Freeform’s newest hit Motherland: Fort Salem just gave us a second fantastic episode! In this episode we got to see Raelle and Scylla continue their relationship, Tally reunites with a friend from her past, and our favorite unit gets to go on a field trip! ‘My Witches’ was written by Eliot Laurence and directed by Steven A. Adelson.
Meet the President | The episode kicks off with Raelle (Taylor Hickson) and Scylla (Amalia Holm) in bed together. Raelle tries to get Scylla to open up about her background, but Scylla only gives vague answers. Raelle rushes back to her barracks, but sees some super important looking cars pulling into Fort Salem on her way back.
Those important looking cars were carrying the United States President, who meets with General Alder (Lyne Renee). There is definitely some tension between the two powerful ladies, still Alder fills the President in on how the Spree are evolving their attacking techniques. They’ve moved away fro just using balloons to using anything that holds air, such as bottles.
Competition Time | Raelle ended up missing inspection and was assigned guard duty that night as punishment. Tally (Jessica Sutton) finds her old friend, Glory (Annie Jacob), who isn’t having the best time at Fort Salem. Anacostia (Demetria McKinney) enters and lets the recruits know that the top 5 units will go off-base to the Pageants in Salem Town and will have some unsupervised time there. It’s competition time, every unit wants to be in that top 5.
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Abigail (Ashley Nicole Williams) and an old rival Libba Swaythe (Sarah Yarkin) have an insult-off during training. It’s clear their families have a lot of history between them.
Anacostia comes in and demonstrates Wind Shear by having Tally run at her eye with a spear, but Tally couldn’t do it so Abigail stepped up. The recruits practiced with each other, but instead of spears they practiced with feathers.
Later, Raelle has guard duty with Lt. Helen Graves, a necro from War College. The two end up discussing Scylla. Graves advises Raelle that necro’s can be weird, and that Scylla has a rough past. Her parents were draft dodgers who were killed by the Army. After the two go their separate ways for guard duty, Graves burns her face away, revealing that she was Scylla the whole time.
The next morning at training Raelle is exhausted from being on guard duty all night, when she complains about it Anacostia punishes Abigail with a very tough and painful discord seed.
At lunch Tally is discussing how badly she wants to get off the base and go to Salem. Abigail is coughing up blood from her discord punishment, and Raelle does the nice thing by offering to heal her teammate. Abigail reluctantly agrees, but only lets Raelle get halfway through healing her before Abigail freaks out and makes her stop. Now they’re both stuck with sore throats.
At wind strike practice tensions are still high between Raelle and Abigail, and Tally is upset about a phone call she had just had with her mother. They use their anger and channel it into their wind strike, completely piercing through the sheet of metal they were aiming at. This earns them their spot in the top 5 units, they’re going to Salem.
Salem | Upon arriving in Salem Tally is drawn to a little girl who seems to admire the recruit. Tally was very warm and loving with the girl, even letting her wear her medal for a moment. You know Tally not only made that girls day, she probably just became her hero.
There is a reenactment of what happened in Salem over 300 years ago with Alder and how the Salem Accord came about. Abigail sneaks out of the ceremony, and Raelle follows, intrigued. The two make a deal to stay out of each others business and go get some pizza. After the reenactment ends Tally and Glory meet Raelle and Abigail at the pizza place. Scylla also shows up, Raelle introduces her to her friends before the pair go out for a stroll together.
They end up at a cemetery, Scylla wants to find something freshly dead to show Raelle something beautiful. Once she finds a dead bird, she grows a death cap mushroom out of it, showing that even in death something beautiful can come out of it.
Back at the pizza place chaos erupts outside, there’s a balloon and people fear it may be a Spree attack. A Man comes inside and harasses Tally, and Tally is not about to let a man treat her the way he does, so she hits him with a wind strike to make him stop.
Elsewhere at Fort Salem, Alder and other generals get the location of a Spree attack. They are able to watch what is happening there, and it’s not good. General Clary’s (Linda Ko) daughter is killed in an explosion, and Alder looks shaken. Later, while discussing the event, Alder expresses her desire for the Spree to be brought to justice. Clary is calling for more extreme methods after what happened to her daughter.
Back in their barracks, the girls are all drinking and laughing about what Tally did to that guy. They also tease Raelle about Scylla, but they also acknowledge her as her girlfriend and seem accepting. Drunk Tally tells everyone how much she loves them all, but you can tell she really does mean it.
Locked away in her room, Scylla is talking to the balloon through the mirror again. She tells the balloon “she’s mine,” referring to Raelle. She also requests to be extracted soon, which did not go over well with the balloon.
Be sure to watch Motherland: Fort Salem Wednesday nights at 9pm on Freeform!
Christina is a SoCal native who enjoys spending her spare time catching up on all of her favorite television shows, especially those with badass female leads. Favorite shows include: Wynonna Earp, The 100, Quantico, The Shannara Chronicles, Game of Thrones, The Walking Dead, Fear the Walking Dead, and countless others.