[For The Bastard Executioner‘s “Broken Thing/Toredig Pethau” or any other recaps on Fetchland, assume the presence of possible spoilers.]
FX Summary:
Broken Thing/Toredig Pethau Wilkin, Milus and Toran team up to hunt down a fugitive.
Love is in the air in Ventrishire in “Broken Thing/Toredig Pethau”!
We open on Wilkin (aka Gawain) in the Maddox apartments with his fake-wife Jessamy; Jessamy wants to make sure she “gave pleasure” when the pair “lay together” back in “Behold the Lamb/Gweled yr Oen” … All good!
Meanwhile, in the nicer part of the castle, Isabel sews a pillow for Love to wear around; after all, Love is meant to be two or three months pregnant with the dead Baron’s baby.
“Is there anything I should know about our punisher?” Isabel asks.
Love is in the air — and then all of Love’s furniture is in the air. She throws a bit of a fit at the suspicions* surrounding her bff’s question.
We soon learn that our old buddy Gaveston — you know, the flip French nobleman who so bedeviled Love back in “A Hunger/Newyn” and “Piss Profit/Proffidwyr Troeth” — is now on the outs with the King. A cohort of Barons is now on the lookout for the exiled Gaveston; not only that, but visiting Barons invite Love into a kind of conspiracy [against the King]. They offer Love quite a bit of cash to help them in their semi-conspiracy; she negotiates the right to negotiate with the Welsh insurgents (aka her brother) in exchange for bringing in Gaveston herself.
Love is in the air in the caves as well. Annora unfurls the mystery of the Seraphim to the visiting Father Ruskin. Allegedly the Seraphim are caretakers of nine scriptures written by Jesus himself “one testament, one author”. Ruskin says if this is true the foundation of all he believes is shattered… Also it somewhat explains the marauding Knights coming after Annora and the other Seraphim.
The “Knights of the Rosebud” are descendants of the very soldiers who whipped and tortured Jesus. They believe he rose, forgave them, and charged them to protect the story of Jesus as they understood it. The [true?] Seraphim account is obviously a huge threat to all that.
Father Ruskin tells Annora that he is not a scholar or a prophet; she tells him what they need is a warrior.
… And in come the Knights of the Rosebud.
Love may be in the air in “Broken Thing/Toredig Pethau” but so are Annora’s hanging snakes. Some of them come alive and kill a Knight. Then a triggered ceiling-blade. Then a firebomb. All-in-all several of the invading bad guys are poisoned / stabbed / immolated, giving Ruskin, Annora, and the Dark Mute leave to leave.
Ruskin makes it back to Castle Ventris and tells Wilkin where to find the caves-fled Annora. They hook up, and Wilkin receives another vision: This one of a drowning baby; seemingly saved by a nun and a sword-toting Knight (you know, maybe Annora and The Dark Mute… but maybe not). Probably — cryptically? — baby Wilkin.
For no reason at all our protagonists are beset by a swarm of angry nomads. Remember when some Ventris Knights clashed with nomads last episode? Well Toran and Wilkin — on foot — dispatch multiple mounted nomads, while The Dark Mute strangles one to death with his bare hands without drawing his sword.
A second wave of 6-9 mounted nomads ride on, and The Dark Mute volunteers to handle them all. It really looks like Sutter is going to kill off… Well… Sutter, but instead he dispatches everyone.
Not a scratch on any of the three!
“Bury them in the soft sand,” says The Dark Mute.
“I thought he was without tongue,” concludes Toran, understandably.
We know from Gaveston’s visit to Ventrishire that the beautiful twins are actually his half-sisters. Vampire Bill is aware that they know where Gaveston hides; and has the Reeve torture one to death to find out. The other gets physically and mentally violated.
Vampire Bill cautions Love about Gawain/Wilkin. Love has become “formidable” in the absence of the Baron, and doesn’t want her individual time with Gawain to unravel her heightened political position.
In the climactic scene of the episode, Wilkin meets Love in the castle tombs, where her family surrounds her. They start making out… when fake-wife Jessamy appears! Uh oh. Jessamy, already feebleminded, flips out completely and reveals horrible scars from a torn dress… The handiwork of the “real” Gawain Maddox.
Father Ruskin helps Love and Wilkin to drug and calm down Jessamy while Wilkin goes off to help capture Gaveston. The nasty old “Knights of the Rosebud” capture both Ruskin (whom they know was with Annora) and little Luca Maddox!
… And so, the setup for next week.
Here are my big questions for this week:
- Who is the “warrior” Annora was referring to… Wilkin or Ruskin? (I assume Wilkin)
- For that matter, what was the significance of baby Wilkin?
- Who, or what, is the episode’s “Broken Thing”? The tortured twin certainly broke — she gave up the location of her brother; but my bet is on Jessamy.
LOVE
MIKE
* “Suspicion is fear without truth” -Love (great definition IMO)
