Time is short for Amanda in this week’s episode of Defiance! She is and Pottinger are stuck in a mine shaft. Rafe and Nolan have to figure out how to get her out. All the while Irisa continues her weird cultish group. Check out Josh’s recap, followed by both Josh’s and Violet’s thoughts about the episode, after the jump!
Don’t need the Defiance episode recap for Bottom of the World? Click here to jump directly to Violet’s thoughts on the episode!
To see Josh’s thoughts on this week’s Defiance episode, Bottom of the World, click here to get directly there!
Defiance, Season 2 Episode 10: Bottom of the World Recap Overview
On this episode of Defiance, the episode opens with a cloaked figure stealing an item from the E-Rep. That figure is Irisa. She attempts to steal a Terra-Sphere, but Nolan shows up. He doesn’t turn her in to the E-Rep soldiers, but stops Irisa’s plan. Nolan decides to lock her up in his jail.
Meanwhile, Ambassador Tennety has come to visit. She greets Amanda with sarcasm and degradation, but Pottinger is able to put her in her place. Tennety wants to see the mines and Defiance’s refining process. Nolan, Amanda and Pottinger are with her, and they head into the mine. They head in for the tour, when suddenly there is a cave in. Nolan and most people make it out, but Amanda, Pottinger and Tennety do not.
Tennety dies in the cave in, and Amanda and Pottinger are trapped, running out of air. Nolan brings Rafe to the mine to work on a plan. They find a lava vent tube that they can drill through to reach Amanda and Pottinger.
Pottinger and Amanda begin to run out of air. They kiss. Pottinger tells Amanda to kill him so that she has enough air to survive. Amanda refuses though. After completely drilling, Nolan and Berlin drop into the mine, and save both of them.
While in the mine, Nolan discovers a weapon–one that was able to cause the cave in. Turns out the weapon is Rafe’s–but he isn’t the one who used it. Rafe heads to his weapon stash and asks Quentin to help him get rid of the weapon stash. Turns out Quentin is the saboteur, and tells Rafe that he did it to save his mother–while beating him with a pipe.
E-Rep soldiers find the weapon stash and Rafe cops to the bombing of the mine. Quentin is reunited with his mother, who disapproves of Quentin’s insulting of Rafe.
Irisa, meanwhile, has escaped, and cons Tommy into helping her steal a Terra-Sphere. Tommy meets her later that night, and Irisa puts the weird “spawn” she has been giving to other people inside Tommy. She takes the sphere to her camp, and chants, “The Devouring Mother has Come, She is glory made flesh.” The Terra-Sphere lights up some alien looking artifacts in the camp, and many of her followers are enveloped in a sphere, and pulled underground.
Alak deals with Deirdre, breaking it off with her, but has to pay her off to keep her quiet with Christie. Alak also apologizes to Christie at home. Deirdre shows up, and threatens Alak to blow the lid off their relationship. Stahma catches wind of the problem, and seems concerned.
Stahma visits Datak, who is hustling people in Three Card Monty. She asks him to take care of Deirdre, but he refuses to help, unless Stahma lets him back in his house.
Josh’s Thoughts: Defiance, Season 2 Episode 10: Bottom of the World
Well we see that the cave-in has brought Pottinger and Amanda closer together. What is the deal with Pottinger? Is he attracted to Amanda? If so, is it only because of his love for her ex-fiance? Or does he have legitimate feelings for Amanda? Either way, Nolan is left out in the cold. His daughter is a crazy cult leader, and his two women options are seemingly disinterested in him. That doesn’t stop him from saving the day though.
Whatever is inside Irisa is sure able to control her very convincingly. For the beginning of the episode, she seems like she might be telling the truth about Sukar being sick, or herself being sick. Although she is sick, she clearly wanted the Terrra-Sphere for other reasons. Now Tommy seems to be involved with her crazy cult group. What is “Irzu’s” plan anyway?
As for Alak and Christie–does Christie know? Her hesitation when she asks Alak if he has anything else to confess seemed a little telling. But this thought could be coming from what I already know from the next episode…
The one weird thing about this season of Defiance is how the season has been promoted. It seemed to be that it was marketed as a small town being under the thumb of the overbearing E-Rep government that eventually breaks free. We have seem minor hunts of that, but overall it seems to be relatively unsatisfying. Hopefully that becomes a plot point, as I was really hoping to see something like that.
Violet’s Thoughts on Season 2 Episode 10 of Defiance: Bottom of the World
I think the biggest takeaway from this episode is… SARAH CONNOR IS QUENTIN’S MOM??? Totally was not expecting that. That’s right, the great Linda Hamilton, who played Sarah Connor in the Terminator movies turns out to be Rafe’s estranged wife. Who was in a psychiatric hospital. Sound familiar?? Does this make Quentin John Connor?? Well, actually I guess she would have gone on to marry Rafe and have a family later on in life after having John. Also, she doesn’t look like a Pilar to me… but she did speak Spanish in Terminator. Hmm… Ok, I could go on and on about the possibility of her actually being Sarah Connor, but that would be digressing a bit much. But that would be cool if they could somehow tie the stories together, right??
Anyway, so what’s up with Pottinger? I thought we had established that he was actually gay and had been in love with Amanda’s ex-fiance, the deceased Connor Lang. But I suppose that he could be bi. That seems to be fairly common in Defiance. Maybe he really does love Amanda. They even make out in this episode (big waste of air! But I guess if you think you’re going to die anyway, it wouldn’t matter to you). At first I thought maybe it was just a “hey let’s make out since we’re about to die” kind of thing that didn’t really mean anything. But by the end of the episode, it does seem that Amanda has grown a bit attached to Pottinger.
Before we found out that Quentin was the one behind the bombing, I thought it might be Doc Yewll who was responsible, since she’s living somewhere down there now. Quentin has turned into quite the brat, letting his father take the fall for him, and thinking he outsmarted Rafe into doing so. Obviously, Rafe only accepted the blame to protect his son, even though Quentin hasn’t been very warm to Rafe as of late. But Quentin didn’t see it that way until his mom slapped some sense into him, literally.
Umm, yeah so I don’t know what is going on with Irisa’s weird cult thing. Hopefully that is explained soon, because I have no idea what all those bubble things did! Also, I was surprised when Irisa spread the metal strands to Tommy, because I thought it was only Votans that were part of this. I’m pretty sure we hadn’t seen any humans get attacked until Tommy.
Scenes from Defiance, Season 2 Episode 11, Doll Parts
Here are scenes from the next episode of Defiance, titled Doll Parts: [Note: This video also contains scenes from Season 2 Episode 10, because both episodes were aired on the same night.]
