Monday, October 3, 2011

The Secret Circle: Season 1, Episode 3: Loner



After the circle was bound last episode we open with Faye (Mean Girl) discovering she can't use any magic alone at all anymore – and she whines about it, though Diana (Chief Scooby) does remind her of the whole “you nearly murdered someone” thing. The guilt from that seems to have worn off awwwfully quickly. What, 8 hours?

There follows lots of character... not development because they're not developing they're just kind of following the same grooves. The Scoobies follow their stereotypes, Dawn and Charles are creepy and ominous. We're introduced to Luke who is another love interest for Cassie so we can pretend she isn't going to be with Adam. And Sally is increasingly establishing her status of friend and sidekick to Cassie. About the only thing that is developing is Melissa is growing some spine.And, at last, Faye shows some humanity it's nice to see Mean Girl have another side to her – in this case she is very understanding of Nick's (Hot Guy) issues, but also slaps him down for the way he treats Melissa. I'm glad she's not entirely a Mean Girl stereotype – because ye gods that's old.

Adam and Cassie keep making puppy eyes at each other in such a not-fun love triangle. I have a feeling that this plot line is going to get very old very fast. Luke pines after Cassie and then pouts because she isn't all that into him. And Diana has started to notice Cassie and Adam's googy eyes

Diana (Chief Scooby) continues to bring them all together into a friendly lovefest. Which falls apart because Faye is still Mean Girl and Cassie isn't all that keen to be the bestest friends ever with them. We're reminded again that the last Circle ended with death and disaster (just in case we forgot).

And another new character, Zachary, who also knew Cassie's mother and knew about the last Circle – and he instantly takes a triple dose of the creepy and tries to make Cassie admit to being a witch – to stop it all from happening again. He went to school with Cassie's mother and Cassie's friend Heather – who also died in the big old Circle Fire

Zachary later confronts Faye and threatens her – learning that the Circle is bound since Faye has no magic on her own. Charles drops round to see Zachary and silence him – without his magic it doesn't go very well and he gets his arse most soundly kicked. Zachary declares that the only way to stop the new Circle is to kill one of the witches

Zachary goes to the school dance and tries to kill Cassie in an empty part of the school. The whole Circle gathers – facing the full circle he's tossed around like a rag doll pretty easily. Actually I was kind of disappointed, all 6 of them are supposed to be super powered and they say “what can't we do?” and all we get is a little telekinesis? We had storms and fires when they were alone. They could have done something more impressive for the début of the Circle's power.

On the whole I think this episode was pretty slow. We rewalked the same paths, established characters that have been established – it's the third episode, we need more plot advancement than this, methinks.

Still, the highschool drama has been kept to a minimum which is something I guess :) I still don't hate it. But it's not developing into anything exciting either.