Salem TV Series (2/10)

 

    Oh boy. This show made me sooo angry when it ended. When I was thinking of reviews to put on this blog, reviews that would have obvious joy and/or rage behind them to be interesting reads, this show stood clearly out from the sea of media I've consumed over the years. I recently rewatched it so that I could make sure to recollect my thoughts, refresh my memory, and get this long-time thorn out of my side. Lord knows I can't rest if I have something to say and I'm not taking the time to say it. 

    "Salem" is an American supernatural horror series that aired on WGN America from 2014 to 2017. It's available at the time of this review on Hulu where I watched it after all these years, but it's also apparently available on Disney+ and Amazon Prime. WGN America doesn't even exist anymore as a TV channel and instead has been rebranded into something called "NewsNation" media company or whatever. 

    "Salem" consisted of 3 seasons, two of which I have on DVD. I loved this show so much, I wanted to possess a physical copy - and then the third season came along, and everything was awful. So I just have this hilariously unfinished DVD series in my collection, which is very unlike me. 

    The 2/10 I've given this show was because I felt the need to give it a point for the first two seasons, seeing as they were good and I loved them so much. But the rest is more of a net negative and basically just mars the entertainment value of the first two seasons entirely. The funny part is - it was literally the last episode of the show. The very last episode could've been so different, so much more enjoyable and satisfying, and instead - it lit the whole show on fire and watched it burn. 

    Apparently there was a season 4 potentially in the works but the viewership started to decline severely enough that they wrapped it up early??? Which is strange to hear because the show got so much better as it went (aside from the literal ending.) I don't know how someone could go from season 1 to 2 to 3 and THEN lose their interest, but what do I know? Not everyone sticks things out to the bitter end like I do.

    As far as trigger warnings, there's quite a few. 

    This show was basically like the "Game of Thrones" of 2015 to me as far as how vulgar and gory it was. (I know GoT came out in like, 2011 but I wasn't watching it then so "Salem" was one of the more extreme R-rated shows I had seen at that point in my life.) We've got excessive blood and gore, swearing, alcoholism, lots of sex and nudity, incest, pedocide (aka the killing of children), graphic depictions of torture including burning, hanging, boiling, and cutting/slicing of all types. Flesh trauma. Suicide. Suffocating. Animal death. Loss of a pregnancy. Exorcisms. Drowning. The occult, Satanic worship, etc. 

    I'll update if I can think of more. 

    The show is like, -inspired- by the Salem Witch Trials of the 17th Century in Salem, Massachusetts, but is by no means historically accurate. Some names and scenes are obviously pulled from historical records (like Giles Corey and Cotton Mather) but witches are definitely REAL and not just normal human women who were a threat to the patriarchal social order like in reality.

    There's a good quote I've heard that is simply thus: 

    "They didn't burn witches, they burned women."

    Women who were widows and had valuable property left to them by their husbands, property the government wanted for itself. Women who knew more about herbs and remedies than the men were comfortable with. Women who dared not to fall in line with a pious, puritanical society that feared anything that was different or new. 

    "Salem" the show just straight up says "No, there are witches in this universe and they worship Satan and this is a fictional tale of how the Salem witch trials could've gone" and Marylin Manson sings the theme song. Haha

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SPOILER ALERT

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    So, to start off the review: 

    Janet Montgomery (our main girl, Mary Sibley) was great all the way through. Not a single facial expression or line of dialogue was delivered half-assed. Every emotion shown was at 100% and never ONCE did it feel like she was tired of playing the same roll on any given take. Her ability to cry on the spot with a dramatic single tear rolling down her cheek is unparalleled. 

    Girl gave it her all and deserves all the praise. Bravo to Janet Montgomery. 

    She really is one of the prettiest women I have ever seen. It's a wonder to me that she hasn't been in more mainstream media. The only other series I can think of that stars her is the medical drama, "New Amsterdam," and even then she's not the lead. 

    Also worth mentioning she had the most gorgeous outfits in "Salem." The costume department really went ham and it showed. 2015 fashion ICON. Honestly. 

