Witches of East End 2.06 “When a Mandragora Loves a Woman” Recap

Hudson arrives at the library and finds Ingrid propped up against the wall. However, it’s not the Ingrid that he knows, as she’s influenced by the Mandragora, who attacks him from behind. While mixing up the next batch of potion to give the Mandragora, Joanna, Wendy, and Alex talk about the plan for Ingrid. The goal is to give her a smaller dosage of the potion in hopes of severing the connection, though Alex doesn’t know if that will work or how they’ll be able to free Ingrid while killing the Mandragora if it doesn’t. Meanwhile, at the Bent Elbow, Killian uncovers his newest power – mind reading. But since he doesn’t know how to control it yet, it quickly becomes overwhelming and ends up going home sick to avoid having to hear anything else from anybody else.

Still ticked at Frederick over his friends being behind Victor’s death, Freya tells her twin brother, who continues to insist that he’s only done right since he’s been back, that everything’s been worse with him there. When she comes down to the kitchen, she learns that the only way to properly administer the potion is to inject it into the brain. Alex goes on to say that they’ll have to give the Mandragora a non-lethal blow in order to have the time necessary to inject Ingrid and Freya suggests that they get ahold of Archibald Browning’s grimoire and look for ways to unbind Ingrid from the creature. Freya knows that Dash and Ingrid have grown close recently and frankly, she kind of wants an excuse to go over there anyway, so Joanna ultimately agrees to the plan, bars Wendy from tagging along, and gives her daughter two vials just in case she runs into trouble.

Joanna, Alex, Wendy, and Frederick then head to the library, thinking that since it’s daylight, the Mandragora will be in hiding and they can make progress in their quest. However, once there, they find a bloody Hudson crumpled against the wall, babbling about not being worthy and the Mandragora wanting to wear his skin. Joanna sends him home with Wendy and Frederick, just as Dash wakes up leaking Mandragora venom from his ear. He doesn’t get a chance to do anything about it, though, since Freya stops by looking for the grimoire. After a brief search, Joanna and Alex find Ingrid’s unconscious body and the former ends up giving the injection that brings her daughter back to life and back from the brink. Just as Joanna forces Ingrid to run home, the Mandragora pops up; Alex fires two shots that miss and force the creature to disappear, though it’s still on the premises of the library. Later, the lights go out and the two decide to split up, a decision that doesn’t go well as the Mandragora has no problems sneaking behind Alex and forcing its tentacle into her ear. When Joanna notices and tries to help her fallen friends, the Mandragora comes after her and does the same thing.

Back at the Beauchamps, Frederick tries to ease Hudson’s pain with magic he says will counteract the venom (known as Dragon’s Blood). However, Wendy doesn’t trust that the magic is helpful after all, not when Frederick lied about how much he knew about the Mandragora. Once she implies that Frederick knows even more than he lets on, she tells her nephew that she wants him gone and away from Hudson this instant. Elsewhere, Eva comes home to find Killian making her juice after his hard day; the two reminisce about a time they had sex on the beach and when she learns about what happened at the bar, she advises him to learn to let go and not try to force control over his powers. He’ll never master them if he’s too conscious about it and eventually, he’ll learn to live with them anyway. What Killian doesn’t understand, though, is why he hasn’t been able to read Eva’s thoughts – before he can get an answer, though, she climbs on top of him and gets his mind on other things.

Ingrid makes it back home and melts down over the memories that come rushing back. She remembers everything the creature did, all the destruction that it caused, and she can’t begin to process everything that she’s been complicit with. She then gets to see Hudson, perhaps the thing she’s most guilty over, and gets to say her final goodbyes to her friend, apologizing to him for what she did and learning that he’s happy to be proven right about the existence of magic before he passes in front of her. Over at Dash’s, Freya inquires about the grimoire, yet Dash has no designs about helping any of the Beauchamp women. After pointedly complimenting Ingrid on her honesty and loyalty, he accuses Freya of sleeping with Killian during their relationship before attempting to grab her and getting a chair flung in his way. Still on the hunt for the grimoire, Freya flees to the attic and after a second of searching, she notices the loose board and pulls the book out. Unfortunately, Dash is in control of his powers enough to where he bypasses the door lock and grabs her by the throat, lifting her high off the ground before tossing her like a ragdoll. He tries to explain that this is who he is, that she doesn’t know what he’s capable of, but she kicks him and leaves after taking a picture of the spell she needed with her phone.

