Salem Stars Seth Gabel and Tamzin Merchant Talk the Crazy Season 2 Finale
Debi Moore
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Tomorrow night the Season 2 finale of “Salem,” appropriately entitled “The Witching Hour,” airs on WGN America; and co-stars Seth Gabel and Tamzin Merchant recently took part in a roundtable interview to tease a few of the bat-shit crazy events that await us. What follows are the highlights of what they were able to reveal about Episode 2.13, which they described as shocking, awesome, and disturbing. Strap in, Heathens!
Q: Cotton has been through the ringer this season! And he’s not especially brave, so how does he manage to keep going, and how is that going to carry on into the finale?
Seth Gabel: We see that side of Cotton when he has his kind of soliloquies to God where he’s questioning because one of the interesting things about the show is we see a lot of evidence of the Devil, but we haven’t really seen clear evidence of there being God or a higher power. We haven’t really seen that… so Cotton is always recognizing that lack of evidence and longing for some kind of sign. Pretty much always when he looks up and is talking to God, there’s nothing definitive, but that’s usually when he hears a little voice inside of him that tells him what to do. And I think all of us experience that and don’t really have a name for it, perhaps the unconscious, I don’t know, but that seems to be enough, just that little hint of a voice. Whether that’s just our own free will or if there’s something larger and supernatural going on…
Tamzin Merchant: It’s [exec producer] Brannon Braga, that’s who it is.
Seth Gabel: …I don’t know, but I think that little voice is enough for him to carry on through all the betrayals and through all the mistakes and hearing from his father, who he accidentally killed and committed patricide on, and then was told that he’s already in Hell and that he must save himself. I think what keeps him going is the belief that there is something out there. He doesn’t know what it is, but that’s enough to fight for.
Q: Anne has gone from sweet and innocent to killing animals without a thought, and Cotton went from a brothel-going drunkard to a (briefly) happily married man. How has that affected them both going into the finale and possibly afterwards?
Tamzin Merchant: Well, I think the killing the animal thing was something that upset quite a lot of people so from that point of view there were several earnest tweets about whether or not a kitten had been harmed in the making, but I think the key is that it happens throughout the entire season and that for Anne it’s a slow slip into a person she never thought she could be… it’s disturbing because it’s so hard to see who she was at the beginning of the season, especially the beginning of the show, to who she’s become. The most disturbing thing I think with people that do very morally devious things more and more often is to see that they completely… feel that they had no choice in the matter. That was something that’s very interesting playing Anne. Yes, I mean, luckily I haven’t taken animal killing into my own life. I think that would be a bad thing for my dog…
Seth Gabel: For Cotton I think what’s changed him so much from the drinking brothel-goer of last season… the biggest thing that’s liberated him is the death of his father. I think that was a constant weight he was bearing on his back, his father’s expectations of him and scrutiny and disappointment. And with him dead, it’s still haunting him literally and metaphorically in his own mind. But he is beginning to taste a bit of freedom, and then his relationship with Anne… Anne in Season 1… kind of put the drink down and convinced him to believe in himself, and I think that’s carried through to Season 2 and then only got amped up by the love spell that Anne put on him because that really gave him a purpose and something to live for that is good. It gives him the strength to become even braver and take on the witches and try to stop the second act of the Grand Rite from being completed.
Q: Going back for a moment to what Seth said about Cotton’s battle between faith and fact in this mystical world of witches, how does that overshadow their relationship, and will it come into play in the finale?
Seth Gabel: …I think the relationship between Anne and Cotton before he discovers that she’s a witch… was the one thing that kept him tied and tethered to reality and not off in some kind of existential nightmare because he’s someone who’s raised on faith; but as you said, when he looks at the facts, it doesn’t quite add up to the same thing. But at the same time he’s seeing the supernatural occurring with these witches, and he’s experienced a lot of what the witches are capable of first-hand so he knows that that’s real. At the same time he’s desperate for any indication that the good guys, that God and his angels are around helping out. And there isn’t much evidence of that except for Anne Hale to Cotton is an angel and proof of divinity and goodness. And I think that only makes the betrayal that much worse that this whole time she’s been a witch. For all he knows, witches are completely evil, and then, you know, if he finds out about the love spell, that’s going to be the nail in the coffin for him, and I’m not sure how he’ll quite return from that.
Q: Is there anything coming up in the finale that you’re particularly excited for people to see?
Tamzin Merchant: I don’t want to spoil anything!
Seth Gabel: There’s a great confrontation between Anne and Cotton… there’s definitely something that happens that is going to shock everyone… we are very excited for people to see that. It’s disturbing and awesome…
Tamzin Merchant: Yes!
Seth Gabel: There’s the whole Oliver Bell having turned into possibly the Devil himself and then kind of the closing act of Season 2’s Witch War and Mary fighting against Countess Marburg. There’s a lot of questions to be answered this Sunday… [but] we can’t say too much because so much happens.
Tamzin Merchant: Yes, exactly, exactly; you just have to turn on the TV and just strap in basically. Things are going to get crazy.
Seth Gabel: …it should be very fast hour of TV, so much is going to happen.
Tamzin Merchant: Yes, it’s a really fast hour. It’s going to get pretty hot by the end of things, I think you could say. We’ll just leave it at that maybe.
Seth Gabel: What I love about this show, and about genre shows that are able to do it, we’re able to get deeper and deeper into the story. The scope has been able to get larger and larger, and the writers really aren’t afraid or hold back. A lot of the time on a show like this, it’ll be two steps forward, one back. You don’t want to be getting too extreme too quickly, but there’s really not a fear of that here as long as it’s still grounded in reality and makes sense. You might think, “Wow, it can’t get any bigger.” I mean, right now we’re dealing with Hell possibly being on Earth, but if that actually happens, what would that look like?
Q: Assuming it is renewed for a third season, is it possible “Salem” would reintroduce the actual trials? It is, after all, where we started.
Seth Gabel: I know Brannon and [co-creator] Adam [Simon] have talked about the possibility of getting back to the trials being an element of everything. I can’t recall how much time has actually progressed during Season 2, but I don’t think it’s been very much time… all the events have occurred maybe over the course of like two weeks or something so we’re still very much in the historical time period for the trials to continue.
Our thanks to Seth and Tamzin for their time and to Emily Hunter for facilitating the interview. Be sure to tune in Sunday, June 28th, for the “Salem” season finale, Episode 2.13, “The Witching Hour”!
“Salem” Episode 2.13 – “The Witching Hour” (air date 6/28/15)
With her mission seemingly accomplished, the Countess Marburg (Lucy Lawless) revels in the apparent completion of her plans, unaware that the object of her devotion has desires which may be in direct conflict to hers. And one of her most trusted allies grows increasingly weary of the Countess’ treatment, leading to an unexpected act of defiance.
Emotionally drained by recent events, an all-but-defeated Mary (Janet Montgomery) stages a last-ditch effort against the Countess. Meanwhile, John (Shane West) is visited by a pair of unexpected allies who deliver a fateful message.
Mercy (Elise Eberle) comes to learn a stark reality, leaving her to face an uncertain future; an unrepentant and increasingly powerful Anne (Tamzin Merchant) faces the personal consequences of her duplicitous actions, leading her down an even darker path; and when Cotton (Seth Gabel) learns an unwelcome truth, his reaction is initially mixed, until a startling confession strengthens his resolve… but it may already be too late.
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