Salem, Season 3, Episode 10: Black Sunday

After last episode everything fell apart because oppressed people with important messages are evil tools of the devil and all women but Mary are terrible.

So how do things change with the season finale? Oh we have some twists, some definite twists.

Firstly catching up on the least relevant characters. John is trying to find and stop the bomb that will destroy the city. While Sebastian is catching up with John to tell him how very much he hates him because Mary loves him because it’s just unfair and he loooooooves her. He decides to kill John and fails to do so despite having lots of evil demon magic, because he just can’t get on with the killing and instead keeps gloating and mocking John and how he totally had sex with the woman John loves until John stabs him in the neck

This fails to actually stop the bomb so it’s time to turn to others to get things done.

So to the Sibley mansion where everything is going down. Baby devil is back and he is prepared to end the world. But first he sends Anne to fetch her husband, unleash her endless bitterness on him by offering him a choice

As we saw when Baby Devil was killed, the magic of sacrifice is majorly powerful. So Baby Devil offers Cotton a deal: he can willingly enter hell, willingly sacrificing his soul which would give baby devil enough power to unleash his evil future without having to annihilate the entire town

Personally I kind of think the world is ending anyway so giving the people of Salem a few days extra before they all ended isn’t that useful.

But Cotton will do it for the sake of good people and for Glorianna and for the chance to forgive Mary and give one last searing put down to Anne. He’s also relieved – his evil dad had repeatedly told him he was going to hell and he was worried that this meant he was going to commit some terrible crime. Knowing he is going to hell because he chooses so means he’s still a good man – this matters to him.

And would be a fascinating insight of a genuinely good man if it weren’t for all the women he had murdered as witches. Or there was the woman he got pregnant and then pretty much aided and abetted her banishment. Or there was him serving his evil father in his murder spree. Let’s face it, there’s a few sins here that even a relatively benevolent god is probably going to at least tut or wag a finger or something

Anyway, Cotton goes to hell and Baby Devil becomes Adult Devil who is a lot sexier but also played by the same guy who played the angelic televangelist on The Messengers which is absolutely hilarious to me

This is also why John et al aren’t burned by the bomb going off – Baby Devil got a new option.

Salem, Season 3, Episode 8: Friday's Nights

Mary is getting her troops in line for phase two of her master plan

And I‘m going to take a moment to praise this. Here we have a strong female character who is, probably, the least powerful of any of them. She isn’t wielding her husband’s influence and name. She isn’t drawing on her wealth. She isn’t using her mighty dark magic. She isn’t a secret samurai navy seal and she doesn’t have a great big axe and nuclear weapon under her skirt

But she is the mightiest, most dangerous and impressive character in these two episodes because of her intelligence, her skill, her determination and her practicality.

You see this from the very beginning when she gathers all her people: Cotton, Sebastian, John and Isaac. Well they kind of just recap Isaac on the whole end of the world thing but he’ got his own stuff going on which is way way way more important than the world ending, anyway. He does make a plea that the people are what matter so why don’t they just abandon the town – but John points out around the town is dangerous. Also releasing demons everywhere is also kind of not a localised event

John and Sebastian are all snarly at each other because JEALOUSY but Mary, being awesome, is focused on task and thinks all of this relationship nonsense can wait until after they’ve stopped the actual world ending, damn it guys.

John tells them about the angel killing dagger that Tituba had him make. Cotton reveals that he has something of a connection with the Sentinel (baby devil’s brother) and may be able to lure him into a hidden place so John can do the stabbing. Unfortunately he’s already got rid of the Red Mercury world-ending stuff and he’s handed it over to the barber/serial killer/pathologist/cannibalism (a combination of professions which may be the Worst Ever) so they need to find that. Sebastian knows where this is so it really really would be time for him to step up and prove his worth but no he’s having a “Mary doesn’t love me” tantrum. More reasonably he’s also having concerns that John fully intends to kill him at some point so he’d quite like to be integral to the plot rather than pass on his useful knowledge and then suddenly being surplus to requirements. Which isn’t wrong

Mary, being suspicious, wants to check in on Tituba and wonder why she’s conveniently handing out angel killing daggers but not using them to kill Baby Devil. Tituba is quick to dance round it – and hide the fact she is the one who stole Baby Devil’s body. Curses Tituba, I wanted to back you – but no matter what he promised apocalypse isn’t worth it!

Salem, Season 3, Episode 7: The Man who was Thursday

The battle against the darkness continues – with Mary lining up her forces.

Sebastian is awful and continues to continue to sexual assault his way into Mary’s affections, kissing her after she said no and generally convinced they can still live happily ever after despite him forcing her to have sex in front of her true love, her totally not being into him oh and her not being able to leave Salem.

He insists it’s not so and he’ll prove it by teleporting her miles away from Salem… and nearly killing her. Oops. Sebastian needs to start listening. Or dropping dead. But it’s a shame he’s still needed – and she keeps aiming him firmly against Baby devil – and having him go to the Essex witches for him

One piece in hand.

Next step is Cotton. Cotton doesn’t like her, this is true but Mary is able to cut threw his righteous objections with some simple practicality. It helps that the house has the new in feature for modern interior designers – a doorway to hell. Behind which is Cotton’s dad, the not-even-remotely-lamented Mather senior who urges his son to say “yes” since defeating the devil is a great idea. Thankfully, all Mary asks him to do is deliver a message to John because he has a pregnant life: this is the theme of the episode. Despite the world about to end, everyone is super worried that Cotton’s unborn baby and doesn’t want him to endanger himself or his evil wife. Never mind the upcoming apocalypse.

