WARNING: The following contains spoilers for The Nevers, Episode 2, "Exposure," which premiered Sunday on HBO.
The first episode of The Nevers introduced Amalia True, a woman who counts herself amongst the Touched, people who were granted superpowers following a strange event. Amalia is able to see snippets of the future, and that ability led her to attend the opera, which was interrupted by Touched serial killer Maladie. After Maladie created a spectacle during the performance and kidnapped a Touched girl named Mary, Amalia chased her underground. Amalia ultimately fought Maladie and lost, so in this week's episode, "Exposure," she's determined to try again to both find Maladie and rescue Mary. Her success leads to the revelation that she has an unexpected connection to Maladie.
Maladie has remained in hiding since the incident at the opera two days prior, and neither Amalia nor the detective on the case, Frank Mundi, have been able to find her. However, Amalia has seen a future where she's punching Maladie; she just needs to determine where her vision happens and then she's sure she'll find her and Mary. Amalia teams up with Mundi on the investigation, but when she sees a picture on his board that matches the setting in her vision, she knows where she needs to go.
While she finds Maladie and her gang there as expected, Amalia gets much more than she bargained for when she realizes Maladie has also kidnapped her friend Penance and rigged both her and Mary to a device that requires Amalia to take the life of one of the women in order to save the life of the other. If she chooses to save neither woman, Maladie says she will kill both of them. This seems to go beyond Maladie's usual madness, and soon it becomes clear that not only does Maladie know Amalia, she resents her for some reason.
Amalia realizes who Maladie is as soon as she refers to Amalia as "Molly." Even though she hadn't recognized her in their previous encounters, Amalia immediately knows who Maladie truly is. She calls her, "Sarah," and regretfully tells her she didn't know what happened to her. Maladie responds that it was Amalia's fault she ended up in a situation where people tore her apart and put her back together for two years. While she isn't specific, Maladie was being taken to an asylum when the event that created the Touched happened, and she's been killing psychoanalysts during her recent reign of terror over London, so it's safe to say she was likely horribly abused. It seems that although Amalia and Maladie were friends at one point, Maladie now blames Amalia for the abuse she suffered at the hands of the doctors in the facilities she was committed to.
Furthermore, it seems that Maladie's assessment may be at least somewhat justified. While Amalia cries and apologizes to Maladie she also claims she didn't have a choice for doing whatever she did that ultimately led to Maladie's terrible situation. Maladie knows Amalia is referring to a mission she is on, although she still isn't specific. And then she changes the subject to the choice Amalia must make between Mary and Penance. In response, Amalia shoots herself, which makes Maladie frantic. Maladie laments that she can't hurt Amalia if she dies. Amalia, who's lying on the ground but still conscious, explains that her mission doesn't really need her -- and it doesn't require Maladie either. Amalia then shoots Maladie in the shoulder.
Inspector Mundi arrives just in time to drive Maladie and her gang away and save Penance, Mary and even Amalia, who Dr. Cousens heals. When Amalia wakes up, she tries to tell Penance about her connection to Maladie but Penance stops her and tells her she can explain later. So for now at least, the connection between Amalia and Maladie remains a mystery. Given the resentment Maladie clearly harbors for Amalia, however, once she heals from the bullet wound Amalia inflicted on her, she'll likely go after her again.
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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