Women are capable of perpetrating that kind of violence, and while it’s upsetting from a character POV, it’s always fun as a viewer to see women be wicked. Scylla gets to be cunning and manipulative because she isn’t the only woman on the show, and doesn’t have to be an avatar for all types of women. She can be bad because she isn’t held up as the paragon of femininity and power. That’s one thing this show gets right. These characters aren’t drastic departures from their archetypes but they all embody something different and therefore reflect different facets of womanhood.
Scylla becomes panicked when her necro- professor tells her class they’ll be using the energy of Beltane to resurrect Porter. She remains on edge until Porter’s revived corpse fails to incriminate her, but the Spree don’t take kindly to cleaning up her messes. They threaten her to get invited to Abigail’s cousin’s wedding… or else. How is she supposed to be invited to a wedding her girlfriend was invited to as a guest of another guest? The Spree aren’t just ruthless, they also have no decorum.
There is nothing unpredictable about Scylla’s narrative trajectory, which would make her boring, if not for how she affects Raelle, who feels like the deeper character— despite Scylla being treated by the writing as the more soulful and enigmatic of the two. Her every move feels pre-ordained, and I suppose they are, and my fear is that the writing will never veer away from the clearly marked path that has been tread and retread time and again. I can already see the end of this story, and what a shame it would be if that vision came to pass.
Speaking of shame, witches have none, at least where sexuality is concerned. In the last episode, Tally fell head over heels for Gerit Buttonwood, and on the night of Beltane, “the dance” decides if they’re meant to be. They end the dance together (not without deliberate work on both their parts) and Tally’s witch mark changes color (she loses her virginity), which is a major milestone for a witch. Sex is important in this culture, it is associated with energy, and power. Being sexual doesn’t have a stigma; nobody bats an eye when Abigail, for example, takes two male lovers.
Every episode reveals a little more about witch culture, and subsequently military culture, for they are one and the same for American witches. There are questions that remain unanswered due to the insular nature of the setting. How mainstream is witch culture? Would the average civilian have passing knowledge of this culture in the same way we all kind of know what Christmas and Easter mean even if we aren’t Christian? Further, since witches have been a part of the military since the country’s inception, has their culture or religion influenced American culture, religion, or governance in any way?
