Once the world was full of wonders, but it belongs to humans now. We creatures have all but disappeared. Daemons, vampires, and witches hiding in plain sight, ill at ease, even with each other. But, as my father used to say, in every ending…there is a new beginning.
It’s back! Last week saw the premiere of A Discovery of Witches for the UK and selected European countries, and judging by the first episode, it’s a very promising adaptation of Deborah Harkness’s best-selling All Souls trilogy. We were introduced of course to Matthew and Diana, played by Matthew Goode and Teresa Palmer, and the pair portrayed their characters very well. Other integral characters included Satu, Peter Knox, Gillian, Marcus, Miriam, and of course, Diana’s Aunt Em and Sarah. The series set up the story well by introducing the world of vampires, daemons, and witches, along with how our characters fit into this world. Now that the stage has been set, our characters are free to find themselves in trouble, or perhaps be the ones stirring up trouble…
Hunting and Killing
Firstly, when the song ‘White Rabbit’ starts playing in anything, you must applause the music team. Now, the new episode begins in Venice when a woman eyes off a man named Matthieu and follows him. The pair then are slamming up against brick walls when she says she used to know a man named Matthew. During the middle of the act, she bites into his neck causing him to run. She catches up to him and calls him Matthew before biting into his chest.
After such a full-on opening scene, we are then soothed by Matthew’s (Matthew Goode) voice once more as he travels in his car through the countryside before arriving at a beautiful manor. Matthew is there do some hunting and Hamish (Greg McHugh) greets him at the door. Hamish, who is a daemon, wants to know what’s wrong and Matthew tells him he came to get away from a witch as he is craving her. They then head out to hunt, well at least Matthew does. He catches the scent of a stag and he’s racing across the hills to catch up with his prey. After a good feed, Hamish thinks Matthew should stay away from Diana.
Later on, Hamish and Matthew discuss the book and it appears daemon suicides, mental health problems, and homelessness are on the rise. If the book could explain their origins, it could help them. During a game of chess, they continue their discussion when Hamish wins and not-so-subtly says “there is more to the game than protecting your queen”. Matthew then decides he needs to go back and get the book from Diana, when Hamish suggests Marcus instead. Matthew won’t let him anywhere near her, and Hamish reminds him of what’s happened in the past to the women he’s craved—Elena and Cecilia. Matthew angers at this and says he swore to never be with another warmblood again after Cecilia, but Hamish can tell that he’s talking about Diana differently.
Nightmares and Danger
Diana (Teresa Palmer) continues to have more nightmares of spiders and being covered in cobwebs. After being woken up from them, Diana heads out for the day and finds her jacket that Matthew sniffed last episode in her letterbox. Once again the Bodleian is filled with people, much to the surprise of Diana. When Diana looks up, she sees Satu (Malin Buska) and she is then approached by Peter Knox (Owen Teale), who claims to be a friend. At first Diana dismisses him, but he reveals he knew her mother.
The pair then walk together and he says he and Diana’s mother met when they were teenagers. Peter also says he had hoped to introduce himself, but her aunts are quite overprotective. Alarm bells much? They stop for tea and Peter begins his interrogation about the book—how she called it, where it is, and what was in it. Peter believes Ashmole 782 contains the witches’ first spells, which could tell them how they created vampires and how they may be able to destroy them. Diana won’t have any part of it, and leaves. This causes Peter to tell Satu they may have to use firmer tactics.
Diana then has more tea, but with Gillian (Louise Brealey) who doesn’t understand the harm of trying to call the book again. Gillian is glad to hear that Matthew isn’t interested in Diana anymore, but Diana is somewhat miffed about Matthew being gone.
Out for a run, Satu stops Diana and grabs Diana’s hand that was burned. She says Diana’s magic is hidden when Satu goes into a trance like state trying to figure out what’s wrong with her and apparently Diana did it to herself. After her encounter with Satu, Diana calls Em to ask her about Peter, who apparently was into dark magic and in love with Diana’s mother.
Diana heads to a faculty function when she’s introduced to man with a special interest in occult sciences and he just so happens to be Peter Knox. After he requests for her to retrieve the book again, she delivers a nice burn by saying, “I’m like my mother. Once I’ve made my mind up, I don’t change it”. She then walks off but he speaks inside her mind with the threat he will make her do it. He keeps pushing deeper into her mind when her powers flare and she yells inside his head causing a window to smash.
