This episode had so many flashes of fun – and fire – that was ruined by the end with Jake showing up. The only redemption for me was that he didn’t talk. But it also means he’s not staying away, and we’ll have to deal with his brand of bad-acting brood for the rest of the season.
Otherwise, Faye is up to her antics again, desperate at any cost to get her individual powers back. She enlists Lee’s voodoo help, and with the torn page of Cassie’s book of shadows , tells her about a spell that will tether Cassie’s dark magic to her to use.
Cassie’s still working through her dark magic issues, as she tries to help Diana change the color of a dress from blue to red and, instead, sets it on fire. Diana acts blasé about it, calling it a fluke, which isn’t in step with her type A worry personality. At the end she does confess to Melissa that Cassie and her dark magic is starting to scare her.
Adam confesses to his father that he does feel a connection to Cassie, and has since she came into town. During that touching moment I immediately think Ethan’s gonna die next – he’s a recovering drunk after all, and he still poses a threat to expose to Charles and Dawn specifically. I do like dry Ethan though, as he shows his maturity now and not love lost lorn.
Adam and Cassie learn that the deed to the abandoned house they have their clubhouse witch gatherings is her father’s, and Cassie wanders around finding a symbol carved in the ceiling of the basement. When she brings it and the book to Melissa and Diana, she notices a page is ripped out and concludes it was Fay. Melissa doesn’t rat her out, but I wish she would. In fact, I wish that Melissa would exhibit more of that possessed demon self so I can feel her strength. She is definitely becoming more stable but I do want her to, at some point, throw down with Faye.
Lee is, meanwhile, helping Faye with the spell that torn page dictates, which will exorcise the dark magic into her. They break into Cassie’s grandmother’s house and steal a necklace. Faye also notices someone in Nick’s bedroom window, but all we see if a figure.
In the scenes with Faye and Lee there is genuine – and not sinister- chemistry, which is refreshing. When Faye asks what he wants for helping her with the spell, he tells her that she’ll just owe him a favor. She believes it’s sex, but he tells her that “When we have sex it’s not gonna be because of a deal.” I like his confidence. He also reassures her that they only need to be near Cassie and that she won’t feel the magic being taken.
Cassie calls Faye and asks for her page back and they agree to meet at the Fire and Ice dance. Adam had asked her to go, but Cassie doesn’t want to give the whiff to Diana that something is going on between them, however innocent. Diana and Melissa are also trying to get on with their “hot witch” selves so they can move beyond their ex-relationships.
Cassie corners Ethan to dig into her father’s past, and the only information he’ll give her is that he didn’t start the fire that claimed all those lives 16 years ago, and that no one is defined by their parents.
Diana is trying to move on and starts dancing with a popular boy and Adam watches. Afterwards, Adam finds her and tells her he’s glad she’s having fun and moving on. He then essentially asks that Diana advocate for him to Cassie. Although it sounds like a jerk move, I see his point: she keeps pushing him away and establishing that the breakup needed to be done. That she is hurt by what he asks is almost irrelevant since it’s what she put into place to begin with.
In another part of the school Lee and Faye work the magic and in the process he unzips her dress but he gets the leeway for the magic. Once she starts to feel it the others on the Circle – except Cassie – start to get dizzy and stumbles.
Faye starts her magical prowess by unlocked her locker, but each little move she makes drains the others. She shatters someone’s drink, and that causes Melissa to fall in the bathroom, knocking herself out against the sinks.
Faye looks around the dance and makes the fake fire centerpieces come to life with real fire, including the large cauldron in the middle of the dance floor.. As fun as it is – and I enjoyed the use of the magic – Faye, like her mother, refuses to see consequences in what she does until she’s held accountable. Diana faints, and Cassie confronts her, that she’s hurting the Circle. I’m fearing a Carrie-like end to this dance, minus the laughing.
Faye finds Lee and asks for a reversal of the spell – that it was only supposed to take from Cassie’s dark magic and not the Circle’s. Lee doesn’t apologize –she got power, which is what she wanted – and admonishes her for being a “scared debutante”. He does tell her how to break the spell, and she does. But, the fires are too big, and the largest shoots off and the glass icicles from the ceiling start to fall and shatter around the high schoolers. Everyone manages to escape except Melissa, and Cassie runs back in to save her, using her darkness to part the flames. She gets to the bathroom but is consumed by the smoke, and sees a pair of black boots before passing out.
When they come to they are on the school lawn alive and safe. The Circle gathers outside and Adam scolds Faye for her causing yet another debacle where people almost died – again – and them having to fix it – again. She is really angry, that Cassie and her dark magic and the accidents she’d caused doesn’t get any repercussions from the group. I sympathize with her anger when she spits out “How does this bitch get a free pass and I get burned at the stake?” She’s determined to find a way to no longer have her powers or place be dictated by the Circle, and she goes to Lee again, though what help he can give is suspect, and probably just about cashing in that non-favor.
Adam and Cassie are in the abandoned house basement and he tries to take the book of shadows from her. In the process they finally kiss, but are interrupted by the same black boots that saved Cassie and Melissa descending the stairs. It’s Jake, and everyone just stares.
While I’m with Faye for the separation of power, and she’s right that Cassie doesn’t even want her dark magic, I wish that Faye didn’t exhibit the same Dawn tendencies of blinders-determination. She almost killed people – again – by being selfish and reckless. It makes for a good show, especially because deep down she doesn’t want to hurt anyone, but it is an interesting contrast to how Cassie worries about becoming like her father when Faye is walking the same path as her mother. In her defense, Cassie is aware of what she needs to control, where Faye has no idea what her mother has done; the same goes for Diana and her father, but she’s still a goody-goody. Neither girl knows what their living parent is really like, though, but I find it interesting to see how similar the paths they are taking. Diana’s’ grandmother called Charles weak last week, and Diana’s determination could also become a weakness in trying to preserve the Circle and its sanctimony. As Ethan says, no one should be defined by their parents, but when parents keep secrets, it’s easy to see how history can repeat itself.
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Aspiring screenwriter and seamstress, Sonia's dream is to write life-tweaking films while product-placing her own line of handbags. In 1999, she wrote, co-directed and co-starred in the short film Dr. Lovestrange, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bug, a satirical homage to Stanley Kubrick set amidst the panic of Y2K. She is working on her next short about the Mayan Calender that she hopes to finish before the end of the world. Ever the late bloomer, she finally started a blog chronicling her misadventures as one half of a long distance relationship (http://llddr.wordpress.com). She still struggles with which picture to kiss before bedtime: her boyfriend's or Bruce Campbell's. And, in the interest of time, she'd like to start thanking the Academy now. 
