“I know nothing in my heart anymore.”
Warning: full spoilers follow below.
We’ve officially reached the halfway point of the bloody Welsh tale, and it looks as though everyone is more than backed into a corner by this point. Building on her pregnancy fib from last week, Lady Love was forced to carry through the charade earlier than she had hoped when the king’s men officially came to Ventrishire in order to verify the pregnancy. Milus tricked Wilkin into committing one of his most heinous acts as executioner yet, and everyone got plenty cozy with the twins.
Having the kingsmen come to Ventrishire so early after Love’s visit to the King not only added a little bit of suspense to the whole pregnancy plot, but it also served to give us one of the best foils for Milus to date. Watching him drop to his knees in that moment was pretty much everything coming to that character so far on the series, so it only added insult to the man when he was rejected. The subsequent beating he gave to his man servant spoke volumes about that mounting frustration and how powerless he truly has become. In the end, it will force him to somewhat align with Lady Love, at least for now.
Having that plot pushed up also further aligned Wilkin and Lady Love, who have been ignoring their chemistry for weeks. I’m fairly certain most of us realized that by the end she would turn to the Witch — now hocking her goods at the market — for help convincing everyone she was preggers, but now she and the Punisher have crossed a line together, one that will be hard to retract from with everything else going on. That hug by episode’s end won’t fare well for anyone. Wilkin’s men already don’t trust his motives and are questioning his loyalty, and his new wife has proved she’s not above a good beating when her charade doesn’t go her way. It’s doubtful that she will target Lady Love physically out of revenge, but outing them or him always remains a threat. The mere act of telling Love who she’s cozying up to in those pews could bring Wilkin back down.
We want to hear it.
Meanwhile, Wilkin himself continued to face an uphill battle in terms of his own morality, and this time not by his choosing. Thanks to Milus and his ongoing plotting, he killed an innocent in the wagon fire, as a part of Milus’ bid to eliminate a marriage that just so happened to be in his way. Of course it wound up being all for nothing in Milus’ mind when he learned Love was pregnant, but given the fact that this is a man who killed his own brother to obtain power, no one should be completely shocked. At least now that Wilkin’s friends are free (with an excuse to hang around “in service”) Milus can hopefully stop holding things over the executioner’s head.
As for what’s actually going on in Wilkin’s head, well it’s pretty clear he believes himself to be damned. The flashes to his wife in the water and her subsequent plunge into the grave are signs he’s crossed his own moral line, and there’s no salvation in sight. Going forward this means things are going to get even worse, and that things like that child’s nose or the wagon fire are just child’s play. With five episodes to go we’d expect nothing less.
Following last week’s reveal, in which Lady Love lied about being pregnant to hold onto Ventrishire, the Kingsmen came to prove the pregnancy themselves in a bid to claim the land. It all worked to create a small victory for audiences when Milus was finally put in his place, but it also pushed Love and Wilkin closer together than ever before — upping the stakes heading into the back half of the first season.
