The following analysis is solely my own. Some of it offers an opinion while recapping portions of the episode. The focus is usually on a particular aspect of the story or aspect of a character. Anything in this post is created by the blog's author who is an inspired fan wanting to promote the work. Feedback is welcome. Let me know if you like or don't like something. Please leave a comment here or on Instagram @thataddamsgirl.
For those keeping track of the directors and writers of season 2 episodes:
Directors:
- E1, 4, 7, 8: Farren Blackburn
- E2, 3, 5: Philippa Langdale
- E6: Jonathan Teplitzky
- E1: Sarah Dollard
- E2: Susie Conklin
- E3: Polly Buckle
- E4, 6, 8: Peter McTighe
- E5: Lisa Holdsworth
- E7: Joseph Wilde
Shudder TV episode description: Matthew worries the Book of Life is making Diana ill. Marcus isn’t ready to give up on Phoebe.
If you haven't watched episode 8, you will be spoiled if you read any further. I'll only refer to the book when it is significantly relevant.
The description of episode 8 makes us think that we'll have more of London, 1591. Except for a short scene at the beginning and at the end with Matthew and Diana, the episode continues the story of the characters in Oxford, Venice and Sept-Tours in the present day.
The episode opens with Diana alone in the bedroom of the Hart and Crown in London, 1591. She's looking at The Book of Life aka Ashmole 782 and none of it is making sense. Matthew appears and tells her that she has to eat something. She says that she isn't hungry. She wants to understand the book, "The harder I try, the stranger I feel." Matthew thinks that the book is making her sick and sends her downstairs to eat.
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| Alternative dialogue: "Food, Diana, remember food?" |
Near the end of the episode, while Matthew reads in the dim light, Diana is sleeping and has her right hand touching the book. Flying over a lake, approaching a tree surrounded by the water. It turns from green to silver with clusters of blood dropping down from the branches, splashing into the water below. Figures of hairless creatures wrap around the trunk and are woven together as branches. The creatures are screaming, as if in pain. The sound is a rushing wail that comes to a halt with a flash of white light. She wakes up. Diana looks unsettled. Matthew asks her if everything is alright and she responds, "I don't think so." Clearly, her nightmare is so horrific that she looks as if she's about to wretch. The irony of The Book of Life having been created from dead creatures is, indeed, becoming more like the book of death, like what Matthew said at the end of episode 7 when they were fleeing Prague.
I was hoping for a more exciting action-filled episode, for instance, continuing on with the blood rage murder theme that occurred earlier in the season. We saw Peter Knox (Owen Teale) at the end of episode 7 getting the scoop about The Book of Life from Edward Kelley's letters, which mention the three pages torn from the book. He's meeting with Gerbert D'Aurillac (Trevor Eve) and he says each of the three pages represents the daemons, the witches, and the vampires. He tells Gerbert that he's investigating where the witches page is while we see Emily (Valarie Pettiford) holding the Ashmole page of the wedding couple. She's at Sept-Tours under Ysabeau's protection; studying it in her hands because she is using higher magic to call upon the spirit of Rebecca, Diana's mother, to find out more.
Sarah (Alex Kingston) actually discovers Emily during the night performing the spell to summon Rebecca (Sophia Myles) and they have a dispute over her addiction to magic. Later in the episode, they both go to the sacred site for the goddess Diana, which has weathered considerably over 400+ years. Emily performs the spell again as Sarah watches. Sarah is so taken with emotion upon seeing Rebecca's face manifest out of the smoke that she walks right through the figure of Rebecca. The smoke dissolves and the spell is over.
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| Alex Kingston as Sarah Bishop |
After the opening credits, it is morning in the townhouse in Oxford. We hear "True Faith" by New Order playing; the same song from episode 4 (copyrights to songs can be expensive). "That my life would depend on the morning sun," is a lyric from the song. It reminds me of when Baldwin in episode 4 told Marcus he was living in Matthew's shadow, whom we learn was indeed a "mourning son" of Philippe. Episode 6 saw the faith of Diana and Matthew's relationship to each other tested and Philippe found that they were each ready for the commitment of marriage. Yes, a little too literal, however, it's appropriate for the scene with Marcus in the mirror. We soon learn that he is getting ready to go see Phoebe at the auction house. Is their relationship back on again? I see that Marcus wants her badly and he's got an idea.
Marcus Whitmore (Edward Bluemel) changes his shirt three times. We know that he's been given the honor by Matthew to be the Grand Master of the Knights of Lazarus, also likely he is still feeling jilted by Phoebe (Adelle Leonce) -- she left after he told her he was a vampire. And then he found out that he carries blood rage just like Matthew, but it lies dormant in him. Everyone such as Miriam, Matthew, Baldwin, and Ysabeau kept this information from him. I predicted Miriam to have had this secret back in episode 4.