    She's right up there with Daenerys Targaryen's outfits in early seasons of "Game of Thrones."

    LOOK AT HER.

       Okay I'll quit gushing about Janet lol

     Some other parts of the series I particularly enjoyed were John Alden and Cotton Mather. They started from uneasy acquaintances who didn't approve of each other's lifestyles only to then grow to become ride-or-die partners in crime. They were willing to go to hell and back together to do the right thing. I really appreciated their shared character development throughout the series.

   

    I'm also a big fan of "brainy character and brawny character working together." They had their specific talents and skillsets and they USED them in tandem. It was just fun to see. 

    More acting praise, Elise Eberle as Mercy Lewis. 

    She went HARD. As hard as Janet, if not harder. 

    I feel like she did things that not every actor/actress would've felt comfortable enough to do and she did them anyway. Nothing insane, but like -- She wasn't shy about the uglier parts of the show: Needing to shave her head and scream her lungs out when she was possessed by "the hag.". Wearing the 'witch cage' on her head and crawling around like an animal when she pointed out witches to the crowd. Wearing who knows how many hours of make-up and prosthetics to appear as if she had suffered fourth degree burns all over her body. She had the most drastic changes in appearance in the whole series, without a doubt. 

    Her screams of pain and rage felt so genuine. I just found her performance to be really impressive overall.

    I love when women aren't afraid to be "ugly." I get so tired of cute little sniffles of sorrow when screaming and sobbing is what the moment calls for. Think Cersei in Season 4, Episode 2 of "Game of Thrones." I want women to be able to be REAL PEOPLE, not just pretty set pieces. So actresses not being afraid to spit a little when they are enraged or heaven forbid they have a bit of snot coming out of their nose when they're wailing in sorrow. That's some good shit. Janet Montgomery and Elise Eberle really did me proud with this show. 

    Another thing I loved was the introduction of LUCY LAWLESS OH MY GOD. 

 

   Xena?? The Warrior Princess??? 

    In my WITCH SHOW?? 

    AS A VILLAIN???

    It was a dream come true. 

    The rivalry with her and Mary as characters was SO GOOD. The way Mary worked through fire magic and the Countess manipulated water was such a good dichotomy for the two of them and their opposing desires. Both beautiful women, both fashion icons, both at the top of their game as powerful witches. 

 

Ugh, it was fantastic. 

    I also loved Stephen Lang as Cotton's father, "Increase Mather." That was a fantastic casting choice and a fantastic performance overall. And I loved how they tied him all the way back in with Marburg 60 years ago, the only witch hunter that ever got close enough to scare her. It was some great continuity.

    You might be thinking, "Hannah, this sounds like a lot of good things that you really enjoyed in this show? What happened to make you give this series a 2/10?" 

    That's a great question, dear reader. I'll tell you right now. 

    The ending. The ending was so god awful. I'm like, honestly still surprised at HOW awful. Like if I wasn't so upset about it, it would be impressive. 

    The "beginning of the end" occurred in the last half of season 2. It didn't HAVE to be the beginning of the end but with how Season 3 went, that was the "turning point" for me when the plot went somewhere I did not expect and also very much did not like. 

    The "beginning of the end" was ... what they decided to do with the character of Anne Hale. 

    To be fair, I get what they were trying to do with her as an unmarried young woman in puritan society but I just don't believe her character direction would've gone the way it ended up going - I don't think the young woman we were introduced to in Episode 1 would have done what she ended up doing in the end. Just straight up. She was always the goody-two-shoes central point of Justice and Mercy that lectured all the other characters on how shitty they were being and then she fell SO FAR. She CHOSE to fall so far. 

    Using her witch magic to charm Cotton Mather wasn't GREAT but like, he was probably the best option in the village for her and it was a good call from her "I need to find a suitor NOW" viewpoint. Her stepping on his free will is obviously problematic but it felt... close enough to a future that could've made them both very happy that it didn't seem like that big of a deal. It was kind of the ideal choice under those circumstances and it wasn't like it was a bad deal for Cotton either - AT THE START.

