#they are the fun version of bishmont | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

starseneyes · 5 years

Text

Bishmont - A Discovery of Witches - Series 1 - Episode 2

Welcome back, Bishmont fans. Welcome to something I’ve been doing since about 2001--breaking down ships I love into long, drawn-out analyses filled with fun references, inferences, fan-girling over acting choices, and digging deeper into the characters we all know and love.

I started out with my Episode 1 Bishmont deep dive, and now I’m excited to jump into the second.

SPOILER ALERT: If you haven’t read the books, beware. I have. I may spoil things. Please be aware.

Now that we’ve gotten that addressed, on with the show.

“I came up here to get away from... a witch.”

Matthew doesn’t have to say more. Hamish can already see from his friend’s face and from his word-choice that he really is in trouble. This really is more “f*cked up” than his usual fare. I love how Hamish thought he was prepared for anything that Matthew could say, but there was no way he was ready for that. In this version of the story (and not the books), Hamish is already aware of what happened to the other two warmbloods Matthew craved. The both met violent ends.

To note, Hamish is also the first one to recognize that something about this craving is different. In the books, he notes how desire can take many forms, and that what may be craving could also be mating in its early stages. He even confronts Matthew on the point, congratulating for at long last finding the one for him (since mating is for life). Of course, a forlorn Matthew wonders if the object of his desire is lucky to have a creature like him in pursuit. But, I’m skipping ahead.

Thinking of him...

Diana awakens the next day, her hand hurting again. She wraps it with gauze from her First Aid Kit, then her uninjured hand flits to his card. Their piano piece plays (which I absolutely adore, by the way, but I’m a sucker for pianos. I married a pianist) as she holds the card, thinking of him. It’s hard to say what she is thinking. Perhaps it’s the desire to talk to someone about her magic, since everything with her hand and these nightmares seems tied to it. She never has these nightmares in the book, and she never mentions them to anyone in the series, so I wonder if they started when we first saw them, or if she’s suffered with them all her life. There was a brief flash of light on the side of her face from the injured side as the nightmare began. Now, as it lifts and she cradles her hand injured by the Book of Life, she’s thinking again of the Vampire.

She readies for her day, this time her hair is not in its tight braid, all down her back. It’s still out of her face, but in a loose pony-tail instead. She’s a little less tied up, now, a little more exposed. She’s a little closer to her magic, her mate, and all that is coming for her at high speed.

She goes to check her mail, just another step in the routine, but even that is interrupted by him. The jacket has been folded lovingly and placed in her mail-slot. She picks it up carefully, holding it to her and looking behind her as if hoping to see him. She should be terrified. She should be worried. But, she’s not. She watched him stand there, her scent in his lungs, completely resist the urge to kill her. That takes control, and she doesn’t understand just how barely contained it was.

All of us have those moments where our tempers flare. I have a nasty one. My poor husband has been with me 16 years now, 12 of them wed, and he knows that my temper is brutal when left unchecked. I consider it a victory every time we engage in an argument and I don’t raise my voice. It has taken years of work to get to this level of control. For Matthew Clairmont, the same can be said (well, likely centuries of work), and it leaves an impression on Diana. As her magic comes out more and more, she needs someone to talk to. She has Gillian, but it’s not the same. There’s something about Matthew that is already drawing her closer. She’s heard the stories about him when she was little, her Shadow Prince who lived between sunset and moonrise. Of course, she hasn’t made the connection cognitively, but I think something within her is already pulsing toward him the same way his craving is pulling him toward her.

“I think you’re wise to keep your distance from the witch.” “Yes...”

Again, we’re shown that creatures rarely use each other’s names unless they are acquainted. Matthew, when talking to Hamish about Diana, doesn’t use her name at first. There are real divides between the species. Still, Matthew knows that there is a problem. Diana has access to the Book of Life, and he still needs it.

