'The Bastard Executioner' Recap: All Spit and Wit
We’re halfway through The Bastard Executioner’s 10-episode first season, and installment six, “Thorns / Drain,” written by John Barcheski and Kurt Sutter and directed by Billy Gierhart, sets a lot of things in motion: the most exciting of which is the alliance between Lady Love and the Wolf, who, it turns out, is her half-brother. Let’s break it down.
Even Milus is worried about Jessamy’s mental health. The episode began with Wilkin waking up to see Jessamy staring at him in bed like a stalker. Was anyone else distracted from ogling Wilkin’s chest and admiring his perfect beard by the fear that he was going to pacify jealous Jessamy by giving in to the intimacy she so desires? Did you talk to your TV, begging, “Don’t do it, don’t do it, don’t do it"? He didn’t. He just learned that Jessamy expects Lucca to be an executioner, just like Maddy’s father was before him.
After Toran helped assure Jessamy that Wilkin and he wouldn’t be running into anyone “fair” on their journey that day, they set out with a wagon full of noble blades and shields to replace the weapons that had been confiscated after the visit to the fishing village.
Unfortunately, they ran into two knights, Huxley and Norton, who felt one of them should accompany the duo since they’d be going through a favorite hiding spot of the rebels on their alleged trek to trade grain for sharpening stones. Of course, they had to kill Huxley when he figured out what was making all that noise in the wagon. (Why couldn’t they just take him back and say the rebels had killed him in a brawl? Because they wouldn’t want anyone to face the wrath their village had undeservedly, we must presume.)
They delivered the weapons to the Wolf, who vowed both that he would offer sanctuary for men-of-their-words Wilkin and Toran after they took their revenge, and that the attack on Lady Love’s caravan returning from the fishing village was not ordered by him. In fact, nothing he dictates will ever throw harm her way, he said.
Worried that the death of Huxley would be traced back to them when he never returned, Wilkin and Toran decided they must take said revenge that night and then flee. Wilkin told Jessamy about Milus knowing the truth of his identity and the danger they’d all be in if Milus were to turn on them. She didn’t want the charade to end. She went to see Milus. We never saw that conversation, but we found out what she’d said when Milus later summoned Wilkin and Toran to their torture chamber for a chat: In short, Jessamy claimed some of the knights had made advances at her, and Wilkin, in a jealous rage, threatened to take vengeance. She begged Milus to have Wilkin confined until his proper mind was restored.
Milus was smart enough to know there was some truth to that story: Wilkin, Toran, and the others wanted vengeance for their families’ deaths. That’s why Milus arranged to have Norton, the other knight encountered on the trail that day, stationed outside the door. Milus called him in and knocked him out. Milus’s offer: Wilkin, Toran, and the others would get to kill this second man and he’ll make sure neither knights’ death comes back on them. In exchange, they’ll need to let Leon and the others live and be loyal to him. It seems Milus trusts the men who hate him more than the soldiers who work for him for profit.
Should Wilkin have left Toran alone with Norton? Toran had been the one preaching patience, so let’s pretend that was a smart decision. The problem: it was now or never. When Wilkin returned with the other men, they found Toran had had time to torture Norton — taking an eye, removing teeth, using the pear. It was horrifying, but it served a purpose: Toran got the names of other knights involved in the massacre. He’d learned that Ventris had killed his son, and that Denley had killed Berber the Moor’s mother. He tortured Norton some more and found out that Locke had murdered his wife.
If you can’t remember who Locke and Denley are, they are these two.
In the end, Wilkin gutted Norton with a knife to finish him off. Now what? They’ll work side-by-side with the men they know killed their families to appease Milus? While plotting a new plan for revenge, yes? That’s the madness and burn that Toran spoke of. Also, let’s not forget that Leon, who’s been so loyal to Milus despite Milus being vague on the details, does know that Milus summoned Norton to stand guard at the torture chamber. That must have a payoff, right?
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Other questions: were Milus’s parting words to Wilkin foreshadowing? “The wife, she is quite mad. Take concern in that.” Would Milus knock her off if he feared she’d threaten the plan? (Then again, she’s all about living the lie, so perhaps she’s safe. Either way, Wilkin intends to look after Lucca as if he were his son.) And did Love believe Wilkin when he denied having seen the vision of a baby boy being born the night she touched his wound in the chapel? If not, will she start wondering why he’d lie?
