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13 Mar

A Discovery of Witches: Ending Explained

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This A Discovery of Witches article contains major spoilers. Not every television series learns exactly how many episodes it has to tell its story, and the Shudder/Sundance Now fantasy drama A Discovery of Witches takes full advantage of that knowledge leading viewers down a season two path that intentionally raises more questions than answers. It’s been a wild ride as Diana Bishop and Matthew Clairmont continue their search for The Book of Life amidst the creature underworld of 16th century Elizabethan London, and not surprisingly there’s a lot to unpack about the season finale. Throughout the season the actions of…
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12 Mar

A Discovery of Witches Season 2 Episode 10 Review

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This A Discovery of Witches review contains spoilers. Say it’s not so. We’re going to have to wait until season three to see Bishop vs Knox, the fight of the century?  Usually when a character spends a series on a skills-training arc, the payoff is a big, satisfying, exploding-fireworks demonstration of those skills. Think Daniel’s crane kick in The Karate Kid or Baby’s lift in Dirty Dancing. (I have no examples from this century. I am an old lady.) They train, they improve, they do something cool in silhouette, and then at the very end, they put on a big show and everybody goes home…
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06 Mar

A Discovery of Witches Season 2 Episode 9 Review

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Warning: this A Discovery of Witches review contains spoilers. A pregnancy! Something really has stuck its finger into the creature gene pot and swirled it around hasn’t it? First it was daemons born to witches and vice versa, now a vampire and a witch have conceived, going against millennia of biology. Whatever next – big, fiery birds swooping out of people’s midriffs to smite their enemies? Yes, exactly! Don’t you just love fantasy? Corra the firedrake is Diana’s long-promised familiar, an elemental creature unlocked by reaching level six of her weaver training. Knot of one: the spell’s begun. Knot of two: the…
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27 Feb

A Discovery of Witches Season 2 Episode 8 Review

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This review contains A Discovery of Witches spoilers. The moment Phoebe asked Marcus “Can you turn into a bat?” was the moment A Discovery of Witches’ newest couple won my heart. Possibly it happened slightly earlier when Phoebe replied to Marcus’ declaration that he was the Grand Master of the Knights of Lazarus with the words “And I’m Princess Leia”, but the bat thing cinched it.  In a series so weighted by ominous portent and fraught faces delivering either bloodthirsty threats or speeches prophesying the end of times, a bit of levity goes a long way. It’s the dollop of salted caramel ice…
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27 Feb

A Discovery of Witches: Explaining Peter Knox’s Magic Balls

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Warning: contains spoilers for A Discovery of Witches season 2 episode 8. Near the end of A Discovery of Witches season two, episode eight, Peter Knox walks into the hospital room where new parents Sophie and Nathaniel are recovering from the birth of their daughter Margaret (no, nobody else is much keen on the name either). As a powerful witch who represents his people on political assembly the Congregation, he’s there to verify that the baby is – as he’s been told – a witch born to daemons, and then to kidnap the child so that she can be raised by her own species.…
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19 Feb

A Discovery of Witches Season 2 Episode 7 Review

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This review contains A Discovery of Witches spoilers. An episode as fun as this one almost makes it a shame that A Discovery of Witches is a continuing story and not a case-of-the-week romp. Imagine it: Matthew and Diana through the centuries, tracking down magical items, exposing historical figures as massive, Anti-Semitic prongs, having punch-ups with the royal guards and, at the end of every episode, readying the horses for a swift getaway. Exhilaration itself!  Enjoyable as that arrangement might be, we’d miss out on so much. As season two nears the home straight, its many elements are being drawn together in a way…
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13 Feb

A Discovery of Witches Season 2 Episode 6 Review

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This A Discovery of Witches review contains spoilers. What a turnaround. They live long lives, vampires, but that doesn’t mean they take things slow. Philippe de Clermont went from antagonist to sweetheart in a single episode that covered a continent of emotional ground. What began in conflict ended in declarations of acceptance and forgiveness. If only we could all time travel our way to such closure with the people we’ve lost. Most families, admittedly, don’t have the de Clermonts’ baggage. ‘My Son Rescued Me From Nazi Torture, Euthanized Me, And Married Our Mortal Enemy’ would be too lurid a headline even for…
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05 Feb