Pay attention, folks. We’ve started with the problem of Matthew getting away from her because he’s craving her blood. It’s a hunger that is insatiable, always there, always present. It’s there even when he falls in love with her, but he’s able to better fight it, I believe, because of his love for her. His protective instincts outweigh his predatory ones. Now, we’ve shifted the problem from being that he’s craving her blood to that she has something he needs. We’ve traded a problem for a problem. This is the beginning of rationalization, as we will see. Matthew is attempting to

SIDE NOTE: Can we please just standardize English, already? I wrote “rationalisation” at first. I’ve always tended toward more English spelling because of my mother’s early introduction of my brother and I to English books, television, and movies. I default to colour and neighbour and have spellcheck yell at me because I’ve done something horribly wrong.

Anyway, Matthew is going through different steps of rationalizing what the problem is. The problem is he’s going to kill her. The problem is she has what he needs. I’ll bring this up when we get back to him in a moment because he’s about to find yet another problem with this situation as he inches toward the truth...

“Let go of my arm.”

While Matthew stalked his prey, Knox stalked his. Once Knox has her cornered, he starts to interrogate her. He presses further, asking for how she did it, asking what she saw, asking how she did it. She starts to get uncomfortable. He’s pressing so hard and she’s careful not to reveal too much information to him (since witches aren’t supposed to be able to lie to each other).

Then, he hits the point she cannot abide... he wants her to pull out the book so they can “uncreate” Vampires. Diana has met one, of course, and shared several conversations with him. He’s not an abstract thing to her like he is to Gillian. He’s not a fairy-tale, and she won’t uncreate him or any of his kind. She says in Episode 5 that there is evil in every species, which means that she also believes there is good. She believes there is good in the Vampire species, and that good deserves as much protection as the Witches, Humans, or Demons. Like the Heart of Tafiti choosing Moana for her compassion (can you tell I have three children under the age of 4?), the Book of Life has chosen Diana because of who she is.

Knox tries to grab ahold of Diana, making physical contact, restraining her from leaving. In my state, that actually counts as abduction in a police report. She wrenches away, but Knox gives her a parting threat that they will see each other again.

Compare this to her interactions with Matthew. Yes, Matthew was a bit intimidating in the last conversation, but he never tried to force the information out of her. He never touched her. He never restrained her. He gave her full movement and even protected her from himself. It’s no wonder she’s drawing away from her “own kind” and toward someone that her kind has been programmed to see as monsters.

“To be honest, I still don’t get what you’re so anxious about.”

Of course you couldn’t, Gillian. You’ve been conditioned from birth to hate vampires and to stick to your coven. Diana, with her apparent lack of magical aptitude, never really fit in with a coven. Even with the Oxford Witches, she shies away, choosing to bury herself in her work. She self-identifies as a historian, as an academic, as a professor. Diana has excelled in her areas of study, and found a place for herself that doesn’t involve a lot of time for friends or that type of community. Gillian has been raised in a Coven that emphasizes the relationships between Witches, the dangers of other Creatures, and the need to take care of one another above all else.

Diana has an outsider’s perspective with her own people. She has actually talked with Matthew on several occasions in several places. Yes, he followed her, but when she told him to leave her alone, he didn’t threaten to see her later. He sauntered away (before the Craving incident, of course, but even then he didn’t harm her).

“I don’t trust what Peter Knox will do with it. He hates other species. He’d use it against them.”

Intent is huge for Diana. She doesn’t understand everything that Matthew has said to her, but he clearly said the book could be “the key to our survival.” He’s not looking to hurt anyone. He’s trying to save someone, and that’s a far nobler endeavor.

“Have you ever talked to them?” “No.” “Then you don’t know what they’re like... He didn’t seem as prejudiced against us as we are against them.”

Matthew, as mentioned in both the books and the series, doesn’t have a high opinion of witches. Or, at least he didn’t in previous times. Of course, witches were involved in the death of his father (as Diana says in episode 4, they “played a part.” She has no idea how close to the truth she is). That said, in the books he is still happy to do yoga around witches. And he’s never venomously against Diana, even before he catches her scent. He tends to see Creatures as Creatures. Over the centuries, we know he has had Demon friends. Like his wife-to-be, Matthew doesn’t quite fit in. His Blood Rage sets him apart, even though few are aware of his affliction for the sake of protecting both the family line and his role within it.

