Spoilers.

Oh no. Oh no, you’re leaving us on the cliffhanger from the last episode?!

Well, I guess we’ll be content with another walk on the Dark Side.

Okay, let’s take it down.

Everything after the trial made the hair on the back of my neck stand up.

My my what a ride. I was going to say that Shauna seemed to be getting awful cozy among the Sith Lords. Well, among one of them anyway. After Porec’s dazzling introduction to the team, I doubt she’ll be invited into the weekly Poker game. But I guess, once you get past the attack-zombies on his leash, and teach yourself to ignore the missing hand; a Dark Mage can be charming enough. But then, I guess that matter took care of itself huh?

Whew.

Well, now we’ve got a problem. I don’t think we want to find Shauna any more. (No offence Becki) Last time around, it was forgivable. Shades of Grey and such, but in this case, I think we can be comfortable in stating that Shauna Brown has switched teams. For one thing, she retold the Hand of Doro story, for another she’s accepted her place as being important to Oren.

For a third, and this is a little unsettling, she’s taken that whole chanting-bowing-scraping-robes-and-torches team and written it off as being ‘more normal than she expected’.

Fourth and finally, Porec. I’m trying to decide if Porec is the dark Jareth or the dark Fesmer. Given the circumstances, I think Jareth. But I doubt it matters any more.

So we’ve got new players. New bad guys, and another chapter in the life story of Fesmer’s family.

We’ve all been talking about corruption and bad guys in the University, but it turns out there’s more in Sonsa. There is more than one agenda, and, as is always the case when things of Power are involved, they all revolve around Shauna.

The title of the episode is “Conspiracy of Silence” and what we have here is Shauna’s induction into the Silent Majority. I think she knew what was going to happen that last night. I think she knew since her trip began. She made no secret at the end about how the truth was becoming overrated, and how trying to stand up for the underdog was officially not her problem any more.

Porec knew too, and the True Believers never let on that they might want something else.

At first, I thought that what was happening was simply cleaning up any possible assassins, but when that sequence finished, it became clear that what was really happening was someone (Likely Oren but never assume) cutting off any connections Shauna had to anything at all. Not just the people who have seen her, but the people along the route she took, right down to the outpost itself being burned to the ground, and all Undying liquefied. (Ew)

Except that there is one connection left. Assuming they survived the explosion.

Thing is, it took 14 months to get from point A to here, and the returned heroes are still playing catch-up, without actually having a destination. That leaves plenty of time for Shauna to shake things up.

So here’s my thing. If the Legion are all loyal to Oren, then why didn’t they (Some of them at least) want Shauna to go into that room? For all the hype, we still don’t have a damn clue about Oren or what he wants or what he wants with Shauna or what will happen when they finally get put in a room together.

That sequence at the end with Shauna/Porec is about as powerful as this series has ever gotten. I have chills. Seriously, I’m going to stop here and go back to listen to that part again.

You can read more of Matt's work at mattstephens.me