In Review: A Discovery Of Witches – Season 1 Episode 5

Synopsis: Matthew crosses a dangerous line when he returns to Oxford. Diana discovers his dark past, before something unexpected tears them apart.

Review: The plot thickens and the romance between vampire and Witch begins to have dangerous consequences.

The Story

This latest episode sees Matthew and Diana mostly separated while Matthew investigates the Witches that broke into his Oxford Laboratory. Diana learns more about her partners dark past from his mother Ysabeau de Clermont, who is doing her best to give Diana a reality check.

Added to all of this. Diana’s powers are showing signs of getting stronger and stronger. The trick she can do with water is something that has not been seen in over a hundred years, but as Matthew finds out she is potentially even more powerful than he could have possibly imagined.

Elsewhere events are transpiring to try and separate Matthew from Diana, which involves Juliette Durand who shares a strong connection with him and is not beyond foul play in order to come between him and Diana.

For the most part. This episode was mostly made up of expositional stuff with nothing really happening to the final few moments in which Diana is taken.

Yet again. The mythology and storyline surrounding the demons are kept very vague in favor of milking the romance elements.  About the only thing we learn here is that Diana could be the key to saving all the supernatural species because of certain traits that show up in her genetic blood markers.

The Acting

The acting is pretty much what saved this episode from being just a huge expositional information dump.

Lindsay Duncan is once more brilliant as the stern matriarch of the Clermont family. Her scenes with Diana are charged with some really tense energy. Especially during the hunt scene where Diana is warned not to get to close.

Matthew Goode is also solid and the scene where he attacks Gillian just goes to show how far Clermont is willing to go to protect not only his secrets. But to protect Diana as well.

Overall

This was mostly an exercise in expositional storytelling. Filling in more backstory for Matthew Clairmont while learning more about Diana’s powers. But it is what we don’t learn that is quite annoying. For example. Why is it only in moments of extreme stress that Diana’s powers show up. Will she learn to control them? If so when and who will help her with that?