He does confirm that Red Mercury is terribad awful and cannot be stopped and has been used to destroy cities by an angry god in the past. Just in case we didn’t get it.

He delivers the letter to John – and then reads it (it seems John can’t read) which is basically Mary’s confession that, yes, she’s totally having sex with Sebastian. But only because she’s trying to use him. It also comes with an epic plea for perspective – yes she may be shagging Sebastian. But if it works and the world is saved they’ll have many many many years in which to get over that. If it doesn’t work? Well they’ll all be burning anyway so who cares?

Oh and John’s like the only one who isn’t all pro Cotton’s baby: because his witch kid turned into the devil. That will make you a convert to birth control.

After letting John know what she’s doing but not asking him to do anything (because she’s totally got this in hand), Mary goes on to poke Baby Devil’s evil brother with more hints that baby devil wants to become the next god, totally in control and she and evil brother will just be servants. She also undresses in front of him which seems to be her basic method. Which is a bit weird since he’s already made it clear he doesn’t care for humans and is actually made of insects. Still the whole servile thing has definitely pushed his buttons since his whole rebellion from god was all about freewill.

Her pieces nicely lined up she has Sebastian go to Baby Devil to report that Mary is about to betray him with the Essex witches and he should totally run into the woods almost alone to confront her.

Salem, Season 3, Episode 6: Wednesday's Child

This episode has everyone splitting off in different directions. I will start with what’s the most important to the plot though not necessarily on everyone’s high priority list. Because Salem.

John is definitely worried about this, having dispensed with bizarre plot distraction Bob, has returned to town, got patched up by the serial killer/cannibal/barber/meat pie vendor and warns Hathorne that the French of weapons of mass destruction. So basically all the defences of Salem are pretty much moot and what he needs to do now is set up defenders long outside of town so any big explosions are happening waaay in the countryside.

Since this seems to be the extent of his plans, it’s perhaps reassuring that the French are not even remotely involved in the blowing-up-Salem plan (what, another plot which is going to be abandoned?) and it’s actually going to come from inside the town: or so says Sebastian to Mary

And why is he telling Mary? Because while other people really really really want to stop Salem being annihilated Sebastian is busy pulling petals off posies “she loves me, she loves me not, she loves me, she loves me not” and mooning after Mary while disturbingly feeding blood to his zombie mother. He demands Mary love him while Mary asks him to please please please focus on the evil demon child who wants to destroy the world, Sebastien is far more concerned by the fact she loves John Alden and he’s totally jealous and it’s so unfair.

Sebastian, go write some sad poetry and take up moping already.

Mary tries kissing him but eventually has to have sex with him in front of John’s magically frozen self to prove to Sebastian that she totally wants him honest. This whole thing reeks of rape, Sebastian is basically ransoming the entire town’s (the town Mary can’t leave) future if she doesn’t sleep with him. But hey this creepy slimy rapist got her some pretty gowns guys

Baroness Marburg is still a zombie but she assures Sebastian she can totally handle Baby Devil. Lucy Lawless, save us!

Mary and John do use Tituba to have a reunion, lots of declarations of love with Mary laying down lots of epic lines about how she is damn powerful and awesome and totally doesn’t need her powers to be the strongest damn woman on the planet. I feel she needs to borrow Isaac’s waif to scream “You Go Girl!” in the background.

We also learn a little about magic – namely that the Essex Witches and their magic and their big epic tree has nothing to do with the devil or demons or anything – it’s Women’s magic, natural magic and my gods WHY has no-one mentioned this before in 3 seasons? And are we going to talk about how this natural magic is happy to embrace demon contracts? Does this change how power is expressed? What does this mean! You waited until season 3 for this, Salem

Anyway the actual point of this awesome bit of world building is that Mary is still bound to Salem so she just can’t run away with John and abandon everyone to fiery doom.

Salem, Season 3, Episode 3: The Reckoning

After failing to kill her demon offspring, Mary Sibley is now facing horrendous mangly death at the hands of Baby Devil’s new sidekick.

But Baby Devil still wants his mother to hang around for some reason. Devil affection apparently. Evil Sidekick is not amused and wants lots of death and awful. He’s also not even beginning to accept “trust me” from Baby Devil because he totally did that once, got lots of angels to rebel against god and they ended up in hell. So kind of a bad record on the trust department. Also humans are icky

Baby Devil responds with “hey they got wine.”

See, I’m all for believing that alcohol is amazing but I think Baby Devil is overselling the power of booze here. Baby Devil also pushes this home by punching Evil Sidekick in the groin to remind him humans can feel all kinds of pain

So Evil Sidekick locks Mary away in a magical box.

Salem is rocked by terror when they hear a huge bang and the sky turns red. This is not the early invention of fireworks but clearly Bad Things are afoot. John Alden, being John, wants to take his half trained soldiers into the woods to find this bad thing and maybe save any refugees. While designated bad guy decides they shouldn’t risk the soldiers who should be defending the town exploring possible threats and, instead, they should risk them by turning them against the influx of refugees and cause a riot because why not.

