Thursday, December 13, 2012

Switch: Season 1, Episode 4

 Morning and a sleepy Jude is stacking up the new clothes she’s made, Stella is obsessing over mustard, her company’s newest, biggest client… and there’s a goat’s head in the fridge. Apparently it’s their anniversary tomorrow and goat’s head stew is traditional. Grace leaves and Hannah glares at Stella and Jude because Grace is so invested in the anniversary and has gone to so much trouble and they’re too busy for it.

Grace heads out and is followed by a man who asks after her phone, hits her and then steals her bag. She returns home to see the others going through their anniversary supplies. Instant huddle on the sofa while she cries. She wants to go home, where people are kind, she’s sick of London. They comfort her and finally resolve on a confidence spell for her.

After the spell she describes herself as feeling “immense”.

So begins Confident Grace’s day. Which starts with her cutting the wire to the noisy headphones of the guy stood at the bus-stop afterwards, to her casually describe being mugged to her boss before taking the day off work to approach Gerry. She decides that if Gerry had more confidence he would be headlining his gigs. So off she goes to confront “shaggy” who runs the club and make it so – winning Gerry’s band the headline status.

At her old job Jude tells her business venture to Aaron and how she’ll be leaving work soon, all being well. She goes to see Hannah who has completely integrated into the market – she knows everyone, she likes everyone – but she’s not selling anything. And when they reach the stall they find everything has been stolen while Hannah was distracted. Jude is upset and very disappointed.

And at Stella’s job she finds that her PA has been sacked – to be replaced by India. One of the Kensington witches, clearly using magic to influence Janet to get the job and stop Stella from talking her out of it. They end up both working on the mustard account in competition, the best pitch gets the account.

India has cast a spell on the whole office – so extensive is it that even her pitch of a giant penis is hailed as brilliant by everyone. Stella confronts India and she makes it clear she’s doing it all to destroy the company, destroy Stella’s job and drive them out of London, “their patch”

Time for a switch organised by Hannah to create new T-shirts. After Grace used her confidence to haggle – hard – for materials and they enchant the designs onto the t-shirts.

Stella tells the gang her problem with India and Grace steps in with her uber confidence.  They go to see Janet and Grace steamrolls over everyone with her confidence to get them to make their own pitch. And the pitch contains an awesome speech about friendships and a powerful demonstration of the bond the 4 friends share (as it goes on, India gets ever sadder with a strong hint she doesn’t have that kind of friendship). Despite that, it doesn’t break the spell and they want to go with India’s suggestion that mustard is versatile – you can use it as toothpaste… or thrush cream. Even India doesn’t want that campaign now.

As they leave, they run into the Kensington witches. Grace has a bit of a showdown but finally lets them pass. They talk about their plans, not only is India not happy with what’s happening in the office but is disturbed that they paid someone to have Grace mugged.

And Grace gets the awful idea of texting sexy naked pictures to Gerry. She goes and sees him after his gig and his ecstatic and bouncing because it went so well. He even tells her that a woman sent her a naked picture of herself (but he didn’t see who). He says he won’t text her back because it’s a bit weird – and Grace reveals that it was her. She tells Gerry she’d never do anything to hurt Jude but she only thinks of Gerry as a hunk of sex meat. They sit down and she says he should probably delete that. He says no, they wrestle over the phone and end up kissing

Jude at work, talking sex with Aaron (Aaron’s topics of conversation: Jude and sex) when Jude realises that one of the guys in the shop is wearing one of her designs. Jude leaves the shop and finds a huge number of people wearing her designs. Jude rushes down to the stall and finds Hannah selling them for a £1. Hannah points out the t-shirts cost 50p, the switch is still going – 100% profit (what, the stall is free?)

Jude is furious, they’re supposed to be exclusive designs, she doesn’t want these “teletubbies” wearing them and making them look awful (Hannah calls that racist – ugh, no Hannah. Prejudiced and cruel, maybe, but not racist). Hannah protests that everyone loves Jude’s clothes, but Jude says they love the price- not the design.

