WARNING: The following contains spoilers for The Nevers, Episode 3, “Ignition,” which premiered Sunday on HBO.
The premiere of The Nevers introduced the Touched, a group of people with supernatural abilities, some more astonishing than others. When Touched serial killer Maladie took over the opera during a performance, a new Touched individual stepped forward: Mary Brighton, whose real singing voice never got her past the chorus but whose Touched singing voice enables her to communicate a message of hope that only other Touched can here. Amalia quickly understood the value of Mary’s gift and its ability to bring the Touched together, so in the third episode, “Ignition,” Penance creates an amplifier she and Amalia plan to use to share Mary’s song with all the Touched in London in the hopes it will bring more of them to the orphanage. Yet, while their plan starts without a hitch, tragedy soon strikes.
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Early in the episode, Mary admits she’s having trouble finding her song again after being kidnapped by Maladie and almost killed. Yet while Amalia is willing to be patient, Mary is concerned that the reason the song won’t come is because she isn’t entirely sure she should use it to summon the Touched to the orphanage. She senses Amalia has a mission beyond just keeping the Touched safe there but Amalia refuses to share what it is. As a result, Mary continues to struggle.
That is, until Lucy brings home a woman who greets the Touched who come to Dr. Hague’s lair believing it’s a safe haven. Dr. Hague experiments on the Touched and the woman serves as the face that brings them in even though she knows full well she’s leading them to their doom. In the course of questioning her, it becomes clear why the woman’s so comfortable with that; her own daughter was Touched and, because she believed her abilities were an affront to God, the woman drowned her. This is enough to make Mary realize just how persecuted the Touched are, and her desire to help enables her to finally find her song again.
Mary instructs everyone to meet in a park and prepare Penance’s amplifier. As she steps up to the device and starts to sing, the Touched across the city hear and are inspired by her song. Clearly it’s working in the way Amalia hoped. But before Mary finishes singing, a bullet rips through her chest — followed by many more.
Inspector Mundi, who was watching Mary sing, runs towards the man with the gun, who happens to be the member of Maladie’s gang who was responsible for murdering members of the audience at the opera. He was also the only one who was caught and imprisoned. Yet, earlier in the episode he was released from custody, and it seems whoever was responsible wanted to use him for a very precise purpose. Mundi kills the man, but not before Mary dies, a terrible loss for the Touched.
The question now is who could possibly be behind Mary’s murder. Only a very powerful person could secure the release of Maladie’s murderous gang member while also learning where and when Mary was planning to amplify her song. So far, the only characters we know with the connections to pull it off are Lavinia Bidlow and Lord Gilbert Massen. Could either of them really be capable of such a thing? We’ll find out as The Nevers continues.
Created by Joss Whedon, The Nevers stars Laura Donnelly, Olivia Williams, James Norton, Tom Riley, Ann Skelly, Ben Chaplin, Pip Torrens, Zackary Momoh, Amy Manson, Nick Frost, Rochelle Neil, Eleanor Tomlinson and Denis O’Hare. New episodes air Sundays at 9 p.m. ET/PT on HBO.
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