Motherland: Fort Salem Season 1 Episode 6 Review: Up Is Down
![](https://tv-fanatic-res.cloudinary.com/iu/cs_srgb,d_tv-fanatic-placeholder-square.png,f_auto,fl_strip_profile.lossy,q_auto:420/v1501812164/user/dmcgarrigle)
This was the inevitable fallout episode.
Abigail, Raelle, and Tally were still reeling on Motherland: Fort Salem Season 1 Episode 6.
The unit mates had a lot to unpack after Charval's wedding and the related Spree attacks on Motherland: Fort Salem Season 1 Episode 5.
Abigail had the most to deal with and was the least equipped to do so.
Being a Bellweather, she just had to shove her feelings down deep and soldier on despite losing Charval and nearly getting killed.
That was why she was being questioned so soon after the attack with those traumatic events flashing through her mind at the same time.
She was a chip off the old block, as General Petra was busy trying to identify the offensive spell the Spree had used to block the witches' powers.
Abigail refused to open up to either of her unit mates, not the touchy-feely Tally or the well-meaning Raelle, who was also dealing with pain.
Then, as if she hadn't already had a bad few days, things took a turn for the worse for Abigail.
This time out, the Spree weren't terrorists killing random civilians. Instead, they were targeting witches, specifically Bellweathers -- any Bellweathers they could find.
They even discovered Bellweathers that Petra and General Alder didn't know about who had either dodged The Call or married civilians.
Those victims had their voice boxes cut out sot hat they couldn't be found and used to attack the Spree.
That knocked Alder and Petra for a loop. They're accustomed to being several steps ahead.
It also meant that Abigail, who had been a target of convenience at the wedding, could soon be in the Spree's crosshairs again.
So, much to her distress, Abigail got assigned a bodyguard by Petra.
Friday, who has a great Nick Fury vibe going for her with that eyepatch, appears to be a great addition to the cast.
With some impromptu drilling, she quickly got Abigail to admit what she was feeling deep down: that she had let her guard down at the wedding, blaming herself in part for what happened to Charval.
Friday let down her guard, too, explaining to Abigail the sad story of why she needed an eyepatch while serving in an army filled with magical healers.
That made her sympathetic to Abigail's plea when she and Tally wanted to go off base to rescue Raelle from her worst instincts.
And boy, Raelle does have a lot of worst instincts.
Certainly, those in charge at Fort Salem could have reacted much differently to finding out they had a Spree infiltrator (the one that they know about).
It's already been established that Raelle has a problem with impulse control.
She was crazed by the idea that no one was making any effort to find Scylla.
Couldn't someone have taken her aside and explained, nicely, that Scylla was a Spree spy, had been taken into custody, and Raelle should forget about Scylla and move on?
It's the military, after all, where they dish out hard truths every day.
No, instead, they opted to lie to her and tell her not to worry her pretty little head about it. Essentially, pull back and throw herself into training again.
That worked well. At the end of a well-executed demonstration of flying on Salva, Raelle crashed to the ground after she started mooning after Scylla.
Raelle got the inspired idea of breaking into the Necro building, the creepiest place on campus, to, I don't know, commune with Scylla's spirit?
Izadora at least offered her the company line that Scylla had died in the storm that had set in during the Spree attack. Izadora was hoping to give Raelle a sense of closure.
Unfortunately, that just sent Raelle into denial, and she was convinced that Scylla had gone to her "safe place" at the beach near the location of the wedding on Cape Cod.
That led to her foolish idea of stealing all the unit's Salva and sticking it on her neck so that she could fly to the beach.
It will be intriguing to see what the physical fallout for that maneuver will be. After using one hit of Salva, she was laid up in the infirmary. So what will that handful of Salva do to her?
Raelle just flushed any points Abigail might have scored for her defense at the Siege of Marblehead.
Finally, there was Tally, who was nearly incapacitated by her knowledge of Scylla's secret life.
If the powers that be couldn't bring themselves to tell Raelle about Scylla's deceit, naturally good-hearted Tally couldn't either.
Fortunately, Tally was able to rationalize her way into keeping quiet, which she felt would hurt Raelle less than the truth. Glory was oblivious to what Tally was talking about in her monologue because Glory was babbling along just as much.
At least Tally had listened to Raelle enough that she was able to work out her ill-conceived master plan when her Salva turned up missing.
And to think Scylla was stashed in a Fort Salem cell that whole time. It will be interesting to see what interrogation techniques General Alder has picked up over three centuries.
It appears that Alder's gambit to gain those long-lost Tarim spells by treating Adil's sister failed.
That tribe seemed to be pacifists unwilling to let their magic be used to wage war. Alder's argument that the witches were just protecting themselves was lost on Adil.
To follow the unit mates' development, watch Motherland: Fort Salem online.
Will Friday be good for Abigail?
When will Raelle catch on?
Will the unit recover?
Comment below.
Dale McGarrigle is a staff writer for TV Fanatic. Follow him on X.