John ends up going off alone accompanied by hero-worshiping soldier who is probably a cis woman pretending to be a man but may be more than that I am calling Bob. Due to the ambiguity of Bob’s gender identity I am going to use third person pronouns until I am more sure about how Bob identifies. Bob worships the ground John walks on and he’s determined to destroy poor Bob’s dreams by saying what a terribad awful person he is. Of course part of this could be the reasonable rejection of the terrible ballad someone has written about him.

What they do find is a town completely burned to ash, zombie Native Americans (to repeat what I said before – NO NO NO NO. No, really, no. Please no. Let us not have this show with no real Native American inclusion have a whole lot of evil mindless Native monsters controlled by white men because no no no. No. Noooo. No no no. And, again. NO).

He also sees that Sebastian is still evil and doing evil because shock, horror, he’s evil. I know this is shocking. He also has some little jewel which is apparently super scary and awful which Evil Sidekick has a big menacing back story for. What this gem does, I have no idea. But it’s ominous

Back to the town and we continue to have the debate about immigration and refugees because the writers team has decided it’s topical

Look, again, I am no expert but I still have my doubts as to how appropriate this is for the time period. Yes, fear of the outsider is pretty much a bigotry that goes as far back as human kind has been able to recognise the difference between “me” and “you”, but these refugees, by all account, are other English colonists from other English colonies. Why is this agrarian society with no real shortage of land (especially since witch and plaguey shenanigans have depopulated the town considerably) looking at this influx of people as a terrible scourge rather than “excellent! More labour!”

Salem, Season 3, Episode 2: The Heart is a Devil

Zombie Mary rises from the grave, righteously pissed at everyone, especially Tituba. Because Mary has always given Tituba way more grief than she deserves

The other Essex witches inform Mary what’s happened – she’s been bought back to kill the devil who will enslave them all and make up for what she did wrong. Mary, at least, isn’t having that and rightfully points out all of them are responsible for this and she’s definitely not playing scapegoat. Still only she can kill devil child because Motherhood (apparently) and she’s now bound to Salem forever… so hell may be preferable

She’s still obsessed with John which means Tituba can get her onside by showing her a future with John dead. Yup, the world may die but what she cares about is John – and off she goes for a brief sexual reunuion. John has questions – especially since he and Sebastian are still snarling at each other over who is responsible for Mary’s death – but is willing to shelve them because Sex. The next morning Mary opts to magically send him to sleep rather than explain so she can catch up with Baby Devil

Remember John was spared by Hawthorn last episode because they need him to train a militia? Well he’s not exactly getting on with that, partly because he has very real, scathing views at the idea of war as glorious. Tituba astrally projects her way to him to remind him that he did shoot someone last week who didn’t die and that, maybe, just maybe, this war could be supernatural so could he get on with the soldier training already so they don’t all die.

As she points out, she must save the world through 2 stubborn fools who only want to save each other. Tituba is too good for this

Of course, since we’re talking devil children and the man who didn’t die when John shot him was Native American I believe we’re in for a horrible story of demonic native American “savages” against good Christian settlers.

John finally begins the training and we’re introduced to a new character who is clearly worshipping John and desperately wants to help fight – and is able to sucker punch him so, skills, I guess. This character is also either a trans-man or, more likely given it’s Salem a woman pretending to be a man to get in on the fighting. I don’t know where this storyline is going but I am slightly bemused that this show seemed to think this was big surprising reveal at the end of the episode.

Tituba gets herself a set of cat’s eyes that let her spy through the cat because relying on these guys? Yes, she’s definitely going to need to keep an eye on things

Isaac has still decided he’s the hero of the slums, investigating murders – in this case the man who Mercy killed for pimping out his niece. He is playing hero to the people but literally no-one cares about this man’s death or has a good word to say. Also, question question what is Isaac living on? I mean, he seems to have no gainful employment but is doing well for himself – so where’s the money coming from? Did I miss something?

Salem, Season 3, Episode 1: After the Fall

So last season loads of people seemed to die – far too many for it to actually stick without a reboot. So now the question is, who has woo-woo saved?

We also open with insects and filth and yuckiness just to remind us how terrible everything is.

First let’s catch up with Sebastian and the witches who have decided absolutely everything is awesome. Young John the Baby Devil is now in charge and makes it clear to all these witches that he is their new dictator and will murder everyone who doesn’t bow and scrape before him

Let us call this a final death knell to the original awesome concept Salem had. The idea that we had all of these extremely oppressed, helpless and suffering women who turned to magic and evil because they had literally no other choice, it was their only chance for power, for freedom and even for survival. The only chance to escape their suffering.

And now? They’re being as brutalised and more by their god than they ever were by being oppressed in Salem. Oh and the power of the witches briefly was held by Countess Marburg, a woman with so much wealth and class privilege it seemed even the misogynists of Salem were willing to kneel to her. And now it rests in the hands of Baby Devil (a very rich, white boy) and Sebastian (a very rich straight white man). We’ve not just abandoned this theme but we’ve jumped up and down on it and then ground it into the dirt to ensure it can never live again.

Sebastian isn’t happy though because Mary is dead and he’s super sad about this and drinking her blood doesn’t make up for that (of course they’re drinking her blood because why not, it’s Salem)? He’s also keeping Marbug’s body in her coffin and not helping resurrect her – so I do hope Lucy Lawless will be back at some point. Because Lucy Lawless.

