We begin at a soccer game, where another inflatable explodes and another person walks off claiming Spree responsibility. But instead of a Psychic-Assisted Suicide, everyone in the stadium starts chanting the words, “Our ancient enemy has returned.” Plot twist, indeed…
The Bellweather unit take a moment to theorize what ancient enemy the people in the soccer stadium could’ve been referring to. Tally’s guess is the church. But there’s more important things to be thinking about. Today is the day the cadets graduate from basic training and find out whether they got into War College or not.
But our unit are in for a shock as, surrounded by jubilant cadets off to War College, they look at their medals to see… combat infantry. They guess that Alder is behind this, seemingly furthered by Alder’s wish to speak to them, but as it turns out Khalida has insisted on the unit’s help in rescuing the remaining Tarim. Adil will go with them, but as the potential last of the line, Khalida is staying behind.
Raelle tells her father that she’s deploying that day, and that she didn’t get into War College, to which her father comforts her with the fact that her mother didn’t either. He confesses that Willa didn’t take her combat charm with her on her last tour, like she knew she wasn’t going to be coming back, and wanted it kept safe for Raelle. He gives her a letter that Willa left for her, and asks that she come back to him.
Meanwhile, Petra has managed to pull some strings to secure Abigail a solo place at War College. Abigail protests that Raelle and Tally are also the last of their lines, but Petra tells her that some lines are worth preserving more than others. A devastated Tally and Raelle thank Anacostia for taking care of them through basic training and, before she can leave, Raelle asks that Scylla be shown some kindness wherever she’s going. She’s messed up but she’s not all bad. When the team board the plane, Abigail reveals herself, having turned down her place at War College to stay with her unit.
Anacostia manages to get Scylla to open up about the death of her parents. Scylla was sixteen, on the run with her family, when the army caught up with them. Scylla hid in the garage and did nothing while her parents were needlessly executed after they'd surrendered, and now she fights in their honor after the Spree gave her a place to put her pain. Anacostia’s parents died in a car accident, so by the book that they refused to use Work to save themselves, and the army took her in and gave her a family. Although they still disagree on a lot, Scylla thanks Anacostia for being kinder to her than she needed to be.
On the plane, Raelle traces the sigil on her mother’s letter, conjuring an illusion of her reading it. Willa tells Raelle she loves her and that she has powerful Work within her. She promises that she will always be close, watching over her. When Raelle closes the letter, the illusion of her mother is gone. The team use helicopters once they get close to the last known location of the Tarim and as soon as their feet are on the ground Tally senses they’re being watched by something hostile.
As they make camp that night, Tally calmly confronts Alder about her puppetting of the President. Alder remains firm that she doesn’t have to explain herself, but tells the unit that she’s had to make hundreds of tough calls, and she doesn’t regret any of them. They discuss the morality of what they’ve done. Tally sees how worried Alder is for the remaining Tarim and, although she doesn’t believe Alder has the best intentions, she begins to regain a little faith in her.
The next morning, the team locate the rest of the Tarim, helped in part by Adil’s ability to reshape the solid rock that his people have put up in defense. Raelle heals a little boy cursed with the same black webbing that plagued Khalida, and the team make their way back to the helicopters. But in their absence, the helicopter crews have been captured and tied to stakes, and they are burned alive in front of Alder by people wearing a similar kind of tech to Charvel’s killers. Alder realizes that she was wrong; the Camarilla have indeed resurfaced.
Meanwhile, Anacostia frees Scylla before the transport can take her to prison. She pleads with Scylla to hold onto the part of her that’s good, telling her that she believes she deserves a second chance, before allowing Scylla to take on her guise and walk off-base a free woman.
Surrounded in unnatural fog, the team attempt to fight off the Camarilla, who are using their tech to replicate a twisted version of their Work. Tally uses her Sight to warn everyone which direction they’re about to be attacked from as Alder and the unit hold the line for long enough to get the Tarim onboard a helicopter. Two of Alder’s biddies go down in combat, and Tally makes a split-second decision to let Alder take her as a biddy, in order to save her life.
The little boy Raelle healed gets frightened when the helicopter starts up and runs. Raelle and Abigail go after him; Raelle gives him her combat charm and promises it will keep him safe. Abigail takes the boy back to the chopper while Raelle defends, but she’s stabbed through the chest from behind by a member of the Camarilla. Abigail Links with her despite Raelle telling her that she’ll die too, both of them collapsed and dying on the ground, and the rest of the team have no choice but to take off and leave them behind. As they're dying, there’s an explosion that comes from their joined hands; Alder has no idea what it was or what caused it. Unbeknownst to those on the helicopter, mushrooms sprout in huge numbers behind Raelle and Abigail, who are covered in dirt and walking away hand in hand surrounded by a protective force, looking completely bewildered.
Scylla makes her way to a Spree safehouse, followed by an undetected Anacostia intent on keeping tabs, and she meets with a woman cooking mushrooms. The woman turns around and… it’s Willa Collar, Raelle’s supposedly dead mother, who tells Scylla that she was meant to bring her daughter to her. Scylla’s expression drops into one of shock.
Cut to end credits!
Tropes Used:
- Big "NO!": Biddy!Tally when the helicopter takes off and leaves a dying Raelle and Abigail behind.
- Face-Revealing Turn: Abigail pulls one of these on the plane as Raelle and Tally find out that she turned down a place at War College to be with them on the mission. Willa has one at the end of the episode, revealing that she’s actually alive and working for the Spree.
- Friendship Moment: The Bellweather unit take a moment at the beginning of the episode to reflect on their journey so far and the Character Development that came with it.
- Greater-Scope Villain: The Camarilla is revealed to be this.
- Hold the Line: Alder and the unit have to hold off the Camarilla for long enough to get the rescued Tarim onto the copter.
- I Did What I Had to Do: Alder invokes this with the unit when she talks about all the hard decisions she’s had to make over the past 300 years.
- In the Back: Raelle gets stabbed from behind by a member of the Camarilla.
- Insult of Endearment: Abigail’s continues to refer to Raelle as “shitbird” in this episode, but it’s the first time she’s done it fondly.
- "Not So Different" Remark: Scylla muses that she and Anacostia are more alike than she thought.
- Platonic Declaration of Love: Abigail tells Raelle she loves her with what she believes will be her final words.
- Preserve Your Gays: Raelle is stabbed through the chest from behind and then the ground on which she and Abigail lay dying explodes. She’s done for, right? Wrong. Raelle and Abigail are last seen walking, seemingly unharmed, inside what looks to be a protective force field.
- Punched Across the Room: Abigail, by herself, sends the man who stabbed Raelle flying using a Windstrike.
- Rapid Aging: Tally goes through this when she makes the split-second decision to become one of Alder’s biddies to keep her alive.
- The Reveal: Willa is alive! And she’s Spree! And she’s Scylla’s balloon boss! It should be noted that, by the look on her face, Scylla had no idea that Raelle was Willa’s daughter.
- Season Finale:
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: The Spree took Scylla in after her parents were executed – after surrendering – by the army, and she truly believes that she’s fighting in their honor to end conscription and free witches from the shackles of fighting wars on behalf of people who hate them.
