Frderick is beginning to have fun in his room with a
young woman when everything goes very down hill when he has a seizure. Well,
that’ll kill the mood. Joanna comes running in (mother arriving in the middle
of proceedings? That DEFINITELY kills the mood). This is also not the best time
for Caroline, Frederick’s girlfriend, to be introduced to mother. At least he
has his puppy-dog eyes to get him out of this
Continuing the theme, Killian and Eva are happy in bed
together when suddenly Eva looks like someone completely different – a much
much older woman.
Back to the Beauchamp household and poor Joanna tries to
spill all these revelations about Freddie to Wendy only to find out she already
knows about the seizures AND Caroline. They move from there to Wendy’s
relationship with tommy and how she may even be in love, something she
considers terrible because someone leaves or dies – seconds before realising
this is somewhat tactless to say to Joanna who is the eye of the storm of loved
ones leaving and dying
Frederick passes on Joanna’s dinner invite to Caroline
(who is leery because dinner with your boyfriend’s mother is doubly awkward
when said mother has seen you naked) but agrees and leaves to go to class,
which leaves Frederick free to be magically manhandled by Spike Tarkoff – here to “help” bring back the king; that would be Freddie’s evil
grandfather. He’s a telepath, hence his ability to contact evil grandfather and
he’s been on Earth for a while, hence the not needing to pass the portal. He
also brings a lot of exposition – the King needs a host body for his spirit
which the Mandragora was supposed to find. The king has plans for Ingrid and
Freya – and through Tarkoff wants Freddie to spike Joanna’s drink with
naughtybadevil magic that will weaken her.
Ingrid, meanwhile, is ensuring that future Beauchamp
family dinners will the most awkward ever – Dash visits her to invite her to a
totally-friends-honest date. Uh-huh. I don’t know what would be worse Ingrid,
dating your sister’s ex or realising that the guy who looks like Dash really
means it when he emphasises the “friends” element.
For random plot reasons, Wendy also gets invited to the
same gala (not Joanna the actual art teacher who is just a little bitter), and
Freya demands to be her +1. Joanna, once bitterness is addresses, is suspicious
that Wendy would get an anonymous invitation to such an in-demand event. Ingrid
also tells Freya about her not!date and Freya is also suspicious, thinks it’s
more than a date (well duh) and that Dash may be hiding badnaughtyevil because
of what
he said when all mandragora’d.
Anyway to the party where Freya is mopey, Wendy is
wearing an elegant leather bikini (of course) and worried about the art which
all seems to be pictures of her (I don’t see it myself) which is raaaaather
creepy. It seems the artist is Pete Latimer Ronan,
Wendy’s husband who Wendy is very not thrilled to see (and not just because he’s
something of a creepy creepy stalker). She insists that it’s actually EX-husband
and no, Ronan, that’s not semantics. Even if they have married and divorced 3
times (ah, I know some people like that, they’re highly amusing and deeply
exhausting). And his stalkeriffic masterpiece is his love letter to her. Well,
the breaking up makes sense, the getting back together less so.
Drama and shenanigans take a back seat when we pay
attention to Freya who is mopey about men like she has been all season, like
she was all the first season. More interestingly, the
father of the man Dash killed is suspicious since his car was found near
Dash’s house (Dash you fail at murder) and has hired private investigators to
ferret out the truth. Dash decides not to tell Ingrid this. Instead he follows the man outside and when he
won’t listen to reason – he magically stops the man’s heart. Oooh Dash is
definitely delving into the dark side
When the paramedics arrive, Dr. Dash calls it a heart attack. He then goes further and tells Ingrid he’s feeling all guilty because he couldn’t save the man with his magic – but don’t worry Ingrid, he’s totally learned his lesson about not playing god. When it comes to make the dead live, anyway. He talks about being the good one in the family – and they kiss.
Slightly less interesting is Wendy talking about Ronan
who is fun and deeply unethical and tends to make Wendy the same. Warnings
aside, of course they end up kissing but she stops it going any further. Ronan
is the reason Wendy thinks love is pain while Tommy has brought her joyful love
(despite the many near disasters). He then asks for hair. Yes, hair. See he
kept a big chunk of her hair (SUPER CREEPY) and put strands of it in all his
paintings so her magic – her soul – is in each one (CREEPIER!) which is why
people love them – he’d like some more, thanks. Because he can’t actually paint
Wendy leaves. Unsurprisingly she doesn’t give him hair.
More awkward parties come with Joanna, Freddie and Caroline and the line “I’m so sorry you saw my breasts.” Her breasts then become a joking topic of conversation until Tarkoff also invites himself to dinner (he’s an old friend of Joanna’s). Yes, this dinner can get more awkward! Freddie also puts the weakening potion in Joanna’s wine and his puppy-dog eyes reach new levels of pathos. When she makes a goopy sentimental toast, Freddie then breaks her glass “accidentally.”
Tarkoff offers Joanna a shoulder to cry on over Victor’s
death – and that he’ll hang around a little longer. He and Freddie have a little
confrontation where Freddie presents harming Joanna as arousing suspicion – but
more exposition, Frederick is carrying granddaddy’s spirit in his mark making
it unwise to kill Freddie until a vessel is found. Even attacking the mark has
unfortunate side effects. Tormenting Freddie is still on the table. Freddie has
an alternate plan – but threatens to kill himself if Tarkoff hurts Joanna.
Back to Killian, his mirror is leaving condensation
messages for him – telling him to not trust Eva and to check his phone. When he
manages to get some time to himself he checks his phone and sees a message from,
well, him – saying Eva is evil, using evil magic and he doesn’t even love her –
he loves Freya. Because of course he does.
He decides to confront Eva and she throws burning blood
into his eyes before glamouring him with tobacco smoke and magically drugging
him.
I want Freya to have a storyline that doesn’t involve a
love interest. Just one. Wendy is better but still perilous. I also really don’t
like the introduction of Ronan – not because I think the storyline is
inherently flawed, but I think that with Killian/Eva, Frederick and Evil
Granddad, Freya/moping and Dash Going
Dark that Witches of East End already has a lot on its plate. Wendy/Ronan feels
like more excess.
I want a regular, re-occuring POC on this show who isn’t
evil (and likely to die). Is there a reason Alex had to be put back in the plot
box? We drop that relationship so we can pull up Dash/Ingrid and Wendy/Ronan?
We’ve also got a beyond-doubt-confirmation that Killian
is being raped. This season has a rather a lot of unnecessary rape and I really
doubt this rape is going to be treated any better than Ingrid’s was.
