The following analysis is solely my own. Some of it offers an opinion while recapping portions of the episode. I impart a little satire within the recap. It may not recap every moment and may not cover every character of the episode. Anything written for this post is created by the blog's author who is an inspired fan with the intention of promoting the work. If you enjoy reading this, please leave a comment here or on Instagram @thataddamsgirl.
This episode:
- Director: Jamie Donoughue
- Writer: Helen Raynor
- Description: Diana is forced to make a confession to Matthew after the pair are shocked by the appearance of another familiar face - Jack Blackfriars.
- The killer in Oxford following Matthew and Diana and we see Domenico telling Baldwin that the killer stole their miniature portraits from the vault;
- Matthew in his blood rage and growling in the asylum of Bedlam;
- An overview of the scientific research on the creatures – vampires no longer able to sire; witches losing their powers, daemons succumbing to mental illness;
- Gallowglass's warning to Diana -- "being mated to a vampire with blood rage" -- seems a bit full of doom in that a vampire cannot control the blood rage (this part is murky in the TV series, but if you read the books, it deals with possessiveness traits),
- Don’t forget the pact between Diana and Father Hubbard,
- Diana meeting Benjamin in Bohemia, and
- Benjamin on the phone, hearing Matthew and Diana are back in London.
Camera angles begin from above and descend to the person standing in front of an open bible. The moment is peaceful inside the cloisters as the scene reveals we’re seeing Father Hubbard (Paul Rhys) for the first time since season 2 ended. His peace is interrupted by Benjamin. Hubbard tells him, “He is not here.” Ah, which “he” does he mean?
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| The exterior of Hubbard's church is Christ Church Greyfriars which is located next to St. Paul's Cathedral in London on Newgate Street. |
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| Where have all your brethren gone, Father Hubbard? |
The story hops over to Chris’s research lair (ok, it’s a lab). Research scientist Christopher Roberts (Ivanno Jeremiah) is featured in the third book of The All Souls Trilogy's The Book of Life quite a bit more than in the show. Diana suddenly looks really pregnant so perhaps a few weeks have passed. She’s carrying two babies; "two heartbeats" is what Matthew said he heard in episode 1.
Chris and Miriam talk about the lengthy process of mapping the genes of vampires; it may take years. Matthew cannot accept that timeline and he is determined to know how to cure blood rage because Diana's carrying his children who are possibly infected. It’s difficult enough with handling this case of a killer vampire, but two teething baby witch-vampire hybrids with blood rage? There’s not enough Tension Tamer tea in the house for that headache.
Diana and Matthew are heading out of the parking garage when he senses vampires in an oncoming car blocking their path. Out of the car is Father Hubbard and Diana moves towards him asking WTF you doing here? She is actually calmer about it, oddly. I find the scene to be quite subdued. Matthew becomes guarded at the sight of Hubbard showing up all of a sudden.
“You left something in my keeping,” says Hubbard. Well, it was Henry Percy’s responsibility to take care of Jack, yet Diana went to Hubbard with the request that he keep Jack safe.
Here’s an aside for contemplation. It hurts my head to imagine that Matthew Roydon of 1590 never reappears in London after Matthew Clairmont and Diana of 2019 return back to the present. Roydon doesn’t meet Jack? I know, just stick with the simple storyline.
Jack Blackfriars (Toby Regbo) gets out of the backseat. He’s a sweet-faced, blue-eyed, blonde, medium-length hair; a young man dressed in a hoodie. Matthew appears as a man at a loss for words.
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Title sequence.
Hubbard explains that he saved Jack from the plague. Matthew and Hubbard argue, but Matthew can’t out-shout him. Hubbard is right. Diana and Matthew said they were taking a ship. Jack never gave up in thinking that they’d return and his despair only grew worse waiting for them.
I love the tone of Paul Rhys’ inflection on the last two words in delivering the line, “Do you really think a warm bed and food in his belly could mend his broken heart?” Hubbard turned Jack into a vampire to add another to his flock of vulnerable followers.
