Joanna casts a spell which doesn’t seem to end well – she looks
at the remains and says “Mandragora” and seems quite surprised and unhappy with
this result.
What we need now is Freya dreaming up a whole dated dance
scene with Dash and Killian. Its’ really really really really long and Freya
badly needs the 21st century to fall on her – and Dash looks awful
in a moustache. But hey, everyone would look awful in that moustache. Actually
Freya needs some serious help with her sex dreams – they need 1) less
pre-amble, 2) less clothes, 3) less dance scenes, 4) better music and 5) better
cocaine.
Ingrid wakes her up before she gets past the
preliminaries with Dream!Killian (see Freya? Less time on the dancing, more
time on the sex next time). Apparetly Freya’s vivid dream is due to her using a
past-life spell she took from Ingrid. This means a) Frya decided to return to
the 70s BY CHOICE WITH NO-ONE FORCING HER and b) she really did have a
choreographer and extras plan her sex with Killian. Ingrid thinks this is a bad
idea (because it ended badly when Ingrid tried this – not because her sister is
clearly a twisted soul for her wilful 70s visit) but Freya is super happy
because she’s known Past-life-Killian in every past life (sometimes Dash, though
not always. I assume he disappears for a generation in shame after the
moustache). Anyway this is all angst
fodder for her not having hot monkey sex with Killian in the present.
Admittedly, being in the position to sleep with a) Dash
or b) Killian or c) (with skill) both to having neither is worthy of a little
angst. Brief cut to Dash to remind us that he’s actually a good looking man
when he isn’t ravaged by a moustache.
To the plot (Freya isn’t present. Freya is the destroyer
of plot), Joanna, Wendy and Frederick have a Mandragora info-dump for us – they’re
feral creatures that do kill people (Joanna assumes its behind the killings).
Frederick adds that evil granddaddy-who-is-probably-Odin-but-no-one-says-that
trained the Mandragora into armies and sent one to hunt him; though Wendy still
doubts this oh-so-convenient explanation for the serial killing which so
conveniently gets the highly suspicious Frederick off the hook. Frederick
continues to practice his wounded sad pathos eyes. He does have very good
wounded sad pathos eyes. Kind of like a sad puppy. He also adds that Mandragora
are big and dangerous and unkillable.
Alas Freya returns so the plot cringes away from the all
consuming love triangle. Killian is now working in the bar again rather than
live off his vast inheritance or card sharking or even going back to live
wherever he was but isn’t apparently going home. This is so we can clumsily
turn the clock back to Killian and Freya working together – except now that
Killian knows about the whole witch thing. Killian’s all pouty because she didn’t
manage to work being magical into the conversation at some point. In the name
of honesty, Freya gets ready to tell Killian how much she still loves him –
when Killian’s wife, Eva, enters the room and greets Killian with a kiss. Oh
Freya, don’t pout, we all know something’s going to eat Eva soon – or she’ll be
evil.
So Freya handles this like a mature adult – and runs to
the store-room to take some of her happy recap spell. Because interrupting your
work day for, effectively, a magic drug and hallucination masturbation is so
professional. Back to the 70s and Dash is a drug dealer and she is the one who
makes it because she’s super-good at that and Killian wants her to be honest
with Dash that she loves him – using the exact same words that modern Killian
did referring to telling him about magic. How. Trite. He also accuses her of
being an addict.
She stays with Dash, afraid of him, and continues to
supercharge his cocaine though she has a moral quandary over what she’s doing
now Killian has spread doubt and she wants to stop. He throws her across the
room in magical rage that she wants to be with Killian. She does the same back
and storms off.
Dash, in hospital, saves the life of a patient with magic
after he dies after surgery for cancer. When he checks on Ingrid later, she
notices his fingers going black – spell side effect. Dash’s shoddy latin means
he’s moved his patient, Sam’s death into himself. Which isn’t healthy. She
mentions her own bad experiences with trying to bring back the dead back to
life.
So Dash has to go back to the hospital and “give
Sam back his death” uh-huh, he runs into Sam’s mother and gets a treble
load of the guilts. Luckily for Dash, at the point an injured armed robber is brought
in who will live, one of the staff even comments “the wrong ones always survive”
because they run a real professional hospital here.
Dash transfers Sam’s death into the armed robber – and he
dies.
And Joana leads Wendy to the one person she’s known kill a Mandragora – a woman called Alex. Alex is not a fan of Joana and is kind of outraged that Joana would even think to ask her for help – which she refuses. So they go home with Joanna being cagey about why Alex hates her so much and Puppy-Frederick looking sad eyed and worried. Of course Alex arrives because she’s changed her mind in the name of the poor innocents
First bit of knowledge Alex has – Mandragora have a mate which they feed on during sex (hey there Ingrid). And if you kill the mate you kill the Mandragora – something Alex considers “collateral damage” which is somehow different from killing innocents. They prepare a trap and while doing that, because everyone on this show has such an excellent sense of priorities, Alex, a seer, decides to magically divine Wendy’s love life. This is interrupted by Joanna insisting Wendy doesn’t want to know the future and Joanna and Alex going out Mandragora hunting.
