Review: Warhammer 40K – Angels of Death “Tempest”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

We see the events that led up to the beginning of the series, as the Sword of Baal escapes a deadly battle and ends up caught in a time warp that takes them to a war torn planet, with Orpheo taking some of their crew to investigate and soon going missing.

OUR TAKE

Bit of an odd time to throw in a prequel episode halfway through the season. Equally odd considering that the story began In Medias Res seemingly by design but now gives us the background of how things came to where we started, even down the first scene and lines from the first episode. And it’s not like there was much of a mystery going on that this recontextualizes things we know from the first few episodes, it just feels like the events of what happened before, almost as if you could slide this into being the first episode of the season and all it would do is make me feel more informed about what’s going on. It was at least easy to tell that it was a prequel right away based on the characters that were around, namely Orpheo, whose disappearance is the impetus for what led the Blood Angels down to the plane to find him, and Raphael, who died in the last few seconds of the previous episode, so obviously him being still around is going to be taking place in the past. Even through the red only filter that is slowly becoming more and more annoying, I can still pick out his beautiful skull head in a crowd.

As is the purpose of any competently made episode taking place prior to the start of a given story, this gives us the chance to see where certain characters were emotionally before the main plot got underway, as well as see character interactions we wouldn’t see during said plot. In the latter’s case, we get to see Orpheo among the crew, getting along well with everyone and commanding respect, save from Kazarion who has not come back into the fold just yet. Everyone seems so much more composed around him, showing how effective a superior he was and why they were so desperate to rescue him that they would risk the remainder of their forces to do so. And while Kazarion isn’t in the episode, there is vocal trepidation of accepting him back in the chapter after he was put on Death Watch, only now rejoining because of the events of the battle they were just in. As for the time dilation they were put into, I have less than zero education on the timeline of this franchise, so I have no context for where this team ended up, but I do know space stories that put characters out of time can be fun. Perhaps in the second half of the season, we can see whether the heck Orpheo died or not and just move on already. Although I can’t imagine it will be that simple with these guys.