WitchBlade Ep04 Featured Television 

Ten Thoughts on Witchblade‘s: “Sacrifice”

By and | July 5th, 2019
Posted in Television | % Comments

Your favorite summer TV binging couple is back for more! Last year, my boyfriend Frank and I tackled the first season of SyFy/Amazon’s The Expanse together – – two different perspectives on the same show, one from one person who’s seen it, the other watching it for the first time. Who just happen to be dating.

This year, we’re taking a look at the TNT adaptation of Top Cow’s Witchblade comic, which aired on the network from 2001 – 2002.  And just like last year, this is a show Frank has watched, and I haven’t. Hilarity is bound to ensue (again). The series follows NYPD detective Sara “Pez” Pezzini and her adventures with the titular Witchblade, which gives her powers to fight supernatural evil and those who want the Witchblade for themselves.

The world of Witchblade dives into Celtic legend in “Sacrifice”. It should go without saying at this point given age, but spoilers within.

Kate’s Five Thoughts

1. “This is a Weird One”

That’s the understatement of the year for Pez and company. This week’s case involves human sacrifice connected to the Celtic legend of Katain (doesn’t seem to be a real legend based on a quick Google search, but if someone more versed in Celtic lore has knowledge of this or a similar tale, I’m all ears).  Katain was a Irish warrior with the Witchblade (natch) who also looks a lot like Pez (natch) pursued by King Conchobar for her ways of the sword, but not just for that: he was in love with her.  And he would do whatever it would take to win her heart, including sending a druid to sacrifice innocents, including Katain’s sister.

2. Just Two Hearts Living in Two Separate Worlds . . . ?

Of course there’s a modern-day Conchobar, a singer with intimate (perhaps too intimate knowledge) of the legend of his ancestor, as the lyrics of his songs foretell the legend and the ritual sacrifices taking place in the city. Moreover, he has some intimate knowledge of Pez, as he claims to have met her in a past life.  It first sounds like a lame pickup line, but there’s hints that this man is of the supernatural plane, and the further implication that Pez herself has had many past lives, if not traveled through time herself.

Whatever or whomever he is, he is one smoking hot man with a guitar.  *fans self*

An aside: the entire band reminds of the Celtic rock band Black 47, which had just celebrated its 10th anniversary the year before this episode aired.  Someone who wrote this episode must have been big into the New York rock scene of the 1990s.

3. Witchblade Smarts

This is another one of those episodes that I thought focused less on the action and more on Pez’s smarts. It appears the Witchblade has gifted her with some language skills, as she’s able to read Katain’s story as written in a language dead for a millennium. It’s also heightened some of her deductive skills, allowing her to remain in total control of the case as they find the killer and the final victim, right down to pretending to being a second coming of Katain.  The only action we see with the Witchblade is what I called “PEZ SMASH” as she uses it as a battering ram to bring down the door to find Iona before she became the latest victim.

The Witchblade does more than brute force.  Kudos for the show for showing that the weapon that is your intellect and mind.

4. Trust

Here we also see Pez and Jake working a little more in sync, more as a team, as they divide and conquer to find the final sacrifice before it takes place. There’s still some of that tension between experienced cop and rookie, but she’s working, albeit slowly, to integrate him into her life. And perhaps Jake’s offhanded comments about neither of them having a personal life inspired Pez to have a little, ahem, private concert with Conchobar.

5. Pez Versus the NYPD

This episode also sees some tension between Pez and her NYPD superiors. Initially her captain does not believe the first victim was a sacrificial murder; it was just a body stolen from the morgue.  Of course Pez knows better, and she and the captain do briefly come to blows.  All is forgiven at the end, and Pez gets a round of applause from her precinct for cracking the case.  I don’t think this is the last we will see of these tensions, though, particularly as the Witchblade weaves itself more and more into Pez’s life.  It’s going to be harder and harder for her to explain to others about some of her intimate knowledge and skills without explaining the presence of the Witchblade, so I predict she may end up going rogue from the NYPD at some point, perhaps taking on a consultant role as Sherlock and Watson did in CBS’s Elementary. 

Continued below

Afterthoughts:

  • This episode aired two days before my 23rd birthday – – July 3rd, 2001. (So yes, this recap is going live on the 18th anniversary of my 23rd birthday.)

Frank’s Five Thoughts

1. Sacrifice

Sacrifice is a common trope in magic and mythology based on the fact that power often requires a price. In many stories, sacrifice is needed to either perform magic or to gain the attention of the gods. Sacrifice can take many forms, some personal, but often we connote the term to some form of ritual killing. And of course that is what we are dealing with here in WitchBlade. The episode starts off with a hooded man driving a stone sword the body of a dead woman which is what gets Pez and the NYPD on the case. Very quickly, the hooded man ramps up to actual murder. We discover through the episode that the sacrifices are meant to summon a warrior-witch named Katain, who obviously was a previous wielder of the WitchBlade. Since Pez shows up to stop him, we have to wonder if his rituals had actual power or it just seemed to line up that way?