A Discovery of Witches Season 2 Episode 5 Review

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This A Discovery of Witches review contains spoilers. Monsieur de Clermont, we’ve been expecting you! Admittedly, we weren’t expecting you to show up, sniff your son, detect that he hadn’t yet banged his girlfriend, shit stir about it and then offer her the keys to your bread cupboard, but it’s always good to leave people guessing.  The reputation of Philippe de Clermont very much precedes him in A Discovery of Witches. He’s a superstar in this world, the vampire who established the Knights of Lazarus and the Congregation, and the patriarch of France’s ruling vamp family. Meeting him was like meeting Lady Gaga,…
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04 Feb

A Discovery of Witches: Explaining the De Clermont Family Tree

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Warning: contains spoilers for the All Souls books. Vampire families are complicated, and not just because everybody has two birthdays to remember. Each vampire has a sire who becomes their vampire blood-mother or father, and any vampires who share a sire automatically become siblings. If a vampire’s sire is mated to another, that vampire becomes a non-blood parent to their shared ‘children’. The immortality thing also means that multiple generations of a vampire clan often look around the same age, which is why, if the de Clermonts in A Discovery of Witches ever had a family get-together, it’d look more…
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30 Jan

A Discovery of Witches Season 2 Episode 4 Review: Blood Rage

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Warning: this A Discovery of Witches review contains spoilers For a show about vampires, A Discovery of Witches is relatively light on blood and gore. Its undead creatures are civilised types, more likely to be found sipping a 1982 Latour than fang-deep in a carotid artery.  That all changed this week, as season two took a 21st century detour with a police thriller slant. A mystery vamp has been going to town on warm-bloods, and, hope Domenico and Gerbert, it could spell the end for the de Clermont dynasty.  It made a refreshing change to spend time in the here and now instead…
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23 Jan

A Discovery of Witches Season 2 Episode 3 Review

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This A Discovery of Witches review contains spoilers. 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…
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15 Jan

A Discovery of Witches Season 2 Episode 2 Review

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This A Discovery of Witches review contains spoilers. Tell me, how was dinner? Before diving back to the gloomy past, A Discovery of Witches took a gulp of fresh air in the modern day and dropped in on Sept-Tours. With Sarah and Em there under Ysabeau’s protection, the table was being laid for what promised to be a primo scene between the mortal-enemies-turned-housemates (Alex Kingston vs Lindsay Duncan, yes please thank you). And then… pouf, nothing. It was straight back to the 16th century for another round of bad Matthew. Fingers crossed that the characters we invested in from season one are better served in…
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13 Jan

A Discovery of Witches: Who Was the Real Mary Sidney?

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Warning: contains mild plot details for A Discovery of Witches Season 2 Episodes 2 & 3 Alongside the sulky real-life Elizabethan playwrights and gruff spymasters of A Discovery of Witches’ second season shines one leading light: Mary Sidney. Styled the Countess of Pembroke following her 1577 marriage to Henry Herbert, Mary Sidney was a celebrated figure in Tudor society with several published works to her name, and close connections to the royal court of Queen Elizabeth I. Played in the series by Amanda Hale (The White Queen, pictured above, Ripper Street, Star Wars: Episode IX – The Rise of Skywalker),…
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11 Jan

A Discovery of Witches Season 2: How History Changes Everything

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This A Discovery of Witches article contains season two spoilers. A Discovery of Witches returns for its sophomore season on Sky One and AMC/Sundance and explores a time-travel induced paradigm shift forcing star crossed lovers Diana Bishop and Matthew Clairmont to gingerly navigate 16th century London. The season two premiere introduces a fascinating new set of historical figures as the search for the Book of Life intensifies, and the romantic entanglement between the witch and the vampire remains at the heart of the tale. As the crisis surrounding the decline of the three creatures rages on in the present, the…
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09 Jan

