Grrrngh, click, vroom. Hear that? The sound of a series revving out of the muddy furrow in which it’s languished for two episodes, and getting back on track. Episode three gave us much less Matthew in the tower, and much more Diana spontaneously sprouting tree branches from her fingertips and playing interdimensional cat’s cradle with the gleaming strings of life. Witch stuff, not spy stuff! And all the better for it. Episode three was also all the better for a shift in Matthew’s behaviour. There was just the one growl, and an entirely pardonable one seeing as it was directed at Kit Marlowe, a character whose self pity would have anybody baring their teeth. We saw the return of Matthew the diplomat, a man acting like he’d learnt a few things from his centuries of experience instead of a man who didn’t get any sleep on the flight over and just spilled hot coffee on his lap. Politic flattery, not a choke-hold, was Matthew’s weapon this week. Father Hubbard was his first mark, a threat instantly reduced with some faux-deference and some genuine regret. Hubbard has now served his narrative purpose by bringing Philippe de Clermont into the mix, so hopefully that’s job done and fare thee well for him. There’s currently a surfeit of characters declaring themselves the boss of London whom nothing gets by without them knowing about it (including the legit Queen of England), so Hubbard wouldn’t be missed. Loyalty is an emerging theme of season two. Between Lord Burghley, Elizabeth I, his father, his faith, his newly arrived nephew and his witch, Matthew’s is being pulled in multiple directions and the strain is showing. Now there’s a trip to Sept-Tours on the itinerary, to see his dead (twice dead, really) dad, about whose sad fate he must pretend ignorance. Matthew’s situation is a step or two more psychologically complex than this show usually ventures, but we know that Matthew Goode can capably go anywhere the character takes him. Kit’s loyalty was the subject of his telling-off from Matthew – unfairly so as it wasn’t him who told Cecil about Mistress Roydon being a witch. Surely the source of the Water Lane leak is poor young Jack, the Roydons’ pickpocket-turned-adoptive son. Jack’s presence in the episode showed us another engaging side to Matthew – the caring father he once was to his own son. It also showed us that the Roydons aren’t the deepest thinkers on the block. Who adopts a child on what is, essentially, a gap year? What happens to Jack when they return to the present day? More consideration has gone into the fostering of some hamsters than the rescue of that little boy. For an academic, deep reflection doesn’t seem to be Diana’s mode. She’s more a doer than a thinker. This week, for instance, saw both the start and the end of her magical training with the Gathering. Just two lessons down and it was ‘Goodbye Goody Alsop, I’ll pick the rest up along the way. Knots, wasn’t it? I’ll figure it out.’ The training scenes were a lot of fun, partly because of the reassuring presence of Sheila Hancock (everybody should have a teacher like Goody Alsop), and partly because that knot-tying business looked the absolute business. Venice is always a rewarding place to spend time, and that’s where the episode left us, on the cliff-hanger that Domenico has been playing the long game. The time has come for him to make his move and reclaim the city from Gerbert. How’s he going to do it? By offering up the destruction of the De Clermont dynasty, courtesy of a mangled body on an Oxford street. Subscribe to Den of Geek magazine for FREE right here!