    But they get their "trouble in paradise" moment when the Countess Marburg gives Anne an ultimatum: Bring John and Mary's son to me or I will kill Cotton, very painfully, and he will know it was your fault. 

    

    Now, I get it. That's awful. And I get why Anne would want to save Cotton, of course she would! She loves him AND he is her safety net as an otherwise unmarried women living in Salem. Of course she doesn't want to go back to having the Magistrate breathing down her neck and humping her leg. I GET IT. 

    But Anne knew that Marburg was going to kill that boy. An innocent young boy, to kill his soul and turn him into a vessel for Satan's rebirth. 

    I cannot believe that the Anne we met in season one who was SO loud and outspoken about the injustices and evil deeds in Salem would've caved into doing one of the arguably most evil deeds of all. 

    I cannot believe that she thought killing a young boy was the right move, the lesser of two evils. 

    Cotton literally risked his life to exorcise the demon from that boy and then Anne immediately hands him over anyway to drown to death in black tar in front of his screaming mother. 

    There is NO WAY that Anne would be so selfish - there's no way she thought Cotton would FORGIVE HER and be UNDERSTANDING after she pulled something like that. He CLEARLY would've rather died than have that young boy be killed, and there's no way Anne DIDN'T know that, after knowing Cotton AT ALL.

    Now, I get it. Everyone wants to save the ones they love over those that are basically strangers. I know it's one of those things where "you don't know what you would do until you had to do it." But I REALLY thought Anne would've chosen 'loss' over 'selfish murderer.' I don't know how she could even look Cotton in the eye after what she did, knowing how he would've rather ANYTHING ELSE happen but THAT. He would have understood if she HAD forsaken him to die in exchange for saving the boy. I KNOW he would. 

    So when he calls her out on that after the boy is dead and she gets upset with him, it felt even more ridiculous. 

    Anne has the gall to say "I had no choice" 17 million times and it just - doesn't work.

    She was SUCH a powerful witch by then. She could've fucking warped away to Boston (like she already did to get Cotton back to Salem in the first place) or chosen another suitor in a different state all together - literally anything. I admit that there's a good chance that Countess Marburg would've found Anne eventually anyway and tormented her just the same. But the fact that Marburg even asked Anne to help acquire the boy in the first place instead of just grabbing him herself gives me a little hope that perhaps Anne taking the boy away would have actually worked. That Marburg's knowledge wasn't absolute.

    I just felt like Anne had other options and didn't even try all that hard to pursue them before she bowed to Marburg's threat. She let a little boy die because she was trying to save Cotton and Cotton OBVIOUSLY would have rather died than to live in a fucking Witch World with a new Satan incarnate.

    That plot choice in and of itself was incredibly frustrating for me as a viewer. But then it just got even weirder.

    Satan-Boy and Marburg and Anne had the Red Mercury bomb to trigger at midnight or whatever to swallow up the souls of Salem and then, as it turns out, there was a slightly different option: To sacrifice Cotton in the place of everyone else. 

    The soul of a once-sinful man who had returned to God, now a fully-fledged holy priest, was a bigger, 'grander' soul than all the little nobody souls of Salem. So his one sacrifice could make up for all those simple, peasant lives. 

    Very "Christ died for our sins," yes? I get the symbolism and all, but - it wasn't even a permanent sacrifice???

    Anne said something like "We're not gonna use the red mercury bomb and kill all of Salem. ... Right now. We're still gonna consecrate the land for our Dark Lord, but like - later. Maybe in a different way." So like, his sacrifice didn't even matter. He basically left the world at Anne's mercy - even after she had OBVIOUSLY indicated that she couldn't be trusted to do the right thing at all - for nothing. 

    He sacrificed himself just to stave off the death of Salem's people temporarily. TEMPORARILY. Not only did his sacrifice not save all of Salem forever more, it like, made the Devil's reincarnation form stronger! Satan-Boy was able to become Satan-Man who was now 'fit' to bed his own mother, Mary Sibley because he wanted her as his dark queen. 

