After receiving Countess Marburg’s gift, Mary and Tituba
hurriedly use magic to save George’s life. But as they resurrect him, he drowns
again and Tituba despairs at Marburg’s power. Tearfully, Mary tries more
desperate and bloody spells to try and save George before Tituba drags her
away, wailing and crying (is she actually grieving for George beyond just the
power and influence he represents?).
They cannot save him – he is lost, “all is lost”.
In the streets, John follows Anne, using his invisibility
woo-woo, but it is clearly costing him more and more, and covering his skin in worrisome
black lines.
On her ship Marburg chides her son Sebastien for letting Mary
past him – they’re both very impressed by her power. Marburg is also not
willing to consider Mary defeated yet.
In the tavern, Hawthorne celebrates his plan to leave for
the Carolinas and tells grossly crude, sexist and sexual jokes about Anne, the
woman he intends to force to marry him. Cotton takes exception and he talks
about how Hawthorne is supposed to love Anne. Like Anne, Hawthorne finds Cotton’s
insistence that love has anything to do with marriage quite ridiculous – and he
refers to Anne as property before going on for more crude misogyny. Bar fight
time.
All the while Anne wonders if her love spell worked, writing down her actions in her book. Anne seems quite happy to see Cotton brawling with Hawthorne in the street even as Tituba and Mary watch and see what has happened (and confirm it’s the spell that motivated Cotton). Mary hopes Anne’s spell causes Cotton to kill Hawthorne – even as one of Hawthorne’s friends gives Hawthorne a knife. It comes close as Cotton wins and holds the knife – but Anne whispers “you’re no killer” and either by magic or truth, Cotton doesn’t end so many of Mary’s problems. This isn’t Mary’s night
Infuriated, Mary has them both thrown in gaol for
brawling in the street in such a disgraceful fashion.
John staggers back to where he left Petrus’s corpse (why?
Because the script said so) which speaks to him. Yes he’s rotting but still
talking. Corpsy wonders why John can’t bring himself to kill Mary – poking at
his feelings. It’s also possible John is hallucinating Petrus.
The Marburgs arrive in Salem looking very elegant and
rich next to the scabby peasantry – Marburg has come with many supplies to help
the poor beleaguered people of Salem. Mary and Margburg snark a little, they’re
very good at it. Marburg even rubs her face in the death of George.
They go on a little tour of the town and Marburg is quite
bemused and worried that Mary isn’t revelling in the fact she’s about to kill
all these people in the Grand Rite. Mary you have to work on your cackle and
villainous monologue, this just won’t do. Mary dreams of a Utopia, a world
where everything is perfect, Marburg who I can’t help but adore, points out
that “utopia” actually means “no place” and there’s a reason for that. Marburg
instead pictures a glorious future of massacres, world domination and crushed
empires.
She also tries to spin killing George as a good thing – it destroyed Mary’s false confidence, showed her who her true friends are and to show that Marburg is way more powerful and dangerous than her own elders. Of course this means Mary follows Marburg and keeps going – or dies.
She chooses life. Sensible woman. She throws in some flattery and a wish to learn from Marburg as well (sensible indeed). Lesson one is “practice the art of losing gracefully”
Oooooh that’s got to sting.
In the gaol Cotton wakes up from dreaming about sex with
Anne, to Hawthorn declaring how weak and womanly Cotton is for not murdering him.
Marburg arrives just as their screaming obscenities at each other. Marburg
pretty much destroys his plan to run to the Carolinas within 3 minutes of
meeting him. She also pays their fines (indebting them as well).
Her motto: “moderation in all things – including moderation”
is so awesome I may have it made into a plaque.
Back to Anne who is so impressed that Cotton is now all
manly and fighty. And her little magic mouse re-appears despite her killing
him. Apparently Anne didn’t realise the mouse was her familiar before. Ooookay,
she’s not the brightest of witches. Marburg will eat her. Having a familiar
sets Anne on her moral quandary again.
Isaac and Dollie are in hiding from Mercy and Isaac
suggests they run away to the West Indies – because Isaac does have a large sum
of money. Because Isaac is still sick, Dollie has to arrange their escape
She manages to secure passage on Marburg’s ship. They’re all happy and lovey-dovey, right before they’re kidnapped.
