S02.E04: Not Our Daughters

[Cranberry]

Quote

Anti-witch sentiment boils over as the Unit defends the first witch testing center at its grand opening. Anacostia and Scylla go undercover to follow the Camarilla.

Original air date: July 13, 2021

 

[Cranberry]

I expected Abigail to have a win by now. Hasn't she been beaten down enough? I also feel like she's too smart to walk into a trap like that. (I forget, did she know the Camarilla were using witches' vocal cords, or was that info kept from her?)

Glad Tally's finally off the Alder love train, but directly confronting her is a dangerous and probably stupid move.

 

[ursula]

2 hours ago, Cranberry said:

I expected Abigail to have a win by now. Hasn't she been beaten down enough? I also feel like she's too smart to walk into a trap like that. (I forget, did she know the Camarilla were using witches' vocal cords, or was that info kept from her?)

 

So I guess this is me throwing in the bucket. I'm not going to sit through another version of Bonnie Bennett, where the Black girl just exists to be a suffering prop for the White girls. 

[Cranberry]

Another reminder that we're here to talk about the show, not about other online communities or fans.

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[UnoAgain]

As usual I kinda start commenting before catching the epi... I did really enjoy this one as well... I'm really happy with Raelle and how she was there for Abigail... I enjoyed the dynamic of the three both at training ( seems wasteful to have those dummies just to destroy the heads.. Also who resets them) and at lunch with Petra.. Who seems insistent on being a better mom to Abigail and motherly to the other girls... I love gregorio.. Yes partly cuz I am starved for a male insert.. But I didn't glom on to Adil last year like I did Gregorio( they do speak about him as if he's a stud horse.. It's jarring but apparently how it us) I felt sorry for Alder after her talk with Anacostia she looked like a mom who just had her first real argument with her daughter.. Wonder how many times she's had to go thru that...

The protest.. Maybe it's me and my racial lens but it felt pretty BLM... From the syllable count.. To the three letter abbreviation.. He'll when they were chanting in the background it sounded like BLM even the Cadence was the same.. and then to have outside agitators sneak into the ppl to cause ruckus... I dunno.. I been in the middle of a March when it's gone sideways... The whole thing made me feel uneasy especially when the recruit was walking.. It reminded me of the desegregation of schools..

Tally was great with the VP/Penelope ... I really hope the VP is a good guy.. Or at least not bad... I knew that look on anacostia's face.. Staring at hatred...

I get why petra and Sarah lied.. Even tho they didn't say it.. talking about the camarilla means attacks on humans.. And that wouldn't go over well.. As the spree jinned ppl up...

I'm not sure I trust that Indian general.. I don't think the trip to India will go well for the tarim

Well more trauma for Abigail... For me... This arc would make more sense.. Or wouldn't be so infuriating if Abigail was introduced as really over privileged arrogant and powerful... Then her opening up and being brought low.. Only to rise up a better person.. ( while still annoying in it's way) would be more palatable.. But she wasnt... ( at least to some of us) so it just looks like pain on pain

[tennisgurl]

Poor Abigail, she just keeps getting kicked while she's down. She was being uncharacteristically dumb following her cousins voice when she already knew that she was dead, she really should have known that it was a trap. It really messed up that the Carmarilla guy was using her cousins vocal cords, that is some creepy stuff. It did at least need to come nice moments between her, Raelle, and Tally. 

Ugh, shut up Scylla with your "Welcome to America" crack, the last person who needs to be lecturing me about issues in society is an unrepentant mass murderer, especially when its her bullshit that has helped to escalate things so much. If they want me to like her, they need to not only make her feel more than a tiny bit bad about her multiple acts of terror, but also dial down her smugness by several levels. This is really an issue I am having with this season in general, too many damn villains and too much time with them. We have the Spree, the Carmarilla, Alder and the witch military industrial complex, there is just so much going on that we are missing out on the best aspects of the show, like the bond between the three girls, the magic, and the world building. Last season had the same villains, but they were mostly offscreen as a mysterious threat looming over our heroes, most of the actual story was about the girls and exploring the world, but now the bad guys are all over the place, without even really making them more complex or interesting. Especially the Spree V Carmarilla, they both suck and ideally they would all just wipe themselves out and save the heroes the trouble. 