Tituba is another person who is still alive – but blinded by the birds last season tearing out her eyes. Speaking of eaten eyes, last season Tituba chowed down on the seer Petrus’s eyes (because this is Salem and we have more people eating disgusting things than the average I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here series) which means now, blind, she’s inherited that seery power. Using that seer power she can see that the world is officially fucked. Apparently summoning and releasing the devil is a Bad Thing and everything is now going to shit and absolutely no-one signed up for this.

More, the only way they can stop this is with Mary Sibley. Unfortunately, Mary was killed last season and we’ve already seen John bury her. Luckily magic means death can only be a brief issue. Though it’s apparently super unadvisable to bring back the dead, probably less so than letting the Devil end the world.

Salem, Season 2, Episode 13: The Witching Hour

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.

Salem, Season 2, Episode 12: Midnight Never Come

John got himself all stabbed last episode and Sebastian makes a desperate stab for the creepy by saying how much he loves seeing women bleed to death but men bleeding to death just isn’t his thing. Yup, he just felt the need to have a “no homo” moment over a man bleeding to death and/or wave his misogyny flag. Either way, it fails to make the manchild achieve creepiness because this show has completely overwhelmed all creepy meters with all the flesh and eyeball eating. Watching someone bleed to death is just pase now.

John isn’t all that inconvenienced by his knife wound and uses his Naïve-American-woo-woo invisibility bag to run around stabbing people (who decide to just stand there and be utterly horrified by this display of magic despite, y’know, magic everywhere) like a more stabby Harry Potter.

Sebastian, being a powerful wizard, runs away.

Of course John is now stabbed AND woo-wooed with nasty black lines all over him so he’s not doing so well

Cotton arrives on the scene to help John (who is not dead) and patches him up and tells him not to worry because his kid’s with Anne Hale who is so sweet and wonderful. John is less than thrilled since he knows Anne is a witch. Cotton is convinced this is nonsense after all, Anne Hale is now Anne Mather – his wonderful wife. Cotton wants to hear it from Anne himself despite John thinking it’s suicidal. John calls Cotton a good man which is TV speak for “suicidal damn fool who is too stupid to live”

Turns out I was wrong last episode, John Junior is in the hands of the real Anne Hale, not Marburg in disguise. She is just being creepy and odd so we don’t know which side she’s actually working for. She takes little John to her house (is every room in Anne’s house spattered with blood? Is this just a decorating choice for Anne now? Does she come in one day and decide the living room would be improved with more brain matter smeared around the lintels?). John junior tells her about his miserable childhood and Anne is just terrible at comforting frightened sad children with dangerous demonic magic.

Anne goes to Marburg to wetly declares she is loyal to Cotton and she would never betray his trust and hand over the child. But, revelation, Marburg knew Anne’s dad and sent him over the sea to find somewhere safe to raise their daughter. Yup, Anne Hale is her daughter of Marburg – maybe the water magic Marburg has mastered explains why Anne is so very very soggy.

Salem, Season 2, Episode 11: On Earth as in Hell

Mary Sibley has been accused of adultery and is ritually humiliated in the town square and the stocks. He sentences her to be stripped of all possessions and no surname – calling her names that of her husband and father. I don’t know if it’s intentional, but Mary seems virtually bored by the whole proceedings.

Marburg and Sebastian hunt, magically extract information and then murder the Native Americans who gave John his woo-woo. Well they played a huge role, providers of woowoo then murdered

She then goes to taunt Mary but I can see it working against Marburg as Mary hits back that she’s happy to suffer to protect her son – unlike the countess (hey there Sebastian!) Unwisely, Mary talks about how the kid’s going to be exorcised, revealing her plans. Marburg is sure exorcism will kill the boy

John and Cotton are preparing to exorcise evil devil child which, inevitably, reveals that John is the father of said evil devil child. Oh and Cotton seems to agree that the kid will die. While Cotton wanders off to wrestle with the godly implications, evil child tries to convince John to loosen his ropes. Cotton returns before John does so – John has also forgotten the black eyes and evil voice and argues that his son is a normal boy. Well he never was the smartest cookie. Cotton tries to prove his point by making John junior recite the Lord’s Prayer which he can’t do without great pain - John objects, completely missing the implications of his kid not being able to repeat Cotton’s words until the kid goes all demonic again.

I think that was slightly more convincing.

Back at the Marburg’s ship, Sebastian mopes mightily about how much his mother doesn’t care that much about him and she is kind of disappointed that she didn’t get to kill him. Then there’s the playing second fiddle to Marburg forever more and, later, to Possessed baby John. He’s a very pouty evil witch and he’s completely fixated on precious precious Mary looking awfully mopey and angsty. She dramatically uses a wonderfully elaborate “plenty of fish in the sea” but now, twu lub has struch Sebastian.

She tells him to grow up and kicks him out. As ever, I agree with Marburg.

Back to Cotton who wants John to light candles so he can rouse his beast (the show makes that line much less innuendo filled than I just did). Marburg uses woo-woo to seduce/horrify/something

Salem, Season 2, Episode 10: Till Death Do Us Part

Marburg bathes child John the sacrifice while singing creepy drowning songs and preparing him to be properly killed. Baby John wants his mother, but Marburg is all for the drowning so she can reunite with her beloved master. She also kisses the boy – full on the mouth… seriously that’s the second time this child has kissed sexually, how the hell is the network getting away with this on a child actor?