“So, even though Ashmole 782 might be the answer to our problems, Hamish, my interest in it puts her in danger.”

And, we’ve shifted the problem, yet again. Now, it’s not the craving. It’s not the problem that he needs something from her. Now, it’s that his interest in this book is putting her in increased danger. The Witches want the book, but so does he, and more and more creatures have heard tale of Diana Bishop and her ability to call forth the Book of Life so many of them have sought through the ages.

Outside, the wind has picked up. A storm is raging. It’s aptly appropriate to Matthew’s state of being. He is a storm inside, the different desires waging within him. When he has this discussion with Hamish in the book, Hamish tries to walk him through what he wants with Diana Bishop. He tries to help him wrestle through it.

“I will not give in to this craving for her blood. I do not want to control her power. And I certainly have no wish to make her a vampire.” “That leaves love. You have your answer, then. You do what you want.” “I want what I shouldn’t want and I crave something I can never have.”

I’m not putting that in block quotes because it’s from the book, not the series. It’s an exchange between Hamish and Matthew. We don’t get this in the series, and I don’t mind, but I do think it breaks down the whole issue of what Matthew wants in a way we don’t really get in the series. Again, not everything from the books can make the series. It just wouldn’t make sense, but I do love this exchange. The friendship between Hamish and Matthew is one of my favorites in both book and series.

Anyway, the storm is whipping up outside. Of course, being the child I am, I want to know if the storm was manufactured or actual. There are times when a storm ruins one sequence, and so it is recreated later to keep from having to wait for a nicer day for reshoots. Scheduling and securing locations sometimes necessitates a change in the weather. It’s so perfect for Matthew’s emotional state, that it feels like it could have been manufactured, but I can only conjecture since I was not there.

SIDE NOTE: I love that Matthew calls Hamish, “My friend” and he later calls Diana, “My love” and even later Marcus, “My son.” I don’t know if this was a choice by the writers or a happy accident, but it really shows how he connects to the people in his inner circle. I love that little touch.

Hear the tolling of the bells— Iron bells! What a world of solemn thought their monody compels! In the silence of the night, How we shiver with affright At the melancholy menace of their tone!

Yes, more bells. Oh, the bells, bells, bells, bells, bells!! I know that it’s a fine transition convention, but there are really so many of them in this series. The clanging of the bellllssss.

“There is more to the game than protecting your queen.”

I have played chess with my husband, back before we had children. I first learned the game as a child, and it’s never been one of my favorites. As a Digital Marketing professional, I spend all day strategizing, so when it comes to relaxing, I’d rather read, write, puzzle, or play games that elicit laughter. Strategy games after doing strategy all day are not appealing. However, chess is a sport. It’s a tough game. My husband has read many books on the subject and we own at least 14 chess boards though not a one is on display in our tiny home. He loves the game, and he and my best friend’s husband (also one of my best friends) play chess together at every opportunity.

That reminds me of Hamish and Matthew. This is their way to unwind and connect. Matthew has always been a fan of chess, as readers of the book know, and it works to his mind. However, Matthew is famously known for refusing the Queen’s Gambit. He doesn’t want to do anything to put his queen in danger, and often his desire to protect his queen at all costs leads to his defeat. Hamish uses Matthew’s loss as an opportunity to not only impart wisdom on playing chess, but also as a metaphor for Matthew’s current struggle.

Matthew’s mouth drops open, the realization striking him. He’s trying to stay away from Diana to protect her, to keep her safe, to not add to the problem. But, by doing so, he’s left her exposed to others. He’s worried so much about the danger within him and distancing himself to protect her that he’s ensuring they all will lose. He hurries to grab his things, to rush out into the storm that he’s been avoiding.

