Knightfall: The Devil Inside | Season 2, Episode 2 | Air Date: April 1, 2019 | Rating: 9/11 |
*SPOILERS AHEAD* Episode recaps (with random bits of commentary) occur in this space, so if your mind’s not ready to know what happened in this week’s episode of Knightfall, avert your eyes. Now.
Ready? Let’s roll.
Lessons and loss. This week Knightfall is here for the lessons that it will teach and for the losses that it will suffer…as well as the true source of DeNogaret’s contempt for the Roman Catholic Church.
Flashback: Residents of the French village Saint-Félix-de-Caraman gather to witness as Father Benedetto conducts the public execution of two heretical Cathars by burning at the stake. The son watches, screams, cries and begs for mercy but none is given as his parents are condemned to the fires of Hell by the one true church.
BAND OF BROTHERS
An important aspect of martial training is team building: creating a singular unit to accomplish a singular mission. The four initiates that Landry finds himself bound to during training not only get schooled on the number of chews one may take during meals (eww), but also the importance of teamwork during a particularly wet and challenging trial when given little more than a bible psalm as a clue. Leave it to Landry to decipher the riddle: he and his brothers accomplish the mission and even crotchety Talus is impressed by their collective achievement.
But brotherhood takes a hit when one initiate rats out Rhone for secretly holding on to a personal item from his mother: a worldly possession which is something that all Templars swear to renounce. Before punishing all of the initiates as a whole for Rhone’s transgression, Talus ejects the snitch from the Order (because being a snitch isn’t very brotherly), then sends Team Landry into the woods on their own punishment mission where they encounter Luciferians conducting a Satanic ritual. Shit hits the fan and Team Landry returns to the Temple with a dead brother as Talus’ vehement opposition to Landry flares and Berenger accuses Landry of being cursed and literally bringing the Devil amongst them.
As if the guilt of failing his brothers and Talus’ renewed antagonism weren’t enough, in the middle of the night a Berenger-led group of knights attempts to exorcize or “burn the Devil out” of Landry by branding a cross on him.
THE FAMILY WAY
The goings on amongst the royal family of France grow darker and darker by the day.
King Philip has to be physically restrained by Prince Louis from desecrating his mother’s corpse (that’s how deep Philip’s hate for his late wife, Queen Joan, runs), but – once again – the two bond as only a father and son can over the ruthless cause of hunting down and destroying all things Templar and Landry, including baby Eve. Acting as his father’s personal blunt instrument of revenge, Louis is assigned the baby Eve portion of the program, a plan the likes of which King Herod the Great of Judea, himself, would surely be into: acquire all of the baptism rolls of infants born within the past three months, find those infants, and kill them. As plans go, it’s as cold-blooded as they come, and it also comes with the King Philip royal seal of approval.
Unfortunately, fortune seems to favor Louis’ brutal task more than that of the Templars. A team of knights, including Draper, set out to track the Luciferians and, instead, run into Louis and his men. Not only do they kill the Templars (RIP Draper), but they also strip their bodies of their highly identifiable Templar Knight clothing.
Louis now has the perfect uniform to wear while slaughtering innocent children.
In an effort to resolve the long-time tensions between France and England, Princess Isabella finds herself officially (and unwillingly) betrothed to “notorious sodomite,” King Edward II of England because – to Philip – peace with England and a queen’s crown on Isabella’s head is far more important than her happiness (consider this fallout from the season 1 debacle of Isabella’s engagement to Prince Lluis of Catalonia). After all, what are 14thcentury royal girl-children for if not being used in political bartering?
THE SOURCE
An official condolence call from Pope Boniface sets a series of events in motion as talk moves from sorry about your dead wife/Queen to Boniface’s papal degree of secular and spiritual supremacy over everyone including kings. You know, that pesky (and historically real between King Philip IV and Pope Boniface) power struggle that plagued western monarchs who preferred that their word and will and no one else’s be done within their realm?
Of course, this will not do and since neither Philip or DeNogaret have any use for Boniface (after all, the Templars still support him/the Catholic Church and as Father Benedetto he executed DeNogaret’s parents for heresy), DeNogaret is tasked with dealing with (read: killing) Boniface to make room for a more pliable pontiff which he does rather efficiently with the assistance of Gawain, but not before informing Boniface of their past connection.
NOTABLES:
- Tancrede’s visit to commission an illuminated manuscript from the convent caring for baby Eve was…illuminating.
- Is it just me or did DeNogaret look a little miffed at Philip for giving the Paris Temple to Louis?
- Between threatening to beat someone to death and calling initiates “pig humpers,” Talus is one foul-mouthed man of God. Amen.
- Let the trumping up of false charges such as heresy and blasphemy against the Templars begin!
- That DeNogaret collected and kept some of his parents’ ashes all of these years is more sentimentality than I’d ever expected from the guy, but then he used those ashes to mark a cross on dead Pope Boniface’s forehead which felt profane and just reminded me who we’re dealing with.
QUOTABLES:
- “The temple is no place for those who would betray their brothers.” (Talus)
- “At least you knew your father, Quinton. Mine simply supplied the seed and wandered off.” (Landry)
- “You told him to submit or be damned. How did you think he would react?” (DeNogaret)
- “Landry brought this upon us. He’s cursed – he’s brought the Devil into our house.” (Berenger)
- “And you are just an errand boy for a petty tyrant who doesn’t know his place in the proper order of things.” (Pope Boniface)
Next week’s episode: “Faith”
All Photos: Larry Horricks courtesy of HISTORY