Cotton has been dragged out of town and now realises that shenanigans are afoot. He doesn’t get murdered because John rushes in and murders his would be murderers. Cotton is a little bemused as to how John even found him but John responds cryptically either to hide the fact he used magic or to hide the dodgy writing. John wants Cotton to exorcise his son of the devil so he boy is saved, the witches are thwarted and Marburg will just kill them all in a grand wave of awesomeness (ok the last part may be my plan).

After briefly considering just killing the boy (also my plan) Cotton agrees to help with the exorcism while John expositions how he’s basically hooked all his hopes/redemption/struggle/whateveron his son surviving and not being a demon.

Mary plans to use a special spell to allow her to reach the ship while with Marburg so she can break what makes Marburg immortal and then John can get with the stabbing.  They also have a big angsty romance moment which may be them looking to reconcile or grim John planning to kill Mary. Or both

In the church, Magistrate Hawthorne rants away (everyone’s still freaking out about the comet) and there’s friction between the Marburgs as Sebastian is increasingly seeing his mother’s plan as not necessarily in his best interest. Mary joins them in church to convince Marburg that she’s on board with kiddy sacrifice with Marburg drawing comparisons between Mary and the Christian Virgin Mary watching their kids be sacrificed (and throwing in some criticism of old Mary’s mousiness while reminding us that Marburg is super-duper old). They’re also still a little snarly at each other.

Sebastian is all pouty and jealous at Mary who is not impressed, making it clear how little she gives a damn and how she’s not going to flirt with a man who is dedicated to another woman – his mother. He also pretends he was totally on her side in killing her friend Wainwright because he is a distraction. Ahhh smell that paternalism. He continues to promise he’s totally Team Mary

Hawthorne continues to stalk and intrude on Anne to tell her that Cotton has been killed, by Native Americans honest and how she should totally marry him before his body gets cold. Which is when the very alive Cotton appears to accuse Hawthorne of murder. Cotton seems to have found a spine somewhere as he slams Hawthorne against a wall and threatens to expose him as a murderer before the bigwigs in Boston. Hawthorne hurriedly leaves.

Salem, Season 2, Episode 9: Wages of Sin

Mary and Wainwright are enjoying themselves immensely and can’t wait to get all cosy with the dark powers. Except first he has to burn all his work since it leads to Mary. He’s not a lover of that but he agrees since it does actually implicate her and she would be horribly murdered for it

He burns his work – and the Malum. I’m sure that’s going to back fire. Do not put evil artefacts in the fire! That’s worse than fireworks

Mary begins the day by being vile to Tituba and going to her kid – and finding evil kiddy John is missing, instead there’s a smug countess Marburg. Hey there’s an upside, every morning should begin with Lucy Lawless.

She points out that evil child is evil and intended to be an epic sacrifice to the dark lord and how wonderfully honoured Mary should be to kill her kid for the greater bad. Marburg totally wanted to kill Sebastien but, alas, it wasn’t to be. She gives the tearful Mary a choice – sacrifice her kid (tomorrow on sacrifice day) or Marburg will kill him, bathe in his blood and wait for the next time round

Marburg is not impressed by Mary’s reluctance towards this honour

Cotton is drunk (how very shocking) and gets a visit from the endlessly annoying and amazingly not dead Hawthorn who, having heard that the powers that be have banished Cotton from Salem, has Cotton kicked out. He quickly talks about the witches and hell and having proof – and insists that Hawthorne speak to Wainwright and be told they need Cotton to stop hellish witches killing them all. Because Hawthorne respects Wainwright’s opinion now?

Of course Wainwright has been nobbled and hangs Cotton out to dry. Cotton is not a happy preacher. Cotton does manage to demand they all go to the Crags to see the hell tar and Hawthorne agrees. Of course while the dead birds are still there, the crags are just a pit full of bodies, not a hell portal. They witches have been covering up – Cotton now doubts his own senses and looks a lot like a drunken fool. Even Wainwright is a little surprised. Hawthorne is not impressed and Wainwright is nicely condescending in trying to defend him. Cotton rages at Wainwright and is dragged away

Sebastien goes to Mary with lots of creepy talk of how he wants her – Mary clearly sees this as a deal, she sleeps with him and he returns her son. When Wainwright arrives, Sebastian presents himself as Mary’s utterly trusted confidante and telepathically tells Mary to play along – for the sake of her son. He also presents himself as Wainwright’s mentor (Wainwright is utterly awed by the glamour that hid the hellgate) since Mary can hardly be seen spending lots of time alone with Wainwright. Mary goes along with it – seeing it as a trade, Wainwright for her son.

Salem, Season 2, Episode 8: Dead Birds

Cotton is all traumatised by the visit of his ghostly daddy when increase disappears – and reappears in Mary Sibley’s chambers. She didn’t bring him back to play Ghost of Christmas Daddy Issues. Increase starts to haggle, he will tell Mary the Countesses weakness, but he wants to speak to Cotton.

She agrees – but wants the info first. Countess Marburg is super-duper ancient and super-duper powerful and all gung-ho to bring Lucifer (possibly her lover) from Hell. She has been killed in innumerable grisly and inventive ways but she keeps coming back from the dead. He stopped her Grand Rite when she hid among refugee children using magic to appear as one of them – he solved that by simply slaughtering all the kids because he’s that kind of guy (and it’s that same disregard of life that let May use him to make her own sacrifices). When he killed her he left his hand print on her shoulder even as she burned his hand

The key to her immortality is the box that held her remains. But he won’t tell her where it is without speaking to Cotton and, annoyingly, he points out he literally has nothing to lose so there’s a limit to how much Mary can compel him to obey.

