Tuesday, November 26, 2013

Witches of East End, Season 1, Episode 8: Snake Eyes



In the bar, Freya fills Ingrid in on her ominous card reading and, unsurprisingly, Freya has decided that Killian is her destroyer. Dash is not returning any of her calls and she’s all kind of mopey and making up for it by using love potions on the arguing bar patrons.

Meanwhile Penelope/Athena/The Shapeshifter/The Bad guy is preparing some nasty hexed flowers for Freya.

Ingrid at the library, finds Barbara (minority friend#1) waiting to direct her towards Mike, her new minted love interest. He claims he’s writing a historical novel set in the area and wants to mine Ingrid for information. While Mike talks about the towns long and storied occult history, Barbara throws in that Ingrid knows all about magic, her dissertation on the occult and how she cast a spell that made Barbara pregnant.

To the other sister – at the bar Killian arrives and she blames everything on him and leaves in a huff – overheard by Amy (Dash’s co-worker who is beginning her own relationship with Killian). She’s nice about it, but she’s not about to get in a relationship when he has clear feelings for Freya.

Freya receives the cursed roses and naturally assumes they’re from Dash – and promptly pricks her finger (well, spinning wheels and apples are so cliché). Penelope just happens to drop in to check on Killian and finds Freya ill and swaying and insists on taking her home.

At the Beauchamp house. Joanna shows Wendy the golden snakey key thing she assured her had been destroyed. Wendy is unsurprisingly unhappy since she was just tortured and killed over that key. We get some nice exposition – including that they sealed the portal – and that the snake is corrupting. While Wendy can’t imagine them ever wanting to go back, Joanna refuses to destroy the only connection to their home. Wendy wants it gone because it “destroyed everything good” inside their father and she thinks Joanna kept it so she can see Frederick again (lots of exposition hints in this conversation).

As Wendy walks past the case is whispered ominously and she opens it. The red eye of the snake seems to bewitch her and she reaches out for it –the snake comes alive and bites her wrist, sinking in its fangs and coiling its body around her arm.

Joanna comes to her scream and lectures her for looking in its eyes – do not look in the snake’s eyes! Yeah, I’m with Wendy here, bewitching animate snakes need to be destroyed. Wendy calls it a powerful vessel of pure evil – and black lines extend from the bite wound up and down Wendy’s hand and arm and her eyes turn black. When Joanna returns with a solution to remove it, Wendy has left.


She finds Wendy in the next room and we get the exposition bomb! It was their father who came to power and banished them, threatening them if they ever returned… to Asgard (suddenly “Freya” makes a lot more sense). Affected by the venom, Wendy insists she wants to spend the one life she has left at home in Asgard, though Joanna is worried about what she may release. When Wendy won’t stop Joanna casts a spell – she disappears but the whole house is sealed.

Joanna manages to bind Wendy in coats while Wendy says nasty things about her – including that she abandoned Frederick – her only son, who refused to come with them; Joanna says he was turned against her. It distracts Joanna enough that Wendy manages to escape the coats.

Back to the library and Ingrid – it’s late but Mike is still hanging around researching and Ingrid discovers that he’s a published author of “The Aesir of Midgard”. Looks like he’s a Norse mythology buff. Ingrid talks about her dissertation and how she is a complete sceptic and doesn’t believe in the supernatural one iota – but he believes witches are real and they’ve all come here from Asgard which is connected to this realm. And his dad drove himself to his death to try and prove it – and Mike is convinced. He also has a map his father found – complete with witchy symbols. When his back is turned she uses her magic to make it clearer - it’s a vivid map to Asgard when you reverse how it has faded due to age.

When they finally leave Mike thinks she’s mad with him because she starts to put some big distance between them

And back at the Beauchamp house the sisters are outright fighting with the snake taking Wendy over the edge to the point of being willing to kill Joanna. Wendy keeps lashing out verbally as well – revealing Joanna’s husband (and Freya and Ingrid’s father) is also around and close by – but there’s a rift between them. The battle continues to escalate until Wendy pins Joanna. Joanna opens the door – and when she’s distracted stabs Wendy’s hand and uses some enchanted shears to cut the key. The key disappears, presumably destroyed, and Joanna treats Wendy’s wound. She says she’ll heal her later but she needs a minute.

Wendy finds her staring into the fire and apologises for all the terrible things she said, though Joanna is clear it was the snake, Wendy adds the next apology for her having to destroy the key and never see her son again. They both discuss missing Frederick and how it was a false hope to think they could ever see him again – and Ingrid comes home and asks if Asgard is real. Ingrid tells them about Mike and Wendy’s clear the door is locked while Joanna dismisses him as one in a long line of mortals looking for the truth

At Penelope’s mansion Freya falls unconscious and Penelope has a wicked ritual for her. It’s all going wonderfully to plan, her eyes glow red – and Dash comes home early from London. Damn it, never any quality time for evil machinations! She quickly calls for him to do doctor things to help Freya. He rushes into action and saves her life from bad medical badness (the extent of my medical knowledge). Dash happened to be on hand because he couldn’t go to the conference knowing he and Freya were all drama so he came back to tell her it was over – then saw her near death and decided he couldn’t live without her. Wedding back on folks! Evil mother-in-law will get another crack!

With everything all happy again, Freya tries to light a fire with her magic – but it doesn’t work. He magic is gone.

She returns home to tell her family and gets identical stunned expressions and we close with Athena/Penelope/evil one at home practicing her evil laugh and glowing red eyes



EXPOSITION! OH LOOK AT THE EXPOSITION! Oh I love it love it love it. Asgard? Norse? Are they Norse gods? If so which ones? And who is their father? Are all the immortals gods? And it was all delivered so well! Info without dumping!