‘The Nevers’ Episode 2 Ending Explained: Who’s the Real Villain?

The Nevers Episode 2 “Exposure” ended with a tease that the HBO show might be hiding a secret villain in plain sight. Not only does the episode end in a showdown between Amalia True (Laura Donnelly) and the unhinged Maladie (Amy Manson) that casts Amalia’s own morals into doubt, but we also learn that The Orphanage’s benefactor Lavinia Bidlow (Olivia Williams) might be the same evil force who is kidnapping the Touched and turning them into slaves.

So what did we learn in The Nevers Episode 2? Who is the real villain of The Nevers and how are Maladie and Amalia connected? Here’s The Nevers Episode 2 explained…

The Nevers Episode 2: Is Olivia Williams’s Lavinia Bidlow Secretly Evil?

The final moments of The Nevers Episode 2 reveals that Lavinia Bidlow has been secretly working with Denis O’Hare’s mad scientist Dr. Edmund Hague this whole time! That means that Lavinia hasn’t just been kindly sponsoring Amalia and Penance’s work at the Orphanage, but funding the diabolical shadow army that’s been kidnapping Touched. Not only that, but it seems that Mary (Eleanor Tomlinson)’s song might have caused a mysterious rock-like structure to begin glowing the same color as the spores from Episode 1. O’Hare says, “Ain’t we got fun?” but Lavinia looks horrified by it. She even goes so far as to call it “war.”

This is a huge twist wherein the person we believed to be the Touched’s staunchest supporter and ally is in fact working to harm the Touched. Lavinia might parade the Touched in her parlor and fund the Orphanage, but she’s also organizing a far more terrifying project. As we see following a young Italian girl, Dr. Hague is essentially opening up the skulls of the Touched to try to figure out the secret to their power. His meddling leaves these poor souls essentially lobotomized. Not only that, but it seems Hague and Lavinia are using them as grunt labor.

It makes you wonder how badly Lavinia would react if she finds out her brother Augie (Tom Riley) is Touched with the ability to take over the minds and bodies of ravens… She’s already pissed that Augie’s flirting with Penance Adair.

The Nevers Star Ann Skelly Loves the Penance/Augie Flirting Scenes

One of the sweeter parts of the episode was the moment where we realized that Augie is not only Touched, but super smitten with our girl Penance. Sure their awkward banter was Joss Whedon 101, but it was effervescently charming. (And we’re rooting for them!)

Ann Skelly told Decider that Augie and Penance’s flirtation added a “lovely personal touch to a great, big, colossal adventure that is going on.” She also said that filming with Riley was harder than it looked for a hilarious reason.

“Tom Riley, he plays Augie, is so funny,” Skelly said with a giggle. “This is the problem… he does every take different and I don’t know where he gets it from. So I’m just like trying. I’m trying to keep my shoulder still,”

Skelly also teased that although Lavinia does not want her brother romancing a Touched, the budding romance between Augie Bidlow and Penance Adair might still have legs.

“My favorite moments between me and Tom are like the opera when they meet each other,” Skelly said. “There’s a scene in Episode Five, which is quite cute between them. That’s all I shall say.”

How are Maladie and Amalia Connected on The Nevers?

Well, well, well…looks like Maladie and Amalia are old asylum mates. Not only that, but their “real” names are Sarah and Molly. At some point they had a bond and at some point they fell out. When Amalia realizes that Maladie is Sarah, she is horrified and says she didn’t know what happened. Maladie says “you fed me to them.” Amalia apologizes and says she didn’t have a choice but to leave Maladie behind, to which Maladie says God gave her a mission, too.

Both Amy Manson and Laura Donnelly have teased to Decider that we will definitely see the genesis of their relationship in the asylum before The Nevers‘s first six episodes wrap. So we’ll have to wait until later in the season to learn exactly what happened when the women met. Manson also took Decider inside Maladie’s mind, explaining that she interpreted the events of August 3, 1896 quite differently than most.

“[Maladie] believes that she has been the chosen one. That was God transferring a mission for her,” Manson said. “She goes into the asylum as Sarah just needing to tell and wanting people to understand her and listen to her and nobody ever does.”

Flash forward three years and Maladie has finally escaped the asylum, but is still committed to what she sees is her God-ordained mission.

“It’s all about survival for Sarah, who’s in Maladie, but she still has a mission,” Manson said. “She’s just so angry with what’s happened to her life, and she’s determined to transfer that in all her horrors on to the rest of humanity.”

The Nevers Episode 2 “Exposure” Key Takeaways

So a lot happened in tonight’s episode of The Nevers. Some key things to remember going forward…

• Even if she’s not evil, Lavinia is playing both sides of the Touched issue.
• Mary’s magical voice has the power to reach only the Touched, which means she could help find Touched in hiding; and now she’s at the Orphanage
• Augie is now tied up with Hugo Swann (James Norton)’s sex club, which includes Touched sex workers.
• Amalia has some sort of secret mission that she will betray friends for.
• We still have four more episodes in this half of the season…

Where to stream The Nevers