Mary plays mother to her evil offspring for a bit, drying his tears and giving him coloured chalks to play with – until she finds the pile of dead birds in his bed. The evil child claims they just come to him. Uh-huh. Might I suggest a high window for the child to play in front of?

Tituba thinks he should be watched at all times. I’m sticking to the high window. Tituba expresses her not very sincere concern for the evil boy and Mary, as is her habit, snarls at her and gives her laundry to do. Tituba actually seems really upset after Mary snaps at her.

She goes to her chained up John to say they’ve both been betrayed but the same woman. And John, ridiculously, asks why Tituba even serves Mary. Tituba reminds John that she’s a slave and that doesn’t actually come with a choice. Though she plots as well. She was happy to work with the Essex witches to kill Puritans because they slaughtered her people – but it’s clear they never accepted her and with Mary’s anger and spite, she doesn’t think Mary loved her either. She was just used by them. While groping and molesting John she talks about destroying both the witches and the puritans. She cuts his bonds and they have sex –until partway through she morphs into Mary. He tells her no and to go to hell – and Tituba hits him then slams him to the floor with magic.

And creepy evil child, unsurprisingly, draws super creepy evil drawings. Super super creepy. Seriously, high window time Mary. Or a well, a well will do.

Tituba sees the pictures and surprisingly isn’t creeped out by them, but is angry that the child is drawing important secrets and burns the drawings which annoys evil child – and birds start bludgeoning themselves to death against the window. Did I mention the child is creepy and should probably be drowned in a well? Tituba quickly backtracks and plays nice with the evil child. When Tituba leaves, he tells someone they can come out

Salem, Season 2, Episode 7: The Beckoning Fair One

Mary summons Increase Mather back from the dead (of course the spell is disgusting, this is Salem). He’s not a happy zombie and she does quite like tormenting him and controlling him, feeding him blood to give him speech (well there’s strong mythology behind that). He wasn’t surprised to be sent to hell because he’d always done evil things for the greater good because he’s just that noble. It’s appropriate that a man so arrogant is tormented in hell by himself.

They do have common cause when it comes to opposing Marburg and, as well as revealing that Increase will know if Marburg is the witch her fought he also tells Mary about an artefact that is responsible for her long life. Not that he will tell her what it is.

Speaking of, Marburg hails Mary’s many achievements, including the witch pox turning blood into hell portal fluid (or something) and generally being very impressed by the evil awesomeness that is Mary. Of course they’re both so fake you can almost see the second face – but Mary invites Marburg and her son to dinner so the whole town can see how she is supported to try and make up for the loss of authority due to George’s inconvenient death. She goes on to play with Sebastian and convince him to destroy George’s body in exchange for implied sexual favours.

Tituba has John all imprisoned in a spikey room of shirtlessness. In between lots of sexual groping and licking she reveals she has plans to use John against witches; oh and that she saved him from Anne, not the other way round.

Anne faces the dilemma of casting a love spell on Cotton and, therefore, not knowing whether his love is real. And Marburg appears to instruct Anne on the proper feeding of one’s familiar (through a witch mark). Marburg is also not pleased that Anne squealed about her to Mary and in recompense she demands that Anne steals her father’s book of shadows.

Marburg returns to Sebastien to explain a bit more – she needs to know if Mary has some nebulous thing (I’m betting on her son) to complete he evil dark rite of evilness. She also plans to kill the whole Hive of witches of course – and a newly restored Mercy is eager to get in on that action. Marburg also plans to use Mercy to lure children for blood sacrifice (much to Sebastian’s jealousy)

She starts by luring a small girl from a brutal sweat shop spinning factory.

At the Sibley household, Tituba and Mary snarl back and forth, as ever, and Mary refuses to let Tituba take her son to the woods to keep him safe. Mary continues to act like Tituba has terribly wronged and betrayed her.

Salem, Season 2, Episode 6: Ill Met by Moonlight

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.

Salem, Season 2, Episode 5: The Wine Dark Sea

Countess Marburg and her son continue to be creepy and incestuous and they speak ominously of a “true consecration” which Mary must finish for the Grand Rite. The countess is all very impressed by Mary. They’re finally heading to Salem. She also has a terrible rotting skin condition which she bathes in blood to cure - lots of Bathory connections of course.

At the Sibley household we have more from the creepy son and Tituba being duly snarky about Mary playing slave with Dr. Wainwright. Hawthorne is plotting against Mary again, so she enlists her abused husband again - forcing him to beg and grovel.

John has tied up Cotton and is having a proper temper tantrum even as the woowoo he has is clearly not doing him good. Cotton is not impressed by him ripping up all of his books and is rather concerned by whatever has happened to John and the dark woo-woo ravaging him. Cotton does get the chance to tell John how much Mary loves him which probably doesn’t help matters

Anne has her mousey familiar and she’s all Disney with it. Hawthorne interrupts her before she can burst into song to force his way into her home to try and to poke her into accepting his protection again. He pushes that by mentioning witch rumours against her (after her magically attacking a guard outside of town) - and pushing her to marry him. He doesn’t even try to be subtle - she marries him or he has her accused as a witch.

