A DISCOVERY OF WITCHES: Thoughts on Season 2, Episode 6

It’s time to conjure up a new season of A Discovery of Witches!

This week on A Discovery of Witches:

Philippe makes a troubling discovery, provoking a conflict with Matthew. Ysabeau, Em and Sarah start to look for a message.

So lets talk about Episode 6! Please join us as we share our thoughts on the episode. And while we are at it – there are spoilers below. Lots of them. Read at your own risk.

THE GOOD

Roz:  I really love Phillip here, all of his machinations to lead to that wedding!

All throughout this season, I’ve loved the covers for special moments – the “Time in a Bottle” got me so much this week.

Christie: Without a single word directly spoken to each other, I feel like we completely feel the love between Ysabeau and Phillipe. The end of the episode leaves me close to tears because it’s so beautiful.

At first I was a bit annoyed at the way they handled the fight and the blood rage reveal and what happened to Phillipe because I feel like they short-changed the power of Matthew’s pain compared to the book. On second viewing though, it does work. And I love seeing Matthew Goode and James Purefoy together. James Purefoy in general was just so powerful as a performer but with Matthew it was straight fire.

THE BAD

Roz:  I could have done without the fight to see Matthew’s bloodlust, but this was a great episode.

Christie: Once again, Diana releases a few sparklers and everyone can see she’s the most powerful witch ever and yes, it burns my biscuits. Diana goes from not being able to control her magic to now being “power indeed” and even being confident in that and I dunno… I feel like we miss the journey from one point to this one.

HISTORY & BOOK COMPARISONS

Christie: 

History: Not much history to compare this week.

Book vs. TV: Lots of book vs. TV changes and I won’t list all of them, but here area couple of the biggies.

Aside from getting more about the Matthew-Phillippe-blood rage dynamic in the book, we also get how Matthew’s human wife and child factor into this, as well as Matthew’s feelings about religion. I don’t want to spoil too much for you, but doesn’t just have blood rage, he doesn’t feel he should be alive, particular after his wife and son died. I supposed that was a lot to try and fit into one episode, and yeah, Matthew’s walls get torn down A LOT more in the book because there’s more to tear down.

One thing I kind of miss about the story is that the wedding actually happens around Saturnalia/Christmas, and everyone from the town is at the actual ceremony, plus we get to see the great hall during a huge party and Phillipe playing host. It was a lot of fun in the book and I’m sad we didn’t get it in the party. But we do get the sexy scene at the end, though I wish we got to actually HEAR Matthew complain about having to remove so many layers of clothing to get to Diana.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Roz: This was such a great episode!

Christie: Overall this really was a beautiful episode. I’m sad it had to end and we aren’t going to get more Phillipe.

You can follow along with our coverage of the show here.

New episodes of A Discovery of Witches will be released each week on Sundance Now, Shudder and AMC+. For those waiting to see the show on TV, these new episodes come to AMC in June.