Each week, Joe (@bstolemyremote) and Terry (@gaylydreadful) review an episode of Freeform’s Motherland: Fort Salem, alternating between our respective sites — queerhorrormovies.com and gaylydreadful.com.

Spoilers for episode eight...

1.08 “Citydrop”: The witches' training culminates at City Drop, their final training exercise. Devastating secrets come to light, splintering the unit and forcing Tally to question her blind trust. A looming Spree threat changes the course of the cadets' lives.

TERRY

“Bellweather Season,” the fifth episode of Motherland: Fort Salem feels so far away now, Joe, and yet “Citydrop” feels like the climax to the events that disastrous episode introduced. In a lot of ways, episode eight feels like a culmination of the subtle and not-so-subtle story beats reaching all the way back to “My Witches.” I have to say that this episode surprised me with how it paid off so much while also keeping the interpersonal drama and the world-building going strong.

From the start, our little unit of Raelle (Taylor Hickson), Tally (Jessica Sutton) and Abigail (Ashley Nicole Williams) is shattered when Tally lands wrong from their skydive and breaks her leg. As Raelle goes to heal her, she sees Tally’s memories of Scylla (Amalia Holm) talking to the Spree balloon. And suddenly, she knows the truth: Tally lied this whole time. “I trusted you!” she screams at Tally. But another wrinkle is that Abigail is also pissed at Tally and Raelle. To Raelle, she yells, “Scylla’s Spree and you brought her to my cousin’s wedding?!” and to Tally, she barks, “You knew Scylla was responsible for Charvel’s death. If you knew Scylla was Spree why didn’t you tell me right away?!”

This is all happening, of course, on their most important day of training: Citydrop. Anacostia (Demetria McKinney) tells the troops that if they fail this, War College is no longer an option. So we get some cadet-on-instructor violence and I was once again impressed at the quality of the fight choreography. At this point Abigail goes ham on the instructor, letting out all of her frustrations and requiring Raelle to interject and pull her off.

It’s also revealed that Abigail and Libba (Sarah Yarkin) are less enemies than frenemies. I’ll be honest, Joe, this part felt like a retcon of the way they’ve acted all season. Instead of exchanging venom-filled barbs (“face like a spider abortion,” still remains gruesomely spectacular), they start pushing each other like a friendly nemesis. But we’ll get to the payoff of that a bit later.

On the world-building side, we didn’t get as much as usual. BUT! We did get a fantastic timeline that completely sets up the major war milestones of this alternate world. And it’s intriguing. Here are the dates:

1692 -- Salem Witch Trials1735 -- War for Independence
1800 -- First Mexican War
1810-1812 -- The Second Mexican War
1840-1842 -- Civil War
1908-1911 -- World War
1940 -- The Hague
1961-1964 -- Chinese Civil War
1960-Present -- Proxy Wars
Now -- Rise of the Spree

What I find most fascinating about this timeline is that all of the events that are connected to our world happened earlier. United States formed earlier. The Civil War happened earlier. Same with World War which is missing the “I” designator because it seems that, in this world, the Nazi regime either never existed or it was quashed so quickly it doesn’t even warrant a mention. Additionally, the wars were shorter, with War for Independence getting a single year whereas the American Revolutionary War lasted eight years.

Joe, I find this world absolutely fascinating and this brief moment really illuminates the power of the witch army and the good things that came from Alder (Lyne Renee)’s Salem Accord. It uses our knowledge of world history and further complicates the questions we, not to mention the characters, have been asking, in terms of whether Alder did a good thing by conscripting witches to the army.

But in a jam-packed episode, we’re not even skimming the surface. So I’ll turn it over to you, Joe, to continue the latter part of the episode. Did you like this episode? What did you think of the episode’s turning point that changes the focus of the training scenario into a real world event? Did the drama work for you, particularly with the cuts to the school and the arguing Generals?

JOE

See, Terry, this is why we do these reviews together. Not only do I not know enough about American history (lol), but I had a very different take on this episode’s effectiveness.

In isolation, watching this episode bring lingering plotlines to fruition, I was half satisfied and half annoyed. The satisfaction ties into your reaction, which is that the series has been smartly plotted, particularly over these last few episodes after the stakes were raised at Charvel’s wedding. The annoyance comes from the fact that everything you and I have speculated about since the pilot is coming to pass: Motherland may be well structured, but from an audience perspective, it’s not offering anything unexpected or surprising. And that can make it a bit of a bore to watch.

My particular grievance is the use of Libba in this episode. From the first moment she appears on screen so that she and Abigail can trade their usual barbs, it’s obvious where this is going to go. She might as well be wearing a Red Shirt and a RIP tattoo on her forehead. And while it’s hardly a surprise when Libba is killed in the Spree stand-off that dominates the back half of the episode, it’s even more aggravating when it becomes clear that Lybba was killed off simply so that Abigail could learn a VERY IMPORTANT LESSON. It should be tragic that these two girls, who were so alike, only came together moments before Libba’s death...except that that’s been Libba’s sole reason for existing since day one!

Normally this is where I take a step back and remind myself that the audience for the series is teen girls, but I’m also tired of cutting Motherland slack for not trusting its audience’s intelligence. Libba’s death is condescending; it’s a desperate attempt to wring emotional substance out of a paper thin characterization and that’s cheap.

What works better for me is that final moment as the squad watches Alder deliver her BS speech about how heroically they acted, how many countless lives were saved, and how the Spree killed those poor hostages. We’ve been predicting this shift against the witches for most of the series’ run, but there’s a grim satisfaction in watching the dominoes start to tumble down around Alder. As the blackboard confirms, she may have changed the course of history with the Salem accord, but there’s every indication that lying to these teen girls is going to hasten her downfall. Seeing the disillusionment in Tally, Raelle, Abigail and Anacostia’s eyes as they watch Alder lie is satisfying because of what it signifies: there’s no coming back from this.