2. Protocol

I appreciate that someone finally called out Pez for never really being at her desk and doing police work in a way that is expected. That is something that always gets to me in shows where some cop or other professional is leading a double life and has to keep making excuses while they are not at work, or have to leave the date early. I guess, though, that is part of the tension of being a superhero and wanting to protect the people around you. It has even become major plots for characters like Spider-Man and Batman (not that Bruce Wayne actually does any work that he skips out on…). Oh, but back to WitchBlade, yeah it’s refreshing to see a character called out for shit like this once in a while, especially from a character like Captain Dante who has announced that he’s keeping a close eye on Pez. He notes that Jake is still technically in training, and as such should be connected to Pez at the hip. To be fair to Pez, it does seem that she is somewhat aware of Jake’s training because she calls him out for not spending enough time at the gym or shooting range. Hey, c’mon Pez, a boy has to spend a certain amount of time getting his bleached tips just right. He doesn’t look that good naturally.

3. Information Channels

Being a librarian and something of a technologist, I am always drawn to the ways that characters receive and handle information in narratives. This is something that we see Pez dealing with through these episodes. Last episode she sought out Gabriel in order to find an independent source of information about the WitchBlade, and that proves useful in “Sacrifice” as well. Pez gets the information she needs to solve this week’s case from three different sources – Kenneth Irons and his book of Irish legends, Gabriel, and the bard Conchobar (not from actual evidence and investigation though – how does one fill out that police report?). Irons starts it all off by calling Pez and informing her that he has information pertinent to her case. When she goes to his office, she finds he has left out a book written in a long-dead language that seems to describe elements similar to her case. She has already tasked Gabriel to help identify a carving that was left at the murder scene, which led her to Celtic-rocker Conchobar who uses that symbol at his shows (and which clearly puts him at the top of the suspect list). It turns that Conchobar is one of those singers that performs his songs before they are finished, and only sings a single verse at a time. I feel sorry for anyone else that didn’t come to his earlier shows. But hey! This is perfect to drag out the dramatic tension of how he is inspiring a serial killer. Since he uses this unorthodox method of releasing his music, he becomes another key source of information for Pez who has to wait for him to get his artistic ass together and finish the song.

Continued below

4. Objects of Power

Early in the episode Pez and Gabriel are talking about the WitchBlade and it is mentioned that it was once in the collection of Adolf Hitler, along with other “objets de pouissance” like the Holy Grail, the True Cross, and the Shroud of Turin. It is true that Hitler was a collector of objects with purportedly supernatural powers – this is why the Nazis were looking for the Ark of the Covenant and the Grail in the Indiana Jones films. I like the way this builds more of the world around Pez and the WitchBlade. We know that the WitchBlade has real power (in the show at least), so it isn’t unreasonable to think that these other items also hold some power.

5. Destiny

When Pez meets Conchobar he says that they have met before, which confuses her because this was the first time she meets him. Through the episode, though, we see flashbacks connected to the story she reads in Irons’ book that a previous incarnation of herself and Conchobar knew each other and were possibly lovers in medieval Ireland. This seems to be another instance of the WitchBlade having an influence on the world around Pez, like we seen with Dominique Boucher and Gabriel being drawn into her orbit. It would also explain how a killer influenced by the story of Conchobar and Katain would begin killing at the same time a singer by that name was performing and writing a song about it. Nothing should be considered coincidence in the world of WitchBlade.

Stray Thoughts

– Before Pez was able to talk down the killer, he was shot by a mysterious figure. We would normally suspect Ian, who was there, but he was up the rafters and just shrugs at her. When Pez investigates, she finds a bullet casing marked with the same bull figure as the one in the box from her father.

We’ll see you next week for “Legion” and let us know what you thought of the episode in the comments!


//TAGS | 2019 Summer TV Binge | Witchblade

Kate Kosturski

Kate Kosturski is your Multiversity social media manager, a librarian by day and a comics geek...well, by day too (and by night). Kate's writing has also been featured at PanelxPanel, Women Write About Comics, and Geeks OUT. She spends her free time spending too much money on Funko POP figures and LEGO, playing with yarn, and rooting for the hapless New York Mets. Follow her on Twitter at @librarian_kate.

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Frank Skornia

Frank is a longtime fan of science fiction and fantasy, enjoying a wide range of material across the spectrum of media. He is also an avid gamer, enjoying video games, board games, and RPGs of all sorts. Frank is also a really big fan of Godzilla. You can find him on Twitter at @FSkornia.

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