exploring, is that the witches (except Hale)
are all people who have been driven to seek power because they are powerless.
Powerless and hurting and lacking any freedom – this has been shown time and
again with the girls and Mercy. In some ways it’s a very powerful message of
the desperation that those who are persecuted so cruelly can be driven to – and
ultimately casts the Puritans as the true villains, especially with Increase’s
arrival. But that doesn’t work for Tituba, because one of the people she is
actively empowering with her magic is Mary, her owner. In fact, even in
witchcraft which everyone else is finding so freeing and empowering, Tituba is
still the slave, still following Mary.
Even outside of Tituba – this vengeful protector the
oppressed are calling upon. wants to death of several innocents before starting
up the dubious and worrisome Grand Rite. While we can say that all of the
witches have faced dire oppression and it’s reasonable for them to seek any
freedom, justice or vengeance, equally the show has shown them as evil. It’s
all well and good for Tituba to talk about people being harried and tortured
simply because they’re “not you”, but then we have to remember Mercy’s torment
and the death of the midwife and Giles.
And this could work. A fictional society where the
tormented and oppressed turn towards dark forces in a desperate attempt for
some kind of protection could be a nuanced, morally difficult and thoughtful
story with lots of food for thought and shades of grey and confronting what we
would do in these situations
But this is not fictional. The misogyny of this time and
place is not fictional. The persecution of the Arawaks is not fictional.
Slavery is not fictional. And the Salem witch trials are not fictional. Tituba
herself is not fictional. These are actual people, an actual time, actual
events and actual oppressions that are being appropriated into this story –
these are actual victims who are having their stories twisted to make them part
responsible or deserving of their fates. This is an actual atrocity that is not
only being used – but then twisted to suggest that, on some level, the Puritans
were right to do what they did.
There’s also a badly mixed message - the idea that “the
witches have a right to vengeance” kind of falls apart when we consider the
deaths they have inflicted. It’s more an almost support for Cotton’s methods
rather than Increase’s. But even then – increase has actually found 2 witches
with his methods, which is far more than Cotton ever did; depending on how
awful the Grand Rite is/could be, could we actually be expected to support
Increase for saving the town/country/world using desperate measures? (A plot line hardly without precedence)
