Winner, 'Most Dramatically Improved Character in Shortest Span of Time'

“I’m grateful that I never have to see Adam bat his oversized lashes at her undersized head ever again.”

Preach! Amen, Faye.  So much amen.  As I’d hoped given where we left off last week, Blackwell’s magic potion has had the desired effect of instantly turning Adam into a character that I can get behind, and it was so clearly a direct result of the breakup of the (not at all sexy) Sextiny Twins.  How much fun was it to see him just hanging out, laughing and getting in cahoots with Faye and Melissa?  Let’s forget for a moment the dramatics that came later and just pause for a second to acknowledge how infinitely more appealing Adam became the second his ‘written in the stars’ disaster with Cassie came to an end.  It was so fantastic watching him enjoying himself with friends instead of lurking in the shadows on the verge of tears, pausing the pity party only to have interminably dramatic conversations with Cassie about the supposed unshakeable pull that they had towards each other.  Because no joke, the sexiest thing that came out of that pairing was a pile of dead birds.

Of course, things took a turn when Adam had a meltdown when the girlfriend of the hockey player Faye and Melissa had been flirting with all night showed up.  [Remember last week when I was so shocked that the gang was at school in the promo for this episode?  Well, I was thrown off by the hockey player's varsity jacket.  Don't worry, their record for truancy remains in tact!!]

The confrontation was highly confusing – really, the guy did nothing wrong, and I was worried what it meant for my new favorite member of the circle (after Faye, Diana, Melissa and Jake, obvs).  Honestly, I panicked a little.  I got genuinely nervous that he was going to admit that his pent up frustration was due to the fact that the potion hadn’t worked and that he was just pretending for the same reason that Cassie was.  But no, it turned out that he was mad about the fact that he couldn’t remember being happy with her, which – THAT’S. FINE.  Just please show, please do not take him from us just when he’s become something more than a mope machine.  It would be cruel.

Speaking of batshit, out-of-nowhere reactions to things, Diana had a moment of bitchery when she found out that Grant had lied about owning a boat and in fact was actually a crew member on said boat.  I mean, okay – he lied.  But, it was totally the kind of forgivable lie that people, especially teenaged people, say when they want to impress someone that they like.  I mean, I have my suspicions that there is more to the story than we know at this point (is the boat perhaps a certain Tugboat of Doom?), but Diana didn’t seem to be thinking about any of that when she sashayed away from the kid who was so destitute that he didn’t even own a yacht.  Who knew she was such a wallet queen?

Aside from that weird outburst though, this storyline was actually really enjoyable, and Grant was SO MUCH BETTER this week than his last appearance in which he had the same pun-heavy, massively awkward sense of humor as my dad (sorry, dad).  He took her on an ice skating date, which come on.  Who among us didn’t want a date to rent out a rink and take us skating when we were in high school?  Or was that just those of us who grew up in hockey country and read a lot of Sweet Dreams novels as a kid?  Either way, it was sweet and he was charming, so that almost for sure means that he’s going to try to kill her soon, right?  Because kids on supernatural CW shows aren’t allowed to have nice things.

Blackwell is a complicated dude, and I like it.  I mean, he’s probably pretty nefarious, but the show has done a really good job of making the viewers ride a roller coaster of emotions when it comes to determining his evil-ness.  One minute I’m convinced he’s horrible and the next I’m totally buying what he’s selling.  This is a good thing, because it means that I have no problem believing that the circle would buy it too, and join him in whatever plan he’s cooking up.  The man gives a good speech, too.  Considering that the circle had just found out that he lied about not having magic, he really needed to bust out the big guns in order to win them over.  So, he pulled out the most reliable trick in the book when it comes to troop-rallying – he went full Coach Taylor on their asses:

How could they say no to him after that rousing speech?  Mind you, they weren’t aware of the person that he sacrificed The Night of The Fire™ and buried somewhere in the woods.  But thanks to the fact that he decided to go pay the skeleton a visit, we, the audience, now know that he’s almost definitely for sure evil.  I love when characters do things like dig up old murder victims to helpfully let the audience in on their secrets.

As for the big plan, now that Eban has released a billion demon snakes into himself (an effect that I will never not be disgusted by), and is being aided by a mystery witch, he is just like the train in that Denzel Washington movie – unstoppable.  Even the power of father/daughter double dark magic can’t overtake him now.  The only thing that will be able to fix it is to finally combine the two season long story arcs collect all six crystals which, together, will presumably form some sort of Rubik’s Cube of power that will take Eban, the demons and the witch hunters down once and for all.  Or more likely, will give Blackwell the power of everything and make the circle live to rue the day that they ever fell for his locker room-style motivational tactics.

Random Thoughts:

• Parent Watch: Blackwell was it.  There was some mention of Ethan and the fact that he’s been shitting his pants offscreen ever since JB came back to town (and Cassie almost killed him with a bench), but he was nowhere to be seen.  Presumably, he was off somewhere with Dawn and Charles, resting up for the final three episodes.
• Gran Watch: Nada.  Not a word, not a mention.  Yet another way in which Cassie is the worst.
• Speaking of Cassie being the worst, one of my favorite things about this episode was the fact that EVERYONE was calling her out for being a fun-sucking, self-obsessed, narcissistic nightmare.  Someone’s been reading the blogs!
• Still speaking of Cassie being the worst, it’s really a shame that Britt Robertson has played two of the most annoying characters on television in the past few years, because Cassie is quickly becoming as annoying as Lux was, and for almost the exact same reasons.

Okay, the promo for next week April 19th is below (and be warned it either contains a MAJOR spoiler or [more likely] a cheesy fakeout regarding a certain Other Child of Blackwell).  So check it out and then hit the comments with all of your thoughts on this week’s episode.  What did you think of New Adam, hanging with the girls and smiling for once?  Any Blackwell theories?  What about Grant – charming Aussie or lying liar who lies?  How badly did you miss Gale Harold on a scale from 1 (a lot) to 10 (I NEED MY GALE HAROLD FIX, GODDAMIT!!!)?  Talk to me!!