Hamish is worried for his friend. He reminds Matthew of his own dark past. I don’t know if this was done later by foley artists, or if MG waits for that trunk to close, but the timing is perfect. The trunk closes, and he opens his mouth, control barely there as he snarls at Hamish that he swore off warmbloods after what happened to Cecilia.

“But Matt, you’ve never talked about another woman the way you do about Diana Bishop... I’m just trying to protect you.” “I’ll try to take your advice.” “Don’t try, do. If you hurt her, you’ll never forgive yourself, and I couldn’t bear it. Don’t go back to Oxford until you’re sure you can control yourself around Diana Bishop.”

Twice in this conversation Hamish has referred to her as Diana, not as “the witch.” He can see what Matthew already knows but refuses to acknowledge... this one is different. He’s never felt this craving as intensely around anyone else. He’s never wanted anyone in this way. It’s a dangerous thing to acknowledge. He has to pretend he doesn’t feel, doesn’t want, doesn’t crave. He knows what a monster he is, what a danger, what a horror. He knows he can never have her blood because he wouldn’t be able to stop. He knows he can never have her love because it’s forbidden by the terms of the Covenant. I hear that mantra in his head, “She’s not for you. She’s not for you” already playing.

“I can take care of myself.” “Laudable, but naive.”

In truth, Knox is right when he speaks this to her. She doesn’t really understand the Creature world because she has kept so far away from it. With Satu on her run and again with Knox she feels violated and persecuted. They touch her. They invade her thoughts. They do all the things she expected of a Vampire and not her own people. It’s their actions that drives her closer and closer to him, and they don’t even realize it.

“Thank God you’re here. You haven’t been answering your phone.”

And there it is... the final betrayal. Gillian was the one person she thought she could trust in Oxford, and now she realizes that the one person she told about her struggles was also her informant to the higher powers. Tears trickle down her face as she sees all the pieces falling into place. It isn’t her white table from the books, but it feels very similar to me. She’s putting all the pieces of the puzzle into place. Like my husband and I, Matthew plays chess and she works on puzzles.

Diana thinks through the events of the past few days. Terrifying as Matthew was when his instincts tried to take over to hunt her, he got it under control. He told her what to do to escape. He protected her even from himself. The witches haven’t done that, and now her last touchstone has escaped her grasp only for her to realize it was never hers. Like Domenico, Gillian wants to please whoever is in power to survive. Betrayed and broken, Diana has nobody to talk to. When she calls home, it’s not the same. Sarah will push her one way. Em will try to comfort, but also tries to stay out of the way, more content to observe.

Without anywhere to turn, Diana seeks out the Vampire who tried to warn her, tried to protect her, tried to shield her, and tried to save her from himself.

“Professor Clairmont’s rooms, please.”

I do appreciate the lack of fanfare as she approaches All Souls for the first time. In the books, it’s another part of Matthew letting her into his life, but I think the series gives Diana many opportunities to think for herself, to choose for herself. In many cases, he waits for her to cross the thresholds that separate them, and here she does it without knowing. We don’t know how long he might have avoided her had she not come to call.

Diana walks up the steps to his door feeling tired and worn. She knocks on the door, desperate for some sense of connection, for someone who could possibly understand her plight. There is no answer, and she is crestfallen. The stairs beckon her down, back to her troubles and loneliness. Instead, she rounds the corner to see him, staring up at her as he did the first time they met. But, this time it’s different. She’s the one seeking him, and she’s relieved to find him, a small sigh escaping her lips through the slimmest of smiles. (MAD props to TP for nailing this moment)

For Matthew, the first meeting was a necessity, a means to an end. This one is unbearable. She’s frightened. She’s worked up. And, again, he has her cornered. Still, he lets her in.

“Try to calm down. Your adrenaline is very high.” “You can smell my adrenaline?” “Of course I can.”