I did like a lot of the episode, despite my complaints. I thought the opener with Adil and Gregorio working on Mother Tongue was fun, then Gregorio scampering off when Abigail and Adil started arguing while Adil commented on how Abigail's crappy mood has lead to the crappy weather. Tally mentoring the VP's daughter has also been a nice plot for her, she was really good with both of them, I liked the recruitment/propaganda video, its a bit of the world building that I always love from this show, and while the whole "supernatural population is persecuted by normies as very obviously social metaphor" thing has been done to absolute death, I am interested in what they do with it. Hopefully its something actually going somewhere and it doesn't turn into one of those shows that makes its metaphor so painfully on the nose that they either drown in their own self importance, or end up accidently raising some unfortunate implications by accident. 

[GaT]

I still hate everyone.

[Arynm]

Abigail really deserves a win at this point. I will not accept a Scylla redemption, she has killed innocent people  and has not earned forgiveness.  The Spree are still terrorists, even if there are worse terrorists around.

I do not forget.

[UnoAgain]

On 7/18/2021 at 10:39 PM, Arynm said:

Abigail really deserves a win at this point. I will not accept a Scylla redemption, she has killed innocent people  and has not earned forgiveness.  The Spree are still terrorists, even if there are worse terrorists around.

I do not forget.

The creator is in love with scylla.. Raelle... Raylla and the spree... Whether we want it... Whether it makes any damn sense... We're gonna get a scylla redemption... Which will lead to more raylla.. And an "evening out" of the military and the spree... Probably by showing Alder in a bad light... Not looking FWD to it as I like Alder... But feels like that's the plan... 

[Zonk]

So why are they not testing young men? Doesn't seem to make much sense.

I get that they supposedly can't produce witches with a civilian, but somehow the witches produced with these male witches are still more powerfull and if a new witch is made with a civilian their voice boxes become shitty? Seems weird. But that is a tangent and beside the point.

The point is that male witches are as powerfull or only a little less powerfull than the women. So wouldn't they be just as much a target for the Calamari (yes intentional) and couldn't their vocal cords be weaponised just as much? Why wouldn*t you try everything in your power to find them, too?

On 7/14/2021 at 7:59 AM, ursula said:

So I guess this is me throwing in the bucket. I'm not going to sit through another version of Bonnie Bennett, where the Black girl just exists to be a suffering prop for the White girls. 

Ah come on. She'll get her boyfriend back and in the season finale she will unleash a storm that will save all of them, after the mycilial powers fail somehow, or are unavailible for some reason. (I don't have any actual spoilers, these writers just aren't exactly Shakespear. It's pretty obviously choreographed.)

Edited July 27, 2021 by Zonk

[DanaK]

I probably missed it, but why are they only now thinking to test the civilian girls and women to see who is a witch? That would seem like an obvious thing to do decades or centuries ago unless the hearing tech is new

[Speakeasy]

On 8/9/2021 at 3:01 PM, DanaK said:

I probably missed it, but why are they only now thinking to test the civilian girls and women to see who is a witch? That would seem like an obvious thing to do decades or centuries ago unless the hearing tech is new

My guess would be the threat of the Camarilla who want to exterminate the entire witchy race and might actually have the tools to do it. It probably just wasn't worth doing anything like this in the past when it didn't seem like there was an existential threat like this. Right now, though, witches are getting killed left right and centre and Alder wants to have as many of them as she can where she can at least do something to protect them.

I would also guess they are only looking for girls because Alder is taking the long view; it's only the girls who can make new witches, if they want another generation after this one, they need to save the girls, they can breed with Muggle boys if it comes down to it (lie back and think of Salem!). Any resources they spend finding and protecting witch boys are resources that could be spent on the girls and ultimately a waste if they end up without enough wombs to make a new generation.

And this is the way Sarah Alder must think, this is what it means to be the immortal steward of her race.