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| Working as a chauffeur is a good side hustle for Hubbard. He doesn't take Paypal, but he'll take your blood. The best advice is to sit in the seat directly behind him. Paul Rhys plays Father Hubbard. |
Jack admits that he learned that they timewalked from Hubbard to which Matthew tilts his head looking at Jack and back at Hubbard. “You knew that? You knew that in the 1590s?” Hubbard knew they timewalked and told Jack because Diana allowed a drop of blood to Hubbard to ensure Jack had his protection. It actually gave Hubbard insight into her secrets, but not Matthew’s. He asks Hubbard to leave. This would have also been a great opening for Hubbard to let Diana and Matthew know that Benjamin is out to seek Jack and that they need to protect Jack before Benjamin finds him. But this is not how TV works.
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"How dare you pour red wine into this water goblet! (growls) I'll drink it anyway." Matthew Goode plays Matthew de Clermont. |
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| "We have a supply chain situation so we're using water glasses for red wine." |
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| Later in the episode we can see a closer look at the ring. It's Philippe's ring. |
Bounce to the bedroom with the argument between Diana and Matthew. Though not as heated, it is close in tone to their argument in season 2, episode 1 when Diana tells Matthew she followed a witch while he was out to see people. He returns and is angry at her and she’s angry at him for not telling her what business he had in the middle of the night. Their argument now is about if his secrets were revealed to Hubbard. They weren’t. If he wished he had died instead of being sired so he didn’t have to live without his wife and son. He didn’t. “No! Because I would never have met you. And now I have a chance to be a father again.” Diana sums up that this is now what Jack has with being reunited with them. A family.
Next, we’re in Venice, during this pandemic without tourists. It never has looked cleaner. Peter Knox (Owen Teale) is talking in front of a very ornate stained glass window. He shows Satu that he has a letter about the missing pages; the three pages were sent to three other recipients from Edward Kelley. Knox wants Satu to help get the pages back. “You can’t control me anymore. I am a weaver.” He thinks he can convince her that Gerbert will turn on her and she sees through it.
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| She cast her vote as the newest member of the Congregation and still has one more thing to tell Peter. Malin Buska plays Satu |
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| Satu is a weaver with the ability to render Knox powerless. Owen Teale plays Peter Knox. |
Phoebe (Adelle Leonce) and Marcus (Edward Bluemel) are discussing how she’s researching what happened to the missing pages. She thinks she can find all the magical and alchemical books. Well, ok, good luck. Those miniature portraits you wanted so badly to sell to Marcus, by the way, they're just over in the other room, but you go ahead and research missing books.
Matthew finds Jack drawing as he’s about to take off to the university. He says that Gallowglass and Fernando will stay with him. Matthew looks at the works and Jack asks why Matthew didn’t want him to become a vampire? Matthew doesn’t give him an answer except that he’s glad Jack’s there. At the sound of Jack saying “Or we start again, clean slate,” Matthew’s trademark, “Mm,” is his way of acknowledging the words without being in agreement. Jack turns the page back to the beginning and studies the miniatures to create his drawing.
At the university, Miriam and Chris are in scientific discourse about blood rage; what causes it. The quantity of DNA is not enough. Miriam suggests that Marcus visit his children in New Orleans. Chris is astonished as Matthew says he’s going to talk to Marcus. Seems Matthew doesn’t trust Chris’s students to take on the project. He’s worried about the genetic info getting into the wrong hands.
He narrows in on Chris when he hears, “I understand.”
“No, you don’t. You don’t” with each “t” being crossed as he says it.
The tone turns heavy as Matthew reveals to Chris that his father was experimented on–tortured–by the Nazis in the name of science. Chris and Matthew settle as Diana admits that she “thinks it is time to trust others.”
We return to Matthew’s London home as Baldwin appears to find Jack in the garage with Gallowglass working on a motorcycle. Baldwin enters and all of the light leaves. He sees Jack and tells him to get out. Gallowglass nods towards Jack. As Jack passes by Baldwin, the air is cut with, “One of Hubbard’s strays.” Jack is ready to continue leaving the garage and Baldwin bitterly states, “It’s family only in this house.” Jack can't hold back and the blood rage appears as his skin becomes almost transparent, uncovering the bleeding capillaries, his mouth turns sinister and he retaliates towards Baldwin, biting the back of the neck. Gallowglass shouts to Jack. Baldwin tosses Jack to the floor. Jack is enraged with bloodshot eyes and the bloody lips from taking a bite out of Baldwin's neck. He’s seething with eyes flaring. Baldwin realizes he’s been bitten -- this is the killer.