While Eva spikes another of Killian’s drinks and subtly forces him to finish it, Joanna and Alex wake up and note how good they feel compared to what they were expecting. But in their case, the Mandragora opted for mental pain over physical anguish, as it trapped the two in the library, with each door they open leading them back to the same room they were already in. Freya attempts to leave Dash’s, only for him to come at her with a fireplace poker; he taunts her while she’s pinned against the door, again accusing her of having sex with Killian and mentioning how other people didn’t want him to be with her. They looked at her as a white trash whore whose only interest in him was due to the amount of money in his pocket, yet when he hits her with the poker, she shatters as if she was made of glass. The real Freya then pops up behind him and gives him an injection that turns him back to normal. When he snaps out of it and learns why Freya was there, Dash immediately expresses interest in helping Ingrid.

In the library, Joanna and Alex have it out over their fractured history with one another. Alex argues that Joanna was always afraid to feel anything and that she always ran away when something became too much for her, while Joanna explains that the reason she left in the first place was because she wanted to spare Alex of the cycle of misery that has defined her life. When she learns that, Alex realizes that instead of Joanna hurting her, she hurt herself. Back at the Beauchamps, Wendy, Ingrid, and Frederick mix up the potion that can unbind Ingrid from the Mandragora and receive help when Freya and Dash bring along the grimoire. Dash and Ingrid bond over their experience with brain injections, but things can’t be casual for too long, as Ingrid feels the Mandragora’s presence in the house. Just as Killian finally gives out after an all-day sex-a-thon with Eva, with Eva producing the king’s symbol on his chest, Wendy sets up the spell that will get Ingrid out from under the Mandragora – it involves Ingrid getting into her underwear and covered in the oil that was mixed in the kitchen. With candles arranged in a circle around them, Wendy explains that Ingrid will have to be set on fire for this to work; she is to sit perfectly still and let the fire burn away the oil. Once the last of the oil dissipates, the bond with the creature will be no more.

Wendy then goes Mandragora hunting, as she’s unwilling to trust Frederick even at a time like this. When she makes it to the site of the creature’s entrance, it releases a tentacle while hiding in the closet and drags her near to it. Wendy steps on the tentacle with her other foot, only for Frederick to come into the room with a knife and sever the tentacle. He then stabs the Mandragora in the stomach, causing it to disintegrate, saving Wendy, and freeing both his mother and Alex. Freya apologizes to him for how she’s treated him since Victor’s death, while Joanna gives him lots of affection when she learns that he was the reason that she was freed. As Dash tries to sneak away and give the family their moment, Freya catches up with him; he apologizes for everything he said during their altercation, though when she presses him about his comments regarding the bad things he did, he denies doing anything and quickly leaves the house.

Joanna and Alex make amends over everything that happened in their past, with Joanna owning up to the fact that Alex was right to leave, while Frederick has another seizure – this time as he prepares to take a shower. As he convulses, he apologizes for letting his grandfather down and promises that he’ll find another way.