Out For Blood
Back in Venice, we are introduced to Domenico (Gregg Chillin) at a mortuary as he wants to view the body that was found. It’s the body of Matthieu, but drained of blood. At the mention of Matthieu’s name, it seems Domenico knows exactly what’s happened. He then goes to visit Juliette (Elarica Johnson) who is the woman from the start of the episode, along with her father, Gerbert D’Aurillac (Trevor Eve), who he has a private conversation with. Afterwards, Gerbert talks to Juliette about what happened as Baldwin could use it against him. He then bites into her neck to see what she did to Matthieu and we also see memories of her being intimate with Matthew. This leads to Juliette being thrown into a cell.
Meanwhile, Miriam (Aiysha Hart) is testing blood when Marcus (Edward Bluemel) shows up and it seems James’ tests came back normal and the problem is with Marcus.
After the ordeal at the faculty function, Peter Knox pays a visit to Gillian and he tells her that Diana performed an elemental spell, much to the surprise of Gillian. Diana then knocks on her door and sees Peter, and Diana then realises it was Gillian who betrayed her. Everything that has happened to Diana recently begins to play in her head and she then goes to see Matthew’s rooms. She knocks, but with no answer she is disheartened until she sees him at the bottom of the stairs.
A Discovery of Matthew
Diana sits in Matthew’s room and says that he was right about the creatures coming for the book, meanwhile all Matthew can hear is her pulse from the other side of the room. Matthew asks for her to calm down and then asks her why she came to him. Unfortunately for Diana, she has nobody she can trust and she certainly doesn’t want Peter to get the book. Matthew then hands Diana a book and she’s excited to learn that he knew Charles Darwin, but also surprised to hear Matthew has been searching for Ashmole 782 since 1859. This then leads to the question every vampire story has: how old are you? The guessing game goes up to 500 years before she begins to pinpoint a time by asking if he witnessed certain events: “Did you know Machiavelli? Survive the fall of Carthage?”
Matthew asks to show Diana his lab and recommends she wear a coat as he can tell she’s cold since he can hear her heart “all the time”. At the lab, he tells her they are studying vampire, witch, and daemon species. Unfortunately the intellectual tension is interrupted by Miriam and Marcus, who takes a nice big whiff of Diana—”Wow! AB negative. Don’t suppose I could take some of your blood, could I? It’s tough getting a sample from a living witch.” Diana abruptly declines when Matthew explains that vampires are unable to sire, daemons are increasingly prone to madness, and witches are losing their powers.
He then shows her some graphs of various DNA from witches and then discussing Ashmole 782 and the potential world of only humans. Diana sees that Matthew thinks she should use her powers. After he drops her to her door and begins to walk away, Diana confesses the book is a palimpsest with old words hidden under new. She speaks of what she noticed, included three missing pages and the alchemical child depiction. At this, he grabs her hand and kisses her wrist.
Overall Thoughts?
I am seriously loving this series. As I mentioned in the season premiere recap, I began to lose interest significantly within the first book because it delved so much into alchemy. Don’t get me wrong, I find it fascinating, but it wasn’t really necessary because you really only needed to know the basic concepts rather than reading excerpts from alchemy texts. This is perhaps why the series is enjoyable because it cuts that out since there is so much of a story to tell. It focuses on the characters, their relationships, and where the story takes place.
Naturally being this type of genre, it does carry the typical tropes of instant love, warring vampires, and plenty of danger, but I can easily overlook that since I love a good romance and witchy tale, plus also when Matthew Goode narrates, it’s like heaven. I’m also incredibly glad the season is only eight episodes long allowing it to go into enough detail, but not dragging at the same time. I think by the end of the season, we will be quite satisfied, and hopefully we will be able to see what happens next as Shadow of Night is my favourite book in the trilogy and definitely the most interesting when it comes to everything such as the storyline, characters, and settings.
Next week on A Discovery of Witches, Matthew and Diana have dinner and he also takes her to his house. We will also see Diana let Matthew test her blood, along with Diana asking what she would taste like. Sarah’s angry to discover that Diana is hanging out and Diana tries to get Ashmole 782 again.
Episode 3 Official Synopsis: Domenico takes information he’s extracted from Satu to menacing vampire Gerbert, who gains the advantage he has been waiting for. After sending Juliette into the world to do his bidding, Gerbert consults with Meridiana, the witch whom he keeps in thrall, but what does the prophecy she delivers mean? In Oxford, Diana refuses to help Knox realise his supremacist longing to destroy the vampires and answers his threats with such a violent force of untamed elemental power, as to set in motion a wider chain of events that bring her closer to Matthew but place her in even greater jeopardy.
Can’t wait to watch it
The “White Rabbit” track is a cover from Haley Reinhart that was recorded to tape using vintage equipment.