Miriam (Aiysha Hart) comes over and she tries to explain that Philippe made Matthew his assassin to execute any of the vampires that had blood rage so humans wouldn't know that vampires existed. How this was to protect Marcus is anyone's guess. Matthew wouldn't follow Philippe's orders to kill all of the vampires so Marcus lived.
Marcus and Nathaniel (Daniel Ezra) are talking when Sophie (Aisling Loftus) appears saying that her baby is coming. Sophie and Nathaniel, the daemon couple residing with Marcus, give birth to their witch. They call her Margaret. Miriam and Marcus confirm that the baby is a witch because they hear her blood "singing." Marcus plans to get them to Sept-Tours to hide them from the Congregation. Ysabeau is already protecting Sarah and Emily, Diana's aunt and her partner. Room for three more, Marthe?
Marcus returns Phoebe's silk butterfly scarf to her at the auction house. He hands her the Knights of Lazarus medal to investigate as proof of him being a vampire. When Domenico (Greg Chillin) sneaks up on her in the vaults, she's suspicious because he is not actually the detective that he presumes to be. I really wanted some actual danger here, but her boss shows up. She tells Domenico that she knows that Marcus is the Grand Master and he leaves them.
Later, Marcus explains to her who Matthew and Diana are in the miniatures artwork. She's figuring out he's a vampire, that he was born in 1757, became a vampire in 1781. She asks if he likes being a vampire. He tells her it can be lonely. She presses him about his human friends and asks if they know what he is and he says, "Only you," and then he makes her feel his heartbeat very slowly. She even asks him how he chugs blood, but he tells her that he drinks it from a mug, "I'm not a heathen." After several more minutes of her interrogation, which parallels how Diana was when she first spent time with Matthew, they get under the covers for more get-to-know-each-other sex. Hilarious moment, though, when she times him dashing out and back for ice cream. Roundtrip in 56 seconds. [By the way, 56 seconds is 6 seconds longer than the love scene on Matthew and Diana's wedding night.] Phoebe then tells him that he's a doctor to help humans and that he'd be turning his back on creatures if he gave up being the Grand Master. "Use the Knights to help everyone for future generations," she says.
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| Knights of Lazarus medal/pendant |
Marcus gets himself over to Venice rather quickly, and tells Baldwin (Trystan Gravelle) he's not giving up being Grand Master. But then he screws it up and tells Baldwin about the witch so that he can ask Baldwin to help protect her and the family of daemons. The Congregation wants to have witches raise her. Baldwin says that they already have to deal with the blood-raged killer; that Marcus is spending too much time with humans; calls him "soft and stupid." He won't respect Marcus's wishes. Baldwin tells Marcus he should have been one of the ones "culled." Marcus tells Baldwin that this is why Philippe was "so disappointed in him."
Marcus, who should be much more covert in his travels, is spotted by Gerbert and Domenico. Gerbert approaches Baldwin suspicious that he has knowledge about who is committing the murders. Essentially Baldwin changes the subject and drops the news about the new witch up in Oxford. Gerbert is obviously going to tell Knox, but I doubt the blood rage is going to be put on a back burner.
Meanwhile, at the dock, Domenico accuses the de Clermonts of having something to do with the murders, mentioning that he knows the miniatures of Matthew and Diana came from the 16th century. Marcus says he's got nothing and leaves.
As expected, Peter Knox shows up at the hospital uninvited, uses his weird gadget to put the parents to sleep, and "reads" the baby girl. Nathaniel's mom, Agatha (Tanya Moodie), who is a member of the Congregation, appears and threatens to kill Knox if he comes near her granddaughter again. She should really go after Baldwin de Clermont because he was the one to divulge the secret about the witch infant to Knox.
What is going to happen with the book as well as Matthew and Diana now that they are back in London? Is the book harming Diana's magical abilities or will she find a reason to use her magic to understand the book? I also expect that Knox is going to follow the trail of the daemons to Sept-Tours and try to breach the walls of the castle to get to the Ashmole page. Ysabeau doesn't take threats lightly, though. Two more episodes left -- 88 minutes in which the pace will not be a gentle journey to a conclusion of the second season in the All Souls Trilogy TV show universe.
You can watch the show on Shudder or Sundance Now. In the U.S., subscribing to AMC+ provides four networks in one bundle that includes those two mentioned as well as AMC and IFC Films. More photos, videos, and other updates on the A Discovery of Witches Facebook site.
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