Wednesday, October 24, 2018

A Discovery of Witches: Season 1, Episode 6






Diana has been captured by Satu. Who can fly - this is apparently a witch thing. And she has been delivered to Gerbert the evil vampire

Honestly, Satu, you’ve got Gerbert the evil vampire and Knoxx the evil witch - you need better friends.

When she arrives Gerbert starts getting all gropy but Satu steps in - she’s her’s first before Gerbert

She then tries to convince Diana she’s a friendly kidnapper, appeal to her witch solidarity (though she seems shaken when Diana reveals her parents were killed by witches before falling back on the witches must have had a good reason) before getting to the core - she wants to see Diana’s power.

And Diana throws some witchwind about but it’s not all that impressive and Satu isn’t going to be moved by it. She tries to frame it as a chance to help - if she teaches Diana magic she can then protect herself from Gerbert and Matthew. Of course Diana objects to the idea she needs protecting from Matthew and Satu’s attempts to convince her that a) Matthew is using her for the book and b) that Matthew killed Gillian are also not exactly convincing

It’s not like Diana even likes Gillian and disparages her as just another puppet of Knoxx’s - just like Satu. Well… she’s not wrong Satu.

Satu keeps magicing at Diana which involves some fire effects, lots of throwing her around and some glowing lines on Diana’s back while she screams and Satu demands to know her secrets. She also has an ominous box

Gerbert is interviewing his headless witch: beware the witch with the blood of the lion and the wolf which will destroy the children of the night. Can someone write this down so she can stop repeating. It. Gerbert would quite like to know whether Diana or Satu is the witch of prophecy (probably Diana I think)

More screaming and woo-woo and Satu collapses, apparently not getting what she wants, so she drags Diana to an oubliette and drops her in (they’re in Gerbert’s ruined castle). Gerbert arrives to demand he be tagged in and Satu needs to get Diana out  - but she can’t. Using woo-woo on Diana has cost her her powers.

Welp, Knox did warn you Satu.

Knox locks her up in a room with the severed witch head which duly freaks Satu out that an ancient powerful witch has been kept in such an appalling condition for so long. The witch is apparently Meridana (THE Meridana - so clearly important) - and Satu borrows some of her magic so she can escape - with the head.

While Diana dreams about her parents who take a long time to explain that to get out of a room with a hole in the ceiling one has to fly

I would say it shouldn’t take this long to explain things to her but given her decision making to date… maybe.

Of course the rest of Team Good Guy aren’t standing around. While Matthew snarls and manhandles his brother Baldwin and even bites him for the actions of the Council, Marthe investigates and discovers a flying witch must be behind the abduction (something Knoxx cannot do). They call Knoxx anyway and he lies and claims Satu is with him - it’s not a convincing lie. But a witch invading vampire lands is justification for a war...


Marthe puts in that flying witches don’t exactly have huge ranges while Sarah and Emily call with some visions that Diana is being held in a ruined castle. Ysabeau pipes up that Gerbert has a ruined castle nearby that really they didn’t think of before now?! Baldwin is all leery at the idea of invading another vampire’s territory and is a witch really worth starting a war over?

Hey, maybe not - but everyone’s treating your territory like it’s a free-for-all Baldwin. If other people’s territory is a big deal you might want to get on that.

The gang take a helicopter and fly to the rescue to face absolutely no opposition at all… which is rather anticlimactic. And yes, Diana learns to fly because of the power of love

Really?

Apart from the sheer saccharineness of it all, SHE HARDLY KNOWS HIM

Back home they all reunite and discover Satu has branded Diana with a gnarly scar which is unpleasant. But Diana also feels better because she’s been unbound… except the only reason witches are bound is when they’re insane or dangerous to others… so who bound her. Diana falls into the classic “I’m a monster!!!!” angst

While Baldwin would still very much not like to drag his whole family into a war over a witch when he’s not that big a fan of witches so could Matthew stop it already. Matthew says no and involves Convoluted Bullshit Plot Contrivance

This Bullshit Plot Contrivance is the Knights of St Lazaraus. Apparently an order their dad led which he passed on to Matthew which once defended the Cathars in southern France during the Albigensian crusade. Which is a nice bit of history - but still kind of weird that the modern Grand Master can just invoke it for any damn reason and expect Baldwin to just obey. Someone needs to check the fine print on that

So Baldwin is heading back to the Congregation fo focus on Satu invading his lands rather than Diana and Matthew schtupping (honestly you’d think he’d do this anyway). And Matthew declares his loyalty to Diana and how he totally should have murdered Gillian. Which she doesn’t object to but she wants to be the one to deal with Satu

Another potential source of help is Agatha from the Daemon congregation - she joins her son Nathaniel and daughter-in-law Sophie so Sophie can explain why it’s so important she get her statue to Diana and why she thinks her visions are so closely linked to her: because Sophie was born of witches

Which is apparently a thing? Sophie is a Daemon but apparently with an entirely witch family? Someone needs to explain to me how Daemons work or what they are or what they do.

This also means her baby by Nathaniel may be a witch and probably is and they didn’t tell the Agatha because she’s congregation and that whole interspecies mating thing which makes ABSOLUTELY NO SENSE is Daemons can literally be born entirely from non-daemon parents and those Daemons can have a witch baby because of 2 of four grandparents… How can you have a society that is totally against interspecies mixing when one of those species just mixes it up every which way?

Agatha is angry - because they didn’t trust her and screw the Congregation, her first loyalty is to her family - and she tells Sophie about Diana

And Satu burns up Meridana’s head to grant her release… she also hears the prophecy. And, I assume, gets her powers back