Wilkin had been too shaken to show himself in the chapel and instead had his episode-ending meet-up with Love near bags of grain. One would assume he lied because Milus’s words spoken earlier in the episode had gotten to him: How would Love feel if she found out her growing affection for Wilkin was all based on deception? Perhaps, believing he’ll be under Milus’s thumb, Wilkin needs to pull away. Or maybe he just realized he expresses his feelings easier than any man ever: the only truth he knows is in the moments with her, she’s so beautiful and kind, and she sees the real him. He can’t let her see all of him though because he doesn’t know they are, in fact, on the same side…
Love got her meeting with the Wolf. She wanted a break from thinking about her fake pregnancy this episode, now that it’s official and posted about in the village. Isabel thought perhaps Love would like to go berry picking as they did when they were children. Cue them being abducted right after Love said she sometimes wants the thrill of adventure and travel.
This meet was, as executive producer Paris Barclay told us, the reason you need someone like Matthew Rhys in the role of the Wolf. Together, he and Flora Spencer-Longhurst helped Sutter build a full relationship in mere minutes. We started off thinking that Love was being her usual defiant self, masking fear, but soon came to learn that she and “Griffy” shared the same father and were meeting at the ruins of their great grandfather’s fortress.
Yes, there were insults about his mother, and a jab at him being the beloved but secret son. But underneath, even though they hadn’t seen each other in years, there was an affection and appreciation for them both still being “all spit and wit.” There’s a shared trust and levelheadedness that will be essential: she knows that an independent Wales won’t happen blade against blade, and he’s willing to sit at a table when she finds men and women of even temper and open heart. In the meantime, they’re both worried about all the attacks that are happening — half of which are by men he’s never met. Since a revolution with no leader is chaos — blood spilled for no purpose — he asked Love for one of the family heirlooms she hid from Ventris. He can use the money he gets for it to organize the men — provide food, shelter, and weapons, and care for their families, which will make them loyal soldiers and subject to sound command.
Love did choose to finance the revolution, later meeting “Griffy” in the tunnel leading from the heirloom-hiding crypt and giving him a piece of jewelry. They’re in this together now, she said, and they’ll proceed with caution and counsel. Just as she’d do with Wilkin, she built Griffy up when he worried that he couldn’t be the big bad Wolf when needed. She told him he had to be, just to crush the rat (starting with Milus, since he was having sex with rats, the twins, and a little person earlier in the episode?). “May our savior keep you safe, Griffy,” she said in parting. “Of course, he will,” the Wolf quipped. “Jesus was a rebel.”
Four things that shouldn’t get lost as we move forward in the season: 1) Griffy told Love that he was there when Ventris was killed by an honorable man who had once served Ventris. If Love values Griffy’s opinion as much as she appears to, him trusting Wilkin could go a long way. 2) Milus had told Love that Baron Pryce said they’d caught a rebel who took responsibility for killing Pryce’s wife on the Wolf’s order. Since the Wolf said he didn’t order that, Love told him she’ll speak to the prisoner when he arrives at Castle Ventris and ask why he’s lying. Could that be the lie that does Milus in? (Probably not. He could spin it back on Pryce.) 3) Locke and Denley know that Love has a fondness for the area where she was abducted and taken to meet the Wolf. Did Isabel and Love sell their cover-up enough? 4) Love made it sound like Isabel might have had a crush on the Wolf when they were young. Totally shipping those two now.
Annora has her own new ally, Father Ruskin. Annora spent the episode pulling dark, sharp stones (we’ll call them) out of her self-healing body. They’re omens of a dark danger coming, like a crown of thorns, she told Father Ruskin when she visited him.
He watched her pull a shard out of her chest and the chest heal, and heard her quote the Bible to him, so he took her seriously when she said he’d know the evil when he sees it and God will guide him to the task. Assuming we’re rooting for Annora at the moment, let’s hope that Ruskin doesn’t join Team Robinus: remember he saw the Seraphim writing on Annora’s chest.
Robinus, the Archdeacon of Windsor, and his muscle, Absolon, arrived at Castle Ventris in search of the Seraphim, though that’s not the reason they gave for their visit. Ruskin noticed that Absolon, who’s bunking in his quarters, has a cross with pointy edges and a crown of thorns on a bag that he carries. The sign he was looking for.
We know that Ruskin can handle himself in a fight. Will he and Absolon come to blows?
The Dark Mute also told Annora that he would “ready his service.” He opened a handy closet in their cave and we saw a religious robe and a heavy arsenal. Is the robe from his past as a monk? A disguise? Is his “service” going to be kicking a little ass?
Theories? Go!
The Bastard Executioner airs Tuesdays at 10 p.m. on FX.