He isn’t as out of control as he was the other night, but he is gripping the bookcase hard. His stance reminds me of the stance he takes when he walks into Philippe’s office for the first time at Sept Tours. There’s a note of regret, misery, and remorse. He knows the penalty for losing control. “There can’t be a third.” He’s already killed two warmbloods he craved, even if one was indirectly. His actions led to their ends, and there cannot be a third.

Diana takes a deep breath, regulating her breathing and bringing down both her adrenaline and heart rate. He thanks her, then immediately busies his hands, reaching for his mail. If he has a task, something he is doing, he won’t be tempted to take hold of her, to take control of her, to take her blood, to take her passion, to take advantage of her fear.

“You must have friends” “None I can trust. It was a mistake to come here. I’m sorry I disturbed you.” “Does Knox want the book?” … “Does he know that you sent it back?” “Yes. He wants me to try to get out it out again.” “Will you?” “I don’t want him to have it.”

I love how MG plays this moment. Matthew sees in her something he thinks he can trust. Trust is a huge thing in the Creator world. As he says at the beginning of each episode, Creatures are ill at ease even with each other. They are all chess pieces moving on a massive board. But here is a Witch who has turned down a Senior Witch. Matthew knows the risks she is taking, the depth of her bravery, and he has to hope that he can get through to her, that she might deliver the book.

SIDE NOTE: Am I the only one who thinks MG’s fly is down in this scene? I swear I wasn’t looking, but in that shot of him when he is standing at the desk, turned to face her, there’s a... glint... there. Okay, now I sound like a massive pervert. Oh, well. I’m leaving this. Maybe you’ll get a laugh.

Anyway, he goes for the book, and I love how MG plays this. Watch his hand. Watch the choice. Watch the hesitation as it flits up to that book perched atop the shelf. He once watched Diana reach for a book high above her. Now, he reaches for the book and offers it to her. He’s offering her the chance to know more about him, to know more about what he does, and why he does it. It’s a big gamble, to let her in any closer, but he has made the decision, and she walks through that door, cracking open the book.

It’s a reminder to me that someday she will read him like a book, too. He has so many secrets, so many pages hidden away that no one has ever read in its entirety, but as he lets Diana deeper into his life, she is able to unearth the hurts, the pains, the promises, the anguish that he daily conceals in an attempt to live a better life.

“You knew Charles Darwin?” “How old are you?”

I love her emphasis on “old”. My son said it the exact same way the day after I noticed her enunciation, and it struck me how a young person looks to someone their elder with awe. It’s not about the “are.” it’s about the “old” and not about the “you.” The incredulity comes from the age, not the person, and it’s a marvelous choice by TP.

He toys with her as she tries to guess his age. There’s an edge of flirting to it, even, with his teasing, “hmmm.”

“I won’t harm you. You have my word.” “Alright.”

I love TP’s reaction to her own words as Matthew turns away from her to retrieve the jacket. She almost can’t believe that she agreed to it… as if the words came out of someone else’s mouth.

“Put this on. You’re cold.” “How do you know that?” “Adrenalin causes a rise in metabolic heat production. Your adrenaline has dropped and so has your heart rate.” Placing his hands on her shoulders to put the jacket on, letting them linger. Realizing that he’s let them linger and ripping them away. “You can hear my heart?” “Yes… (drops hands) All the time.”

It’s such a remarkable choice. Of course, it’s impossible for me to know if this direction was in the script or if it was an actor choice, but it’s brilliant. The timing of it, the weight of it. He was getting too comfortable in that moment. He was touching her without shying away. He has never touched her before this moment, and it was a moment of shielding and comforting. It was a moment far too intimate for him to allow.

In the books, Miriam says it’s normal for a vampire to stalk their prey and protect it to a degree, but that his protective instincts just got stronger and stronger with Diana. It’s a sign of mating, and though he has never mated before, he can feel it happening. He can feel the pull between what he wants and what he should do. He cannot have her. He has to convince himself of that. His face, alive with his medical explanation of her biological changes falls as soon as she connects it to her heart, the heart that pumps her blood, the blood that he craves, the woman that he wants. He pulls away. He puts that boundary back between them as best he can, but she’s now covered in his scent, and that is an entirely different thing.

