Contributor: John Keegan
Written by Holly Henderson and Don Whitehead
Directed by Alex Zakrzewski
I’ll give the writers credit for being relatively clever; the characters constantly joke about how their prom activities don’t exactly match the typical teenage experience. And for that matter, they talk about how they are ultimately outsiders that will never have a normal life. I’d be tempted to invite them to Mystic Falls, where they would blend in just fine.
Speaking of Mystic Falls, for better or worse, “The Secret Circle” and its version of traditional teen dances/events will be compared to those of its forebear, “The Vampire Diaries”. Compared to some of the happenings at proms and dances in Mystic Falls, hunting crystals and time travel are positively normal. I must admit that I was glad that most of the prom-related action was restricted to getting Diana into a hot outfit and reminding us that Faye is one very forward young woman. (Though was it me, or was Phoebe having more trouble than usual with her accent in this episode? Not that I mind, since the Australian accent works for me, but the more she has the work at maintain it, the worse her line delivery gets.)
One big disappointment I had with this episode was Nick’s role in the whole story. I didn’t get how he was the “traitor”, and I didn’t see any point to bringing him back into the story at all, just to make him a pseudo-zombie looking to be re-possessed by the demon. Was it just to change up the adversaries as the main characters continued their thinly-veiled fetch quest for pieces of the crystal skull?
As much as I don’t like Cassie much at all, it was fun to see her and Diana get on the same page and act a bit like the sisters they now know themselves to be. And I suppose the producers wanted to remind us that they could have found much worse actresses to play Cassie, because the casting of Cassie’s teenage mother was just plain terrible. While the Amelia/Elizabeth sparring put the tension between their daughters into perspective, and brought everyone in the circle up to speed on Blackwell’s apparent goals for seeding the current circle with his progeny, it was some of the weakest material due to miscasting.
At least we have confirmation that Charles was the one that killed Amelia in the series premiere, which makes Blackwell’s apparent plans less egregious. Whatever Blackwell might have in mind, the rest of the survivors of the previous circle are not much better in the morality department. That makes them rather hypocritical, when all is said and done, since they rip into Blackwell over his desire for power and control, and that’s really all they want as well.
The biggest remaining problem with the season arc (beyond the inability to make Cassie a consistently interesting character) is the mystery surrounding Blackwell. Is he the height of all evil, or is he convinced that one must sometimes use evil to achieve a greater good? I get this feeling that as sinister as he seems to his contemporaries, he’s doing all of this because of an awareness of an even greater threat. At the same time, I don’t know how much the writers are manipulating information and how he is portrayed to keep him sympathetic enough for Cassie to trust him. It’s all still so vague and semi-contradictory.
I also fear that this will never be resolved, unless it is revealed in the season finale. I haven’t mentioned it very much, but the ratings for “The Secret Circle” are problematic. While they are right in the middle in terms of CW’s network average (which is abysmal), the show consistently loses a ton of viewers from its network champion lead-in. So survival into a second season is not a given; the odds are about as even as they get.
Writing: 2/2
Acting: 1/2
Direction: 2/2
Style: 1/4
Final Rating: 6/10
