'Motherland: Fort Salem': The Bellweather family name has started to become a crutch for Abigail
Spoilers for 'Motherland: Fort Salem' Season 1 Episode 6 'Up is Down'
Ever since the show began, Abigail Bellweather (Ashley Nicole Williams) and her mother Petra (Catherine Lough Haggquist) have been championing the legacy of the Bellweather name. An influential and powerful witch family, it's the Bellweathers who bring up the concept of witch society having their own inner circles for the elite.
As a Bellweather, Abigail has a bit of a mixed blessing. While her future is all but secured, the pressure of living up to the Bellweather name has been mounting. What's more, Abigail has started to use the legacy as a crutch - and it's holding her back from her true potential.
This episode we see just how much pressure those expectations have been placing on her shoulders. Having just suffered through a very traumatic incident last episode, we see that Abigail barely lets herself have any time to process before repressing all of it in order to put up a brave face.
"I'm a Bellweather," she says, as she crams her unprocessed trauma to another part of her mind, out of harm's way. However, trauma and grief are not so easily dealt with no matter what one's family name is.
Abigail is snapping at the members of her unit, having nightmares she's in denial about, and even her martial arts prowess is taking a hit as focus leaves her.
The last episode, we saw how Abigail doesn't want to just coast on her Bellweather name — she wants to be known for her own accomplishments. So far, however, she has not accomplished a single thing that she hasn't done in honor of her legacy.
She has placed herself aside for that legacy, and in high-pressure situations like the Spree attack, she's in danger of losing herself to that name.
Besides the vague and highly ambitious quality of "excellence", there's no road map for how Abigail is to make her family proud, and she's been floundering. It's time for her to find her own way forward — and part of that is defining what makes her stand apart from her family.
Abigail is yet to discover what she really brings to the table besides determination and ambition - it's far past time for her to focus on the "Abigail" part of "Abigail Bellweather," or lose herself to her surname entirely.
The next episode of 'Motherland: Fort Salem' airs on April 29 on Freeform.
