SALEM: Starting the Long Game {Recap}

Salem is well on its way to setting up how to kill the Devil, and so far, the process looks to be long and labored.

In the season’s second episode – The Heart Is a Devil – follows all the major players as they start on their own games to meet their own best end, and it doesn’t look as though some of those plans will succeed.

Mary and Tituba

Freshly back from the dead, Mary (Janet Montgomery) has to be told what her new mission is back in Salem: to kill her son, who embodies the Devil. Well, let’s just aim high and hope doing well enough is fine. To that end, she must visit her old home and make her way back into her son’s good graces, while also not running into The Sentinel (Samuel Roukin) too often. John Sibley (Oliver Bell) uses The Sentinel as a means to bring about the end of the world, but Mary can only fool The Sentinel so long before her plot against her son is made clear.

SAL_302_2-02-16_ 830.cr2

Tituba (Ashley Madekwe), who was blinded to help see the future must get Mary to do what she can to kill her son (and that’s going well so far), but also must take back her familiar so that she can know how the different players are reacting. Mary’s last play to kill John is heard by Tituba’s black cat, but it looks as though both women are in some trouble.

Mercy Lewis

Mercy’s (Elise Eberle) new position as the head of one of Salem’s brothels brings her into the watch of Hawthorne (Jeremy Crutchley), who tries to negotiate a deal with her that will benefit them both. Too bad, his plan to bribe her into compliance ends with him suffering from some very ugly boils.

How does she want to end her year now that she’s still a powerful witch, but also controlling so many confused women?

SAL_302_2-01-16_ 2335.cr2

Cotton Mather

His role is more in the service of his wife, Anne (Tamzin Merchant), but Cotton (Seth Gabel) must say that young John Sibley poses no threat to the people of Salem so that the Devil’s plan can come to fruition later. But for the man who decried witches in the beginning, what will he do later? He wants to serve his purpose as a minister, but he also holds too much knowledge for the witches.

SAL_302_2-01-16_ 1212.cr2

Salem airs Wednesdays at 9PM/8PM Central on WGN America.