midnight, texas patience is a virtue

“This is my town. It’s my family; and I won’t let anyone else die.”

Things are looking grim in Midnight as our white hats are playing catch up as Patience—aka Hypathia—and her newest lieutenant Fiji go about resurrecting Hypathia’s love (and twin brother) Theophilus. Of course, to accomplish this, Manny will have to lose his head and that ain’t happening.

Or is it?

midnight, texaas
The last thing Hypathia should be wearing is white.

As the penultimate episode before the season finale, “Patience is a Virtue” plays as the darkest hour for the midnighters. For most of the episode, they are on the defensive, preparing for war with Hypathia and her dark witches while knowing there’s not much time left to get the job done. While Joe and Lem gather weapons, Bobo and Olivia work to return Fiji’s butterfly which, it should come as no surprise, is a representation of her soul. It’s no wonder she went full on Angelus after the ritual.

On the other end, Kai and Manny become the unlikeliest of allies, digging deeper into the mysticism behind the binding of Theophilus. Their first step in this is Manny’s journey into the mysterious painting, which just so happens to be the prison for Delilah, the witch representing magic’s light side. Here Manny (as Fiji does courtesy of Hypathia) learns how what was once just magic was split into light and dark. Hypathia, Delilah, and Theophilus were once friends, with the latter two being in love. When Hypathia learned of the pair’s promise to wed, she made her move on her brother. Their Lannister-like conjoinment ushered in dark magic. It’s a curious thing, for a bit of incest to have such lasting repercussions on the world, but there it is. Delilah’s beheading of Theophilus, once thought to be a noble action now seems as if it’s more about a woman scorned taking vengeance. She admits as much during her conversation with Manny, though also states that the twins, now given to their baser desires for one another, had unleashed a plague to wipe out their opposition. So yes, Delilah’s actions were just yet her motivations were not as pure as the driven snow. It’s a unique perspective to give on what is supposed to be a heroine; to show that Delilah, while a good and noble character, is only human and therefore in possession of human fallacies provides depth that would have been otherwise missing for her brief appearance.

Delilah, avatar of light magic. It’s fitting that a love triangle was the cause behind the formation of magical factions.

With that information in hand, Manny and Kai plan to free the white witch from her prison. For that, Manny travels back to Hexennacht to bring Everard—Hypathia and Theophilus’s son, and the one who banished Delilah to her prison—back into this world long enough for Kai to extract his witchly powers. It all goes according to plan but then Manfred plays right into Hypathia’s hands. One step ahead of the Midnighters, she’s bound Manny’s friends and, with her retinue of witches, awaits for his arrival. Though it’s a commendable thing, Manny refusing to leave his friends, his actions are reckless and could cause the entire world to suffer, not just Midnight. But he’s juiced up on witch power and surprises Hypathia, Fiji, and their brood…it’s all there, just like with so many other confrontations. Manny will get his friends out and they will regroup for one final assault that will take up the majority of the finale. That’s how it always goes, right?

Except here.

Yes, Manny shows a bit of offensive firepower but he’s quickly shut down and then, reminiscent of one of those surprising Game of Thrones fates, Manny loses his head right there in front of his friends. Hypathia has won and Theophilus will return.

 

The Midnight Mile

  • To paraphrase Quicksilver from Age of Ultron, I did not see that coming. Sure, there has to be some sort of plan for the Midnighters to win; Manny (or maybe Kai?) has a trick card hidden under the sleeve but, man, seeing the show’s main star get iced like that was most unexpected. The promo for next week does a pretty good job staying mum on how our protagonists get out of this but we know they will, right? …Right???
  • Once again, Joe’s story arc left something to be desired. His conversation with his friends about Chuy’s death was great (as was his talk with Lem) but an eons old angel being fooled by his dead lover reappearing was a bit much. Sure, he has a lot of guilt at killing his thousand-year love but, come on, he’s an angel; he’s not going to fall for that ‘dead lover is alive’ trick. They could have used some other ploy that would have made his character behave a bit more like an eons-old being instead of like some dumb kid.
  • Now that Fiji’s butterfly is dead and gone, does that mean she’s stuck on this side of soulless? I really hope not because, while it was fun to see her like this for an episode or two, the act is wearing thin. Maybe if Parisa Fitz-Henley tones down the mustache-twirling aspect of her new persona, then maybe it could work but, as it is, her character doesn’t have any redeeming qualities to foster her remaining on the show.