Anne goes to see Mary and finds the creepy son who is very very very creepy. Mary isn’t impressed by Anne’s plight - she tells her to marry him. The way for a woman to be safe in this world is to marry a powerful man, just as she did. Anne continues to refuses so it’s plan B - marry Cotton. Sure Cotton has kind of crashed and burned, but he’s still from two very powerful families. This is much more to Anne’s liking - though Mary cynically informs her she must use magic to make him as the question since he won’t (he loves Glorianna, his books, his booze and his self-pity - which is a pretty scathing but accurate description). She instructs Anne in the love spell. She uses Anne’s need to make her tell Mary all she knows about the Countess

That done she goes to see Cotton who answers the door at John’s knife point; she wants his advice on whether to marry Hawthorne and accept the safety and security he offers. He mentions love which she points out is pretty irrelevant given the circumstances. She also goes for a kiss - he’d probably be more poised about all this if it weren’t for the knife sticking into his back. Well since that didn’t work it’s spell time.

Anne goes home and justifies herself for why she has to spell Cotton even though she knows it is wrong. She sacrifices her little mouse familiar for the spell - sacrificing something she loves. She then tenderly buries the mouse - and is watched by Joh doing so.

Salem, Season 2, Episode 4: Book of Shadows

Mary is rather disturbed that she was magically attacked in her own bath as she shares with Tituba. Tituba naturally assumes it’s the same person who killed Corwin – though Mary realises the attacker didn’t want her dead since if they did she would be. She also turns her suspicion on Tituba (and assumes it’s a Hive member attacking her) though Tituba insists she’s always done what was best for Mary (ok that’s a little bit of a stretch). She does point out that she always gave great advice – to kill Mercy and Anne – especially since Anne is becoming a super witch.

Mary, of course, rather ignores her and instead tells Tituba to see the seer Petras for answers.

She finds his body (John killed him) so decides to eat his eyes. Because Salem.

The plague is still ravaging the town and John uses a plague doctor’s mask to go around unnoticed. He releases those locked up under accusations of witchcraft and leaves Corwin’s body in their place. The return of Cotton is much more noticed - he is quickly seen by the new magistrate, Hawthorne. Hawthorne is a not a fan of Cotton and the feeling is mutual.

The drunken Cotton goes on to meet Wainwright who takes a moment to mock the study of pointless theology before belatedly remembering his manners. Once he’s polite he and Cotton can geek about the Royal society – though Cotton is a little sad and mortified to hear everyone thought the evidence he presented of a witch-malformed foetus was supposed to be comic. Poor Cotton though he still insists the disease is a witch pox

Wainwright does tell Cotton that he thinks Isaac was the first person afflicted by the plague (and is duly derisive of Isaac being branded as a fornicator) only to find Isaac missing from his sick room. Isaac has left his stuff behind, including a large sum of gold and the Malum (much to Cotton’s horror). Wainwright isn’t interested in babbling about witches and focuses on developing his inoculation

Isaac is now being held by Mercy as part of her vengeance campaign against Mary. Whatever she has planned for Isaac involves a sharp knife – and makes Dolly cringe and apologise to him. She begs Mercy to stop as she cuts and abuses Isaac, pointing out that Isaac is one of them - one of the abused and abandoned of Salem. Mercy just hits her – she beats her until Isaac begs her to stop.

Meanwhile Mary drags in Anne to an interview to scold her about her uncontrolled magic and make it clear other witches think she should kill Anne. But she offers her training instead – to become an “ally” (or pet) rather than a rabid, uncontrolled animal. The first step of that involves Mary groping Anne while she imagines Cotton doing it. She also gives Anne her Book of Shadows – her own personal grimoire, to be a completely unreadable log of her life while alive and to return to the Coven when she dies. Mary has a full library of the grimoires of Essex witches; and she knew Anne’s father died because his book joined the library.

Salem, Season 2, Episode 3: From Within

As if disease and filth weren’t enough, now we have something down a well luring people with children’s laughter then dragging them in. This is not helping

Mary’s trying to teach her feral child table manners – and not to kill passing doves and carry their corpses around (at least not to the dinner table!)

She has other problems with Hawthorne speaking up for power again – demanding a magistrate be put in place (especially since accused criminals are being locked up with plagued inmates). Hawthorne naturally puts himself forward and again snipes at Mary’s gender.

Time for an election over supper at Mary’s house – and she realises, as she tells Tituba, that she needs George to make Hawthorne back off. This quickly turns into an argument about Tituba hiding her son from her. They both threaten each other

We’re also introduced to Corwin who has apparently been Mary’s servant for years even though I’m sure we’ve never heard of him before now. Mary’s all touchy because Corwin didn’t speak up against Hawthorne. So now Corwin will be Mary’s candidate for Magistrate – especially since he’s a witch as well, though like Hale before him, he’s leery of how much attention Mary is attracting to them. John spies on their meeting (remember he plans to kill the Magistrate).

Meanwhile the very burned Mercy has her father bring her friend Dollie to her. She’s the only one of her followers who escaped and unharmed and Mercy intends to use her for epic revenge, of course. She goes to minister to Isaac – but whether because of her own inclinations of Mercy’s orders I don’t know.

Mercy is controlling her abusive father by controlling his “shrivelled manhood” so I take it he is one of the men whose penis she stole.

