The Bastard Executioner
Season 1 Episode 9: “The Bernadette Maneuver/Cynllwyn Bernadette”
Directed by Paris Barclay
Written by Robert Patino, Curtis Gwinn, Kurt Sutter
Created by Kurt Sutter
Starring Lee Jones, Stephen Moyer, Katey Sagal, Kurt Sutter, Sam Spruell, Darren Evans, Matthew Rhys, Timothy V. Murphy, Flora Spencer-Longhurst, Elen Rhys, Danny Sapani
FX
Air Date: Tuesday, November 10th, 2015, 10:00pm

Last week on The Bastard Executioner, Lady Love (Flora Spencer-Longhurst) shows her political prowess, impressing her chamberlain Milus (Stephen Moyer). Gaveston is a wanted man, and Love secures money and security for her shire, if they deliver him. Father Ruskin (Timothy V. Murphy) now knows that Annora (Katey Sagal) is not pagan, as she holds The Books of Nazarene (the future New Testament). The clergy wants to destroy it and her. Jessamy (Sarah Sweeney) catches Wilkin (Lee Jones) and Love in an embrace and goes crazy. She is sedated and tied to a bed. The bad priests come and kidnap the warrior priest and Maddox’s son, Luca. Annora shows Wilkin a vision of when he was a baby, and The Dark Mute (Kurt Sutter) cuts down a dozen men seemingly by magic.

Spoilers below.

The Bastard Executioner
Season 1 Episode 1.4: “A Hunger / Newyn”
Directed by Ciaran Donnelly
Written by Curtis Gwinn
Created by Kurt Sutter
Starring Lee Jones, Stephen Moyer, Katey Sagal, Kurt Sutter, Sam Spruell, Darren Evans, Matthew Rhys, Timothy V. Murphy, Flora Spencer-Longhurst, Elen Rhys, Danny Sapani, Ed Sheeran
FX
Air Date: Tuesday, September 29th, 2015, 10:00pm

Last week on The Bastard Executioner, Wilkin Brattle (Lee Jones) and Miles Corbett (Stephen Moyer) continued their mutual blackmail dance (although I think odds are in Corbett’s favor). “Our buried truths bind us.” Brattle continues to pose as the executioner, in order to bide his time and find all the culprits of his village’s massacre. He is finding it harder and harder to play this role, ending up pulling the fingernails off a young girl for info, then slicing off her nose as punishment. I understand that the snake visions are symbolic of evil or Wilkin’s situation, but I still haven’t connected the sorcery to this setting. And yet. I totally believe the supernatural stuff in Vikings because it belongs to myth. Lady Love Ventriss (Flora Spencer-Longhurst) is a big surprise – calm, just, wise – the antithesis of her now-dead husband and many of the nobles we get to know.

If you haven’t watched the episode yet, spoilers ahead!