Last Episode on ‘Motherland: Fort Salem’:
- Abigail gives Libbas eulogy and manages to end the Bellweather/Swythe battle.
- The coven informs Petra that Alder knew there were hostages in the truck and that the Spree has infiltrated the base.
- Raelle visits Scylla one last time before she is shipped off to a prison in the Caribbean.
- Alder puppeted President Wade to prevent her from naming Petra Bellweather as the leader of the army.
‘And now, the end is near and so I face the final curtain’. Yes, our time is almost at an end, but before that, we have our final episode of the season, Episode 10 ‘Witchbomb’. I also in no way apologise for all the screen caps. I have more, but didn’t want to use them all so I will probably post them on my Twitter.
We start at a High School women’s soccer game (which YES!) when a sub comes on, kicks the ball in the air and freezes everyone in place while they eerily chant ‘Our ancient enemy has returned’. I’m getting chills already and it isn’t from the air con!
The coven are discussing the chanting while getting ready for their graduation from Basic Training, and yes I am here for Abigail using ‘Shit Bird’ as a term of endearment to Raelles freaking face. Alder then gives a rousing speech, just like in episode one, while backed by her Biddies. The witches are asked to stand outside and wait for their fate on their medals, war college or the front lines, like some kind of Hermione Granger crap. The final bell reveals an infantry for the coven while most of the other witches around them celebrate. Anacostia and Petra can tell that something isn’t right for the coven as they storm off.
Look at our little coven all grown up!
Anacostia visits Scylla in her torture chamber, who gets started on trying to get more information from her. Scylla tries to convince Anacostia that things aren’t black and white, they are grey. Anacostia hides from this though and snaps telling Scylla that she knows nothing about her.
Abigail is pacing up a storm in their room, easy to blame Alder as they reason that she must have seen Petra in Wade’s memories. They don’t have long to ponder this thought as they are summoned before Alder who has their first mission ready for them. The Terim is being hunted, and Khalida has ‘insisted’ that the coven assists in tracking down the remaining 10 members of the Terim due to their work on the plague that Khalida presented. Khalida tries to be the bratty little kid that she is but is stopped by Adil who tells her not to prove Alder right in her arrogance.
Papa Collar is on base to see Raelle graduate, like most parents are and is the most supportive parent ever by telling Raelle that it doesn’t matter that she didn’t get into war college. Her mother didn’t get in either and she still went on to be one of the best fixers in the army until she died. On the subject of her death, now that I bring it up, Raelle asks why the charm didn’t work for her mother on her last tour, but it turns out she didn’t take it with her. She knew she wasn’t going home to Raelle and left it behind for it to be passed on. That is not all she left behind. She also left a letter for Raelle to read, to be delivered once she had graduated from Basic.
Nothing is right in the world of Abigail Bellweather. Alder did indeed block their entry to War College, but Petra being Petra has managed to pull some strings and bypass her to get Abigail into War College. Not the coven, just Abigail, and she has already moved her out of their dorm room. HOW RUDE! Even better is that she leaves it up to Anacostia to deliver the bad news to Abigail and Tally, who take it about as well as can be imagined. They are leaving within minutes for China to find the Tarim, but not without Tally giving Anacostia a hug, who loves them just as much as they love her. She even promises Raelle that she will try and get them to go easy on Scylla when they take her away.
Anacostia delivers a photograph of Scyllas parents to her, and we learn that they died when she was 16 after being caught dodging. The MP’s were raiding their home and her parents surrendered themselves but were murdered anyway. Scylla and Anacostia have that in common. Anacostia’s parents died in a car accident when she was younger, which is why she takes pity on orphans, Spree or not.
It is all systems go for Alder, the biddies, Adil, Bridey (yey she is back, finally!), Tally and Raelle, when a stowaway follows them on board their aircraft to China. Did anyone think that Abigail Bellweather would abandon her coven like that? Nope! This move seems to please Alder, who gives her a subtle nod before everyone settles in for the night. This seems like the perfect time for Raelle to read her letter, but she doesn’t so much as read it as ‘spell’ it and she gets her mother to read it to her.
Miss me Witches?
The bats descend and Tally is immediately on it and realises that they are being watched. Bridey takes point and they camp for the night. Alder takes a seat with the coven to try and ‘repair’ some of the damage she has caused and ease the bad blood between herself and the coven. Tally holds zero punches and lays into her, leaving no stone unturned in asking about the hostages, Libbas death and even the puppeting of President Wade. Alder has a LOT to answer for but she refuses to. She does not need to answer to anyone, she is General Sarah Freaking Alder! Alder believes in the coven though and believes that they are ready, and have been for a while.
They are finally closing in on the location of the Tarim when Tally sees through a glamour of the body of one of the elders, which everyone else sees as a tree. There’s a small line from Alder, which I think is quite an important clue as to who it is who is watching them. She says ‘They dressed her like my sister.’ So whoever is doing this to the Tarim are the same people who were after Alder three hundred years ago. She still holds on to the idea that this is the Spree. They find the cave easily enough but getting in is harder. It requires Adil using his songs to reshape the walls of the cave to break them apart.
