4.7 Gallows Humour Strap in for one of the most heartbreaking things I’ve ever watched, and I’m someone who doesn’t even change the channel when those Sarah McLaughlin pet commercials come on. This week’s episode is sad heaped on top of sad, and every single character manages to break our collective heart. We open with Aidan, waiting while Kenny’s vampires clean up the mess he left when he lost control and drained the girl from the previous episode. Kenny tries to make him feel better, but Aidan is having none of it and heads for home, because running from his problems feels pretty good right now. Unfortunately, there are problems at home, too. After very nearly draining Robbie’s dead body of its blood, Aidan heads to Suzanna’s to act innocent and ask her for blood. They’re all kissy-kissy and it’s kind of sweet until he downs the bottle she offers him and starts convulsing before passing out. He awakes chained to a sink like something out of a rejected Saw script while Suzanna calmly apologizes for the theatrics and insists that she’s just going to watch him while he detoxes to make sure he stays on course. And to make sure he remembers why they’re doing this, she insists he start talking about the people he’s killed. Back at the house, Josh and Nora are trying to keep an eye on Robbie while also dealing with the fallout from last week. Josh thinks they can ask Donna about the spell Sally used and blames the magic for what’s been going on with him, but Nora looks him right in the eye and says, “The magic didn’t make you lie to me.” If she’d had a mic, that would’ve been the appropriate time to drop it, I think. She does, however, ultimately tell Sally how to bring Robbie back in the way she was brought back, and offers to be the sacrifice, saying that she doesn’t deserve whatever comes next after this life. It’s interesting to note, though, that she mentions the person had to have been killed by natural means, and since Robbie was killed by Lil Smokie, that’s hardly natural. They head back to the house and prepare for the ritual, but it becomes increasingly clear that Robbie might not want to be brought back — he thinks about how he’s free of responsibility now and doesn’t have to try anymore, and then he bolts without a goodbye. I wasn’t actually that sad about it, since I’m kind of apathetic about Robbie as a character, but when Donna comes downstairs to tell Sally that he’s gone, she tells her that she’s seen it before — people whose lives were so bad that to them, death was a relief. That on its own is pretty damn depressing, but it’s time to kick the sad into high gear this week: it’s immediately followed by Donna asking Sally to destroy her death spot so that she can never come back. As they say goodbye, Donna issues one more plea for this to be the last time Sally ever uses magic, and Sally laughs right in her face and says, “Ask me no questions and I’ll tell you no lies,” and so Donna heaves a heavy sigh and shuffles off this mortal coil one final time. If you’d told me last season that I’d come to care for Donna, to think of her as a warm motherly figure and to mourn her passing into witch purgatory or wherever she’s gone now, I’d have probably laughed in your face, and it’s every bit to the writers’ credit to have turned her around so quickly and in such a believable way. But the sad is not yet over, my friends. The sad is about to get so much worse. Back at the set of Saw 18: Electric Vampire Boogaloo, Aidan finally tires of listing the names of people he’s killed and breaks down crying, begging for Suzanna’s forgiveness. Sensing the breakthrough, she finally unchains him before revealing her own name, the most important one: Isaac. What follows is, hands-down, one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to watch. I have never seen someone so perfectly encapsulate the stages of grief so quickly, so brutally, so flawlessly, as Sam Witwer does here. All the actors on this show are pretty great and it’s no secret that I love to praise them for all they do, but Witwer has been on his game this season, going above the call of duty every single time. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to watch this scene a second time. It was too painful the first time. The way he breaks, the way his anger gives way to utter heartbreak, the way he kisses Suzanna’s hair as moves through the anger into the pain… it’s perfect and it’s heartbreaking, and I need the Emmys to get over themselves and start nominating sci-fi and fantasy shows for awards instead of ignoring them every year, because Witwer just delivered one of the best performances of the season. Back at the house, Josh tiptoes into the bedroom to tell Nora he couldn’t sleep. She touches his face gently because even when he has broken her heart, she cares for him so much. He leans into her touch like a dog — which is such an important detail given what happens next and bless the writer’s for including it — and she tells him he should go. He doesn’t, and instead climbs into bed beside her, testing to see if she’ll allow it. She does, and kisses him despite her better judgement. And I think, if he’d stopped there and simply gone to sleep beside her, she’d have allowed that, and they’d have worked through it over the next few days or weeks. But he doesn’t. He keeps kissing her even as she tells him he should go downstairs, even as she flat out tells him to stop, even as she screams for him to stop — and then as she pushes him off her, he wolfs out. And here is one of the many things I love about Nora: she pulls out a silver knife. Had the episode ended there, I’d have already been singing its praises, but the show has one final twist in store for us: after doing the spell to close Donna’s death spot, Sally finds herself travelled back in time to her own past as a living occupant at the house. She watches herself brush her teeth and laments that maybe this time, she’s stuck in the past for good, until she realizes that this isn’t just any night of her life. This is the last night of her life, the night Danny killed her. And then she starts begging herself to run. I’d like to write some kind of summation of the episode here for you, I really would, but honestly all I have to say is “pain, pain, more pain, ow.” This season is going to some dark places and it’s doing so with aplomb. Sam Witwer is turning in performances that deserve every award I can throw at him. Kristen Hager continues to imbue Nora with a quiet, gentle strength that I admire to the ends of this earth and back. And sometimes, you just have to put away the pretty words and experience a TV show on an emotional level instead of an intellectual one. So here’s hoping that whatever happens with Sally next week, it’s a break from the depressing turn this season has been taking. Read Kaci’s review of the previous episode, Cheater Of The Pack, here. Follow our Twitter feed for faster news and bad jokes right here. And be our Facebook chum here.
