HBO has unleashed their latest fantasy epic, The Nevers, on viewers needing a new “Game of Thrones” and it did not disappoint! There’s so much in this one episode, we don’t know if we can fit it all in this recap, but we’ll try!
Welcome to the Touched | Our tale begins in 1896 London, where a bunch of people look up to see something in the sky, including a woman about to be dragged off to an insane asylum, while another woman attempts suicide by leaping into the river. Fast forward three years, and we meet Amalia True (Laura Donnelly), who dons her finest dress to meet Penance Adair (Ann Skelly), who’s been working in her Tesla inspired workshop.
The two ladies take a carriage ride to the Haplisch residence to meet young Myrtle (Viola Prettejohn), who speaks in what appears to be gibberish, but Amalia figures out that it’s actually a combination of every language on Earth. Penance pitches Myrtle’s concerned parents, while Amalia gets a vision of her laying down on the floor upstairs. When she heads there, masked figures are trying to kidnap Myrtle and she puts up a fight with her umbrella before getting knocked on the floor, like in her vision.
Fortunately, Amalia and Penance manage to escape with Myrtle in an 1899 version of the Batmobile hidden in their carriage, although Amalia gets wounded in the escape. They take Myrtle to an orphanage and introduce her to the other girls there, such as the ten feet tall Primrose (Anna Devlin) and caretaker Lucy (Elizabeth Berrington). As Amalia is magically healed by Doctor Cousens (Zackary Momoh), she has another vision of her attending an opera and asks Penance to write to Lavinia Bidlow to get them tickets.
A Cast of Characters | In a discussion on the “Touched,” a stuffy panel of English politicians, including Lord Massen (Pip Torrens), who believes that the Touched are setting a bad example for the under represented communities of London. Elsewhere, Hugo Swann (James Norton) discusses his Ferryman’s Club with Augustus Bidlow (Tom Riley), who refers to the Club as a “Pagan sex club,” before inviting him to the opera to keep Amalia and Penance company. In a mine, Inspector Frank Mundi (Ben Chaplin) is shown a mutilated corpse with a misspelled bloody message on the wall, which he is told was caused by a serial killer named Maladie, although he doubts that.
On route to the opera, Penance and Amalia run into Declan AKA The Beggar King (Nick Frost), a gangster whose been giving the women the locations of the Touched orphans. After Myrtle was almost kidnapped, Amalia suspects Declan of also selling the info to other parties, which he denies before threatening Amalia with a knife. Once they arrive, they talk with Lavinia (Olivia Williams), Massen and Augustus, who is immediately smitten with Penance. Massen knows that the two women are Touched and sticks his nose up at them, although Amalia stands her ground.
Enter Maladie | During the opera, while Swann is having sex with one of the actresses backstage, one of the actors in the play is slaughtered onstage by Maladie (Amy Manson), who literally steals the stage while ranting about being touched by God. She then orders her henchmen, including the fire wielding Bonfire (Rochelle Neil), to execute the opera goers, when one of the actors onstage, Mary (Eleanor Tomlinson), starts singing and a glowing light emanates from her voice and connects to a few people in the crowd, namely, Amalia, Penance, Augustus and Maladie. Maladie grabs Mary and she and Bonfire flee with her, as Amalia gives chase and even fights Maladie for a bit before Bonfire lights the place aflame so they can escape with Mary.
Mundi interrogates Swann, who witnessed the affair while having an affair, but Swann reveals that the two of them are in league in his club. Somewhere, a sketchy guy named Hague (Denis O’Hare) is dissecting one of the masked figures who tried to kidnap Myrtle. Penance catches up to Amalia, who is shaken after her failure to save Mary and the two of them pledge to rescue her.
We then flashback to the opening of the show, where we see a strange looking ship- aliens, perhaps?- flying through the sky and emanating a powder that gets into a few people’s skin, including Penance, Augustus, Cousens and Maladie, who was the one being hauled off to the asylum. After the entire ship disintegrates, everyone forgets about it immediately and the woman who jumped into the river is revealed to be Amalia, who climbs out of the water after a piece of powder gets into her.
The Nevers airs Sundays on HBO.