The Serpent's Egg (Defiance)

"The Serpent's Egg" is the fifth episode of the first season of the American science fiction series Defiance, and the series' fifth episode overall. It was aired on May 13, 2013. The episode was written by David Weddle & Bradley Thompson and it was directed by Omar Madha.

Plot

Nolan (Grant Bowler) escorts Rynn (Tiio Horn) to prison and Amanda carries the money that was raised by the town to buy a mag-rail line. Along with them on the bus to New York, are an Earth Republic representative named Olfin (Jane McLean), her two husbands, Kasper (Milton Barnes) and Ziggy (Steve Lund), and a preacher named Preston (Andrew Musselman).

On their way to New York, they are ambushed and the driver of the bus is killed by a bomb that Preston planted. Preston and the two hijackers who appear, ask for the money Amanda is carrying. The ambush goes wrong, one of the hijackers and one of Olfin's husbands are killed, Preston is hurt and Olfin is taken as a hostage by Preston.

Nolan and Amanda make a plan on how to take Olfin back. They manage to kill the second hijacker and Preston, but right after that they discover that Olfin was part of the whole plan since the beginning. Olfin wanted to steal the money Defiance gathered to force them take the Earth Republic's funding for the spur. While she tries to get the money, Rynn, who had managed to escape, returns and stops Olfin from leaving. Nolan arrests Olfin to take her back to Defiance and Rynn leaves along with Olfin's second husband.

When they get to Defiance, Olfin is put on board the bus that will take her to New York in handcuffs, but as soon as she gets in, her supposed police escort releases her. Olfin orders the police escort to find her everything about Amanda's life.

In the meantime, at Defiance, Irisa (Stephanie Leonidas) kidnaps a Castithan (Ben Cotton) because she believes he is the one who tortured her when she was a kid. She tortures him the way he did, to force him confess and tell her why he did all those things to her. Tommy (Dewshane Williams) sees Irisa's strange behavior, follows her and finds the captive Castithan.

Tommy tries to stop Irisa and when she decides to leave the Castithan alone believing she might had made a mistake, he confesses his actions. The reason was because he was believing she was a "destroyer/saver goddess" and to fulfill her purpose, she had to kill him after the tortures. Via flashbacks we see that the moment Irisa was supposed to kill him, Nolan got into the room and saved her. The Castithan says that now she has the chance to finish it but Irisa, despite the fact that her original thought was to kill him, refuses to do it and instead she releases him.

Feature music

In the "The Serpent's Egg" we can hear the songs:^[1]

• "Lovesong" by The Cure
• "Ride Captain Ride" by Blues Image
• "I'm in Control" by Jetsi Kain
• "Raiders" by Bear McCreary

Reception

Ratings

In its original American broadcast, "The Serpent's Egg" was watched by 1.98 million; down 0.17 from the previous episode.^[2]

Reviews

"The Serpent's Egg" received positive reviews.

Rowan Kaiser from The A.V. Club gave a B+ grade to the episode saying that ii was the best-paced episode of Defiance yet but that doesn't mean it's perfect. "I feel like we're seeing Defiance shed its new-show issues every episode, and this one took one of the most major steps forward along those lines."^[3]

Lisa Macklem from Spoiler TV said that "the “stagecoach” storyline was really much too predictable to be effective" but she enjoyed the teasing between Nolan and Amanda. She also stated that the most interesting storyline for her, was Irisa's.^[4]

Jim Garner from TV Fanatic rated the episode with 4.6/5 stating that the episode continued the trend of excellent Defiance episodes.^[5]

References

External links

• Afterbuzz's discussion about "The Serpent's Egg" on YouTube