‘The Bastard Executioner’ premiere review: Stephen Moyer, Lee Jones early

Sutter has a taste for what he described as “colorful brutality” when I asked him about staging violence in a very different era.

Sutter’s “The Bastard Executioner”, brings everyone back to the violence and power-filled 14 century Wales. The premiere opens with a brutal start.

But when another intense and exceptionally deadly battle leaves Brattle exposed as the baron’s Enemy No. 1, the true meaning of the original prophecy becomes clear. However, he hallucinates Jesus and more. Sutter is the kind of guy who doesn’t stop at gutting a man with a sword, not when he can also stab him in the throat, in the back of the head, and through the taint (no, really!). “It is time to lay down the sword, Lord Brattle”. It’s the episode’s best sequence, a nightmarish immersion into what’s half PTSD and half something more ethereal.

Wilkin and his wife met Amora on the way to the river.

While Wilkin has taken up a happy, peaceful life, Baroness Lowry’s troubled relationship. But to do so, he must live the life of a different man. Good enough.

If there is a word that we would use to describe the first episode, it is a simple one “fascination”. “It’s time”, Annora tells the Dark Mute. You take a showrunner who, while talented, likes to – let’s say – get high on his own supply. For his reward, Ventris was upgraded to Baron over a section of England that is now called Ventrishire. Not only do they not have an heir, but she’s also sympathetic to the Welsh. For now, however, I will follow the story of Wilkin Brattle and his journey to make a few course corrections in the world. Ahhh, now we see where this is going. This gives fans a deep understanding of Wilkin’s hatred for Ventris and his menacing sidekick.

That Wilkin feels he is on a divine mission helps because otherwise the plan would be absolute suicide and really have no discernible gains at all.

If Petra had escaped, Wilkin would have gone looking for her. He wouldn’t have immediately dug up the swords he’d buried with his past and set out for Castle Ventris.

Wilkin and his band of merry men return home and find the gutted corpses of their loved ones waiting for them, including the innocent fetus who was to be Wilkin’s child. They leave one, though, and send him with a message about the unfair taxes. Aerial shots that zoom into action, saturated color, jarring rapid cuts, driving rock music – these features of the battle scenes give Bastard a distinct feel. But he didn’t necessarily look thrilled about it. What happened to his body?

Far off in a cave somewhere, the witch gets naked and boinks her hideously scarred, silent apprentice. He helps the other men in the village rise up against the unfair extra taxes, which will starve them. “And we both know that there is nothing more risky than a Welshman who has nothing to lose”. He is shocked when she knows of his dream.

The grieving men learn Ventris was behind the heinous act when they spot his collector lying among the dead. It’s horrifying. Their plan is to have the farmers see the fire and come back. She’s lived a long time and she’s lived many lives. She begs for her and her unborn child’s lives, and the man takes her necklace and tells her to run. The murderer reaches a gloved finger into the dying woman’s blood and gently paints a cross on her forehead.

If Wilkin wasn’t out for vengeance before, he is now. The village was burned down and everyone was killed. At that moment, Wilkin decides to throw down his sword forever and be a man of peace.

“This is my fight!” he declares to his friends. “We need to ready our faith”. Love tells him to finish his devotion while she fetches the doctor to him. I doubt that I’ll stick with the show long-term.

Anyone else think of Danny Crowe’s death on Justified (he got a knife up through the chin into his mouth)? A huge, bloody battle commences. In the melee, Wilkin receives a side wound and passes out.

Baron Ventris and Corbett, along with their troops, murder every single wife, child, and elderly family member of the still-absent raiding party.

– I would also claim him as my fake husband. He’s the executioner now. However, a man calls him out and says he’s not the real executioner. “Bloody work is the Lord’s”, says one of the Welsh rebels piously.

“Who are you?” she asks Wilkin, who reveals he’s a punisher from a foreign land.

A battle ensued and Wilkin fought with Baron Erik who was eventually killed. He just wants to deliver the body and get the hell out of there, but things never go as smoothly as planned.

Wilkin and the Baroness bond while Milus eavesdrops on them.

– I want great things for Stephen Moyer! Wilkin says there is nothing to alter, but Annora looks toward Toran.

FX has a lot riding on Executioner as its big, expensive new fall series.

– What is the ultimate destination Annora is guiding Wilkin toward? Instead he watches as Miles puts his hand on his chest in a rather unsettling way and says that the kingdom needs someone “with the heart of a dragon”.

Meanwhile, Annora and the Mute come across Brattle. So what’s their real goal? The episode ends with the crisp, swift shwing! of Brattle’s weapon as he makes his first execution in his new role. “No kin, no worries”, he shrugs of his brother’s death, hinting that he knows that Maddox’s wife and children are not his own. He reaches for her gown to stop her and instead comes away with a cloth handed to him by a laughing soldier. He comes to and hears some soldiers make some crass jokes. Wilkin saw Petra’s necklace on Leon Tell and was so angry and focused, he was able to chop off the brother’s head like a pro.