Blood Psalms episode 3 recap: Hole in the Wall

Blood Psalms opens at a time of upheaval in Ancient Africa, around 11 000 years ago. Five tribes – the Akachi, the Uchawi, the Ku’ua, the Chini, and the Great Nziwemabwe – whose ancestors all fled the destruction of Atlantis together 1 000 years before our story begins – share a prophecy about the end of days. Signs are growing that the end is coming soon …

The story so far

1. Sorceress-Queen Assili of the Uchawi told a snivelling and distraught King Letsha that she wouldn’t use her power to bring the rains until he killed his daughter, Princess Zazi.
2. Princess Zazi’s companion Thozama (Assili’s daughter) admitted to Zazi that she is reluctant to marry King Letsha.
3. Zazi is pregnant, having had a secret affair with a commoner from the Ku’ua tribe, and she’s terrified that the palace’s virginity testers will find her out.
4. The Mother Superior of the Chini tribe announced that the Akachi Princess, who is secretly part Chini, has come of age, and that she will be the saviour of the Chini.
5. The Akachi soldiers, working on King Letsha’s orders, entered the Chini’s cave system to try to wipe them out but lost two of their own men instead.
6. The Akachi, Uchawi, Ku’ua and the Great Nziwemabwe nobles and greats are gathered for the wedding of King Letsha and Thozama of the Uchawi.
7. Burutti, an orphan taken in by the Chini, revealed that she felt a psychic link to the Akachi Princess.
8. An old man stopped Akachi General Toka on the road into the Akachi citadel, addressed him as “Son of Bakari” and warned him that he had a long way to fall.
9. Chief Xemantso ignored his son’s pleas and warnings and agreed to pass the night behind the walls of the Akachi citadel, instead of on the plains with his Ku’ua warriors.
10. Burutti used discarded Akachi armour to slip into the Akachi citadel unseen.

What happened in episode 3 of Blood Psalms?

Burning eye in the sky

It is the night of the full moon. A meteor shower passes through Earth’s atmosphere, but one is veering off course and now seems headed for direct impact. Queen Assili’s husband, Ntuka, and son, Teborah, are out on the hill at the Serpentine Elementals’ sacred stone circle to ask the snake cult of Heka why none of their seers had predicted the coming meteorite impact. Meanwhile, an Akachi guard reveals that he can see the sky burning and he fears this is the wrath of The Keepers.

Practically right under the guard’s feet, the Chini – led by Mzinzi, son of the Mother Superior – emerge from their caves using a hidden trapdoor, but they have to scurry back down again when an elephant pulling the luxurious carriage of Great Nziwemabwe stomps by, followed by a troop of Nziwemabwe’s feared Golden Army. In the carriage, Senator Abun Ra Jabari complains about having to visit the “revolting” Akachi on a diplomatic mission. With him is his consort, Sithenjwa – the very same Sithenjwa who fled the Akachi kingdom 18 years back after trying to kill King Letsha for having her sister, Letsha’s wife Queen Ndiya Zazi, murdered.

Princess in disguise

Inside the Akachi citadel walls, Princess Zazi warns Thozama that she and her Ku’ua lover might have no choice but to run away together. Playing off what she’s about to do as a prank on her guardian and governess Madlamini, Zazi demands that two palace servants strip and swap clothes with her and Thozama.

Meanwhile, still in her Akachi armour, Burutti the Chini wanders around until she bumbles past Toka and Lekoya, who berate who they believe to be a deadbeat Akachi soldier.

An Uchawi witch doctor in white-face skull makeup – like the one who cut out Ndiya Zazi’s heart – taunts the wretched Chini prisoners in the Akachi pit jails, as she waves around a severed human arm. She tells them that the next day they are to be sacrificed to “the great serpent of the sky”.

Princess Zazi approaches her in her palace servant disguise to ask for some chicken blood, but Thozama goes into freakout mode when the witch doctor taunts them with the arm. Once Thozama calms down, Zazi reveals the true purpose of her “prank” – to visit her lover… General Toka!

Watch a moment from episode 3 of Blood Psalms

Chaos in the citadel

It’s certainly a wild night in the citadel. Aside from the eerie signs in the sky, and the glowing meteor coming ever closer, people have gathered around the prison pits chanting, an elephant is trumpeting outside the walls, and just outside the city gates, Senator Jabari is taunting the “peasant” Ku’ua.

Sithenjwa tells Jabari that Akachi legend claims their people arrived at the land that the citadel is on, on the back of a dying, fire-breathing dragon and that under the Akachi citadel is an energy vortex that sprang into being where the dragon fell and died.

(Underneath the citadel, of course, are the Chini caves and the “Swirl of Zam-Zam”.) Just then the carriage lurches and sways suddenly as the elephant snaps loose and begins attacking the Golden Army, much to the amusement of the Ku’ua.

In the citadel, everyone sees death headed for them as the meteor blazes directly overhead. But just as it is about to strike, Princess Zazi raises her hands and pulses out bolts of blue energy, and she calls on the power of Isis to help her ward off death, until she is able to fling the meteor past the city and back out over the plains to land in the sea, where it breaks a hole through the base of an offshore sandstone stack, creating an arch.

General Toka assigns Burutti to take Zazi back to her quarters. But the moment the two get a good look at each other, they recognise one another immediately from their dreams.

Meanwhile, in the Chini’s cave complex, the foragers and hunters have returned with provisions, and Mzinzi reports to Mother Superior that Kike has been in captivity for three days, while another Chini captive has just been executed. But there is a bigger problem: Burutti is missing. They cannot look for her now, though. Once those who’re not cursed are tucked away safely, the Chini morph into their were-hyena forms.

Catch up on Blood Psalms

Need to brush up on who’s who and what they do? Swot up on the Blood Psalms story, major characters and tribes and houses right here on Showmax Stories. And read the Episode 1 recap, and the Episode 2 recap.