Summary
A sedate episode in “The Witchfinder” gives the past time to catch up to several characters, but perhaps Tamacti Jun most of all.
This recap of See season 2, episode 4, “The Witchfinder”, contains spoilers.
Episodes like “The Witchfinder”, more sedate, character-driven outings, are necessary for shows like See, which spend a lot of time delighting in big, burly men smacking each other to death. They’re important for context and worldbuilding; for establishing the stakes and for building drama. The latest episode of Apple TV+’s Game of Thrones-alike does those things some of the time, but it also succumbs to being a bit too unhurried for its own good.
See season 2, episode 4 recap
It’s Maghra’s wedding day! And she is not happy about it, despite the obvious political utility of her union with Lord Harlan. Queen Kane is, naturally, delighting in the whole thing, but she does, at least, share a tender, sisterly moment with Maghra on the morning of the big day. There’s still a connection between the two of them. It’ll be a shame when one inevitably has to kill the other.
Meanwhile, Baba Voss, Haniwa, Paris, and Tamacti Jun are still travelling with the warriors of the Compass, reeling from the news about Maghra, but they’re forced to delay when Baba’s fever threatens to overcome him. A nearby settlement nestled in a satellite farm might provide a healer, but also some bad memories for the Witchfinder General, who last visited the place when he came to senselessly butcher everyone there. Rightly fearing how he’d be received, he camps nearby but is overcome by the screams of his victims. The focus on Tamacti Jun doesn’t really begin until about halfway through the episode, and it isn’t as fleshed out as it could be, but it provides an effective dramatic angle to this detour. Baba is taken in and healed by Bow Lion, a fan-favourite from the first season, but after she discovers that Tamacti Jun is present she threatens to expose their secret if they haven’t all left by dawn.
I like this angle, even if it does come a little out of nowhere. Tamacti Jun wasn’t a particularly contemplative chap before, so him being suddenly haunted is a bit of a stretch, but a late conversation with Paris in the episode’s closing moments goes some way towards rationalizing his newfound self-loathing. He spent his life killing in the name of the Queen, only to be left for dead by her, his wife and children drowned in the flooding of Kanzua. There’s no wonder he has regrets. Luckily, his presence isn’t given away, but as Paris assures him, “Don’t worry, you’ll have plenty of opportunities to die.” I think I smell a heroic, redemptive self-sacrifice coming somewhere down the line.
Edo largely takes a back seat in “The Witchfinder”, but he makes his brief presence felt when one of the Queen’s titular warriors tells him of the sighted children in the royal family, Haniwa and Kofun. This is part of an overarching plot that is clearly gearing up Trivantes and Pennsa for war with each other. You can see it elsewhere, too. Kofun finally arrives in Pennsa to find his mother about to be wed, and he’s horrified by this development, perhaps unreasonably so. Harlan, meanwhile, is trying his very best to cajole Maghra into consummating their arrangement, but she has other ideas. She wants him to help her smuggle Haniwa out of Trivantes, where Kofun has told her she is imprisoned, neither of them realizing that Baba Voss already freed her. It’s looking very much like a big, bloody battle is on the near horizon.
You can stream See season 2, episode 4 right now exclusively on Apple TV+.