Throughout the books and series, people note when Diana and Matthew smell like each other as their relationship intensifies and they touch one another more. Here, Matthew has literally put his scent over hers. I don’t know if it helps him to control his mating instincts by dampening her scent, or if it’s meant to be a sign of him mating to her and protecting her. Offering a coat to a cold maiden has long been a sign of affection and caring in courtship. There are so many ways to interpret it, but what I really want to know is what she does with his coat. We never see her return it, and he never asks for it back. So, somewhere in her rooms there’s a coat covered in Vampire scent that would be a dead giveaway to other Vampires that something is amiss between Matthew and Diana.

The Vampire Lab of Discovery

Eh, we might as well give it a corny name, right? It’s just “the lab” on the show. Matthew has his hands in his pockets as he and Diana walk and talk, but it feels like he is starting to relax, again. He takes his hand out of his pocket, unbuttoning his jacket just as his son and Miriam appear. When Marcus reaches for Diana’s hand, takes that extra step in to smell her... Oh, you can see Matthew’s fury. In Vampire culture, you never touch another’s mate without permission. Yes, Diana is not yet his mate officially, but those instincts are already kicking in, and the death-glare he gives his son is evidence of that. Miriam, the oldest of the crew, already knows what that look means.

A little background on Miriam: She is the only one of the three assembled Vampires to have mated before. Her mate took the fall for Matthew over an incident with one of the warmbloods Matthew killed. It was all to protect the Knights of Lazarus, so this is a fairly fresh wound in Vampire terms. Why she has stayed with the de Clermonts has always been beyond me, but she has. And she tries to put some distance between Matthew and Diana by clearly calling her his “friend.” It’s the same word he uses when he takes Diana home to France. It’s not impersonal, but it’s far safer than “Mate” under the circumstances.

Matthew gives his son a reproachful look as Diana turns toward the computer. As if to emphasize his point, he whips off his jacket in protest. It cracks me up, because MG tends to act a lot with his clothing. I noticed in Leap Year (gosh, what a terrible movie considering the powerhouse leads it had) when he thinks Anna has gotten on the bus without him, he flicks his coat, as though flicking off the love he has for her.

He perches over her shoulder as she looks at the screen, but when she looks to him, you can see he catches himself looking into her eyes, smelling her breath. It stops him a little. He switches sides, but finds himself even closer. He’s hovering, protecting what it already his in his heart, even if he hasn’t yet admitted it.

“I remember when the Thames iced over every winter. I used to skate on it.”

You flirt. There really is a little bit of flirting from him there, and her responding smile shows she feels it. My husband and I both eat up his delivery on that line. You see, I spent most of my life as a voice over artist for commercials and whatnot (I took a sabbatical last year after my daughter was born and will return once she starts preschool in September). We tend to listen to deliveries of lines more than most. So, I really have a lot of fun listening to the way that Matthew Goode reads things. Listen to his performance in The Guernsey Literary & Potato Peel Pie Society on Netflix. It’s divine, period-appropriate, and plain delicious. Sorry, enough MG fan-girling. Back to the plot...

I love how they’re walking together outside, his hands clasped behind his back, both wearing his jackets.

“As far as I can tell, there are only two emotions that keep the world turning. One is desire, and the other is fear.” “Magic is desire made real.” [He looks at her with a flash of confusion on his brows. “That’s what my aunt says.” “Hmmm.”

I love Matthew’s monosyllabic answers to things. To me, it really harkens to the books when he gives Diana one-word answers for things. This may be a MG choice, but it really suits the character.

“Well.”

It’s one word. He can’t say more. He’s already shared everything there is to say, and his desire for the book is starting to fall to his desire for her. He doesn’t trust himself. He doesn’t trust what his hands would do, as evidence that he doesn‘t unclasp them from behind his back until he turns to go.

Diana tells him about the book.

