IN REVIEW: MOTHERLAND: FORT SALEM (S1-EP 3) – A Biddy’s Life

Synopsis: Male witches arrive at Fort Salem for Beltane. Raelle learns more about Scylla’s past. The international military council of witches must deal with a new crisis.

The Story

This week the show gets a little boost with some male energy thrown into the mix as male witches visit Fort Salem for the celebration of Beltane, which gives our characters a chance to engage with some men, which will apparently give their individual powers a nice little boost. Tally takes a liking to one of the men in particular and gets quite a big power boost because of it. Meanwhile, Raelle learns that Scylla is not who she appears to be, which is thanks to an old boyfriend of Scylla’s who could potentially wreck her plans.

Elsewhere General Adler and the Biddy’s pay a visit to The Hague for an international military council meeting. The recent Spree attacks being a cause for much discussion and opposing viewpoints from General Sharma who wants to launch countermeasures against the Spree. While at this meeting one of Adler’s Biddies takes seriously ill, which forces the meeting to an early close.

The Acting

We see a nice little guest appearance this week from Nick E. Tarabay as the Witchfather who brings the male witches to Salem. Given what Tarabay did with his role of Ashur in ‘Spartacus’ back in the early 2000s. It will be interesting to see how the writers develop the Witchfather if he is to become a recurring character. The episode also marks the debut of Kai Bradbury who we interviewed a few weeks back about the series. Bradbury plays Gerit Buttonwood who takes quite a shine to Tally and will recur as a character in weeks to come. He’s just warming up.

Overall

This was another strong episode, which added a bit more to the world-building of the series. It was interesting to learn that the female witches got a bit of a boost in their magical abilities when they are around male energy, but it was also an interesting contrast seeing that Raelle who is more into women did not particularly get that big of a boost.

I loved the fact that General Adler is basically really, really old and needs the life force of several younger witches to keep her looking young and vital enough to command. I’m looking forward to seeing how this aspect of her character will get played out in weeks to come.