Time to go back to Freya’s flashback – she goes home to
Joanna in the 70s and Alex, Joanna’s then good friend, is there. She does her
love-life sight and sees that Freya has seen Killian through many lives and it
always ends in disaster because they’re star-crossed. She storms back to the
club to pick Killian and leave – and Dash shoots Killian. Freya wakes up from
her flashbacks. She seems to have finally accepted the whole star-crossed thing
and she wants Killian to be happy with Eva. Ha, too late, she’s already doing
evil things to drinks (we can hear evil sounds so evil!) which she gives to
Killian.
To the present and Ingrid has her own trance – the Mandragora
has summoned her. She wakes up in the woods all confused and half-dressed. She
goes to Dash and sees he’s transferred away the death. He dodges the whole
question and tells her there’s nothing physically wrong with her to be causing
blackouts. She finally asks Dash to watch her sleep.
In his room, Puppy-Frederick collapses, foaming and
seizing. Wendy rushes in and magically stops it. Frederick seems pretty blasé about
the whole thing; apparently it’s been happening moderately often since coming through
the portal
On the Mandragora hunt, it’s revealed that Joanna pushed
Alex away because she was upset and scared over what Alex read in Freya’s
future then Alex kisses Joanna declaring
“passion was never an issue for us.”
They find the Mandragora’s lair – and several of Ingrid’s possessions. When Joanna realises this, she stops Alex shooting the Mandragora when it appears – she misses a killing shot and hits it in the arm. At Dash’s house, the same wound appears on Ingrid’s arm. The Mandragora runs. At Dash’s, Dash suggests that maybe Ingrid should talk to her family. At the very suggestion she attacks Dash – and the Mandragora appears behind him, injecting his head with the evil toxin
Alex and Joanna track the Mandragora to Dash’s house –
and see the Mandragora run off with Ingrid.
Can someone explain to me the whole past life
Killian/Dash thing? Because Freya and Ingrid get past lives because they’re
cursed to be constantly reborn. Ok, maybe everyone is reborn and we’re doing a “the
same souls hang around through lives” thing (which Charmed already did and this show has ripped off mightily) but if
past Dash/Killian are witches then wouldn’t they be immortal – or long lived –
like every other witch we’ve ever seen? Or are they cursed to be reborn with
Freya/Ingrid? If so, why? In fact, unless they regularly died a young, even if
they lived a human lifespan one of their lives would be 2 or 3 of Freya/Ingrid’s
repeated lives. But Freya says Killian was in every single one of her past
lives – but she dies in her early 20s every time, that’s her curse. Even her
time line is dubious – she knew Killian in the 20s, in the 50s, in the 70s. But
a Killian who was a young man in the 20s has a decent chance of being alive in
the 50s. Similarly, a young Killian in the 50s has a good chance of being
around in the 70s. Are they multiple Killians or is he dying off at convenient
moments parallel to Freya?
Also the maths feels dubious. Freya and Ingrid have now lived longer than they ever have. They're in their early-mid 20s in 2014. Clearly, in the 70s Freya cannot be far off her inevitable death. That means in the mid-to-late 70s she dies, Joanna becomes pregnant and gives birth. Either it's a long pregnancy, Ingrid/Joanna died in childhood that incarnation or Ingrid/Freya are both well into their 30s.
And how can Freya even think going missing for an entire
day of work while she indulges her fantasies is ok?
Oh hey, did everyone remember Victor? He died, remember,
last episode? Is anyone sad about this?
The Mandragora is Ingrid’s mate. What a shame they can’t
kill Ingrid and have her resurrect because… uh. Because.
Taking death is impossible. You can’t bring back the
dead, it’s impossible and dangerous. Except with a curse that resurrects people
over and over and over and over again. Totally doesn’t count.
Don’t you just love shows with consistent world building?
And on some problems: firstly Ingrid and gratuitous rape.
Tell me that this couldn’t be changed to the Mandragora psychically syphoning
energy from Ingrid, even with tentacles, without her being his “mate” and
having sex. Tell me how this would not have worked just as well in the plot and
not have involved Ingrid getting raped. Tell me why this rape had to be there.
Sam and his family was used as a tool for Dash angst and
I think we have confirmation that Eva is EVIL. I was surprised at the
appearance of Alex, a Black lesbian or bisexual woman, I am waiting before I get
excited. Firstly, I’m not impressed that Joanna decided to end their
relationship over a vague – and accurate – prophecy. But mainly because my
cynical brain suspects that Alex will probably, at worst, die in the next few
episodes or, at best, disappear again. And Joanna will never reference a
relationship with a woman again (shades of Sanctuary
because this kind of inclusion has been done before). So let us see with a due
sense of wariness and being careful about the hope.
