Freeform’s Motherland: Fort Salem just hit us with another powerful episode! The men are back to help the ladies prepare for their city drops, Abigail and Adil get closer, and Raelle finds out what actually happened to Scylla. ‘Mother Mycelium’ was written by Nicole Avenia and Nikki McCauley, and directed by Shannon Kohli. Here’s what happened!
Fixing | The episode opens with Scylla (Amalia Holm) being interrogated and tortured by Alder (Lyne Renee) and Anacostia (Demetria McKinney). They want to know why the Bellweather wedding was targeted, but Scylla gives nothing up, frustrating her captors.
At breakfast time our favorite unit goes to grab some food where they are met with whispers about Raelle’s (Taylor Hickson) salva trip. Abigail (Ashley Nicole Williams) meets Adil (Tony Giroux) and flirts with him while she shows him how to get cereal. When he leaves Tally (Jessica Sutton) immediately calls her girl out on flirting with a cute guy.
In the infirmary, Fixers try to heal Khalida (Kylee Brown) but it’s making it worse. The strange disease that they believe to be human-made progresses to the girl’s vocal cords.
At training that morning Izadora (Emilie Leclerc) teaches them about Fixing by slitting one girls throat and then healing her. In order to fix someone they must first to link with them, advanced linking allows them to see the other person’s mind and memories. That sounds a lot like what Anacostia is trying to do to Scylla!
The cadets pair up to practice linking, and Raelle gets paired with a real jerk, Beth Treefine (Junnicia Lagoutin). Treefine pushes Raelle’s buttons which in turn triggers Raelle’s emotions and instead of linking she puts all of the cadets to sleep. Izadora tells Raelle to get her emotions under control, and when Treefine wakes up she ridicules Raelle for what she did. But Abi isn’t going to let that happen, she stands up for her girl. I really love how the two of them have gone from hating each other to fiercely defending each other.
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Return of the Men | The men arrive back at Fort Salem to build and modify weapons for the upcoming City Drop. Alder and the Witch Father (Nick Tarabay) discuss hostilities towards witches building in the real world. There’s even rumors that civilians want to revoke the Salem Accord and disband the Army.
Gerit (Kai Bradbury) manages to find Tally to apologize and ask if they can still be friends, but Glory (Annie Jacob) pulls Tally away before she can answer him.
Byron (Bennett Taylor) finds Raelle because the gays have to stick together, and asks her what’s up with her weird mushroom finger. She lies and says she slammed it in something.
Augustine (Guilherme Babilônia) and Clive (Thoman Elms) find Abi, but it seems like she’s over them because she makes it clear she doesn’t want to be around them.
However, Abi does want to be around Adil and the pair go for a walk around the base together. They come across some older witches practicing with storms, Abi is in awe but Adil is disgusted. He knows what the cost of fighting with weather is, he’s lived it. When a helicopter flies by Adil disappears, leaving Abi alone.
Abi later finds Adil inside and he tells her why he ran, then they agree to meet up after Khalida’s Fixing.
Speaking of the Fixing, it’s not going to well. In fact, Khalida seems to be much worse.
Abi knows someone who might be able to help Khalida, so she gets her unit and they head to the woods. Adil meets them there with Khalida, they arrive invisible but Tally could see them coming. Adil tells her she has the gift of sight. Yeah Tally! Raelle works to Fix Khalida and it looks to have made things much worse when the black webbing covers Khalida’s whole body, but then it suddenly all melts away and the girl wakes up. Khalida knows Raelle’s name and addresses her formally, she speaks like a ruler and speaks to Adil almost like a follower. Raelle thinks something went wrong, why didn’t any of that webbing transfer over to her? Where did it go?
Breaking Eggs | In the infirmary, Khalida seems to be completely healed and the Fixers don’t know how it happened. Alder definitely doesn’t believe it was a miracle.
Gerit goes to Tally’s room to ask her for dinner, but the poor girl is so overwhelmed with everything else going on that she ends up sleeping with him.
Abi and Adil are again walking around base, which is apparently all they do together, when Abi asks him if he’ll be staying now that his sister is better. He doesn’t think so, and it’s clear Abi doesn’t want him to leave yet. He wants to thank her for helping his sister, so he shows her how he sings a song to disappear. When no one can see them they share a kiss. Abi then ruins the moment by bringing up what the military could do with that ability, pissing Adil off and causing him to storm off.
In the middle of the night Raelle is dragged from bed while asleep by Anacostia and two others and brought to Scylla. Raelle wakes up and realizes where she is and who’s with her. The girls have a very emotional reunion where Scylla asks Raelle not to believe what they tell her. They exchange I love you’s before Raelle is then put to sleep, carried out and put back in her bed. This breaks Scylla and is just what Anacostia needs to get into her head.
We get a flashback to Scylla going to a Spree armory and getting her first balloon, the one we see her with in the opening of the series. When Anacostia leaves Scylla’s head we see just how broken Scylla is.
Anacostia immediately fills Alder in on what she saw in Scylla’s head. But she tells the General something else she felt as well, regret. But Alder just patronizes her for having a soft spot for orphans.
Raelle wakes up in her bed and immediately wakes up the rest of her unit to tell them Scylla’s alive. Of course Abigail just thinks it’s a dream, but when Raelle throws up it looks like Tally begins to put the pieces together. Anacostia walks into the room, tells them to get ready for City Drops, and tells Raelle to get it together with a pointed look.
Alder and her biddies find Khalida in the greenhouse, and we get an even stronger sense that the girl is the leader of her people. Alder asks to learn her songs, and Khalida begins singing. Alder joins, but then Khalida starts draining the life from the surrounding plants and hurts Alder and the biddies. Khalida will NEVER teach Alder the songs of her people.
On the helicopter, it’s time for the unit to dawn their black hoods, salva up, and jump!
Be sure to catch what happens next week on Motherland: Fort Salem, Wednesday night at 9pm on Freeform!