So it’s a mixed bag for me, Terry. I’ll applaud the fact that there are some legitimate stakes in the highway showdown, if only because I was convinced that the Spree were going to infiltrate the Citydrop exercise. With that said, I would have preferred that the marketing team for the show not used footage of the truck exploding in all of their S1 trailers. It certainly undercut the suspense in this sequence.

As for cross-cutting back and forth between Citydrop and the war council...it could have been a little more seamless. Part of the problem is that the first half of the episode is heavily front-loaded with the drama between the three girls, so to interrupt that with Alder and her team surveying the Spree factory might have cut some of the tension. Alas, not introducing the threat of the Spree until nearly half-way through doesn’t allow the horror of Alder’s decision to really sink in. I’ll praise McKinney’s performance here because the look on Anacostia’s face as she receives the order is masterful. Still, I can’t help but wonder how much better this might have played if we got to see Alder and her council scramble to exhaust all of their options before finally resignedly realizing that they have to send in untrained cadets.

Not gonna lie, I also would have liked more girls to die. The fact that only Libba dies just accentuates how manipulative this is; killing half of the group would have made it feel less arbitrary and more like a real sacrifice for a questionable good.

But maybe I just like murdering teens…

Terry, I’ll turn it back to you: what did you think of the big showdown? How do you feel about Raelle’s emotional journey with regard to Scylla and her battle with her “girlfriend”? And were you anticipating a slightly larger, possibly less anti-climatic showdown with the Spree?

TERRY

First of all, don’t give me credit for the history lesson. I totally Googled.

But at this point, Joe, I think that I’m just along for the ride so I’m glad you’re keeping me honest and thinking critically. You’re absolutely right with your analysis, particularly that it feels that the narrative this season doesn’t give the audience enough credit. I guess I’ve just been beaten down so I’m not thinking about it in that way.

The climax worked for me until it didn’t. I loved the thematic stakes involved, particularly as it shakes our cadets (and Anacostia!) to the core. That worked exceedingly well for me as a turning point that will hopefully set up the final two episodes. You mentioned McKinney’s performance as Anacostia in this sequence and I completely agree. But I also really dug the more subtle inflections from Jessica Sutton as Tally. The fact that, when it came down to it, everyone in the cadre joined in exploding the truck except Tally was notable.

Tally’s journey this season has been one of compromising her values and doing things because it was dictated by the instructors. When we first met her, she was fresh-faced and excited to “do her duty.” She was full of naive excitement and she approached everything with virginal eyes. But when she had to lie to her unit because she was told to, it weighed on her over the last few episodes. She did what she was told to do and it made things worse. So her quietly defiant moment of ignoring her orders and not killing civilians felt like a huge turning point for her character.

I, too, wanted more deaths, Joe. Yes, we’re bloodthirsty horror geeks, and we both have a penchant for kids-in-danger, but you’re absolutely right that Libba’s sole death felt incredibly cheap. On one hand, I did appreciate the fact that the one death further shows the divide between Alder’s press briefing (“hundreds dead!”) and the actual truth (“one dead!”). But on the other...I mean, you pretty much hit the Red Shirt in the head. Or...I guess, heart. Too soon?

Raelle’s journey, though, didn’t fare as well for me. She’s spent the last few episodes moaning and crying over her lost love and while I appreciated the fact that she was forced to deal with The Truth and its implications, it was quite a sudden shift. The fact that she tells Not-Scylla that she knows it’s not Scylla, but even if it is her, she’s ready to kill her is...quite a swift dramatic shift.

Speaking of dramatic shifts, I’ll send it back to you to offer up final thoughts. Are you as intrigued as I am about the quirky Izadora (Emilie Leclerc)? I find her to be the most interesting character who hasn’t really had much screen time. How did you feel about the reappearance of Adil (Tony Giroux) as he cuddles Abigail? And what do you think the final two episodes will bring us?

JOE

I am 100% with you on Izadora. Fingers crossed that if we get a second season of the show, the character gets a promotion because she is totally fascinating.

Now...about that Adil scene: ugh. I was hopeful we might get through this review without discussing it! I kid...sort of.

In truth, it’s fine. I’ve liked his relationship with Abigail because, much like what you described with Tally, Adil is the one helping Abigail to wake up and question what she would have previously accepted without pause. My issue here is that he just randomly shows up at the end of the episode and all of their unresolved issues are wiped away? It’s not as though I need everything spelled out for me, but to go from “you’re part of the war effort that goes against my entire way of life” to “let’s cuddle” seems like a few steps were skipped over.

Same with Raelle’s journey. She more or less wore Abigail’s hat for the episode: stubbornly refusing to even for a moment consider Tally’s rationale and lashing out irrationally. Again, I get it: Raelle is hurting and she feels betrayed, so she strikes out at the people that she not only blames, but friends that she knows will forgive her. Part of the problem is that “Citydrop” doesn’t give Raelle time to process her emotions. Normally working through trauma while under pressure would be a compelling narrative approach, but in this case I can’t help but think that something like the quiet intimacy when our three leads reconnected at the lighthouse in “Up Is Down” would have been more effective.

I don’t know, Terry, maybe I just can’t be pleased? My complaints stem from my struggle with what I think Motherland can be and what it actually is. With only two episodes left in the season, I would be better served to get on board with what the show is doing rather than continue to nitpick. Heading into the finale, I anticipate that we’ll have fewer and fewer character beats and more bombastic action as the conflict between the witches and the Spree escalates.

We’ll see what happens when we jump back to QueerHorrorMovies next week for the penultimate episode, “Coup.”