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A DISCOVERY OF WITCHES: Thoughts on Season 2, Episode 10

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It’s time for the season finale of A Discovery of Witches!

This week on A Discovery of Witches:

Diana makes plans to complete her training with Goody Alsop and perfect the ninth magical knot in order to return home; surprise encounters ensue.

So lets talk about Episode 10! 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 love the final moment between Diana and Gallowglass, plus all the scenes in our modern Sept-Tours. Those moments with Jack at the end hurt in the best way – as a reminder of what they all went through here while we watched.

Christie:  The opening shots of Diana and Matthew with Jack made my heart ache. One of the things I loved about the season is that we got these little moments of watching Diana and Matthew really be parents to Jack. They were so lovely.

And this scene in the pic above, with the rest of the conventicle at Sept-Tours having dinner together, so great. In Books 2 and 3 we learn about how everyone got along through exposition and a few flashback scenes. Seeing how everyone else progressed in the present while Matthew and Diana were in the past was a treat. It was nice to actually feel that these people grew together as a group and came to at least trust each other by the end. And Phoebe — watching Ysabeau regard Phoebe. That was among my favorite parts of the episode. The way Marcus looked when he introduced her as his partner to Ysabeau. *swoon*

THE BAD

Roz: Probably because I’m not versed in the books, the just sort of stops. It’s not a resolution that you expect in a finale, especially one when we have so much time to sit on before the next season.

Christie: I feel like we lost a bit of the richness of the story because they condensed so much at the end. Especially with Diana meeting and spending time with her father Stephen. In the book, Stephen and his own familiar help Diana let her familiar loose, and she learns its name. That’s all done by the time Stephen gets there. We don’t get to see him banter with Matthew, or show his skills with the threads. We just here that he’s self-taught and never learned the knots. Then how did he learn to control time-walking, since Diana needs to learn the ninth knot to go home? We never learn.

Matthew had to overcome his demons this season. But Diana had to overcome some of hers too in the book, and I feel like everything becomes too easy for her too quickly. Her father at the end of the book telling her not to be afraid and helping her sort of take the training wheels off was important. We kind of got a few words of conversation at the end and that’s it. That’s a shame.

HISTORY & BOOK COMPARISONS

Christie: 

History: Not much in the way of history to play with this episode.

Book vs. TV: As I mentioned above, Diana’s encounter with her father was much different.

Another big change was the way the end in the current time played out. For one thing, we don’t learn about any of it until the third book, including what happens to Em, so this is all a change of time.

In the show, Knox learns about Margaret, Nathaniel and Sophie’s baby, from Baldwin, and then shows up at the hospital to tries to take her (episode 8). In episode 10, he shows up on de Clermont property, alone, lures Em to the temple, tries to get her to give him the Ashmole page and she ends up dying. Then he is confronted by Marcus and puts Marcus to sleep.

In the book, Knox and Gerbert come upon Em at the temple and try to get the information about the book from her. No one knew Em was engaging in the higher magics to try to contact Diana’s mother Rebecca, though Sarah suspected Em was using higher magics. And Em let no one go with her, so that’s why she was alone. Sarah for some reason was there when Em died, as was Ysabeau and Marcus. Marcus tries to revive her, and Knox and Gerbert get away. Knox allegedly didn’t mean to force Em into having a heart attack.

Knox didn’t know about Sophie and Nat’s baby until they show up to the temple to try and help Em. He tries to invoke the covenant to take the baby, but they were able to get the family back to Sept-Tours.

WHAT’S AHEAD

Christie: I can’t believe we’ve got a teaser trailer for season 3 already! It was posted after the finale premiered Friday in the UK. There’s a lot happening in this, even for only 30 seconds. Some things to notice:

  1. Returning Characters: Gallowglass, Sarah, Marcus, Phoebe, Ysabeau, Agatha, Nathaniel, Sophie, Father Hubbard (!!), Miriam, Satu, Knox, Gerbert, and of course, Diana and Matthew. There are other returning characters too.
  2. New Characters: 3 new characters in the trailer — Fernando Goncalves (Olivier Huband), Matthew’s brother-in-law, in the shot with Gallowglass, Diana’s friend Chris Roberts (Ivanno Jeremiah) and Jack Blackfriars (Toby Regbo). There are other new characters too — we know Parker Sawyers will play Ransome Fayrweather, Marcus’s son, and Genesis Lynea will play Geraldine, another vampire.
  3. New Actor for an Old Character: We get a glimpse of Peter MacDonald near the end, I believe. He is now playing Baldwin in season 3. Trystan Gravelle was unable to return because of scheduling conflicts caused by COVID-19 (much of the show was shot in the second half of 2020).
  4. That scene where a bunch of people put their hand on a sword — Knights of Lazarus are about to get into action! Such a cool shot.

Season 3 will be based on the third book in the All Souls trilogy, “The Book of Life.” There are other things from the book I’m hopeful for that we don’t know about yet. Will Hamish Osborne, Matthew’s Daemon friend return? Will we meet some of the present-day London witches, along with Janet Gowdie? How about Matthew’s and Baldwin’s sister Verin? Will we get to actually see some ghosts? How will they handle Diana’s experience in finding the book again? Will we really get into the nitty gritty of the science? And how will the big climax play out?

We’ll have to wait until 2022 to find out.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Roz: I’m nervous about that end that waiting for a year will hurt, but I guess that’s what we’re all going to do. This show fills a very specific part of my watching experience that always makes me grave more.

Christie: God this season was so well done overall, and I am fascinated to see how they handle the last season. Also — ugh, season 3 is the last season. I don’t want it to end!

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.

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Christie Zizo is never far from a computer or her phone anyway, so she decided to put that addiction to use and became a journalist. Usually while she bangs away at a keyboard, she's got Turner Classic Movies, a British sitcom, or something Scifi/Fantasy on TV (Doctor Who, Star Wars, Star Trek, American Gods, and many, many others). Her new obsession is "A Discovery of Witches," and all the history and science that goes into this fantasy series.