Our introduction is the extremely fabulous manor house in
the UK owned by extremely callous slave traders – and the mistress of the house
sneaking to the slave cabins for an illicit liaison with one of the men there.
While there we see an African (possibly Yoruba) ritual to heal a sick child, in
which a chicken is killed.
Fast forward to the present, the series is set in an
extremely exclusive private school which the old manor house of grand
proportions has become. We have many teenagers going about their school business.
We have Cassie (the rather soggy protagonist) her lesbian best friend Thelma
(who is sassy, funny and several kinds of awesome), Troy the sexy love interest
(played by the actor who plays Klaus in the Vampire Diaries, only with more
shirtless and rear naked scenes. Yes, I’m shallow), Leon the sexy love interest’s
annoying friend, and the not very bright girl, Roxanne. Pattern is well
established, after all though I am impressed by the absence of grossly over the
top mean girls (there are popular girls who snub Cassie but they’re not over
the top mean girls we see so often). The main difference is the glorious
settings and teachers who are both amusingly snarky and, probably, should be
fired for talking to their pupils like that. Especially the extremely
inappropriate yet outrageously funny headmaster.
But Cassie sneaking off for a crafty ciggy in an abandoned
outbuilding and in there she finds a cross made of chicken bones – and the blue
pot that was used in the chicken-killing ritual. Clumsily, she cuts her finger
on the pot and lets her blood drip inside it to the sounds of very ominous whispering.
Of course, she takes said ominous vase back to her room. As you do. Going to
sleep next to the the pot results in creepy dreams back in time, to the woman
and her liaison, to her pregnancy, to her calling on Azazazeal, to her being
hanged and lots of similar pleasant images. Let this be a lesson to you – no spooky
demon jugs by the bedside.
Spooky jug’s affects are felt later in the day with
spooky whisperings of “Azazeal” and a traumatic, shaved head reflect of her
appearing in a suddenly broken mirror and various other spooky goings on and
flashed visions of the past. Causing her to be bad tempered and snarly to poor
Thelma
The gloriously inappropriate headmaster (his lesson of
what history teaches us: No matter what you do with your life, in a 100 years
time no-one will give a toss) fills Cassie in on some history of the house –
that it was built on the slave trade and Rachel McBain (the woman in her
visions) who became fascinated with the religion of the African slaves
(described as Voodoo), sacrificed a woman to try and summon something and ended
up going mad. And Cassie starts levitating cups. Briefly anyway.
We have a side plot with Roxanne having an affair with
Ben, the art teacher, which Cassie learns and agrees to keep secret for
Roxanne. As her teacher says – Cassie is intelligent but would rather be less
intelligent, but popular and uses this good will from Roxanne to get into the
popular clique. Becoming more popular, trying to fit in and her magical
happenings is pulling her away from the awesome Thelma. Roxanne, growing
increasingly irritated with Cassie using her secret to ingratiate herself into
Roxanne’s social circle, tells the obnoxious Leon Cassie likes him – causing him
to get grabby and not take no for an answer – until Cassie’s magical oddness
blows out the electronics nearby – nothing like flying glass and a shower of
sparks to get the message across – Cassie runs home for more atmospheric
haunting.
Cassie flees to Thelma, can’t quite tell her about Leon
but tells Thelma about the magic instead for comfort and rebonding. Ironically later
Thelma tells Cassie she sometimes feels Cassie watching her even when she’s not
there- but Cassie isn’t listening and is watching a man in the distance. No chance
Thelma, even when you are there you don’t have Cassie’s full attention. What she
does get is to see Cassie absently move nail polish bottles with her mind.
Time for some more outbuilding searching where she finds
a block of wood with “Azazeal” written on it. And some fiery magic aimed at
Leon in art class. Taklking to the Awesome Inappropriate Headmaster about the
incident also gives her chance to ask about Azazael (he’s a good info dumper),
the leader of the Nephilim. 200 Angels who fell in love with mortal women and
taught them the secrets of witchcraft – and as punishment they were hurled into
the abyss.
Another party (do these kids have any lessons beyond art
and English Literature? Maths? History? Anyone?) and more Cassie drooling over Troy (throwing
in an unnecessary gay stereotype at Troy) and using her little mind tricks
against Leon – seen again by Thelma.