    (This show has a couple instances of incest and I really don't know if they were super necessary. But anyway---)

    Cotton would've been more helpful to stay and fight instead of walking into hell in LITERALLY every capacity. God this is even crazier given how Anne's choice was "give us the boy or Cotton dies" and she gives up the boy and COTTON ENDS UP DYING ANYWAY. WORSE. So fucking pointless. And even after all that, they weren't done with Anne's character - they had her completely hijack the ending. 

    Anne leaps in and stabs Satan-Man so that he can - be reborn again through her?? So SHE can be the Mother of Evil?? Like?? He was RIGHT THERE, ready to take over the world, and she made him start all over?? (Why wasn't he mad about that?) He has to wait some months and be born a baby AGAIN and grow magically into a man AGAIN?? Just so Anne can steal all the spotlight?? It just felt like she made everything reset even though it was perfectly fine as it was just so that it could be what SHE wanted, on HER terms. 

    Very brash thing to do to Satan, in my opinion, but what do I know. 

    Anne just - killing everyone at the end was so forced. Mercy, Hawthorne, Izaak, -- They would've literally just given her everything that she wanted but no, she had to make sure they suffered just the same. Mercy and Hawthorne were completely happy in their little subplot, but they had to go, even tho they didn't stand in Anne's way at all. Anne could've stopped the mob and saved Izaak because Izaak hasn't really done anything to deserve such a pointless death after everything he's been through in this damn show. (Why was the mob destroying everything anyway??) But she just let that go. 

    And at the end of it all, she's there as a heavily-pregnant leader of Salem, on their board of Select Men, pulling all the strings as she sees fit. You know what she apparently DOESN'T need to be in power and also left alone? A HUSBAND. The thing she KILLED A CHILD FOR? Because it was so IMPORTANT?? Unless she just lied that "Cotton's away on business" or some shit. Anyway.

    I think I remember the creators saying something in an interview like "The finale is special because everyone has completely changed from where they were at the start of the show. Mary was head witch, now she's just a normal woman again. Anne was just a little villager of Salem, now she's the head witch ruling the whole town. Everything changed from how we thought it was going to go." But like, just because something is unexpected and drastic compared to the start of the show doesn't mean it's good.

    It was unexpected to the viewers because it was a bad idea. Like, I don't know who 'wanted' Anne to be the most powerful woman in Salem. Who 'wanted' Tituba to be silenced on a slaving ship? Who 'wanted' Mercy to rise up, heal, and then just die with her husband? The plot twists weren't twists in that they were GOOD twists, they were just twists for the sake of twists. It felt like they were just trying to do whatever you did NOT expect to happen, for better or for worse. And for me, it was worse. 

    (While I'm researching to finish this review, I found out that the final Season had THREE LESS EPISODES than Season 1 and 2. They should have had 3 more episodes to come up with a better ending but WGN America cancelled the series HALF WAY THROUGH THE DAMN SEASON. Who does that??? Like, is it REALLY that draining to just finish what you fucking started, even of it's not getting as many views as you wanted? Christ.)

    Glanced around for some other reviews for comparison sake and it seemed like a lot of people felt similarly to me. 

    And then there's this fucking idiot: 

     Yeah? Was it "refreshing" to just have characters die just because? Even if it didn't make the most sense for the story? Wow you're so edgy and cool. I guess it's cliche now for good characters to live. Can't - can't have too many people living, that's cliche now. Moron.

    I almost forgot to touch on the fact that GOD EXISTS AND DOES NOTHING.

    There's a scene where the little Satan boy is playing chess seemingly by himself and one of the other fallen angel demons asks who the opponent is and the boy says "Who do you think?" all cheeky. And then one of the chess pieces moves by itself. 

WHAT. 

So God EXISTS. 

And is ACTIVELY PLAYING 'THE GAME.' 

And the ending goes like THAT?? 

