The Bastard Executioner recap: 'Blood and Quiescence / Crau a Chwsg' 

and final episode of season one, viewers were treated to a series of inconvenient truths from across the cast of characters. Father Ruskin was unmasked as a former assassin. Gaveston was outed as King Edward’s lover. Ash was revealed as a deranged serial killer (albeit one with The Worst Teeth in All of Wales™). And Annora quietly called Brattle “son,” throwing her moral calculus — as the ultimate agent of his wife and unborn child’s murders — even further into the shadows.

The season finale Tuesday, therefore, had a tall order to fill. With the certainty of Welsh gloom settling across the marshland, Brattle, Corbett et al would head off on a search-and-rescue mission for Ruskin and Lucca. And their rag-tag band of Ventrishire badasses would face off against Arch Deacon Robinus, Sir Cormac, and several legions of the Knights of Rosula along the way.

installment where we got to understand Brattle’s creation myth. Sure, we knew him as a fake barley farmer, an existentially conflicted punisher, a playing-it-cool/not-really-interested in Lady Love family man, and substitute dad-come-crappy-husband to Jessamy. But outside Brattle’s knightly past and tendency to have luminous visions of angels and babies, we hardly know the guy or what psychological baggage compelled his meandering attempt at revenge.

with the Dark Mute as far back as the pilot, I was half expecting Kurt Sutter’s onscreen alter ego to be revealed as Brattle’s baby daddy. Instead, viewers received a subjective reading of the Book of Nazarenes as an ancient document that casts doubt on the Catholic Church’s most sacred teachings. Annora explains to Brattle how Jesus was a

through whom God spoke — not God’s son — and the Church was only built out of greed. Further, Annora carries the lineage of the Nazarenes in her bloodline. And by extension, we should presume her next of kin does too. But we get no more details about the Brattle-Annora mommy and me dynamic.

The Knights of Rosula have been thinning the ranks of the Seraphim for some time and a climactic battle with them is inevitable. But Ruskin refuses Sir Cormac’s “priest to priest” entreaty to tell them where Annora is hiding. In the end, Lucca spills the beans on her spider hole in the coastal briars but also that his “father” — Brattle/Maddox — is in cahoots with the witch.

Corbett, for his part, is none too enthused about committing the necessary manpower and risking his life to save a tween and a grizzled man of the cloth. But Lady Love butters him up by calling Milus a “valuable chamberlain” and promises to consider a marriage of convenience to Baron Pryce if Corbett green-lights the search and rescue. “In spite of your aggressive, illicit, often secretive tactics, I’m quite fond of you,” the Baroness tells him.

In the meantime, some surprising amends are being made. With Corbett having basically okayed the revenge killings of Leon and Locke, Pritchard makes a move on the latter while the knight is watering the pigs. At sword point, Pritchard identifies himself, explains his beef and asks if Locke wants to plead for mercy. “Make haste with your vengeance, I’ve earned no mercy,” Locke replies.

This “whatevs” response confounds the rebel’s sense of honor so he allows the doomed man a fighting chance. There’s an axe-versus-sword fight. And in the end, Locke emerges on top with sword point to Pritchard’s Adam’s Apple and asks him, in return, if he wants to plead for mercy. “This is most fitting that you be the one to deliver me to my loving wife and boy,” Pritchard replies.

And at a moment where the show would usually, reflexively showcase torrents of arterial blood, the two characters instead acknowledge each other’s humanity. Not only does Locke not kill Pritchard, he promises to keep his secret identity to himself — along with Brattle’s for good measure! “You and the punisher have earned your place here,” the knight says in a gesture as close to bromance as

On the heels of heavy sedation, crazy Jessamy gets loose from her shackles, goes looking for Lucca, freaks out at the sight of the Mute and accidentally barges in on a meeting where Lady Love and Brattle happen to occupy the same room. Naturally, Jessamy picks up a hammer and lunges at the Baroness only to be cold-cocked unconscious by Corbett.

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