‘Taboo’ Episode 6 Was the Best Yet

Published February 18, 2017 · Updated July 6, 2022

Dear gentlemen,

I have finally overcome my shyness and decided to share with you some of my humble thoughts about Taboo, the show I’m watching thanks to and because of you and which I TOTALLY-TOTALLY LOVE!!!!!!!

But let me first quickly tell you how I found you, guys. Last year I read a small article in the Rolling Stone promoting the upcoming show Westworld. I hadn’t heard anything about it, but one of my favourite movie reviewers on YouTube had made a video dedicated to it and Jona Nolan’s name was quite enticing. All of it got me interested, I started watching the show, and it turned out to be so great I just had to find a way to extend my pleasure of being immersed into it by finding a podcast where intelligent people nerded out for hours over Westworld and its amazing characters and themes. I browsed through a couple of podcasts on YouTube and (fate! it was fate!) found you! I really loved your personalities, your heuristic analytical approach and your format, and listening to your Westworld podcast became an integral part of my weekly routine. You then decided to cover Taboo. I watched the trailer to see what it was about and was immediately sold!!!!! If anyone complains to you about your poor choice of a show, don’t believe them! Taboo is fantastic and your taste is impeccable!

And speaking of Taboo…I must admit Episode 6 was my most favourite episode so far. It was intriguing, it was disturbing, and we got to find out so much more about many of the characters (not only James). I feel like the writers of the show have really made an effort to flesh out the motivations behind each of the character’s actions. We now see that Sir Strange is not just another black and white evil dude who lives off human suffering for the sake of it, but a man with a business interest in slave trade that just happens to be illegal at the time. Godfrey might be genuinely in love with James, otherwise, why would he so foolishly expose himself in the broad daylight running like a fool to James’s house to warn him about the raid on his factory?

Yet the character whom, in my opinion, in this episode we got to know the best, was indisputably Zilpha. I remember you, guys, discussing one of the listeners’ emails suggesting that Zilpha could be the elder sister and the person to initiate her and James’s sexual relationship. After Episode 6 I think we can definitely say that James is to blame for the entire thing and has been the one in control over what is going on between the two of them all along. First of all, Zilpha believes that James using his ‘magic’ told her to kill her husband and that she was just following his orders finishing Thorne off. She then doesn’t just stay at home relieved to have liberated herself from her abusive spouse, but rushes to her brother to announce what she’d done as if seeking his praise and approval even though it’s the middle of the night and it’s raining like hell. And how happy and, I even dare say, exhilarated she looks in his living room taking off her heavy coat, letting her hair loose, getting herself a drink and smiling like a child! This might be the first time we see her acting like her real self and not the rigid shadow of a wife she had shackled herself into by marrying Thorne. These could just be my crazy female viewer speculations, but James might have been Zilpha’s first sexual partner who had initiated her into the world of pleasure and personal freedom (hence the allusions to the Spring Awakening) and had given her the love she so clearly lacked from her father’s side.

I’m 100% with Gene on the take-that-fucking-dress-off scene being fantastic and hot. I’ve changed my mind about incest after reading a YA novel “Forbidden” by Tabitha Suzuma and doing some follow-up research on the topic and truly hope that James and Zilpha end up together.

Thank you very much once again for your amazing podcast, guys!

Can’t wait for Episode 7,
Tanya from Tokyo

P.S. I was one of the first two people who got the shout-outs. Thank you SO much! I was thrilled and told all my friends about it.

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