They literally INTRODUCED the idea of divine intervention in real time and then did nothing with it.

 Satan/boy could conjure a fellow fallen angel of hellish power but God - did nothing?? 

There's kind of the way that John and Cotton are able to kill the demon Satan/boy summoned to help him. They get the angel-slaying knife from Tituba or something. THAT is divine intervention, when mortal humans can kill an evil god that is otherwise unkillable. BUT GOD DOESN'T DO ANYTHING IN REPLY. I don't think he like, speaks to Tituba in a dream or something.

He doesn't save any of his people, doesn't smite the wicked, doesn't protect the righteous. NOTHING. 

It's a HUGE pet peeve of mine when demons and devils exist and god does nothing on the 'heavenly' end of things. 

You cannot have Lucifer without the lord God, according to the Christian/Catholic faith. So where the fuck is God??? Why isn't he doing anything to HELP HIS CAUSE?? Hell can cough forth Beelzebub and boiling pits of brimstone but God can't send Saint Michael the Archangel??? Why the fuck does God always do NOTHING when demons and devils are running rampant and it's confirmed that the Christian/Catholic idea of the fiery pits of Hell canonically exist, therefore indicating HEAVEN EXISTS ALSO??

You can't have one side of the coin without the other. Where is the light to face the darkness? Where is the good to stand against the evil? 

And the fact that "Salem" SHOWED GOD PLAYING CHESS and then did nothing with it was EXTRA painful to me as a viewer. 

Even if they would've pulled some convenient edgy shit like "You think God still exists? You think he cares about this stinking world?? God left a long time ago." Like, that would at least explain his ABSENCE. 

BUT THEY SHOW HIM PLAYING CHESS. ACTIVELY. PARTICIPATING. 

They made a DIRECT NOD to his presence in the story and then nothing happened. Cotton didn't have any cool prophetic dreams about how to save the world. Cotton's sacrifice wasn't reversed to save the day because he was willing to give up his own life and die for the sins of others like Christ did. It's proven that God has power in the world because Satan/Boy COULD NOT recite the lord's prayer, which is classic Christian/Catholic mythology. It was CONFIRMED that BOTH holiness and unholiness exist - but the epicenter of holiness was nowhere to be found. 

If Beelzebub can be coughed forth from the depths of hell, where the fuck was Archangel Gabriel or Archangel Raphael?? 

Even if we said "No, Hannah, that's too much. That's more of a deus ex machina. We don't want God to swoop in and just fix everything. We don't really want an Angel v Fallen Angel fight, because the show has been about human beings the whole time, we don't want too much of this religious magic!" 

    Okay but could God maybeeeeee perform a miracle or two?? Even from the sidelines??

    He doesn't have to appear or anything, doesn't even have to send a physical messenger or a warrior! I'd just love if he did SOMETHING to support those of good heart that were trying to save Salem from evil. 

    For instance, maybe God brings Cotton back from Hell and he and Gloriana are sent away kind of like how John and Mary were to start over and have a happy life for however many years they have left. Maybe God touches the hearts of the townspeople so they STOP rioting wildly outside of Salem and then Isaac and Dorcus (whatever that poor girl's name was) and the others flee and create their own little town of good, honest people with no witches or evil. 

    Like, literally anything - to maybe reinforce the idea that it is worthwhile to be a good person in this universe?? Is that too much to ask?? 

GOD that pisses me off so much. Hahah

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That's mostly it. It was a good solid show with passionate acting, beautiful costumes/set design, and a fairly compelling plot for two seasons. Then season 3 came around and burned everything to the ground. 

I'm giving it a point for each of the first two seasons, because they deserve it. 

Honestly, the show probably deserves a 4 or a 5 from me just for my love of Janet Montgomery and Lucy Lawless alone. But this is MY blog and I'M BITTER and I'm only giving it 2 points. 

This is MY personal rating that takes into account not only the thing in and of itself, but how it made me feel. And this ending left me fuming. So a 2 it is. 

Thanks for stopping by.

More reviews to come.