Time for a flash back – 30 years ago in Connecticut. And
a woman with a wadge of cash, some booze and tragic period fashion choices.
Pregnant young Ruth arrives for help from the fashion victim – and she has a
baby in the bathtub.
Afterwards fashion victim has to explain the little
problem – she’s got an Apocalypse Son! And you thought the terrible twos were
bad? Ruth blackmails the woman to “get rid of my mistake.” She clearly expects
the woman, Clara,
to kill the baby. Instead she dumps the baby on the steps of church
Did we just have a flashback to repeat everything they
said last episode?
At the compound, Rachel is put in the same cell as Logan
to share her newfound knowledge that Elena is a werewolf. She is not even happy
that Logan has been keeping this from her – or that her baby is a werewolf as
well.
Savannah is learning with Alestair and we get a little more
exposition from this and the flashback – of witches using talismans and the
implication they can’t use magic without it. Something Alestair disagrees with.
He also continues to mind control Savannah into obedience but it seems to be
getting more difficult.
Part of that is blamed on Elena so Alestair goes to her
cell to be very creepy, all about how they’e both special since he’s the only
male witch and she’s the only female werewolf before casting a spell on her.
She manages to drag herself through the hole in her cell wall into the next cell – and a hole in the wall finally let’s werewolf Elena who can throw people several feet be able to defeat one of her guards. She’s out – but she’s also being plagued by a scary hallucination curse. Lots of random scary images though Elena still manages to mangle a few guards until she finds Savannah
Who may not be real because Savanah is being all dressed up for the ominous Undoing. Yes another hallucination more angst and screaming. This also includes some clumsy out of place messages about love from Clay hallucination (to mirror what the real Clay is telling Paige, just in case we forgot that they’re a couple).
She finally makes it outside where she finds Alistair,
Savannah and his cult going through the Undoing ritual complete with ominous chanting.
She puts a fuse in some flammable liquid which will, no doubt, lead to some impressive
pyrotechnics later before demanding he cult give up Savannah. Then we get the
explosion
Really, she delayed her dramatic demand so she could set
up a suitably dramatic backdrop? That was what the explosion was for?
Back to Rachel and Logan who are still with reality. When
someone tries to gas them in their cell, Logan uses Rachel’s bra to break them
out. They make a run for it but Rachel tells Logan about the way to disable the
brands she found last week.
They disable it and Rachel seems to be melting on the whole
“I never want to see you again.” thing. Also destroying the neck brands seems
to have confused his followers – because Alistair runs off with Savannah rather
than just having his cultists overwhelm Elena
Alas the rescue commission is made up of Paige and Clay
who spend most of the search snarling at each other. Along the way they talk
about love and being alone – and we get another hint about talimsmans being the
source of witches powers.
They finally arrive to an army of cultists (so, no the tattoo
going down didn’t confuse them – Alistair really did just run because Elena shouted
at him with pyrotechnics?)
Elena finds Savannah but she is well and truly mind
controlled and doesn’t want to leave. Now Alistair decides to fight (because he
doesn’t have his army now?) and throws a shard of glass from the mirror at
Elena. Elena decides to use her werewolf reflexes to dodge in the ages she
has to do so then laugh at Alistair while breaking his neck. Hah, no, Elena
stands there like a statue while Paige manages to enter the room, run across
the room, stand between Elena and the glass AND cast a shield spell.
Time for dramatic revelations! Paige, he is your brother.
But all this drama has shattered the mind control on Savannah and even the “I am
the lock” chant doesn’t work. Savannah goes to Elena and Paige zaps Alistair.
He disappears and reappears among some of his cultists, one of which he quickly
kills and makes look like him in case the series needs him as a bad guy in the
future. Paige finds the body with Clay and they think Alistair is dead. I mean,
no-one could look so much like Alistair, that would be magic!
The cultists start waking up having come back to their sense
and Paige keeps them asleep while the cavalry arrives to get them away. Elena,
Clay and Savannah leave in another car.
Rachel and Logan escape. Logan considers going back
inside but Rachel has a car and isn’t putting up with this bullshit
Alistair lurks around to remind us he isn’t dead.
Ok, I don’t quite get why Elena yelling “give me Savannah”
in front of Alistair and a dozen cultists didn’t just get her dogpiled. Or why
Alistair ran. Or why the cultists just walked around like odd zombies.
This is a problem because that’s a pretty integral reason
as to why they managed to escape. Honestly a lot of the confrontations on this
show have been terrible. Elena has been continually harassed and controlled by
guards she should have been able to destroy several times over. When Alistair
first attacked the witches and the werewolves he was this immense, overwhelming
force that easily defeated them all – because they didn’t do anything. Yet now
his one trick is throwing some glass then giving up. Why did he give up? These
are no worse odds he faced than when he tried to kidnap Malcolm?
It made the whole “rescue” somewhat anticlimactic –
because it only worked because Alistair forgot his powers while everyone else remembered
theirs.
It has deviated a lot from the book but I’m not sure it
holds together. Alistair wants to destroy all witches because Mummy issues? He
built a cult to do this? Why? What was the cult for? How did Sondra get on
board? Why was she even needed since it was a spell, not science? Too many
holes, far far far too many holes for me to run with this season
I’m glad that Rachel and Logan rescued themselves but, at
the same time it kind of emphasised how separate they were from everyone else.
They were never part of the main plot and rescuing Savannah and Elena has
always taken clear priority over rescuing Rachel and Logan