At the flat Stella, after examining the goat’s head stew, notices the tension between Hannah and Jude. Grace comes out and wants to invite them all to breakfast in the name of friendship – but Jude hears something, goes and checks and finds Gerry naked in Grace’s room. Jude is less than pleased and they realise they need to lift the Switch on Grace. She needs to share some hard truths – except with her confidence boosted she goes over the top: tells Jude she was just using Gerry for sex, tells Hannah she put her market friends ahead of her real friends and tells Stella she’s obsessed about mustard.

Jude goes to work and Aaron starts talking about sex again but she complains it’s not all she’s about (it’s all he’s about Jude). Grace goes to see Gerry and finds his guitar – which he earlier said he loved more than his penis – had been stolen because he didn’t take it home the night before. He’s had it for 15 years and, like Grace, he describes being sick of London.


At Stella’s work, India approaches Stella and asks if they do everything together, the Camden coven. Stella says yes – but not because they’re a coven, because they’re friends. India comments on them living together, but she assumes they do it because they’re really really poor and can’t actually enjoy it – she can’t see how it works, who pays what bills. Stella shoots her down then comments that India doesn’t know the first thing about friendship.

Grace catches sight of the guy who mugged her and confronts him. He tries to leave but she starts hitting him but he lashes out and punches her in the face. She falls to the floor, nose bloody and he panics and tells her someone paid him to mug her.

At work Stella gets a call saying that Grace is in hospital and leaves the meeting to hurry to see her. India follows her and asks what happened – Stella tells her and says it’s their fault for the confidence boost. India tells Stella that Alexa paid Grace to be mugged, she’s obsessed. Stella tells her to stay away and starts to leave – India protests about the pitch to the mustard people but Stella doesn’t care, her friend is in hospital.

When she arrives there, Hannah and Grace are already there – and they hug.

Meanwhile India gives the mustard people Stella’s pitch about friendship. She says how much she really wishes she had friends like this and points to Stella’s picture. Sharing the truth, she breaks the switch (much to the horror of the people who’ve been cleaning their teeth with mustard, drinking mustard etc).

In the hospital Jude, Hannah and Stella are desperate. Grace is unconscious and they can’t use any spells to help her without her. Stella calls round different covens trying to find a Water to help them, the witches of Brighton, Epping Forest, Cricklewood.

India walks in. Jude screams at her and wants her to go (with excellent acting and passion). She asks them if Grace was their water element. Stella asks the nurse to leave to give them a moment alone to pray. She uses her extremely expensive handbag as a cauldron (Jude comments it must have cost a fortune). They hold hands (something the Kensington witches don’t do) and cast a healing spell. There’s no flashing lights – but Grace sits up, fully healed.

Afterwards Stella thanks India, then spends some time with India asking about the pitch. She asks for a favour.

At an expensive bar the other 3 Kensington witches are drinking, laughing and having fun when India and Stella arrive. India tries to hold back but Stella tells her that she’s there with her. They ask India why Stella’s there and India says for support because she’s leaving the coven. Alexa forbids her (Stella adds in “who do you think you are, Gandalf?”) and they threaten to bad mouth her all over town. She doesn’t care and leaves. Stella assures her she’ll find a new coven but India would rather have friends. Stella doesn’t leave, she goes back and punches Alexa – for Grace. Three cheers for Stella.

Stella checks the bin outside their flat at India’s suggestion and finds the stolen t-shirts from the stall, Grace’s bag from the mugging and even Gerry’s guitar, all done by the witches of Kensington. Hannah has an idea to solve the mass t-shirt problem – accessorise the ones they have to create the designer line and call the others defusion. Jude gives Grace Gerry’s guitar and tells her to take it to Gerry since she’ll see Gerry before Jude will.

Time for goats head stew – which they all laugh at for being so awful



I do wish we had more background on why Alexa and the Kensington witches hate the Camden witches so much. It’s not like there’s limited resources to compete over so territorialism doesn’t make a lot of sense. As it is, it just feels like a “mean girls!” clique.

This was an episode about their friendship and it was really well done, but that has been maintained since episode 1 – they work perfectly as friends.