Ladies’ Night in Salem playlist
This episode’s song is “Dude, Where’s My Skin” by the Schoolyard Heroes because of spooky graveyard magick.
If you haven’t read the earlier recaps of this show, you can find them here!
EPISODE 3: IN VAIN
So we left off with Anne Hale getting some major stink eye from a creepy doll. It starts giving her some really weird sex dreams.
Wait, no one invited Tituba?!
When Anne wakes up, she’s understandably confused. I wouldn’t wanna dream about Reverend Mather either. She wanders over to her mirror to brush her hair, and then notices that she’s got full-blown Dark Willow Eyes
Overdosed on the magicks.
It’s also fun to imagine Anne becoming a powerful witch and duking it out with Mary!
Creepy doll teleports itself onto her bed and slowly turns its head. Clearly, Anne is made of braver stuff than I, because this is the moment I would’ve set the entire house on fire.
Both Tituba and Magistrate Hale are mad at Mary, because she’s drawing WAAAAY too much attention to witches by manipulating Mercy. Hale’s REALLY worried for himself and his family, since he apparently witnessed witch persecution in Germany.
But Mary’s determined to drive this careening train ahead! “A panic’s success relies on its escalation!” she insists.
TL;DR Burn more witches!
Yeah, I really don’t know where Mary’s going with this plan. Nine years of evil magicking, and this is the best she could come up with? What’s so great about the Grand Rite when you could just go frolicking away with Tituba?
John Alden, Private Eye follows Magistrate Hale to the Seer’s house out in the middle of the woods. The Seer reveals that Isaac and an unknown man witnessed spooky witch teleconference.
Moments after this meeting, John Alden goes crashing into the Seer’s home. He doesn’t find any people, but he does find a bunch of possessed animals.
Magistrate Hale panics, and he devises a way to frame Isaac as a witch. He summons the Flakey Skin Zombie, kidnaps Isaac, and drugs him with some gnarly black substance that they rub all over his mouth.
Oddly enough, Flakey Skin Zombie becomes less terrifying in this scene and more sympathetic! Lucius Malfoy Hair has to scream at the zombie, because it hesitates before putting damning witchcraft evidence in Isaacs pocket. Awww.
The drop Isaac off at the brothel. His system’s been flooded with a bunch of mind-altering drugs, and he runs around in a frenzy while giggling.
Since this is Puritanical Salem, and because he’s got a bunch of witchy baby teeth rattling around in his pockets, Isaac is immediately jailed.
Mary’s up to no good. She creates an apparition of Isaac’s old fling, the one he was branded for cuddling with. Poor, confused Isaac tells the apparition that John Alden was the second witness.
Btw, this is what Mary looks like while she’s conjuring up apparitions.
Hey, it really works!
Mary’s freaked out that her old beau is the second witness, so she decides to shift everyone’s attention away from John Alden and Isaac. Which means her new target is Anne. (I’m convinced that Anne’s gonna become a super powerful witch warrior princess later. I mean, her dad is Lucius Malfoy Hair.)
Ugh, Mary sacrifices yet another mouse for a spell. This totally bums me out, since I grew up with pet mice and rats.
Oooh, remember Roald Dahl’s The Witches? The mice might be children!
Mary’s curse causes Anne to have seizures while blood seeps out of her mouth. Yup, that get’s her dad’s attention. He frees Isaac from jail and rushes to Mary’s mansion, to beg for forgiveness. Mary relents and stops her attack against Anne.
I don’t quite understand how no one suspects Mary of witchcraft. I mean, look at the outfit she’s rockin around town.
No one gets me!
While Mary and John reminisce on the good ol’ days in front of the town gallows, her imprisoned husband, George Sibley is up to… something.
He stabs himself with a knitting needle right before the credits roll. Ouch!
What’s going on?! Well, it’s not like you have to wait or anything! Read on for the next episode!
EPISODE 4: SURVIVORS
Ladies’ Night in Salem playlist
This episode’s jam is “Girls Talk” by Garbage and Brody Dalle of The Distillers. Episode 4 is all about Mary and Tituba trying to hold Mercy down with their mean magick. Also this music video is my OTP. Go watch it right now!!
Okay, this episode opens with a truly horrifying scene, but then it wanders off to follow too many fighting guys and not enough witches. But we’ll recap it anyway.
Mercy’s dad does something really taboo – he performs a Catholic exorcism on his possessed daughter! I was seriously worried that he was going to murder her with a knife, but instead he makes a little slice on her belly.
And then a SNAKE SLITHERS OUT! asdfjk;
Hai guyssssss.
