I read this book and I didn’t hate it hate it, but I kind of hated it. Obviously, I decided to watch the TV show and obviously that means I’m also going to recap it. Let’s see if I hate it hate it.
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Episode 1
Marines: We start in Oxford with a tall, dark-haired man looking out over the historic buildings. A bell tolls as he voice overs that creatures like vampires, demons and witches are all but gone from the world. They live hiding in plain sight and ill at ease with each other.
This man seems to sense something. He looks down and someone is rowing by on the river. The voice over says that his father used to say that in every ending there is a new beginning. Deep.
Rebecca: I’m pretty sure this was ripped out of a poem I wrote when I was 11. I’m gonna sue.
Mari: I support you.
We join the woman rowing for a second.
Thais: I am very jealous of this casual French braid she has. It has the perfect amount of hair falling out of it–a look I haven’t achieved even once.
Rebecca: I feel that, Thais. I try and try but it always looks like I did the braid drunk and then wrestled a raccoon.
Mari: Which is certainly a look.
While Rowing Woman is trying to lock up her bike, she accidentally knocks the bike over. Her papers go flying and the wind starts to pull them further away. Rowing Woman throws out her hands and commands them to stop. They immediately stop and then all come back together into a neat little pile while we hear a sound effect I can only describe as POWERZ! Rowing Woman looks around to see if anyone noticed. No one did.
Inside, another woman introduces Rowing Woman as Dr. Diana Bishop, a visiting research professor. Everyone gathered claps for her as she starts her talk about alchemy. She explains her work and how she will use the Bodleian library’s collection from Elias Ashmole to continue her research. Everyone claps.
The woman who introduced Diana congratulates her on her “stimulating” talk. They have an opening on the staff if Diana would be interested in being considered. She says she would definitely be. Intro Woman is like cool, just publish this talk you gave today by October, byeeeee.
Thais: That expression on Diana’s face when Intro Woman asks her if her piece is ready to publish tells me it is absolutely not ready.
Mari: Another woman comes over to congratulate Diana on her talk. We get real good exposition in the form of “Gillian Chambers! At a lecture for alchemy?” Very smooth. Definitely smoother than “it’s so good to see you, Gillian. It’s been too long.” Definitely.
Gillian and Diana catch up over coffee. It’s been almost six years since they last saw each other. Diana says that being here feels like coming home– nothing’s changed. Gillian awkwardly says that yeah, she’s still the same, not regular faculty teacher. Still no vacancies for a classical historian. Diana expresses her sympathy and offers to help if she can. Gillian says that otherwise Oxford is great and the coven is very active. They are getting together that night, in fact, for the equinox. Gillian invites Diana, but now it’s her turn to look awkward. See, Diana is still uncomfortable around magic, ever since what happened to her parents. (R: will now try to guess what happened.) Gillian asks if she just never uses magic, then. Diana admits that she’s a disaster on that front. Her powers are totally unpredictable, like what happened this morning with the runaway papers. Gillian looks worried as she suggests that Diana talk to someone named Sylvia. Diana says it’s okay. She’s used to it. (R: maybe they died from a cauldron explosion.)
Thais: Gillian has very sketchy energy, though I can’t pinpoint exactly why.
Rebecca: I think it’s the leather jacket.
Mari: Her look is definitely best described as shifty.
Cathedral. Bridge Man prays with a rosary.
Diana heads to the library and requests some texts written by Ashmole, including Ashmole 782. We watch as the librarian sends off the request and another searches the stacks for all of the books Diana requested, starting with 782. It’s missing. She finds the other texts, but then looks once more for 782. It’s where it’s supposed to be. She grabs it.
Thais: For a library this big, they provide speedy service. When I worked at a library in college, those requests wouldn’t get processed for at least a couple of days.
Mari: Maybe this is also magic.
In the library, Diana gets her books just as Gillian comes over to like stand over her shoulder for a second. Girl, you just had coffee with her. Take a break. Gillian stands there awkwardly for a bit before saying she’ll be over by the call desk.
Thais: She also invites her for coffee again! At least make it tea next time.
Mari: Diana grabs 782 first. When she opens it, it releases a Magical Indoor Wind. It’s so magical, Bridge Man feels it all the way in the cathedral. (R: I don’t know how, it opened with the power of a mouse sighing.) Back at the library, Diana looks around to see if anyone else got winded on, but no one is paying attention to her. She flips the first page and immediately notices that there are pages missing. She starts taking notes when suddenly the lights in the library flicker ominously. Diana keeps examining her book and notices that there is some hidden text on the pages in 782.
