And of course, James kisses his half-sister Zilpha in a church.
EW spoke toTabooco-creator/writer Steven Knight about the episode’s mysteries and the show’s arc going forward.
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY:Episode 3 marked the full arrival of Lorna Bow, James' “stepmother.”
Credit: FX
What led you to bring that character into the series at this point?
Her arrival complicates things for James.
He thinks she’s a weakness.
Visually, she is something different.
Because she will be, potentially, a route to redemption for James.
And whether or not he follows that route is to be found out.
She offers something gentler for him, even if she, as a character, is not particularly gentle.
James found a bird symbol carved into a fireplace in his mother’s room.
He also has that same image tattooed onto his body from his time in Africa.
What is that symbol?
It’s called a Sankofa, in the mythology of Africa.
He is discovering symbols from where he’s been and also where he’s from.
The mythology that interests him is partly from the mythology of other cultures, partly his own invented mythology.
But that’s putting it very, very simplistically.
Had you studied Pacific Northwest mythology before you worked onTaboo?
I was a very odd child.
I’m interested in various aspects of it, but the Pacific Northwest is a particular interest for me.
There is much that will be found out in that relationship.
Obviously, I can’t really give any of that away, but it will have much deeper consequences.
In this period, the temptation is to see everything in terms of class.
This episode also focused more on the actions of the Americans, specifically the spy played by Michael Kelly.
Can you talk about your perspective on the role of the Americans in the landscape ofTaboo?
As the series develops, the importance of America as a destination increases.
If you take this season as a whole, it’s about how America came about.
Who the people were who jumped on ships and went there.
It took awhile for the ramifications to settle.
Around this time, what we would think of as “a modern individual” began to emerge.
People were separating from their religions, their congregations, and setting themselves up as individuals.
Which for us, I think, is difficult to conceive.
The American ideal of the individual, which developed over the rest of that century, was just beginning.
[James] has isolated himself from everyone, from his own country, the crown, the Americans.
His allegiance is to himself.
Toward the end of that episode, there was that delightful and strange scene between James and Zilpha.
Can you talk about your decision to stage that scene in the church?
It’s sort of an anti-wedding, if you like.
They’re in a church.
They’re on opposite sides of the aisle.
Which is a very Delaney way of doing things.
It’s two people who are not conforming to the regulations of the time.
They are not part of the congregation.
There’s no priest there to tell them what to do.
