Hone your teen angst, be prepared for love triangles, top up the whiskey glass, it’s time for another Secret Circle.
We open with Cassie having a sleep over at Chief Scooby Diana’s and Cassie starts us off by showing her usual skilful decision making. Firstly because she wants to experiment more with the super dark, scary dark magic and secondly by wishing Jake – yes, the witch hunting witch – were back and worrying that he’s not in town. Remind me again why Jake not coming back is a bad thing? But Cassie is worried because it weakens the Circle not having him
Ok, why why why does the Circle need more power? I mean, the only established antagonists we have seen that Cassie & Co are even aware of in this series have been the witch hunters (Jake’s buddies). They know nothing about the nefarious actions of the evil parents and the only other threat they’ve faced has been the demon that they, themselves, released. So why the need for a complete circle and more power? They have no enemies – the enemy to show her head has been Kate, Diana’s grandmother and Cassie was already strong enough to thwart her. It’s one of the weakest points of Secret Circle is that all the magic they do is a matter of curiosity yet they continually treat it as desperate life and death. If the protagonists are going to have this “under siege” mentality then they need to be, y’know, actually sieged. Or have a nemesis, an enemy, gods someone who looks at them funny and says mean things! Something.
Anyway, I digress, Diana actually talks sense to Cassie about how wanting the witch hunters to come back is a bad idea and they decide to spell their clothes for a school dance (oh dear, highschool drama incoming) instead. Y’know at least Charm’s spells rhymed. Would it have killed them to rhyme? When it’s just a random sentence why don’t they just say “Red! Be red!” Why even have spell books if these are your spells?
Wow, I’m not 5 minutes in and I’m already poking holes. Or poking at holes, rather.
Anyway, the spell didn’t work and Cassie burned the dress instead. Well, we assume it’s Cassie, since her dark magic raised its head she’s kind of on a self-blame for everything kick. Rains tomorrow? Cassie’s fault. Car won’t start? Totally Cassie’s fault. And yes – Cassie angst kicks in!
Meanwhile Adam and his father are having a heart-to-heart about Adam’s lovelife. Uh-huh because that’s not odd. And Adam’s father, the alcoholic, hasn’t had a drink in 2 weeks and seems to have no signs of withdrawal at all?
And Melissa needs to spend some time helping Diana since she’s not helping Faye any more. She’s a helper, guys! And totally not a character-less side-kick looking for a boss to serve to justify 3 seconds of token screen time! So she’s here to help Chief Scooby with the Dance – oh and Holden? Who appeared for like 5 minutes before the hiatus? He’s gone away again – what did they just change their mind on that storyline? Or are they so used to POC being token inclusions that the idea of having 2 of them on screen at the same time just made no sense? Anyway, all 3 of them can now play dance organisers and for some unknown reason Faye is dragged into it as well.
Speaking of Faye, White Voodoo boy of the completely unnecessary storyline is still hanging around – and Faye is still a Mean Girl. This character is becoming nearly as pointless as Melissa, and much more annoying. Perhaps in an attempt to make her relevant again, Faye takes the next step from Mean Girl to Bad Guy when Voodoo guy says the spell they have will drain Cassie’s black magic and put it in Faye – because that’s not a bad idea.
Meanwhile Cassie is still pining after the Evil Sexy One, Jake, and she and Adam oh the puppy dog eyes and wet lettuceness are researching Cassie’s dad – and rather than get her birth certificate so they can do it legally, instead they decide to distract the nice clerk and do it clandestinely. Thankfully, said clerk is a fool. And they find out that the Scooby Shack actually belonged to Cassie’s dad at one time – and the Scooby Shack is on a powerful magical place. And Adam of the Wet Lettuce keeps trying to flirt with Cassie, but Cassie isn’t willing to swoop on Chief Scooby Diana’s ex – teen angst time! But at the dance we have Melissa playing supporter to Diana as she leaps back into the dating scene so we can have another love triangle as she dances with a guy and Wet Lettuce Adam watches. And then Adam and Diana get to mope at each other. Mooooare angst! MOOOOAR!
Leaving angst aside, Cassie finds a big symbol on the basement ceiling and Cassie, Melissa and Diana find the missing page Faye stole – which they need to interpret the symbol so they can… actually I have no idea. Anyway – they need the page from Cassie’s book that Faye stole. Adam recognises it though – it’s a symbol for *gasp* CHANNELING DARK MAGIC! Cassie’s dark magic father used dark magic! SHOCK! I AM SHOCKED PEOPLE! THE DRAMATIC MUSIC TELLS ME TO BE SHOCKED!
Faye and Voodoo guy are doing the bad naughty ritual to steal Cassie’s magic. But whatever it does hits the whole circle – and as Faye uses magic she causes Melissa, Diana and Adam to collapse. Cue Faye angst to show she actually isn’t irredeemable – she wants the spell reversed, that’s her circle being harmed. Yes – actual loyalty from Faye to her circle. All hell breaks loose, glass from the ceiling, fire out of control – but Melissa is still unconscious in the bathroom – go go super Cassie, Melissa needs a blonde saviour! But she can’t save her – she falls unconscious and someone unknown saves them who totally isn’t Evil Sexy Jake, Honest.
Confrontation time between the circle and Faye. Faye throws a lot of crap at Cassie for all the bad things she did (she kind of has a point on some of it, to be honest) but when Cassie hurts people, it’s an unintended mistake, but when Faye hurts people it’s her recklessness. Of course no-one vocalises it that well so it sounds more like Cassie angstfest.
Cue Cassie angst about her powers, Diana angst about Cassie, Melissa angst about Faye but at last Adam and Cassie kiss and then Jake comes back. Yes like we totally didn’t see that coming. MOOOORE angst
Ok, yes I’m snarky here because I’m a trifle irritated. The problems the Circle faces are inevitably the problems they cause. They don’t sit down and consider their magic, discuss their magic or work on their magic, they’re not exploring Cassie’s magic they’re not even trying to develop a decent working relationship with each other. It’s angst which causes problems which causes more angst which causes problems which in turn leads to more angst. Also, Faye irritates me – she’s a walking caricature of Mean Girl. Finally, I don’t think the overall plot went anywhere this episode – everything that happened was pretty much undone at the end. It was a stall episode which, after last time’s final movement with Diana’s grandmother, I expected to actually move forwards.