Additional thoughts and observations:
-“Because if you knew what I was thinking right now, it’d make you blush.”
-“That’s okay. I always knew there was magic in the world.”
-“If that’s what you need to believe, whisper it to yourself while I smash your skull in.”
-“Is that all you got? I bet you banged my brother harder than that.”
-Before we get into the episode, let’s take a moment and admire its title. That’s a beautiful episode title, Witches of East End. Just beautiful.
-So, what did they do with Hudson’s body during all this? Did they celebrate the victory over the Mandragora while his dead body was still in their house? I’m sure this will be taken care of/acknowledged in the next episode, but it was still strange not to have at least a line or a quick scene detailing what happened to him.
-I don’t know how I feel about Hudson’s death. I’m definitely not opposed to a good character death and I think killing someone with a lighter presence like Hudson isn’t the end of the world, but I think the show is approaching the line between edging itself up and abandoning the core of what it is by going too dark. Not only does it take away one of the more comedic characters, it didn’t have as much emotional stakes due to his limited role this season and it’s officially left Ingrid with no outside connections. Ultimately, this is a show about the impact that magic has on a family, but there has to be other aspects to the show, otherwise it’ll feel too insular and lose the grounded way that it’s approached magic thus far.
-Miss your face already, Tom Lenk. Also, everybody should watch Tom Lenk on Finding Carter, since that’s a good show that deserves more viewers. Tell them I sent you.
-I was aching for Wendy to accuse Frederick of being the Mandragora or aiding/abetting its work here in East End. Also, do you think that Frederick’s magic was going to help Hudson or that he was going to kill him and have it look natural?
-Joanna telling Ingrid to run home and don’t look back made me think of Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory. And then I wanted some chocolate, so thanks, Witches of East End, for allowing me to indulge in a good late night snack.
-So, Eric Winter was particularly awesome here in a storyline that was everything good about The Amityville Horror. Dash has arguably been the character best served by the show’s darkness this season, as he’s gotten to explore a side of himself that he never knew and get involved in the story in more active ways than he was during season one. What was most interesting about his confrontation with Freya, aside from the cute glass spell that Freya did, was that what she couldn’t tell the difference between Dash-on-Dragon’s-Blood and regular ol’ Dash, which tells you everything you need to know about their final pre-Mandragora encounter and the state of their relationship before this incident. I liked the subtle things that Winter did to show the differences between Dragon’s Blood Dash and normal Dash – around the eyes, general body language, tone of voice. It could have been a hot mess of a performance, all scenery chewing without any nuance, but it felt as if this was an extreme version of what Dash felt about the breakup and that, along with Winter, kept it from spinning out of control.
-Between Eva’s producing the king’s symbol and Frederick calling out to his grandfather in his time of need, it feels like the show is setting the stage for the portal to be reopened and the Asgardian king to make an appearance – live and in color – sometime this season. Which I would be all about, since his presence has been deeply felt for the past 16 episodes yet we only know him through the flashbacks earlier this season and secondhand knowledge.
-Speaking of Eva, why would she want a baby with Killian? Why specifically target him when she could go after innumerable other supernatural figures?
-The camera work in the library after Joanna and Alex realize that they’re trapped was pretty nifty – everything was just a little off, reflecting how disoriented they felt in this new situation. Also, the ”open one door and see the room you’re standing in” device is one of my favorite little tricks in supernatural fiction, so that was fun to see implemented here.
-In the span of less than two seasons, this show has killed Ingrid’s boyfriend, father, and good friend. Lord, don’t let her get a dog.
-Are you surprised that A) the Mandragora storyline seems to be over already and B) that the Mandragora wasn’t that hard to kill once Ingrid was unbound? What will the rest of the season look like narratively, since we still have seven episodes to go?
-Interesting that the show had Wendy witness two of the major relationship moments, in Dash and Ingrid bonding over their brain experiences and Alex kissing Joanna. Though she may not be judgmental, I think we might see Aunt Wendy dishing out some advice in the next couple of weeks, seeing as how Ingrid is inches from falling for the man who could have been her brother-in-law and Joanna is reliving the past when her husband is barely cold in the ground.
-Someone who knows Latin – what did Frederick say when he killed the Mandragora?
-Next week on Witches of East End: An old family friend pays the Beauchamps a visit, while Wendy encounters someone from her past at an art gala and Killian begins to doubt his feelings for Eva.