IN REVIEW: MOTHERLAND: FORT SALEM (S1-EP 8) – Citydrop

Synopsis: The final training exercise sees the Witches dropping into the city for a series of missions, but devastating secrets come to light, which forces Tally to question her blind trust in her fellow Witches.

The Story

Abigail, Tally, and Raelle along with their fellow witches are sent out for their final training mission, which is known as the Citydrop. When Tally injures her leg as their unit is about to investigate area F. Raelle does her thing, but due to the psychic link-up learns that Tally was the person that informed that Syclla was Spree. With her feelings still being raw after having seen Scylla just before the drop, Raelle refuses to hear Tally out and the two of them arguing sees them walk into a sound trap, which infects them with a temporary form of plague.

As Raelle and Tally begin to process recent events the Witches are given a real mission by General Adler who has them take on two trucks full of Spree that are armed with bombs, but when Tally realizes that there are civilians in one of the trucks, things get a bit murky. As the young Witches learn some tough lessons about fighting a war and how dirty it all really is.

The Acting

Taylor Hickson and Jessica Sutton are absolutely fantastic as Raelle and Tally as the two young women struggle to trust each other and pull together for the good of the mission. We also get great performances from Ashley Nicole Williams and Sarah Yarkin as they portray the competition between Abigail and Libba Swythe. A competition that both women seem to relish.

Overall

This was a really good episode, which focuses on characters and pays off a few story elements from earlier in the season. One of these elements appears in the form of Lieutenant Graves who Scylla impersonated to try and win Raelle over. In this episode, Raelle meets the real Lt. Graves who doesn’t remember having met the young recruit. We also see the young soldiers find out just how dirty war can be when they watch General Adler fabricate the chain of events to the world’s media after they successfully complete their mission. These events are likely to see the young recruits questioning their commitment to the cause in weeks ahead, especially Tally who knows the truth of what happened.

The visuals in this episode were pretty good. I loved seeing how the young soldiers glided to the ground after air dropping out of the choppers. I also though some of the fights were wonderfully executed.