Reviews
[TV Review] “Salem Episode 2.08: ‘Dead Birds’
Well, you can’t say Salem doesn’t know how to keep its promises. “Dead Birds” had a lot of dead birds in it. Apparently, they like to fly into Baby John’s window when he’s angry. It doesn’t look like much but Tituba is extremely freaked out by it, so it can’t be good. Anyway, “Dead Birds” was kind of a slow burn episode, the bulk of which was spent trying to find Countess Marburg’s weakness (though Lucy Lawless was absent this week). It wasn’t one of the season’s strongest episodes, but it was necessary as we head into the final third of the season.
Much of this episode was devoted to Cotton, as he finally received closure from his father. I’m assuming this is Stephen Lang’s final episode, and if it was it was a sweet send-off for him (who would have thought the word sweet would ever be associated with Increase Mather?). This episode and last week’s episode will probably stand out as “The Increase Mather Variety Hour” when this season is discussed later, but I’m okay with that. It was a fun way to bring Lang back, and seeing his final scene with Cotton (and Mary) was very touching.
Cotton went on his own little adventure with Wainwright as well. After finding the Malum and seeing the crags-turned Hellfire pits, Wainwright puts everything together and links it to Mary. In one episode, Wainwright has become one of the most interesting characters on the show (and its biggest wild card). Mary is in desperate need of an ally, and while Wainwright wouldn’t have been my first choice, his speech to her to let him in was a great one. It was surprising (at least to me) to hear him side with her. Then they had drug-induced sex, so there’s that.
Mary got to show a truly vulnerable side with Baby John this week, once Mercy had turned him against her. Baby John is has not been my favorite part of this season, as he seems to be following many of the standard “creepy child” tropes we all know so well. He draws creepy pictures, causes birds to commit suicide, uses foul language, might be possessed by the devil, etc. Now that he is in Marburg’s grasp, he (like Mercy) might become significantly more interesting.
Finally, we have Anne, who has become real adept at killing animals this season. After an impressive moment of showing a backbone to Sebastian (let’s she if she can do the same with Marburg, though), she doesn’t give a second thought to ripping the head off of a chicken (seriously, calm down Anne) to open up her father’s secret room. After killing Brown Jenkins (AGAIN) to open her father’s Book of Shadows, her desperation becomes very apparent.
Anne’s arc has been one of the more interesting aspects of the season. Last season she came across as a whiney brat, so it’s good to see her taking charge of her own life. Also, she grew a brain this episode! After cutting herself and realizing that her blood would not reveal the book’s secrets, she scraped her father’s dried blood off of the wall (ick) and rubbed the flakes on the pages, only to see words and images start to appear.
“Dead Birds’ wasn’t a spectacular episode of Salem by any means, but it had enough going on to make it entertaining. Since this is the episode leading into the final third of the season, a lot of set-up is expected. Hopefully next week gets to the good stuff!
Random Notes
- The Countess was apparently alive when Lucifer fell and has died and been resurrected many times. So this basically means Lucy Lawless will always have an “in” with Salem, right? RIGHT?
- John does absolutely nothing this week except stay tied up and fuck Tituba. It’s an undeniably hot scene, though. I had to have a glass of wine after.
- “I gave you leave to spy on the Countess. Not haunt the streets of Salem like some ghost from a cheap ballad.” -Not Mary’s best singer, but it made me chuckle nonetheless.
- “Give me the book or I will bathe my mother in your blood.” -You’ve got to give Salem points for originality. I don’t think these words have ever been said on TV (or film for that matter).
- “If you were so concerned about my son, here’s a task most suited to your skills. I’m sure one as cunning as you can find a way to remove bird shit from his linen.” -Poor Tituba. Mary really does treat her terribly.
- “Oh it is not death, man. Merely marriage!” -Wainwright, ever the wordsmith.
- “My friend doesn’t like you very much. She says underneath your pretty face you’re a horrid old hag, and that you kill people all the time. And she called you…what was it….oh yes…a filthy whore.” -For some reason, I just think “whore” is a funny word. So hearing a child say it made me guffaw.
- “Open your eyes woman. It is me, Wainwright. I’m not a Puritan. Indeed I’m not a Christian. No, my religion is science.” -All hail Wainwright!
Chuck Tingle‘s writing is embedded with a particular tonal trick that makes him perfectly suited to horror. “Propulsive” is the first word that comes to mind when I think of Tingle’s energetic prose, and when his books start wrapping themselves around characters and digging through their various complexities, it’s easy to be pulled along, absorbed in the feeling that an old friend is simply telling you a story.
Then Tingle will drop one of the single creepiest bits of imagery you’ve ever read, and you’re right back in the horror space. It’s not always a jump scare, but it is always a pulsing feeling of dread that keeps you hooked through the rest of the book.
Fabulous Bodies, Tingle’s latest horror novel, carries on these gifts, and the promise Tingle showed on books like Camp Damascus and Bury Your Gays. His fiction’s growing ever more confident and precise, and his eye for horrific detail hasn’t dimmed in the least, making this a summer reading delight for horror fans.
Poppy is a single mother determined to make a better life for her daughter, particularly after growing up in group homes and foster systems. By day, she works hard to keep up the flow of upbeat, enthusiastic content as a fashion influencer, and while that’s going well, it’s not yet making ends meet. To make up the difference, she moonlights as a grave robber, lifting bodies from morgues and funeral homes and selling their pieces on the black market. It’s grueling, dangerous work, and it’s about to pay off big. Out of the blue, Poppy gets a call to transport the newly dead body of her musical hero, the legendary Eddie Michaels. It’s a weird gig, but the payout is big enough that she could walk away from her macabre side gig forever. Poppy takes the job, and things get complicated when Eddie turns out to be, well, only mostly dead.
From the moment Eddie’s corpse enters the picture, Fabulous Bodies takes on the vibe of a road novel, as the grave robber and the undead rock star make stop after stop, and Poppy tries again and again to wrap her mind about what she’s gotten herself into, and how she might get herself out. It’s a delightful premise, and Tingle never loses his grip on the fun of it. No matter how dark the novel gets, and it does get quite dark, the narrative keeps barreling forward, delivering macabre laughs and moments of beautifully gruesome invention along the way.
Because he’s set his protagonist up as a fashion influencer, Tingle has lots of room to play in the space of how we view human bodies, both alive and dead, how we use them, and what we value in them. This is the emotional core of Fabulous Bodies, and while it’s sometimes overshadowed by the runaway train of the plot, it remains a potent source of thematic exploration throughout the book, and it gets more complicated when you consider certain gifts Eddie’s been granted in his strange supernatural state.
In essence, we’re looking at a story about a grave robber who discovers a body that not only fights back, but takes control of any given situation. That throws Poppy for repeated loops and keeps the plot moving, but it also makes us consider on a deeper level exactly what we value about our own physical form, and what might happen when we lose our grip on it entirely.
The book’s themes and emotional concerns hum through the whole narrative, but the overwhelming impression I got while reading Fabulous Bodies was just how much damn fun this book is. I couldn’t stop reading it, not just because it’s so filled with sudden swerves and ghoulish setpieces, but because Tingle has honed his horror storytelling down to a fine, very sharp point. Fabulous Bodies moves like a roller coaster, complete with a tension-filled ramp-up and a finale that’ll leave you breathless by the time the ride is over.
If you haven’t been reading Chuck Tingle’s horror work up to this point, it’s time to get on board, because he’s just getting started, and he’s already mastered the art of the scary page-turner.
Fabulous Bodies is available now.
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