Freeform’s Motherland: Fort Salem is back with quite an emotional episode! We see the fallout of Abigail’s fight with the Spree, Tally has to keep what she knows about Scylla secret, and Raelle is frantically searching for her missing girlfriend. ‘Up is Down’ was written by Maria Maggenti and directed by Rebecca Johnson, and here’s what happened!
Visitors | Out in a desert, there is a man carrying a girl to a U.S. military outpost, where they are greeted by witches who seem to be expecting them.
At Fort Salem, Abigail (Ashley Nicole Williams) is recounting the events of the Spree attack at the wedding, still covered in blood. She is definitely in shock and feels guilty about what happened to her cousin. In another room, Petra Bellweather (Cathering Lough Haggquist) is working to figure out what seeds the Spree used to block them from doing anything, but can’t figure it out.
In their barracks, Raelle (Taylor Hickson) is freaking out about Scylla (Amalia Holm) to Tally (Jessica Sutton), who is visibly uncomfortable talking about Scylla after what she found out. Abigail returns to the room, but doesn’t want to talk about what happened with her unit.
In the infirmary, the girl from the desert, Khalida (Kylee Brown), is unconscious in a bed and has black veins on her chest. Her brother, Adil (Tony Giroux), is with her. Alder (Lyne Renee) and her biddies enter and welcome Adil to Fort Salem for as long as he and his sister need to be there.
Targets | In the mortuary, Izadora (Emilie Leclerc) examines the bodies of 17 victims from across 6 states who were all killed at the same time as Charvel in the same manner. General Bellweather says the Spree don’t kill other witches, but all of these Bellweather’s have faint witches marks. But they’re not just witches, all of the murdered witches are Bellweather’s.
The cadets are training outdoors today, learning how to drop into battle using salva. Since Raelle has a bit of experience with it already, the instructor has her go first. Raelle does a great job gliding off of a platform in a tree and slowly floating down, but she flashes back to doing this with Scylla, loses her concentration and crashes to the ground.
General Alder meets with Izadora and Petra to discuss the murdered Bellweather’s. They realize that the majority of the victims probably didn’t know they were witches, let alone Bellweather’s. Alder makes a promise to Petra to keep Abigail safe, but makes it clear that she doesn’t want the public to know that witches were the targets. She will release that information when she feels the time is right.
Outside, Raelle confronts Anacostia (Demetria McKinney) about Scylla. Anacostia lets her know there is an investigation in progress, but Raelle doesn’t accept that and goes off on her Sergeant. Raelle is very emotional and it’s hard to watch her hurting so much!
Tally is working on getting Abigail to open up about what happened at the wedding, but instead Abigail belittles her friend and has to apologize.
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Bodyguard | Abigail meets with her mother and is filled in about all the dead Bellweather’s. She is given a bodyguard, a badass witch with an eye patch, but she’s not happy about it. At all. At least until she gets a reaction out of her.
Raelle is in search of answers, so she sneaks into the necro lab to see if she can find any. She goes into a room with a strange fungus-looking thing growing on the wall. As she reaches out to touch it, it reaches back to touch her. That’s a big red flag right there to NOT touch the thing, Raelle! But she touches it anyway, right as Izadora walks in and warns her not to touch it. Izadora tells Raelle it’s part of a mushroom, and as they turn to leave to talk about Scylla, a face appears in the mushroom wall.
Abigail finally shows some emotion over what happened at the wedding to her bodyguard. She feels guilty because she let her guard down and something bad happened to someone she cared about.
Tally spots Sergeant Quartermaine and asks her about the whole Scylla-being-Spree situation. Anacostia tells her she did the right thing in telling her and that she doesn’t need to do anything more. Tally looks like she’s having a hard time accepting that.
Dead?!? | Raelle is finally going to get answers about Scylla, but they’re not what she had hoped. Izadora tells Raelle that her girlfriend died in the storm at the wedding.
Alder speaks with Adil about the songs his people possess but won’t share. Adil says his people do not agree with Alder weaponizing her songs, and refuses to share his.
Raelle is in her room holding the corsage she made for Scylla and crying when Abigail comes in and asks what’s wrong. Raelle tells her the heartbreaking news, and Abigail relays it to Tally when she enters. The girls are really there for Raelle right now in her time of need. Raelle suddenly convinces herself that Scylla isn’t dead, she just went to the lighthouse at the beach because that’s where she felt safest.
In the middle of the night, Raelle isn’t sleeping but Tally is when Abigail wakes her up having a violent nightmare. The girls wake Abigail up, who denies it was a nightmare, and they all settle back into bed. Suddenly Raelle sees the S on her palm, Scylla’s silent message to her letting her know she was thinking about her. Maybe Scylla isn’t dead!
The next morning Abigail finally fills her unit in on what’s really going on with her, and her and Raelle exchange condolences about lost loved ones. Then Raelle makes up an excuse to go back to their barracks.
Later, Tally and Abigail realize all of their salva is gone and Raelle is missing.
Raelle has all of their salva and is making a very emotional flight to the beach so she can try to find her love.
Abigail convinces her bodyguard to take her and Tally off base to find Raelle by telling her, “Raelle is my sister.” Which totally melted my heart, I love reluctant sisters! When they get to the beach they find Raelle unconscious on the shore and wake her up. Raelle screams that Scylla is alive and has a total breakdown, but her sisters are there for her.
Captured | Elsewhere, Scylla is very much alive but being held captive. Anacostia and Izadora interrogate her, and when they leave she writes on her palm to send the message to Raelle. Suddenly General Alder walks in to deal with Scylla, and the young witch looks terrified.
Watch Motherland: Fort Salem Wednesday nights on Freeform at 9pm!