Isaac is convinced he’s going to hell for being a fornicator still, though Mary reassures him, basically scorning the idea that physical pleasure is sinful and pointing out how damn weird it is for a god to give humans body that feel such pleasures and then forbid them. Dr. Wainwright overhears and approves for much fun snark. She warns him that people are starting to mutter things about the doctor (because Salem likes its accusations) in a weird kind of flirty exchange surrounded by the sick and dying.

Salem, Season 2, Episode 2: Blood Kiss

In response to the elders’ death last episode, Mary leads the men of Salem into the crags around the town to finish off the witches. They go among all the dead bodies they have littering the outskirts of town (rather unsanitary) and burn them all. And Mercy’s witches lying among them. Mary goes a step further and has the men shoot the witches while they burn.

Mary continues to exhort against Mercy to the town while in private Tituba keeps heckling her to get on with the magical master plan. Apparently, the people have Salem haven’t learned their lesson and will soon dump the plagued bodies in the crags (filly them with “hell blood”) a comet is due and the combination of both will let their “dark lord” incarnate.

But there’s a loose end – Isaac being alive. Tituba wants Mary to kill him.

Of to see the doctor who tells Mary everything is awful – but Isaac is awake and repeating her name. She goes to see him – and fins him all apologetic about not obeying her, blaming himself for the plague. A tearful Mary can’t bring herself to poison him.

But she does begin the rest of her plan, convincing the doctor to remove the bodies of the plague victims to the crags on the pretext of fighting infection (much to the disapproval of the reverend and Hawthorne). Hawthorne is outraged that good puritan bodies are being treated like slaves or criminals.

At home her little demon child John Junior tortures her husband George who she’s hexed to be unable to pretty much do anything.

That night Mary sees movement in John’s old house so naturally goes to check it out – turns out Doctor Love Interest has moved in. The doctor takes the chance to describe how he not only believes in the equality of women but their superiority due to being able to withstand the pain of childbirth. My aren’t they getting scandalous? I think his whole description of pain is supposed to be sexy but it comes off creepy – and Mary puts him in his place and leaves

John Aldren gets some final woo-woo presents from his oh-so-helpful mystical Native Americans and heads back to town. On the way he runs into Petrus who is wonderfully cryptic about whose side he is on or even what he is. He’s also very hard to pin down to an actual answer – until he finally tells John that Hale is dead and whoever replaces him will be Mary’s pawn – and another witch. John then kills Petrus. Petrus may have been crafty, but really working with the man who is all “magic, kill it!” is not sensible for a man who is all about magic.

John makes his way to town, murdering an extra for his clothes before heading into the plague hit, Knockers Hole (which, yes, I giggled rather childishly about).

At the crags, a hand thrusts up through the blackened earth. What? Surely you didn’t think Mercy was actually dead?

Meanwhile Anne gets a completely unwanted visit from the very pushy Hawthorne. He makes lots of

really creepy comments about how alone and orphaned and vulnerable she is – and how she needs to make the right choice in choosing how to trust. He gets a spontaneous nose bleed and Anne nearly breaks the crockery.

Salem, Season 2, Episode 1: Cry Havoc

A boy steals a chicken from the docks and a guard chases him into an ominously poor part of the settlement with a sign calling it “Knocker’s Hole” which doesn’t bode well for the guard. An ominous girl even warns him not to go into where he hears the chicken because death lurks there. When small children warn of death it is time to turn and run. Then a child starts singing “hush little baby”

I swear, so many horror films/shows/games have used small children singing to be ominous that I get pavlovian goose bumps every time children sin. You hear a child sing you turn and run. It is known

He finds the boy – and a woman crying. She’s afflicted by a truly horrendous plague and surrounded by bodies who died from it. It involves rotting and oozing and all kinds of nastiness.

To Mary Sibley and her newfound son (singing a lullaby despite the child being very old for them). He talks about the Widdershins who guarded him at night. Tituba interrupts the happy scene, it looks like Mary hasn’t got her son back, only visitation rights and Tituba is there to take the boy away. Mary wants to renegotiate custody arrangements. Tituba has no time for that and some woo-woo hits the child until Mary lets him go. The boy is being used by the witchy elders to keep Mary under control and not throwing away their plans for world domination for the broody-stubbly guy. Mary is a bit snarky about that since she did complete the grand rite and the Witch Pox is already slaughtering non-witchy people.

The next step is to close the curtain around Salem and consecrate the land with hell blood and opening the gate: Mary helpfully tells us. That doesn’t sound nice. Tituba’s still not reassured because Mary has other problems – Mercy is raving around all unstable and Anne Hale “A cradle witch of the highest order” whatever that means, is also not exactly a member of the Mary Sibley fanclub.

Mary assures Tituba that she’s completely consumed with hatred – and that includes for Tituba

Of course, Mary isn’t over the broody stubbly one and she goes to random magical tracker bloke to find John for her (why, to bring him to town so he can die of witch pox as well?) He uses some nasty woo-woo to show John, apparently dead, being burned on a funeral pyre by Native Americans

To those Native Americans who use a Dream Catcher to create a false vision. Yes the stubbly broody one is alive (what, you expected an angst-ridden be-stubbled protagonist to die? Hah!). He’s planning to slaughter all the witches. Part of this involves undergoing a ritual that the Native American man considers dangerous and unwise, especially since they want to leave the area to avoid the hell that the witches are going to unleash. Of course John doesn’t listen so he gets his woo-woo protection from the Native Americans with the warning that a) it will change him and b) he won’t leave Salem alive (so long term retirement plans are made then?)