Bridge Man leaves the Cathedral and gets a call. A woman asks if the same thing is happening to him. He says yes and she explains to us: “Our blood. It’s reacting to something.”
Rebecca: My blood also reacts to books.
Mari: The hidden text in Ashmole starts scrolling and the text transfers to Diana’s fingers in very Dark Willow fashion. (T: Man, I hate when you’re just trying to read a book and the text leaks into your hand!) Gillian is also clearly having a reaction to this. Diana panics and slams her hands down on the picture in the book. The text drains from her hand, back into the book, but she’s burned in the process. She looks at her palm and a clear symbol is seared there. Diana grabs the book and quickly returns it back to the call desk, running out of the library after she does.
Bridge Man is using his heightened senses to figure out where the Woo Woo Signal is coming from.
Rebecca: Everyone always trying to be Spiderman. Be your own man, Bridgeboy.
Mari: In her rush to leave the library, Diana bumps into a man. After a second, she realizes who that was– the man we saw in the old photo. She turns back and asks dad? But the man is gone. (R: He looks GREAT after that damn cauldron explosion!) Diana confusedly calls around for her dad. Instead, she gets hovering Gillian. Like girl, it’s only 15 minutes into this show, and I want you to get a life. Gillian asks what happened in there. She seems to know that it had something to do with the Ashmole book. Diana is still too shook to say anything and just runs away. She passes Bridge Man, who does a terrible job of looking nonchalant, as she does.
We watch two men walk and talk about going out. The shorter one is like “nah, I’m going to sleep.” Shorter one, James, wonders at the fact that his friend is like never tired. They part amicably and we follow the taller one. In the background we see James get completely bowled over by a car, and I was NOT expecting that.
Thais:That scene was so casual! There wasn’t even a music cue to tell you that something bad was happening. And the guy who hit him just drove away! What?!
Rebecca: Really well done!! Umm filmmaking wise, not like, manslaughter wise.
Mari: Taller One runs for his friend. He tries to stanch the bleeding, but it’s pretty clear that James is a goner. Taller One looks around frantically and seems to decide something. He bites down on James’s neck and feeds on his blood. Then, Taller One slices his wrist open, and lets his blood fall in James’s mouth. James revives and starts drinking hungrily. But then I think he dies anyway.
Rebecca: I was more invested in these two in like 40 seconds than anyone else in the show
Mari: Yeah, and one of them died, just our luck.
Lab. The “our blood is reacting to something!” woman we saw earlier enters and asks Bridge Man (Matthew!) if he’s been here all night. He’s been researching Diana, who he’s discovered is a direct descendant of Bridget Bishop, the first woman killed in the Salem witch trials. And she’d just been reading from an Ashmole book. Our Blood! thinks this can’t be possible, but yes, Matthew thinks Diana found Ashmole 782, even though Matthew has himself been searching for that book for more than 100 years. He thinks it will help them discover the secrets of their origins.
Diana has dreams of spiders and 782. She wakes up to look sadly at the picture of her parents.
Rebecca: I would be more upset about that spider dream wtfffffffff
Mari: Madison County, New York. A buzzing phone wakes up a woman. She answers and Diana is on the line. The woman climbs out of bed as Diana tells her the story of the creepy manuscript. It isn’t until this woman walks outside and the camera focuses on her face on that I realize that it’s Alex Kingston! Wearing an American accent!
Thais: River Song!!!
Thais: She’s a historian, Mari. Her interest is in alchemy–a very scientific and totally not magic-related subject.
Mari: Silly me.
Tall Vamp is at the police station reporting James’s hit and run. He memorized the license plate number and shares it with the cops. Matthew waits in the hall while Tall Vamp finishes his testimony. Matthew coolly collects what is clearly his son and leaves the police station.
Thais: He even does that teenage rebel calling your dad by his first name thing.
Mari: In the car, Matthew yells at Tall Vamp (Marcus) for being so reckless and trying to make a vampire without getting that person’s consent. Marcus is like “sorry dad” but is also concerned with why the siring didn’t work. Matthew agrees that they have to figure that part out.
Rebecca: I don’t think I’ll like Matthew, but I like his concern about getting consent before turning someone into a vampire. For any vamps out there, you have my consent. Please come for me. Being human is the pits.
Mari: It’s in writing now, there’s no taking it back.
Matthew brings Marcus back to the lab and asks Our Blood! (Miriam!) to take blood and tissue samples from their new research subject. Marcus, who is a doctor, says he can take his own blood. Miriam says he can’t in her lab.
