‘A Discovery of Witches’ Recap: ‘Episode 2’

Written by John Edward Betancourt 

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It’s always a wonderful feeling when you find yourself excited and hungry to know more when it comes to a brand-new television series. Because it means the series in question, figured out how to captivate your imagination and draw you into a quality story and well, that’s precisely where I’m at with A Discovery of Witches. For a story that I wasn’t sure I was going to enjoy, was on my mind quite a bit the past few days, to the point where I felt the need to discuss it with others to speculate on the mysteries that the series premiere of this show presented to us and as it turns out, it’s a darn good thing that I made sure to tune in last night, since ‘Episode 2’, wasted no time in giving me some big-time answers, all while finding new ways to keep me enthralled.
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If anything, let’s talk about those all-important answers first, because I really didn’t expect to learn what we learned. For example, one would think the mysteries of Ashmole 782 would continue to build over the course of the season but here, we came to learn plenty about its contents, thanks to a creepy meeting between the mysterious Peter Knox and Diana. For over the course of this meeting, we came to not only learn that Peter is a freakin’ creep with some serious control issues, he knows what’s in that book and this mysterious text is believed to contain the original spells that witches first used long ago, and that it points to the fact that witches created vampires and the book, could undo their existence, an idea that seemed horrifying to Diana, prompting her to steer clear of this jerk.

But alas, creepy ol’ Peter kept popping up, as did his new lackey Satu, all in the hopes of having Diana recall the book for their own nefarious purposes and this little push on their part taught us a great deal about Diana in that, she’s quite the powerful witch and that she made an active choice to bury her powers for the most part to be free of this madness. But sadly, there is no escaping Peter and his web of deceit at this point, which prompted her to reach out to Matthew and make peace for the time being and this turned out to be a fine decision on her part since this mysterious vampire took the time to recover from the desire he felt for her, allowing for him to finally have a good and productive discussion with Diana wherein her revealed another stunner in this tale, in that, it would seem that magic is beginning to fade away in the modern world.

For the little problem that vampires are currently running into, wherein they can no longer sire more of their own kind, is spreading in unique ways throughout the community. Because demons are starting to suffer from severe mental health issues, to the point where they are taking their own lives, and witches for that matter are starting to see their powers fade, and Matthew firmly believes that perhaps the book can help restore the balance of the magic world so that all can continue to exist and mankind and its vast imagination have something more to believe in and this was…a lovely twist to add to this already dynamic series. Because who would ever think that a vampire, a creature that is oft portrayed as a soulless being, is so dedicated to saving all of mankind and his own enemies? It makes Matthew a special character indeed and it makes the ending of this episode satisfying as well since Diana takes the time to tell him what she saw when she opened that book.

Yet while all of this definitely captivated me and satisfied my need for knowledge, this tale did find a way to add a few new mysteries into the mix. After all, we haven’t a clue just yet, as to why we were introduced to a powerful vampire and his starving daughter, who is seemingly lusting after Matthew, and for that matter, one has to wonder as to whether or not Matthew can in fact keep his desire to Diana at bay and most important of all, is that I’m quite curious as to how far Peter is willing to go when it comes to having Diana summon the book, making him the most dangerous character in this series in my opinion. But either way, I am continuing to enjoy this new series thoroughly, it just offers something different when it comes these respective worlds and I cannot wait to see where this wild ride is going to take us in the weeks to come. Until next time.   

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