Children be afraid, nay audience members be afraid! Things continue to escalate on Salem tonight! The new resident crazy townsperson, Increase Mather (Stephen Lang), finds the body of recently suicidal witch, Mab (Morgana Shaw), in her cell and decides to take her dead body, shouting at the whole town, before hanging it as everyone watches. And so we begin…

Mary askes to see her husband, George, who is under Increase’s watch. He refuses, saying George is spelled (correct) and is going to find out by who. Mary is upset, but they both agree that Isaac will watch over George.

Meanwhile, Cotton is passed out drunk after crying over his banished girl friend. Alden and Anne comfort and help him up. Aw. Power trip Mercy Lewis wants to help Mary deal with Increase, but Mary refuses. Mercy’s father (Thomas Francis Murphy) shows up and wants to talk to his daughter, but Mary refuses, threatening him about the exorcism he performed on his daughter earlier. When Mary gets home, Tituba gets on her back about George and Mary freaks out, unnecessarily smashing vases to the ground.

Later, Mary meets with Isaac and gives him a “tonic” to give to George, but warns him not to tell anybody. Isaac agrees, but he doesn’t seem to count on Increase to lecture and praise him, saying Isaac was chosen by God and one day he will show him the world outside of Salem. All Isaac has to do is take care of George until he wakes up. Easy enough for anyone… except Isaac.

Alden arrives at the Orphanage to help fix it up at Anne’s request. She is giddy and obviously in love with Alden. She tells him of a young boy, whose parents were murdered by Indians. He hasn’t spoken a word since. Alden takes it upon himself to help the boy.

Mercy, wearing a very witchy leather-looking dress, watches as Tituba lets her “familiar” spider feed on her neck. Mercy wants one of her own. GROSS. Mercy’s friends are getting more “culty” and annoying, bowing as Mary passes by. Mary is headed to the to the woods, where she meets with two old hags. They aren’t thrilled to see her, saying she should have died in Rose’s place. Mary presents them with the Malum, the only item that can control Mary, but they don’t want it, saying they can already control her. Mary is all like, um, what?

Shirtless Alden chops wood at the orphanage with his new young friend. Mary shows up, of course, and talks about George. Alden doesn’t understand why she wants him back. Anne interrupts the conversation and Mary marches off. Awkward!

In the next scene, Cotton goes to the now closed whorehouse as the sad whores give him Gloriana’s stuff and everyone is all sad, as if she had died. Yo, she isn’t dead you guys! Is she? She was just banished from the town. Can’t Cotton hitch a ride up to Boston to see her? He should be happy she wasn’t killed. Anyways… Increase finds Cotton, drunk again, and criticizes him for his moping. He then tells him he never loved his mother, but when he saw Cotton born, he found love with him.

Mercy, still on her power trip, wants to kill George, but both Tituba and Mary are against it. Mary yells at both of them as they fight. Tituba grabs Mercy and threatens her life and tells her to stay out of her way. Meanwhile, Isaac gives George the “tonic” from Mary. She meets him in a dream. They are on a boat in a pleasant stream, but Mary knocks George off the boat and starts to drown him. He suddenly pops up, yelling “Bitch” and Mary sees Increase standing on the shore, watching them. Mary doesn’t know what to do about Increase, but Tituba is worried about Mercy, saying they have to stop her before she gets out of control. Mary thinks she is just jealous and tells her to focus on the real problem.

The little boy tells Alden his name (Stephen) and Anne is happy to see Alden having such an effect on the boy. They are interrupted by a drunk man (Dane Rhodes), whom Increase freed from his cell at the beginning of the episode. It is the father of Emily (Mary Katherine O’Donnell), Mercy’s friend. He wants his daughter back. Anne finds Emily – standing around a gravestone, being creepy, with all her other friends. Mercy shows up and cockily gets in Anne’s face. Anne is having none of it and leaves.

Later, Increase catches Isaac giving George the potion and demands to know who gave it to him. Isaac lies, but Increase sees through it. At the same time, Mercy and her friends are doing witchy stuff and they have a spider crawl up George’s body and into his mouth! Absolutely disgusting. Increase is too busy questioning Isaac to see the spider, so when he finally looks in George’s choking mouth, he sees a spider web. Isaac gives up Mary’s name!

In a weird subplot, Emily meets with her drunk father. He beats her, but then her friends, clad in white, appear and beat her father bloody to death. Um, okay?

Anyways, the night is dark as Increase starts shouting about a new witch. The whole town shuffles out of their houses. Isn’t the town tired of his antics yet? He calls Mary Sibley a witch, saying George is awake but her “tonic” rendered him speechless. To prove him wrong, Mary drinks the tonic and nothing happens. Mercy butts in, saying she saw Tituba one day, feeding a spider on her neck. Increase arrests a pissed off Tituba. Mary looks absolutely livid and crazed! Increase stares at Mary. Mercy smiles. OH MY GAWD.

Only four episodes left. Things are not looking good for Tituba. Mercy gone dang crazy! What do you guys think? Let me know in the comments below.

Salem airs on Sunday nights on WGN America at 10 pm ET/PT.