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| Excellent visual effects on Toby Regbo as Jack is overcome by blood rage. |
Matthew can hear the commotion from the bedroom and finds Baldwin holding Jack by the back of his neck. He’s kneeling on the floor. Matthew approaches and sees Jack in a blood rage, he later uses the term suffering. He knows firsthand how Jack feels in this moment. Baldwin says that if Matthew cannot control his houseguest, then he will and bites Jack on the back of the neck. With that bite he obtains all of the information Jack knows: Diana in the street in 1590 with her purse about to be stolen and Matthew stopping Jack before he can get away with it, they are looking at the constellations, they are looking at the pair of miniature portraits, they are saying goodbye, and then Jack attacking the college student in Oxford, and his attack on the vampire Domenico.
It’s that information that Baldwin uses to decide that Matthew has to kill Jack right then and there. First, Diana yanks the ceiling light from its chain and uses the chain to strangle Baldwin until he lets go of Jack. Matthew is dealing with the fact that Diana is about to kill Baldwin. Telling him that Jack belongs to us and then asking Diana to release him from her spell, which she does. He then says, "Jack is the blood raged killer."
Diana looks at the photos from the crime scenes and Jack is quiet, shakes his head, and he can’t speak. Matthew realizes what Baldwin is asking and kneels to show mercy, “I promise you, I had no knowledge of Jack’s blood rage.” We get a sense now that Matthew felt obligated to obey the commands of his father and now he feels obligated to obey Baldwin’s commands since he has for decades been the head of the family.
The presence of a backlit Baldwin with the half-moon window casting rays of light is to show Baldwin’s power over everyone, or at least how he sees himself. Baldwin commands that Matthew kill Jack. “God help me,” says Matthew. He stands and looks down at Jack. He walks towards Jack and then Jack runs out of the house. Gallowglass can’t catch him. Diana is telling Matthew, “You are not going to kill him, are you?”
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| He bites back. Peter McDonald as Baldwin Montclair. |
They both find Hubbard again in the cloisters. They learn that Jack didn’t want Hubbard to reveal he has blood rage. Hubbard naively thought that they’d never need to know the truth. Hmm, kind of tough to keep it a secret with Jack moving in and Baldwin hating everyone he meets.
Hubbard explains how he was sired or in his words, resurrected, by Benjamin Fuchs who found Hubbard dying in a cemetery during the plague. He was burying his parish’s members and dug his own grave. Benjamin counted on Hubbard helping him take down the de Clermont clan, especially having inherited the blood rage gene. He tells Diana and Matthew that Benjamin saw a way to give Jack the training that Hubbard couldn’t give. Trained him to be a killer. Used his blood rage to hunt and “torture his victims in order to prove he was one of Matthew’s blood.” Hubbard neglected to look after Jack and the addiction of killing took over Jack. Hubbard tells Matthew, “You are my last hope for him.” Diana persists in telling Matthew not to kill Jack.
Sarah has been listening to the conversation and finds herself thinking how ridiculous it is to think of killing Jack. “Isn’t the lab finding a cure blood rage, I mean, this is why we were all dragged here?”
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| Hubbard's back in black and in the shadows of his cloisters like he was in 1590. |
But if there’s no cure, the Congregation will come after Jack when they find out he’s the killer, or he’ll meet Baldwin’s ultimate wrath. Benjamin is also using Jack against the de Clermonts so he’s doomed no matter where he ends up or who he ends up with if Matthew doesn’t kill him. It seems to be an unwinnable war. Diana has the sense that a father protects his children like her father tried to protect her.
We’re back with Phoebe and Marcus to which he explains to her what happens when a vampire has blood rage, that they’re eliminated by order of the Congregation. Marcus gives her the history that every vampire he sired and that his children sired were ordered by Philippe to be killed by Matthew in an effort to control the blood rage and protect the species from calling attention to the humans.