A Discovery of Witches Season 2 Episode 1 Review

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This A Discovery of Witches review contains spoilers. Our spoiler-free review is here. As honeymoon destinations go, Elizabethan London isn’t quite the Maldives (fewer coconuts, roughly the same amount of leeches) but for historian Dr Diana Bishop, it may as well be. To a history nut like her, the prospect of experiencing life in the 16th century must have been quite something. To meet Sir Walter Raleigh, see St Paul’s before Christopher Wren got his hands on it, wear gowns so voluminous that a small family and several pets could be comfortably housed beneath her skirts… she’d be living the dream. Or…
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08 Jan

A Discovery of Witches Season 2 Review (Spoiler Free): Is the Magic Still Strong?

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If the first season of A Discovery of Witches was like cooler, sexier Twilight for grown ups then season two might be likened to the later, less sexy installments of that saga. There’s nothing that ruins a fizzy will-they-won’t-they relationship like the couple getting together and being happily in love.  Season two finds our protagonists witch Diana (Teresa Palmer) and vampire Matthew (Matthew Goode) hiding in time. Just beginning to get a handle on her considerable powers, Diana has discovered she’s a ‘timewalker’ and transported her and Matthew back to Elizabethan era London where the two plan to search for…
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06 Jan

A Discovery of Witches Season 1 Recap: Diana, Matthew, The Prophecy and The Congregation

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Warning: contains A Discovery of Witches season 1 plot spoilers It begins with absence and desire. It begins with blood and fear. It begins with a discovery of witches. At the start of A Discovery of Witches season one, the magical world was in crisis. Creatures – witches, vampires and demons – were in decline on Earth. The power of witches was waning, with some forms of ancient magic extinct for centuries. Vampires were finding themselves unable to sire other vampires.  Divisions between the three species were stark, with deep prejudice and resentment between historical enemies the vampires and the witches, while…
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22 Oct

The Witches Review: More Wicked Than Your Typical Hocus Pocus

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Children love terrifying stories. This is an obvious truth to any parent who’s ever shared a ghost story with their child, or any former kid who remembers the telling. Yet in the age of studio tentpoles, dark amusements for kids have largely disappeared—banished to the ether alongside anything else deemed too edgy. As the years passed, children’s movies got a little safer, a little more predictable, and a little less mischievous. Robert Zemeckis’ The Witches wishes to wave a magic wand that walks this all back. Premiering today on HBO Max, the newest film from the director of Back to…
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21 Oct

The Witches

Max SchindlerMovie reviews
Reimagining Roald Dahl's 1983 children's novel for a modern audience, The Witches tells the darkly humorous and heartwarming tale of a young orphaned boy (Jahzir Kadeem Bruno) who, in late 1967, goes to live with his loving Grandma (Octavia Spencer) in the rural Alabama town of Demopolis. As the boy and his grandmother encounter some deceptively glamorous but thoroughly diabolical witches, she wisely whisks our young hero away to an opulent seaside resort. Regrettably, they arrive at precisely the same time that the world’s Grand High Witch (Anne Hathaway) has gathered her fellow cronies from around the globe to carry…
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16 Oct

Link Tank: The Most Popular Pop Culture Witches in America

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Does America have a favorite witch? Our friends over at Spruce have the answer, broken down by every state in the US! “The Spruce team loves settling in and watching some great Halloween movies this time of year, preferably with some pumpkin-flavored snacks. You’ve got your classics, like Hocus Pocus, your re-makes, such as The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, the major franchises, like Harry Potter, and so much more! We all have our favorite witchy characters… and we were wondering if America did too!” Read more at Take Spruce. A group of Latinx film and TV creatives, including Lin-Manuel Miranda…
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DVD Guide reviews current dvd releases of movies and TV shows. The reviews of these dvd releases are my thoughts and understandings of the movie, dvd releases or TV show and not be taken as fact.

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