Invisible City – Season 2 Episode 4 “Your Fear Is Your Poison” Recap & Review

Your Fear Is Your Poison

Episode 4 of Invisible City season 2 starts with Debora and Castro’s mansion burning down, off the back of Clarice’s crazy transformation. While smoke billows out the building, Eric saves Luna and takes her outside where Ines is waiting. He points out that Luna has been bitten and it seems the only hope for salvation lies with Jaciara. She’s the village elder and a woman who, as we see from a brief flashback at the start of the season, has experience with magic snake bites.

As for Debora, she’s still at the mansion. Castro tells her this is the end of the road but they have their own trump card. This comes in the form of Telma, whom Danilo has caught roaming around in the building. Debora decides to try and use her as a bargaining chip, exchanging her for Luna and then finding a way into Marangatu.

Eric and Ines head onboard their boat and prepare to leave, but they’re not alone. Bento and Lazo show and decide to help. They all head up the river together, where Ines helps raise Bento’s spirits, telling him he’s still the Wolf Boy, despite not having powers anymore.

On the road, Telma gets a moment alone with Debora and points out that she saw a Muiraquita in her office. This piques Debora’s interest, as we learn that Debora and Hono (the Indigenous guy killed in episode 1) were actually siblings.

In the woods, Nino shows up and tells Eric and the group that they’re not welcome. That is, until he learns Luna has been bitten by a snake. This is enough for them to be lead through into the village. Whilst there, Eric struggles to control his powers. Ines confronts him about this and now we see what happened in the cellar. It turns out Debora bit Luna and then Eric grabbed the snake, taking Debora’s powers from her. This explains why he’s able to see different temperatures and his erratic behaviour – but not how Debora is still alive. Ines notices Eric’s gaping wound on his chest, commenting that he’s rotting from the inside out, evidenced by the knot on his chest.

Castro shows up at the church and confronts the priest about sleeping with Clarice. He takes the guy down to the basement and begins torturing him. At the same time, Jaciara works her magic with Luna and tries to get her to face her fears and fight through this. Eric happens to be watching outside and notices that Luna’s body is growing colder and grows agitated. This is all part of the ritual though, which Jaciara reveals to Ines as she enters the hut. Jaciara speaks to Luna and tells her to cast away her doubts and return… and she does!

Breathing heavily, Luna wakes up and admits to Ines that she saw Gabriela in the water, her final image before awakening. However, trouble is fast approaching and that comes in the form of Debora. Only, it turns out Debora is actually connected deeply to Marangatu. Her brother was Honorato and her mother’s name was Maira, someone who was originally from the village. Debora was stolen as a child and she’s been manipulated into doing those horrible things for the sake of gold and money.

Debora is led into the village, but unfortunately Eric is not of sane mind. He’s consumed by rage and as he enters Jaciara’s hut, he notices Matinta there, telling him this is a place of healing and he can’t stop her destiny. As he reaches out to grab her, she suddenly turns into an owl and flies off.

The Episode Review

The writing continues to suffer here, specifically in the form of how Debora’s character has been handled. It seems like we’re gearing up for a “sympathetic villain” tale, showing off more of that skewed morality we’ve seen a lot of in different productions these past few years.

Debora has kidnapped children, she’s hypnotized people into killing and she’s been torturing Clarice for (presumably anyway) years. But yet, because she’s from this village then we should feel sorry for her? Maybe it’s just me but I’m not buying it!

Most of this episode is taken up with Luna’s hallucinations and being saved from the deadly disease plaguing her, but it also sacrifices the pacing with several subplots that meander off, like that involving the priest. And once more, we get big gaps between episodes that we’re left with our imagination to resolve. We know Castro survived but the final shot of episode 3 saw the Headless Mule confront him, so what happened there? And why did Eric let Debora the snake live? Why didn’t he just stamp on it while in the snake form?

With a slightly longer run-time for the finale, hopefully these issues will be ironed out and this one can end on a high. So far though, this has not been at the same standard as the first.