I love this. Even as he’s drawing away from her, she feels a pull toward him. Others have tried to force information out of her, but he hasn’t. Even though he has the power to do so, he’s never invaded her mind or touched her uninvited. He is the one everyone says she should be afraid of, and yet she feels absolutely safe with him already. She knows he means it when he says he won’t harm her. And she knows instinctively that it’s true even more than he knows it himself.

The words tumble out of her, telling him all the things she has told nobody else. She doesn’t tell him everything, mind you, like about the burn she got from the book or the words running up her arms… But that is more because of her fear of herself than her fear of him. He’s nailed it when he told her she shouldn’t be afraid of her magic. It’s a callback to the books and the anxiety attacks her mother left her with to try to help control the magic, to keep it close to the vest and spellbound until the right time.

The comments on the book being “heavy” and “it smelt… it smelt odd” will come back in the upcoming series, which is great. I love having that groundwork laid without it seeming too obvious to the casual viewer that there’s a deeper impact.

Matthew draws closer to her as she speaks, one leg ending up on the ledge where she stands, the other planted on the ground. Before he reaches for her hand, he’s already toeing that line that separates them, the line that he’s tried desperately to keep sight of. When she talks about the alchemical child, his respect hits a fever-point, which only drives into his desire for her. He utters “Thank you,” but it’s not enough. He takes her hand, turning it over to reveal the veins on her wrist. He kisses it, the scent of her filling his nostrils, the sound of her rushing blood closer than ever as skin touches skin, his cold and hers warm. He draws back, still looking at that part of her that he has kissed, somehow drawing closer than he’d dared, and yet he didn’t lose control…

And Diana has shared a secret with him, the truth that she didn’t even tell her fellow Witches. Matthew knows more about the book, now, than anyone else but her. His intent is what drives it home for her. It’s so different from Knox, whose intent is to hurt people. He tells her as much. When it comes to Matthew, she’s the one to tell him what he wants the book for, asserting that he thinks it will help with his research. That’s part of why she volunteers so much information to him. He’s trying to save everyone, not just vampires, but witches and demons, too. His intentions are good and honest, and she can see that. She can see that he’s not some bigoted, closed-minded, toolbag.

Matthew walks away from her, his hand going to his jacket (i presume to unbutton it) as she and he are both becoming more and more unbuttoned. The costuming team does a great job with it throughout the series, letting the costumes help clue us in on the mental states of the characters. The next time we see Diana, she won’t be so buttoned up, and Matthew is clinging to what he can to stay closed off, but that contact was stepping over a threshold.

She invited him there, in some ways, with the volunteering of information. But, he took that next step. When he took her hand in his, she didn’t move away, even though she had no idea what he planned to do. Instead of muttering meaningless words to one another after this second farewell, Matthew meets her eyes, lets go of her hand, and walks away. Earlier her touched her shoulders through clothes and had to drop his hands and move away. Now, he’s touched her flesh with his mouth, and yet he didn’t lose control. Diana watches him go, caught up in what it all means, still feeling the coolness on her skin from a Vampire’s kiss.

SIDE NOTE: MG has a very interesting way of kissing that he uses in pretty much every kiss in this series. He tends to keep his eyes open until he lands on the object he’s aiming for (be it hand, mouth, or otherwise) and then close his eyes only after. My husband and I did some fun experimenting on when we close our eyes, because I was genuinely curious, and he and I both tend to close our eyes at the same moment, just before our lips touch. For me, it’s hard to read as a character trait or an MG tick. I simply don’t know which it is, but it works as a Matthew trait in many ways. Predators like to see their prey, don’t they?

Well. That was fun, again. Thanks for reading! Can’t wait to bring in Part III with more bells, bells, bells, bells, bells.

Read Episode 3 Breakdown: https://starseneyes.tumblr.com/post/182950038614/bishmont-a-discovery-of-witches-series-1

#a discovery of witches #adow #adowtv #bishmont #Matthew de Clermont #matthew clairmont #matthew goode #teresa palmer #diana bishop #shudder #sundancenow

44 notes · View notes