‘Motherland: Fort Salem’ Recap – ‘Not Our Daughters’

Written by John Edward Betancourt

Caution: This article contains spoilers for Episode 204 of ‘Motherland: Fort Salem’.

​There was a time in American warfare when combat was quite black and white. In that, there was our army and the enemy, and both were easily identified by way of distinctive uniforms and tactics and war machinery that displayed the flag of either side. But as the years have rolled along and great armies have faded from the landscape, warfare and the appearance of our enemies have evolved. For now, they do their best to blend in and fight with guile and deceit. Simply because they are eager to bring our soldiers down and believe that sneakier tactics might rattle the morale of an army that appears to be invincible, thanks to its incredible resources, and  they also believe... that such tactics might just defeat us.

If anything, that strange evolution to warfare is relevant to our discussion today, largely due to the fact that the writers’ room of Motherland: Fort Salem, is going to explore this notion in greater detail in season two of this series. Because the Camarilla are eager to use those kinds of tactics to gain an upper hand in the war against their ancient enemy, as evidenced by last night’s episode of this series. For ‘Not Our Daughters’ saw General Alder work to open the new testing centers to uncover more witches and keep them safe and well, she genuinely thought that the might of the Witch Army would keep the enemy at bay and allow for a peaceful and smooth opening to what she thought the public would embrace. 

But unfortunately for the general, with anti-witch sentiment at an all-time high, the protests outside the testing centers gave the Camarilla the perfect cover to operate with guerilla warfare tactics, despite having Anacostia and Scylla watching from afar. Which allowed for them to set up quite the trap for the big opening since they placed unique weapons around the perimeter and they also took the time to prepare quite the surprise for Abigail, since they knew Alder was predictable and would bring her and her friends to the opening and well… when the time was right, they struck hard and brought forth utter disaster at this grand event. Leaving the Witch Army embarrassed and Abigail in a tough place since she barely escaped the attempt on her life and all of this made for one fascinating and unique tale.

Because it really does present the Witch Army with a real-world problem that our Armed Forces had to deal with, since it took years for our military to adjust tactics to fight this kind of problem and well, it will be interesting to see how the Witch Army adapts to their enemy. For when magic is involved, there is no door to door searching and clearing as there was in the Iraq campaign, nor were we dealing with this on our home turf and well… that could mean that dark days are ahead for this intrepid army. Because General Alder is beside herself at this point and unsure how to proceed with an enemy that continues to make a mockery of her and that’s bad news for certain. For this army needs guidance and quick and it will be difficult to say if Alder is up to the task since she is so set in her ways and so attached to deception.

In the end however, this was simply an incredible episode. Not only because it took the time to parallel our world once again, but also because it continued to do some incredible world-building. Since we now know that the Camarilla are focused closely on Abigail and the Bellweather family line and that they are far more formidable than anyone has given them credit and now that this story is featuring warfare on American soil… who knows where it will go. Because all bets are off now and the Camarilla are clearly ready to bring the whole thing down if it means defeating their enemies and more big strikes will undoubtedly weaken trust in the army and that means a true leader, one that is ready to fight back in a creative manner, needs to assert themselves sooner rather than later. Until next time.

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