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Take this photo to an interior designer and say "I want the funeral home decor of 'A Discovery of Witches,' please." Marcus is played by Edward Bluemel. |
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| "I've been waiting for centuries to ask you for your autograph, Matthew." |
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| Jack saying Philippe's name -- Matthew cannot believe his ears. Did they talk about his and Diana's timewalking? Should Matthew take Jack back to Sept-Tours and show him the church he built? "There's the roof. But don't go up there. It doesn't look as dangerous from down here. Trust me, it is." |
In the next scene, we learn that Fernando taught Matthew how to handle the blood rage. It’s about control and not letting the condition be what fulfills his destiny. Gallowglass adds an emphasis to the fact that Diana will be there for Jack, too.
It’s when Jack leaves the room that Fernando offers advice to Gallowglass. “Don’t let Matthew know.” He can see that Gallowglass wants Diana. Like he, really, really wants her. Gallowglass responds by explaining that he’s been ordered by Philippe to protect Diana. "I spent my whole life keeping her safe.” For the non-book readers, go back to last week's episode and look at how he hugs Diana. Listen to him when he's with her.
The heaviness here is lovely in which Fernando wants Gallowglass to realize that she’s got Matthew to protect her. Fernando says that he’ll soon need to let her go. Gallowglass says, “I know. But not today.” We’ve hardly had much screen time with a contemplative Gallowglass, even less with Fernando, but it feels like they’ve shared an extensive, well-lived history with each other.
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| "Diana's cool. Yeah. Oh, hey, Fernando!" Steven Cree plays Gallowglass. |
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"Gallowglass, I'm telling you, you've got to get an International Cupid account, and soon." Olivier Huband plays Fernando Goncalves. |
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Gallowglass: Fernando, water glasses for the wine? Fernando: A squirrel got into the dishwasher; the spinning thingy broke in half and shattered the stemware. This pandemic has been brutal. |
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Those blood orange colors that Baldwin and Domenico are wearing -- I'm not sure this is a coincidence. They possibly enjoy shopping for their suits together on Savile Row, and most certainly not the dept. store, Grace Brothers. Gregg Chilingirian plays Domenico Michele. |
In the scene with Matthew and Diana, in which she thanks him for bringing Jack home, he tells her he’s leaving for New Orleans. She supports his plant to form a scion; facing change together. He’s going to take Marcus and Jack with him. She seems surprised, but Matthew doesn’t want her to take care of Jack while she’s carrying the twins. It’s a bigger deal, his leaving, in The Book of Life. But the TV series is unable to replicate that goodbye. It’s unfortunate, but Diana in the TV version is quite different and emotionally evolved from feeling like she has to be attached to him everywhere he goes.
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| "Matthew, mind helping me up off the floor?" Teresa Palmer plays Diana. |
Back in Chris’s science lab, Chris is explaining to a class the CC chromosome aka Creature Chromosome to which Matthew takes over and tells the students he’s a vampire. He tells them how “people fear what they don’t understand.” He outs Miriam as a vampire and Diana as a witch.
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| Pre-flight red wine in a proper wine glass. It's a good omen. Or is it? |
Marcus tells Matthew if they succeed in New Orleans, he’ll "forgive Matthew and offer his allegiance."
Matthew’s phone rings and the final four minutes of the episode are quite unsettling. Benjamin is on the phone and shows Matthew a video of Jack, still learning his way even though he is not a new vampire. Jack is in the front and in the back are two humans restrained, but alive and aware.
Matthew looks back at Jack standing just over his shoulder and watching the video with him. In the video, Jack thinks that they both look scared at which Benjamin eggs him on saying, “Come on, Jack. And you wonder why Matthew left you. Perhaps he knew you didn’t have the spirit in you. Not enough to be his son.”
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| Benjamin’s appearance is not that different from Jack’s in the length of his hair and his clothing which is a way that he assimilates to Jack to befriend him; manipulate him. Jacob Ifan plays Benjamin Fuchs |
Jack hears those words; a dark mood settles in. His skin flushes red. I love this visual effect -- pressure building. Benjamin moves further from the car so we can only hear the sounds of Jack killing the husband and wife in the back seat without seeing it in graphic detail. Massive Attack’s song “Teardrop on the Fire” is in the background.
Benjamin explains his desire is to bring the whole family together including Diana. Benjamin is overcome with deranged emotions half on the verge of crying and half expressing delight in imagining what may seem like an impossible vision of them all being together.
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| "Matthew, wanna say 'hi' to Domenico? I know, it seems like season 1 was yesterday! I have five more episodes to torment you. HAHA-HAHA-HA!" |
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