Fun fact: I have never seen a snake in the wild. With the exception of sea snakes, there really aren’t native snakes in the Hawaiian Islands. Also it’s super illegal to fly one there. Anyway, I think it would be cool to see a garter snake or something equally harmless one day. But never ever ever in this context.
Fact – Midol wouldn’t help here.
The snake tumbles off Mercy’s bed and slithers right out the door! I dunno about you, but if a snake crawled right outta my kid, I’d try to stomp it!
The camera keeps pointing at this Salem newcomer, William Hooke. He can’t get his delivery off a ship, due to an outbreak of influenza.
Hooke heads over to a nearby tavern, where Cotton and John are still clueless about the Real Witches. Cotton notices Pirate Guy trying to hook up with Gloriana and they get into an awkward standoff.
Pirate Guy and John have some kinda rough history involving the war. Whatever.
Mary and Tituba are out shopping, and they discover that they no longer have power over Mercy, ever since that snake fell outta her. Mary sheds a tear, because she wants her pet snake back.
In a last-ditch effort to get John Alden off his tail, Magistrate Hale invites everyone to a giant Puritan-style rager. Mary’s surprised to see Anne at the party.
Anne replies, “One can’t pass up the rare gathering in Salem that doesn’t involve a noose and an angry mob.” Oooo burn!
Well, literally. Anne’s wearing a new pendant, a gift from her father. And it really doesn’t like Mary. Seems like Magistrate Hale is using some of his magicks to protect his daughter.
The camera is just following Mary’s gaze. That’s a beautiful…pendant!
Mary reaches out to touch the pendant, but it sizzles her fingers.
Uh Mary, you should go run those under some water.
Then we cut to an ultra-gross scene between Cotton and Gloriana in a church. Gloriana thinks it’s so sweet that Cotton’s jealous of her other brothel customers. She tries to seduce him, and I raise an eyebrow, thinking that they’ll have some blasphemous church sex.
Instead, Cotton gets violent because his beliefs are crumbling down around him. So what does he do? He violently rapes Gloriana in the church. What the FUCK? Where’s that angry witch-hunting mob now?
Back at the party, everyone’s still like Whodunnit? Who are the Witches?!
Cuz that’s how much Salem sucks.
Pirate Guy breaks into Mary’s mansion and finds Mr. Sibley. Remember how he was stabbing his own leg with a knitting needle? Turns out he was using his blood to write a warning: WITCH!
Let’s see how long it takes for Hooke to figure this caper out.
Mary’s trying out her new Floo Network, speaking into the flames and trying to lure Mercy back into her clutches.
Whatever whammy she puts on Mercy works. The poor girl opens her mouth, and the snake goes slithering back in. Yuck.
WHY MERCY?!
Pirate Guy blackmails Mary and Tituba, saying that he’ll spread rumors of their gay witchiness all over town unless they allow him onto the ship.
Also, it turns out that he’s making a special delivery to one of the older witches in Salem, and he’s being paid to be discreet. It’s probably sex toys.
Tituba knows that she’s gotta get rid of Pirate Guy, since he knows their secrets. So she manipulates John Alden (who already has some beef with Pirate Guy). It’s not hard to sic Alden on Pirate Guy.
Pirate Guy’s threatening the whole town with blackmail. Whatever dirt he’s got on John Alden could lead to a charge of “Murder! Treason! Or both!”
Y’all are fighting over a witch’s Amazon delivery.
It’s all misty and moody.
While I was watching this part, my partner walked into the room and said, “Oh I thought you were watching that Pirate of the Caribbean porn.” Which is a thing, but no amount of CGI in the world can make that movie worth a watch.
Right before we get to learn John’s secrets, he chokes Pirate Guy to death with his bare hands. Oh well.
Mary’s getting ready for bed.
#JustRichWhiteWitchThings
And someone stops by to surprise her.
Surprise!
Oooh, does this mean that Mercy’s got powers now? How’d she get the snake out a second time and do we really want to know? Will we get to see Witch! Mercy and Witch! Anne duke it out with Mary and Tituba? Because that would be epic.
I don’t know what makes me more squeamish, stabbing your self with a needle or snake coming out of you. You’d think it’s be the snakes, but I really hate needles…
Yeah, these episodes were pretty gnar gnar!
Yeah, I really like the atmosphere of the show and stuff, but I have a hard time getting into the icky parts. That’s why I prefer recaps like this. So I don’t have to sleep with the light on :p Though I probably should actually watch the episode sometime.
Yay, I love these recaps! Worst floo network ever, though. *shudder*
I am so tempted to troll Anthropologie on Twitter with the #JustRichWhiteWitchThings hashtag…
You know that Mary would totally shop there. :P