Thais: Do all vampires in this universe have M-names? Maybe that’s why he wasn’t able to turn James.
Rebecca: WOW I didn’t notice that. That’s hilarious. They had to rename him Mames first for it to work, clearly.
Mari: If Marcus were like “your name is MAMES now!” I think James would’ve chosen to still die.
Cut to a pub. Marcus is upset that Matthew didn’t tell him there were other failed sirings. Matthew retorts that he shouldn’t have been siring anyone in the first place. Miriam tells them to calm the f down and finish their wine. (That’s almost what she says.) (R: Always good advice.) Marcus calmly explains that he didn’t plan to sire James. And he wouldn’t have tried had he known there was a chance at failure. James’s last moments were ugly and confused all for nothing. Marcus took his friend’s death away. I get that siring must be very bad, but moments before that, James was mowed down by a car. His death was never a walk in the park is all I’m saying, but, uh, it’s the thought that counts, Marcus.
Anyway, Matthew says that he didn’t share any of this with Marcus because he doesn’t have more information. They need Ashmole 782 because it covers the origins of vampires and could help them understand their current dire situation. The witches cannot be allowed to have that information. Some might use that knowledge to destroy them. Matthew’s plan is to 1- Talk to Dr. Bishop and 2- Take the book themselves.
Diana is working in the library. She heads into the stacks to grab something she needs. The book is just out of her reach. As she reaches for it, the book goes flying. Matthew is there to catch it. Diana retrieves it and knows instinctively that he’s a vampire.
Thais: I like to think that he ducked behind the stacks and hid there until she went home.
Rebecca: It reminded me of that scene in Crazy Ex-Girlfriend when Rebecca is trying to scare Josh so she pushes a swing in the backyard and then runs away ungracefully so to him it just looked like the swing started moving on it’s own.
Mari: All amazing options. Well done, team.
Gillian is home drinking and aggressively taking notes. (R: literally me rn.) Maybe the next day, she goes to visit the head of her coven– Sylvia. She’s come to report what she knows about the disturbance everyone felt.
Thais: Sylvia seems to be a grade-school computer science teacher, which is even less witchy than historian.
Mari: Diana is eating breakfast and Googling Matthew Clarimont and suddenly he’s there. Google the Devil and he doth appear. She calls him out on being a stalker (basically), but he tries to pretend like he’s not stalking her. (He is.) He brings up Ashmole 782 and wants to know where it is. She snaps that it’s where it always is– back at the Bodleian. Matthew thinks it would be good if all the magical creatures knew she didn’t have the book in her possession. She takes that as a threat, but Matthew says it’s a warning to be careful. She says she will be and gets the hell away. I wish this were the level of zero tolerance Diana Bishop always had for Matthew Clairmont.
Thais: Seriously. He’s meant to be super suave, but I just get major creepy vibes from him. Vampire narratives can be frustrating with this–this dude is at least 150 years old but he acts like he has none of that added life experience.
Rebecca: Well put. You’d think vampires would be at least slightly better at social interaction. Also not getting the suave vibe, but suave isn’t really my type. Plus I have a growing crush on Diana and her braid at the moment.
Mari: She is the far superior creature. Relatedly, I had to read so many damn pages about how beautiful and perfect Matthew Clairmont is. Matthew Goode is like, okay looking, I guess, but I’m bitter as hell that I had his godlike appearance beat over my head for hundreds of pages to then get Matthew Goode. If Matthew Goode is reading this, I’m sorry. We are both victims of Deborah Harkness. If Deborah Harkness is reading this, girl, I told you in the first paragraph I didn’t like your book, what are you doing here?
Diana finishes up at the library and asks the call desk guy, Sean, out for a drink. They are casually getting to know each other when Diana shares that she was raised by her aunt and her partner because her parents were brutally murdered. (R: BY A CAULDRON!)
Thais: Great icebreaker! She even name-drops witches casually.
Rebecca: Whoever poured Sean’s glass of wine knows what they’re doing, and I love it. Might as well have put it in a friggen bowl.
Mari: Woods, somewhere. Two men appear to be oddly dressed for hunting. The younger of the two cocks his rifle and approaches a cabin while the older one hangs back and watches. Rifle Man breaks into the cabin and it’s empty. He reports back that the cabin is empty, but the bed is still warm. They can’t be far.
Thais: It’s Alliser Thorne! Still wearing the black.
Mari: SO IT IS. That explains the bad joojoo I got from him.