Tally uses the momentary interlude to approach Alder. I would like to know where Tally got the balls from for all of these encounters with Alder. She has come such a long way from the little innocent girl in episode one. Was it maybe Beltane? Who knows! Alder names off her enemies, the church and the Chamarea, to name a few, giving us a glimpse into her past as she hand to spend her life hiding from them to prevent her from the fate of her friends and family. It doesn’t take too much imagination, just think of any of the stories you have heard of the witch trials, hung, burned alive at the pyre, stoned to death. The only thing I don’t hear her saying is drowned, but that’s a history lesson for another day.
Even while talking about these horrible atrocities, Alder still looks good!
Adil manages to break through, but his people are not forgiving of him as he left and brought strangers in. Raelle steps in and manages to diffuse a growing situation by offering to heal a young boy who is sick with the same plague that Khalida had.
Back to Scylla and Anacostia, and it is lunchtime, but Scylla won’t get a chance to eat it. Anacostia has other plans and starts to unchain her from the chair she has been strung to. She just asks Scylla to make it look convincing and gives her a lighter to help her escape, leaving Anacostia ‘unconscious’ on the floor of the prison cell while she leaves in an Anacostia looking suit.
The little boy is now healed, and Alder finally seems impressed with the coven. She thanks them for their hard work and now it looks like the option of War College is back on the cards with a reevaluation of their future set for when they get back to Fort Salem. They can’t wait around though as people are waiting for the witches and the Tarim outside. It is time to walk out into a new kind of storm, one which Bridey recognises as not one of their own or natural. They are surrounded by a group which is not the Spree, and who are not witches.
Looks like out coven may be going to War College after all?
Are you ready for the starting point of our three WTF moments? I just cannot!
Alder mobilises the strike team, getting them to move out towards the bats, but the pilots have left, leading them right into the path of their new threat. The pilots have all been placed on a burning pyre of their own and Alder FINALLY realises that the Spree is not the big bad this time around, it is the Chamarea! I guess we will find out more about them as time goes on but they have some kind of tech voice boxes strapped around their neck and set the pilots pyres on fire before they all descend on the strike team using fog as their cover. Alder knows when to run to fight another day, and she tries to hold them off with Tally’s sight for help, using her own Scorge to stop them with Abigail and Raelle joining the fray.
Keep going, I dare you!
Alder and her biddies join forces and Alder calls down a witch storm (yeah that’s what I’m calling her summoned lightning strikes until further notice because it sounds cool AF) but some of the Chamarea breakthrough. The biddies turn one of them into the black goo from Wynonna Earp, but it isn’t enough, they strike one of the Biddies and Alder with a poisoned dart which causes the plague. Tally, not knowing what to do, tells Alder to take her, and the biddies all join forces while Tally gives up her youth to Alder. WTF!
I know I wanted to see Tally grow old in the army because that means she lived a long life but this is not what I asked for!
The little boy doesn’t like the bat (or some other annoying reason) and decides to jump ship out of it before it can take off, causing Raelle and Abigail to run after him. Raelle gives him her battle charm to keep him safe and they manage to get him back to the chopper, but not before Raelle is stabbed through the chest with a sword. Abigail runs after her and they link together, but it is too much and Abigail passes out beside her, both of their hands still joined. It isn’t the end though and we get our Witchbomb. Energy builds up between their hands and some kind of weird fungus growth starts. following Abigail and Raelle as they walk, surrounded by light and looking like they are walking into a field of BT’s. WTF!!
I really hope that they have BB with them!
Had enough yet? Well, there is more. Now that Scylla is free, she decides to use her newfound freedom to head to the new Spree home base. She isn’t alone though, Anacostia follows behind her, at a safe social distance of more than 6 feet. The Spree home seems homey, it has various operatives reading and listening to music as well as someone cooling up a storm in the kitchen, who is exactly the person Scylla wants to speak with. Mushrooms sizzling in a pan, she is offered food by none other than the person that we saw reading a certain letter to her daughter on a plane in this very episode. Someone that Scylla has no idea who she really is, Raelles mom. WTF!!!
yes Scylla, I am your girlfriends mom. Please come in, I cooked mushrooms.
So that is a lot of WTF! going on here and even though it has been a week since I watched the episode for the first time as a fan, I’ve yet to start unpacking my feelings about this episode. At least we got the news that there will be a season two but it is going to be a LONG wait until season two Switches! I hope you have all enjoyed these recaps, and please stay tuned for a Top 10 moments of this season. Until then, ‘A blessing on all of you, a blessing on this place. This Witches place’.
BONUS SCYLLA BECAUSE I LOVE HER AND WILL MISS EVERY CHARACTER!
-Written by Christine
fangirlden.com 