By [ad_1]
WARNING: The following contains major spoilers for season one of Archive 81, streaming now on Netflix.
Archive 81 is an intricate clockwork of conflicting agendas, cryptic half truths, mysterious characters and dark powers working to bring about the end of the world. Set over three different time periods centered around New York City, the story details a powerful and ancient extra-planar entity named Kaelego who is determined to break through the delicate membrane of its own dimension and into the realm of humanity. There are those in the world who worship him as a god and seek to use his power to fashion the world in his image, vying for his favor along the way. His cultists range from the very powerful to the faceless underclass of society but they equipped themselves with all they need to bring about his arrival.
There is only one known group who actively sought to stop Kaelego and his zealots from ripping the world apart. They were known as Baldung witches and their numbers had diminished over the centuries. Their blood is critical to performing the rituals necessary to bring Kaelego forth and it was their magical adventurism that initially endeavored to set him free. Once they realized the folly of their ways they did all in their power to keep the demon god locked away for eternity by attempting to steal away or destroy the means by which he could be summoned. A fire that presumably destroyed the home of a psychologist and his children may have been set by one of the witch’s trying to fulfill this mandate and there is one woman, known only as Bobbi, introduced in the first season who fits the criteria.
The Baldung are a hereditary coven of witches who relied upon a grimoire for the source of their magical abilities. Around the 14th century they realized that the proximity of a meteoric element that came to be called kharonite, mixed with their arcanum, a few other mystic tools and focused on a resonant stone pedestal could all act as a key to open a door to another world. They also caught a glimpse of what was on the other side of that door and decided to not only slam it shut but also attempted to rid the world of any keys that might be used to repeat their mistaken attempts. This included discarding the source of their magical power and retreating into history as mere mortals who could no longer access their inherited sorcery.
A cult of Kaelego worshippers however found the grimoire and discerned what they needed, for the most part, in order to wedge open a portal to this Otherworld. In the 1920’s these disciples were known as the Vos society and were led by the family of the same name. Three siblings, Iris, Lukas and Jonah, all set out to provide the necessary elements to finish what the Baldung started and synced their efforts with the comet Kharon which visits the Earth every 70 years, to supply the final components to activate the spell. A poet named Emma Trillay, secretly a Baldung witch, infiltrated the society so that she could remove the spell book from their possession but she was lured to the demon acolytes so that her blood could fuel the incantation.
The Vos Society had come to learn that photographs captured phenomena the human eye could not, acting as spiritual receptacles for nearby paranormal activity. This would sometimes display itself as wraithlike swirls stamped on the physical print and would emit its own energy. As a result they took hundreds of photographs to capture that resonance and use it to enhance their facility in calling to Kaelego.
The summoning was a only a partial success because unbeknownst to the Vos Society they were missing one crucial aspect, a Baldung witch to actually cast the spell. The result was an unstable portal that led to an inferno which leveled the Vos mansion and seemingly consumed all involved. This moment demonstrated that the Baldung were willing to risk their lives in order to preserve the separation between the real world and Kaelego’s domain. In the late 1960’s, or early 70’s, another Baldung witch abandoned her daughter in a church so that she would not have to inherit custody of this awful responsibility. Known only as Bobbi, this woman was willing to sacrifice her relationship with her child to keep her away from Kaelego’s worshippers and their mad plans.
In 1994 Bobbi’s daughter, Melody, is lured to the Visser building by the newest head of the Society, Samuel Davenport, for the same reason Trillay had been 70 years prior. Samuel suggested in an anonymous letter that Melody might be able to find her mother if she came to the building, which had been built on top of the ruins of the Vos mansion. She came as expected, with a camera in tow so that she could use interview footage of the historical building’s residents to complement her doctoral research in sociocultural anthropology at NYU. Her tapes became a more powerful receiver than mere photographs and were able to build a much stronger connection t0 Kaelego’s realm. The Society once again tried to use Baldung blood in the dark ceremony tied to Kharon’s return orbit and with identical results.
According to Samuel’s brother Virgil Davenport, who commissioned the restoration of Melody’s footage by hiring Dan Turner, the tapes were discovered by Dan’s father Steven Turner and secured away in a storage facility somewhere in New Jersey. Virgil suggested that the Baldung, in an attempt to destroy the tapes, may have been the ones who set fire to the Turner household which claimed the lives of Dan’s sister of both of his parents. Virgil is an unreliable narrator since he has suggested on two other occasions that others may have been responsible. He cautions Dan that his father may have started the blaze himself after some professional allegations came to light and a purported mental breakdown. At another juncture he accused Melody of starting the fire that killed his family, so his word alone is insufficient to come to any conclusions.
However the aforementioned examples describing the lengths the Baldung were willing to go to keep the portal shut suggest that arson may not have been beyond their moral code, especially considering their failures in the past. If this is true, Bobbi is the only Baldung alive other than Melody that viewers are currently aware of and it may help explain the way she lurks around Dan the way she does. She could have used him as an ally earlier on in their interactions with one another while she played the role of dutiful Davenport employee but neglected to do so and guilt may have been a compelling reason to keep him at arm’s length. Her warning to him about doing the job and then getting out suggests that she didn’t question whether or not he was involved in any plot to bring about the ascension of Kaelego.
Perhaps she was the person who killed everyone Dan had ever known or loved to make sure that the door to the Otherworld never opened again. At the time of the fire she would have been reeling about the apparent death of her daughter, the daughter that she gave up so that she could be saved. That loss coupled with her previous sacrifices may have pushed her to drastic action she would not have contemplated otherwise. The Turners would simply be collateral damage in a war that has been waged between one world and another for more than the better half of a millennia. There are indications that the tapes were in the Turner home at one point since Emily, Dan’s younger sister, is humming Kaelego’s prayer. When her father asked her where she heard the tune she responded, from the tapes. Even if they were in a New Jersey facility, because that information was supplied by Virgil and is as unreliable as anything else that he claimed, that transfer may have happened after the Turner fire.
The tapes appeared to escape the Visser fire unscathed but the damage done to them was real and was the reason Dan had been hired. It may have been that fire, and not the one at Visser, that marred them in the first place. Doctor Turner’s own role in what may have happened is also still unclear but it is clear that Bobbi had a much stronger motive for destroying his home than he did. The second season has not been confirmed at this point though it seems clear that there will eventually be answers to many of the questions the first season left unresolved, but in the interim Bobbi may have committed a truly horrific act that may taint her relationship with the daughter she sacrificed everything to protect.
To see Bobbi be all kinds of mysterious and perhaps murderous, all episodes of Archive 81 are streaming on Netflix.
About The Author
[ad_2]