Anyway, a woman appears and throws at knife at Rifle Man’s shin, and he goes down. She lifts her hands and speaks an incantation that lights a fire around him until the ground swallows him. She approaches the older man and they stare at each other for a bit, but it’s cool, because they know each other. Alliser Thorne just grabbed a random human to come be murdered by his witch friend, Satu. Let’s guess these are the bad guys. Alliser Thorne says that Satu is ready to be sworn into the congregation, but first they have some work to do.
Mari: Rebecca, I just said they are the bad guys!
Diana gets to the library and Matthew is there, “working” in the seat across from hers. She’s not happy to see him, but he swears that he’s there to keep her company since there are a bunch of witches working there today too, to keep an eye on her. Diana thinks everyone is just looking at them because they are talking in a library. A man asks them to keep it down, and Diana grabs her things and leaves.
Rebecca: I just realized Matthew is the guy who played Ozymandias in Watchmen. I am v bad with names/faces. He’s weirdly hotter to me as a blonde.
Mari: Gillian follows after Diana, because of course. Diana at least has learned to be a bit more discreet and she pretends not to know who Matthew was. She ditches Gillian.
Thais: Gillian’s reaction to Matthew here is great. She asks if he’s a vampire, then follows it up with, “What’s he doing in a library?” He’s a professor, Gillian.
Mari: Goddamit, Gillian, keep up.
Matthew stalks Diana. He stalks her while she reads. He stalks her while she jogs. He stalks her while she rows. And then he breaks into her room.
Thais: Why is this always the vampire thing?
Rebecca: And a super romance thing, according to way too many books/movies. Oh and a serial killer thing.
Mari: Thanks, I hate it.
Sylvia and Gillian get a visit from Satu and Alliser Thorne (Knox). Gillian tells them about Ashmole 782 and only then starts to feel a little bad about ratting out her “friend,” but it’s too late. Alliser Knox asks for her friend’s name, and she complies.
Matthew stalks Diana to the row house. He’s like creeping in the shadows. She should for sure invest in pepper spray, immediately.
Thais: AND he asks if she feels safe being there alone. Like, not anymore, with your creepy energy all over the place.
Rebecca: Ahem excuse me just gonna casually carve this wooden stake. Don’t mind me, Matthew, it’s all good and definitely not for you!
Mari: She asks again, “are you stalking me,” and like girl, yes. He is. You have evidence in the fact that he’s always where you are, but like behind you!
Matthew asks her where the Book of Life is and she repeats that it’s at the library, and he should get his own damn book. She won’t help unless he plans to rip her head off. Matthew says he could but that’s “not his style.” Obviously, you are the stalk a woman, tie her in a remote location, and kill her slowly type. We got it, sir.
Diana repeats that she doesn’t have the book and starts to stomp off. Matthew calls after her and despite my instruction to KEEP WALKING, she stops to hear him as he says it’s so weird that that book hasn’t appeared to anyone who has tried to find it so isn’t it weird it appeared to a witch who can’t control her power?
Matthew leaves, but outside, he sees Diana’s workout sweater. He picks it up and sniffs DEEPLY.
Thais: 
Rebecca: OKAY BUT WHAT THE FUCK THOUGH?
Mari: I wish I knew.
Matthew gets all vampy. He growls at Diana and tells her to walk past him slowly with no sudden movements. He tells her to go but not to run, which is super comforting to hear from the man that has stalked you around town. Diana starts walking away. She looks back and we cut to black.
Do I hate it, hate it yet? I don’t know, but I’m definitely not feeling great about it, see you next episode.
Rebecca: Which I imagine will start with Diana as Matthew’s new flesh lampshade!
Next time on A Discovery of Witches: More people threaten Diana in Episode 2.
I'm a 30-something south Floridan who loves the beach but cannot swim. Such is my life, full of small contradictions and little trivialities. My main life goals are never to take life too seriously, but to do everything I attempt seriously well. After that, my life goals devolve into things like not wearing pants and eating all of the Zebra Cakes in the world. THE WORLD.
I'm a loud Brazilian who loves all things fantasy, horror, and YA. I spend most of my spare time reading, bellydancing, making lists, and watching way too much TV. My name is pronounced Tah-ees (it doesn't have a notable meaning, but there's a French opera with the same name!).
I am a book, movie, and TV fanatic over the age of 30. I love baking, video games, and D&D. Legally I must tell you I am a disaster. I've written like 6 novels but haven't had the real courage to query agents yet, and also I don't know how to make decisions (DISASTER). So please send me wine for Courage. Maybe a heart too. Oh and also a brain.
