The penultimate episode of Freeform’s Motherland: Fort Salem continues to hit us in the emotions with Libba’s funeral, a meeting between Raelle and Scylla, and General Alder going off the deep end to retain her power. The teleplay for ‘Coup’ was written by Eliot Laurence, story by Maria Maggenti, and directed by Steven A. Adelson. Here’s what went down in the crazy episode!
“We were used” | The episode kicks off with members of the Tarim found dead in the mountains, their bodies placed in a pentagram. All of their vocal cords have been removed.
Back at Fort Salem, Tally (Jessica Sutton) is dealing with the fallout of their Spree mission. She knows they were used by General Alder (Lyne Renee), but when she expresses it to her unit Abigail (Ashley Nicole Williams) isn’t quite ready to admit the military might not be all good and defends Alder a bit.
Later, Petra Bellweather tells Abi she has to give Libba’s (Sarah Yarkin) eulogy, and seems surprised when Abigail doesn’t put up a fight. After leaving her daughter, Petra meets with Izadora (Emilie Leclerc) and Alder to discuss the attack on the Tarim. Izadora isn’t sure that the Spree are behind it, she thinks an ancient group called the Camarilla. Alder says she ended the Camarilla over 200 years ago, but Izadora points out that the technique used to remove the vocal cords are the same the Camarilla used. There are now less than 10 Tarim alive, so Alder wants to make protecting them a priority.
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“No more secrets” | Tally can’t just sit back and let Alder get away with using them to kill those hostages, so she convinces her unit to go to Petra Bellweather and tell her the truth about what happened.
But before that happens, Alder visits Adil (Tony Giroux) and Khalida (Kylee Brown) while they eat. They already know of the attack on their people, and Khalida is prepared to let the Tarim die out to prevent Alder from acquiring their songs.
The Bellweather unit tells Petra the truth about the hostages, but she just brushes them off until Raelle (Taylor Hickson) spills the real tea. The Spree have infiltrated the base and Alder has her in custody, and that that’s how Alder knew about the Spree armory in the first place.
Elsewhere, Alder is drinking wine while Anacostia (Demetria Mckinney) and the biddies are eating dinner. It’s revealed that Alder doesn’t eat, just sips on wine. Anacostia goes to bat for Scylla, she really seems to have a soft spot for her, but Alder shuts her down and orders her to have Scylla transported to a prison in the Caribbean.
At Libba’s funeral, Abigail delivers the perfect eulogy. She begins by reading some generic speech she wrote, but decides to speak from the heart. She tells stories about the Bellweather’s and Swythe’s hating each other for centuries, how she and Libba hated each other, and how that needs to end. She also acknowledges that Libba pushed her to be better, for which she is thankful. It was truly a great speech.
After the service, the Bellweather unit plus Glory (Annie Jacob) and Adil hang out and drink, they all give Abigail the praise she deserves for that speech. Raelle reveals she thought Libba was cute and Tally calls her out for having a type. I really love how close these girls have become, and how they’re acting like real sisters now. A bird shows up with a message from Gerit (Kai Bradbury). He’s no longer sending dickpics by bird and has moved on to sending booty calls, which Tally promptly responds to by leaving to meet him and hook up.
“She’s dead to me” | Anacostia visits a snarky Scylla (Amalia Holm) in her cell and tells her that Alder wants to send her away to a prison, but Anacostia wants answers first. Scylla says she’ll answer her questions if she gets to see Raelle one more time.
In D.C., Alder meets with the President Wade (Sheryl Lee Ralph) to discuss the Tarim. What Alder doesn’t know is that the President already knows all about her using the cadets to fight the Spree, and she’s not happy about it. The President also knows that Alder is holding a Spree captive on base. Because of all this, the President makes the decision to remove Alder from head of the military. She will make an official announcement that night.
Back at base, Anacostia finds Raelle and tells her that Scylla wants to see her. Raelle tells her officer that Scylla is dead to her and refuses to see her. But Raelle’s unit has other feelings on the matter and encourage her to see Scylla one last time.
Abigail meets with her mother and learns that there’s going to be some big changes coming. Petra hints at being the next one to lead the military, but she won’t tell her daughter for sure. She just tells her to watch the announcement that night.
Tally and Gerit are hooking up again when Gerit’s wife walks in, doesn’t seem surprised by what she sees, and offers to join them. Tally finds out Gerit knew she was going to be coming home and planned for this, and that’s when Tally realizes that he doesn’t really know who she is at all.
“I chose you” | Raelle goes to see Scylla, and it is very emotional. Raelle wants to know if any of it was real, and Scylla tells her that her feelings were always real. She doesn’t have all the answers Raelle wants, but she does make sure to tell Raelle that she chose her. Regardless of what her mission was, she chose her at the wedding instead of taking her to the rendezvous point.
Presidential Puppet | It’s time for the President’s big announcement, most of the cadets and officers are gathered around a tv to watch. But to the audiences horror, Alder has taken over the President’s body to give the address herself. We see the teleprompter say that Petra Bellweather will take over the military, but the puppeted president announces that Alder has full military authorization to take down the Spree. Anacostia knows something is up and sneaks over to Alder’s office and sees what the witch is doing. Alder has gone off the deep end.
Anacostia finds Raelle crying under a tree and apologizes for bringing her to Scylla. Raelle still loves Scylla, and in this moment she’s so relatable to anyone who has had their heart broken but still loves the person who broke it. She also tells Anacostia that they told Petra about Alder, and now Alder’s actions are beginning to make sense to Anacostia and they rush off to find the rest of the Bellweather unit.
Once they’re all together Anacostia tells the cadets what Alder just did to the President, and how she might be able to trace what happened back to them. If she does that then they’re all in terrible danger.
Be sure to watch the Motherland: Fort Salem finale next Wednesday on Freeform at 9pm!