I don’t know why on earth it took me almost an entire year to watch the final season of A Discovery of Witches, but here we are. The year has gone by in a flash, but that’s still no excuse for me putting off this excellent show for so long.
Having given up after the first book, I am fully happy with what both the second and third (and final) seasons were able to convey. If the latter two seasons were anything like the first though, I imagine they stayed pretty dang close to the story and the details presented in the books. I know television is a longer format and thus should be able to capture the details better, but I don’t know that I’ve seen any other show do it quite this good. Especially when there seems to be an infinite amount of details in this story!
Anyways, we meet Diana and Matthew back in the present, after they returned from their time-walk and sadly after Diana’s aunt’s death at the hands of Peter Knox. The pair are also parents-to-be…to twins! No one knows how these babies are going to turn out, and also, no one knows how the Congregation is going to react. Most everyone that Diana has come across since becoming a witch gather at a few choice locations over the course of the season, but I love seeing all of these characters together interacting. Leading up to the birth of the twins, Matthew enlists the help of Miriam and mortal friend of Diana’s, Chris, to find a cure for blood rage. Oh yeah, did I mention the blood raged vampire turns out to be a “grown up” Jack? He found his parents!
Anyways, it turns out that blood rage has more to do with how the disease interacts with human DNA, so way back in the day Matthew slaughtered most of Marcus’ family for no reason. Good luck getting the remaining members to join their new scion. What’s a scion, you ask? It’s a new clan, so to speak, so they no longer have to follow the rule of the eldest vampire in a family. So long Matthew’s brother, Baldwin. Luckily, he comes around, but still. So, the twins are born then without too much worry, and it appears one is more vampire-leaning, while the other is witch-leaning. While Matthew goes with Marcus to recruit his family for their scion, Diana heads to get the Book of Life and re-attach the three missing pages.
When the show reaches its climax, perhaps everything falls together a little too neatly, but for the end of a series as good as this, I can overlook its fairytale ending. Of course, after Matthew apologizes the rest of Marcus’ family joins the scion, and of course the Book of Life transfers itself into Diana. Now that these two things have happened, it’s almost ridiculously easy for the rest of their foes to be beaten. Luckily, Knox had basically exiled himself from the congregation and goes mad trying to find the pages before Diana. Sarah and Diana get to exact their revenge on him for Emily’s death, which was a nice full-circle moment. Matthew gets briefly tormented by Benjamin, a vampire Matthew sired long ago but abandoned after doing so. Diana masters the twelfth knot in order to burn him down, along with easily taking out Satu in the process (spellbound, much?).
Finally, Gebert gets his, too, after everyone learns that he was the cause for a lot of their plight throughout the series. The Congregation is reformed and the old covenants abolished after learning that every creature and human has daemon DNA in their blood. The thinning of this bloodline is what was causing the problems with the witches and the vampires. I love how they managed to tie in current day politics into this little tidbit. Overall, the series was so pleasing to finish out. I was a little disappointed with Gallowglass’ outcome, and Diana still seems a little dense for being “so smart,” but these are little qualms, and I think if you like sci-fi or fantasy at all then you must watch this show!