And Thelma calls Cassie out for deliberately using her
powers to hurt people (actually, I fully and completely support her using her
powers against Leon – but not to try and get Troy to take his shirt off). And,
in a beautiful speech, Thelma calls Cassie on her constant flirting with
Thelma, knowing Thelma has a crush. She uses Thelma’s attraction to control her
and hurt her. After this epic slap down, Thelma runs off, leaving Cassie to
stare at the spooky ultra gorgeous man (hello Michael Fassbender) who
disappears.
The next day there are police at the school and
Headmaster and the police are questioning Cassie about where Thelma was. And
why Thelma was upset since she has disappeared. Cassie wanders away from the
drama to the church where she saw the strange, sexy man earlier and goes to do
some exploring- she finds fresh roses on the grave of the long dead Rachel
McBain. At the school she finally finds him – playing a piano in a library –
and names him – Azazeal. He needs her help to regain his strength – and he gets
to be so extremely sexy and sinister and beautiful tragic tears for the lost
Rachel. Cassie demands to see Thelma. Through spooky secret passages he takes
her to a long abandoned part of the school where Thelma is tied to a chair.
Cassie tries to use her magic to crush Azazeal under a chandelier but fails
poorly.
A sacrifice must be willing and it must be something
truly loved. Cassie offers herself in place of Thelma – proving it must be
love. He holds a knife to Cassie’s throat – Thelma runs to save her and Azazeal
stabs her. Willing and loving – because Thelma would have sacrificed herself
for Cassie. Azazeal then ruins all this glorious, terrifying, sexy menace by a
badly done transformation into a winged demon. He was far more compelling and
frightening as a human.
Then Cassie wakes up. Nightmare! But Thelma’s bed is
still empty and there is still a police presence looking for Thelma, including
dredging the lake where they find her body.
I was ready to scream at the dead lesbian when we move to her funeral. Really because I’m so very sick of this trope. But Thelma’s ghost shows up at the funeral. Not only shows up but is snarky “They’re bloody loving this. Don’t be a dyke or you end up topping yourself” and then speculating about the female vicar’s prowess in bed. Thank you Thelma for pulling it back from the brink (even if it did rather shatter the incredibly well acted grief)”
Ok it’s not perfect, she’s dead – but at least she’s a
participant in the series still.
The pilot is long and not a lot happens but a lot of
foreshadowing and atmospheric building. But that’s not a complaint – the foreshadowing,
the scenes are incredible well acted, well displayed and beautiful to see.
There’s some amazingly maintained tension and the spookiness. The setting, the
pacing, the acting – it’s flawless, artful and really sets the scene better
than I can describe
Thelma, Thelma. She’s a constant source of ribald sexy
jokes to make the straight woman uncomfortable or smile, her extremely obvious
unrequited crush on Cassie and her desperate urge to make Cassie happy are all
sad and tired stereotypes. Yet, Thelma is gloriously funny, fully determined to
be herself in a repressive climate, loves her good, is great fun and I can’t
help but love her. She also calls Cassie on it – calls her on controlling her
by offering support and flirting, giving false hope, to keep Thelma on side.
She challenges this, even while being a lesbian side-kick with unrequited love,
she challenges them. Every show should have a Thelma.
Inappropriate Headmaster is a POC, non stereotyped and
great fun. I’m not sure how effective he is as a teacher but he has a grounding
and common sense I love. There are some POC students but they don’t play a
large role
I’m glad that the headmaster says that all religion is
dangerous if taken too far – rather than yet again us singling our Voudoun as
the big, bad scary religion. Yet, I’m not even sure if actual Vodoun (as
practiced at the time in the US) is really appropriate to describe the
practices of African slaves in Britain at that time. Especially if it goes on
to connect to a very Christian demon, the fallen angel Azazael. Why would
Yoruba (or any African religious practice) summon a Christian fallen angel?
Cassie’s near-sexual assault at Leon’s hands isn’t
handled ideally. Though she’s upset and traumatised and begins to mention it to
Thelma, but then she turns it to her fear over being haunted and the magical
weirdness (which is, indeed, very freaky). I don’t like that it happened to
Cassie after she dropped her “nice girl” clothes and went to the party dressed
in something edgier and sexier. However, I do like that Cassie continues to thoroughly
hate Leon and the incident isn’t entirely brushed under the rug
