Interrogator episode 2

I'm watching the Interrogator animated series on Warhammer+, and this is my review. There may be very minor spoilers in this post, but ideally no more than you'd get from the episode description.

This is going to hurt

Jurgen and Baldur are now officially on the trail of Bellona's killer. Baldur leads Jurgen to a dive bar owned by an old "friend" called Sortha. Long ago, Sortha had joined Bellona's team. It's not clear what kind of team that was, but Sortha had betrayed her own crew to take down a rogue trader, so maybe bounty hunting?

A customer in the bar has been telling tales about somebody who sounds familiar to Baldur and Jurgen. Apparently, Jurgen and Baldur are looking for a guy named Karoth (or something like that), who has the unique trait of making you physically nauseous when you get too close to him. Getting the customer to share this information is the real trick, though. And the way Jurgen ends up getting the info is strongly suggestive of a Psyker.

Psykers in the Warhammer 40K universe are the people who use "magic" (actually it's the powers of the Warp). They're basically illegal, or at least they're closely monitored and managed. Most of them get taken away by Black Ships, delivered to Terra, and sacrificed to the Golden Throne. The lucky ones are indentured to serve the Emperor in whatever way the Imperium requires.

It's obviously kind of a big deal that Jurgen is a Psyker, and definitely raises a lot of questions when he uses his powers out in public, apparently not at all afraid of being discovered. Then again, his title is apparently "Interrogator", so maybe he's registered.

I have no idea where the story's headed, but it just got a lot more interesting.

Good scifi

This episode is good scifi. More cyberpunk, but with magic mixed in.

The dive bar is perfect, full of grissled free agents, attitude, and unreasonable threats. A fight's always about to break out, you can just tell. Nobody's friendly, and everybody's in it for themselves.

The brief glimpses of the city are great, too. I love the consistent look of Imperial cities, with that mix of brutalist and gothic architecture, Imperial heraldry, and impossible tech. Warhammer has nothing if not character, and this series exudes it.

Good Warhammer

This episode is great Warhammer 40K. It gives you a great feel for the other side of life in the Imperium. In this episode, we get to mingle with the unsavoury free agents and scum of an Imperial city. We meet a bouty hunter. We get some hints of Psykers and maybe an Inquisitor.

It's hard to say what exactly is going on at this early stage, but the intrigue is bending back on itself: Who killed Bellona? Who was Bellona and who is Jurgen? And why do we care? What's this show about anyway? This is a great pace of discovery, and I love that each episode takes its time in its setting and with each character. It's a great way to get a feel for life in the 41st Millennium outside of a raging battlefield.