Angels of Death Episode 10 Review: The witch trial shall start.

If Angels of Death didn’t manage to confuse you so far, with this week’s trippy and abstract episode, you will experience a marvelous mindfuck.

Plot

Rachel chases after Danny but runs into Gray instead who reveals to her that he has the medicine that Danny was carrying. He proclaims that she corrupts those around her and after dosing her with hallucinogenic gas, they find themselves in a court where she will be judged to determine if she is actually a witch. Gray summons illusions of Danny, Eddie, and Cathy to testify against Rachel. Cathy points out that Rachel is a liar, Eddie proclaims that she is selfish and stubborn, and Danny boasts that he loves Rachel’s soul because it cannot be saved. After listening to all of their testimonies, Gray comes to the conclusion that Rachel is a witch and sentences her to be burned at the stake.

Episode Highlights

A witch that have deceived us angels: After listening to Gray’s words, we finally get to understand that he is as crazy as the rest of the people there. He is the one that brought Zack and probably everyone there and he considers everyone an angel. Great. Zack is indeed simple and pure as well as Eddie who was just a kid… but Danny and Catchy, I can’t really see them as angels, I am sorry.

The trial and the white rabbit: Everything in this episode is clearly symbolic. Rachel is not a normal girl. On top of that, she wants desperately to die and has a weird connection with God. Anyone at her place would have been terrified to go through all these experiences, the floors, the people she met; she just doesn’t care. Gray tries to understand her and plays the role of the judge. The hallucinations make everything easier from a narrative point of view since it helps revisit the dead characters’ motivations. When Rachel follows the white rabbit in the hole, it reminds us of the Queen of Hearts trial in Alice in Wonderland, in which if you remember, Alice was already found guilty before the trial even started. It is the same case here since Gray already found her guilty and the trial is just meaningless. The only reason why this is happening is that Gray wants her to accept who she really is and whatever she is hiding or trying to avoid.

Themes & Trivia

Bona fide: If you are watching the show subtitled, then you might have noticed that Cathy says to Rachel that she is a bona fide witch. Bona fides is Latin for good faith. It expresses a sincere intention to be fair, open, and honest, regardless of the outcome of the interaction.

Comments

When I first experienced this scene in the game I was like: ‘What the hell is going on? Am I starting to hallucinate as well?’ but if you accept that everything is plain symbolic, the trial is actually quite interesting.

This episode was great in letting us understand the personalities of the characters even more. Okay, yes, Cathy is just plain sadistic and bitchy, so we didn’t really get anything else about her, but we finally understand Eddie’s obsession over Rachel. He was lonely and he was feeling like no one really understood him, but seeing the way Rachel acted by burying the bird and wanting to die he felt like she could relate with him.

Danny might appear like he is just a crazy doctor with a fetish over eyes but he is much more than that. ‘The real you is not a soul that should be stolen’. He is actually the only one who knows her better than anyone else and drops hints about her true nature, which means that Rachel has actually done something really bad in the past and tries to run away from it.

I don’t know if the ‘death by water’ or ‘death by spikes’ or ‘death by fire’ symbolize anything further about each character’s personality but they definitely want to see poor Rachel dead.

Rachel Gardner is a witch.

You might be feeling overly confused with everything that is happening but have some patience and you will definitely be rewarded for it in the next few episodes. Don’t forget, Angels of Death has 16 episodes in total, so don’t worry, you still have plenty of time to make sense out of it.

NEXT TIME: ‘cause you are my God, Zack.