Sebastien tries to seduce Mary, showing disturbing
knowledge of all the men in her life while also accurately skewering how each
only saw what they could get from Mary without considering what Mary wanted.
Unlike him of course. He’s cocky, even as Mary let’s a tear fall (for who?) but
he has a magic trick to dispose of George’s body. She’s not impressed – she could
have handled it, but Sebastien having George’s body gives him leverage over her
– which also doesn’t impress her since he’s attempting to “woo” her. Sebastien
continues to be cocky.
Mary, rather desperately, turns to Cotton to follow in
his dead dad’s footsteps and go witch killing, clearly trying to aim him at
Marburg (who Increase once defeated). But Cotton has no insight into how Increase
beat Marburg. So Mary goes to the woods to dig up Increase’s body to get the
truth from him directly.
Cotton goes from there to see Anne, all babbly. His
exuberant emotion seems to make Anne feel more guilty about forcing them on him
and she tries to make him slow down and think on his feelings. He poetically
declares his love for her – and they kiss, and start making out on the table
before Cotton remembers himself and pulls back – “too much, too soon.” Though I
don’t think Anne agrees. He says goodnight. Anne is all gleeful – and her
little familiar has sinister, glowing red eyes.
Marburg next goes to see Mercy – she offers her beauty
and vengeance. Mercy says she cannot possibly trust anyone any more, not after
what has happened to her. But Marburg does some odd things with a pin – which makes
Mercy hesitate.
That night John goes to kill Anne while she sleeps – and Tituba
gets a garrotte around his neck. Snacking on Petrus’s eyes showed her John as
the killer
Marburg takes Mercy to her boat where she has Isaac and Dolly captive. Mercy is shocked to see “her Dolly” tied to the ceiling – but Marburg plans to demonstrate how she will restore Mercy. She is ancient and has suffered her own wounds and scars, but she knows how to restore herself. Dolly begs Mercy for help and Mercy insists Dolly is hers. Dolly tries to draw upon their shared history but it fails because her version of their childhood (they were friends) differs from what Mercy remembers (Dolly was too good for her until Mercy had power).
Marburg puts a tap on Dolly’s neck and pours the blood on
Mercy’s hand – showing how it removes Mercy’s scars and restores her burned
flesh. Mercy steps into Marburg’s bath – and turns the tap on Dolly’s neck
herself.
On Hawthorne’s vile misogyny, yes attitudes like this
were (and are) not uncommon and I’m sure several people are even now chattering
about “historical sexism” but this was grossly unnecessary. His actions have
already made it clear that he is a misogynist forcing Anne to marry and
belittling Mary. We didn’t need this, it adds nothing to his character and him
deciding to be more… publicly decorous (especially as a man vying for
leadership and newly appointed as magistrate) would be equally historically
appropriate. I think history and villain-hood is just being used to be awful
for the sake of it. It didn’t help that Anne’s spell made Cotton’s defence seem
more a spell bound control than his own natural outage.
The one element I do like was Hawthorne joining Anne in
finding Cotton’s insistence on and assumption of love to be naïve
Then we have the sadness of Anne preferring a violent (“manly”)
Cotton – in a show that has done so much to show abused women and how
precarious their lives are in Salem, this just feels pretty bad – but then at
the same time I think we have a hint of how wrong she is by her, basically,
echoing Hawthorne’s (the source of wrongness everywhere) words – and her own
wish that Cotton not be a killer
I also like that Anne and Cotton is being presented as
complex – Anne is being shown as engaging in an evil, albeit desperate, act.
Since we have far-too-often seen sex by deception and various coercions depicted
so generally awful in the genre (Grimm, for example) it’s interesting that the
wrongness is shown here – and that the wrong is clearly imposed by Anne against
Cotton.
While, at the same time, she and Mercy continue to show
what desperation can drive people to which is nicely done.
I think Marburg may underestimate Mary – Mary, after all,
has mastered the art of pretending subservience to a system that grants her no
power or influence at all. She has to swallow insult, she had to endure George.
Mary has done this, she has smiled nicely while having to eat crow – but that
doesn’t mean she isn’t plotting still
And Marburg is awesome. Of course.
