Here’s the thing – if you’re going to base the centerpiece of your mythology on a well-known movie title, maybe don’t use the most universally reviled installment of the Indiana Jones franchise. I have never seen an Indy movie, and even I know that that The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull was a disaster of epic proportions. It’s like Gigli – you don’t have to see it to know it’s terrible, it’s just part of basic human knowledge at this point. So when Jake’s crazy (…or IS HE?) grandpa told the gang that the individual crystals that everyone is so hot for fit together to form a crystal skull, my first and only reaction was laughter. Which I’m guessing is not what the show was going for.

But let me back up. When we last saw the circle, Blackwell was giving the gang his best Coach Taylor speech about working together and finding crystals and fighting demons. Exactly like Friday Night Lights. Also, Adam was finally happy thanks to some witch juice that took away the power that Cassie’s Dark Magic V had over him (she however, still pined for him and the world collectively rolled its eyes). We all finally loved Adam and continued to love Faye and Melissa and Jake and Diana…and Cassie was also there.  Also, SEX BIRDS. Never forget. Oh, and hey – there was the small matter of Blackwell having another child in the circle still floating out there in the ether, but it hadn’t really come up in a while.

Blackwell has been a well-written and complex character since he arrived on the show. While he’s always seemed ominous, he’s also been heroic on occasion, helpful to the circle and convincingly paternal with Cassie. So, we’ve never really known exactly what his motivations are, or even if he’s good or evil at his core. Cut to this week, where I think it’s finally safe to say that Blackwell is a dick. Our first hint of that is that he got into it with Charles, who yes, is by all accounts Up To No Good (you know, murder), but also always manages to seem like the lesser of two evils (compared to Dawn and now Blackwell).  Anywhoo, he really does not like John Blackwell:

Wow – that relationship is about to get SO MUCH MORE AWKWARD.

When the gang splits up to look for the rest of the crystals, Jake, Faye and Cassie head to Jake’s grandpa’s house, where they find the kind of Wall of Crazy that one always finds in the homes of the insane or the motel rooms of demon-fighting brother/hunters. Included on the wall was a list of the current circle’s members and their birth dates and did you guys read this thing? Did you see that they were all born in consecutive months? When their parents were SIXTEEN?

Creepy. I almost want to see a show about THAT instead of the one we’re watching. Anyway, they get grandpa to tell them where his crystal is hidden (in a mine, obviously) but OH NO! Callum was listening at the window and now he has stolen the map off of the wall by crawling through the window I guess and knowing exactly what to look for! And he is already en route! Zoinks! (He was following them because he wanted to steal Jake’s blood to sell on the black market, as one does).

So then the three musketeers call Melissa and Adam, who can beat Callum to the mine, and text them a picture of the map that Cassie had luckily taken earlier, and they’re off to the races again. And so is the show, because I think my favorite stuff (except the ending, which was VERY GOOD) was Adam and Melissa in the mine. There were lots of great things here, such as:

1. The mine set managed to be both awesome and creepy even though it reminded me of Donkey Kong Country.
2. Adam and Melissa are very enjoyable together and did I detect a hint of eyesex after Melissa saved Adam’s life?
3. This happened:

4.  In a stunning callback to the Indiana Jones/Crystal Skull connection, this also happened:

So yeah – the mine was a great location because of everything I just said, PLUS it helped end the overdue-for-closure Callum arc and inadvertently led to the big reveal of the night – the identity of the OCB (Other Child of Blackwell).

But before we get into that, we must talk about the adults again, and how once again, evil Charles was out-eviled at his own game and just came off like a sad puppy. A very handsome sad puppy. He and Jane cooked up a plan to trap Blackwell, incapacitate him and kill him (using a very SPN-like method of carving a symbol in the bottom of a chair).

But things weren’t so easy – Jane was only on board because she thought John had killed Amelia (cut to Charles’ WUH-OH face). When she determined for sure that he hadn’t, she couldn’t bring herself to do it because she is a good person. But Charles grabbed a witch cruet (remember those?) that had been made for John and insisted on going through with it. Unfortunately John had already found it and turned it into a Jane cruet and she immediately dropped dead. NOOOOOO! I mean, this poor woman – they shunt her off to an institution for the better part of the season, FINALLY bring her back and then they kill her off.

Bye grams, we’ll miss you. Looks like it’s time for Jake’s expository grandpa to step into the role of Lone Sane Adult in Town. Speaking of him, it took me a second to realize that he was the same actor who so excellently played Jane’s grief-stricken, horribly tragic father on Breaking Bad and it was hard to reconcile seeing an actor from arguably the best show on television on this show which…is not that. It’s like finding an intro written by David Foster Wallace at the beginning of a Twilight book. (I know that he is dead, but even if he wasn’t it would be VERY VERY ODD).

As for Blackwell, anyone who would kill Jane with such ease has to be a slimebag, so I think that we can finally rest that case. (Okay, the argument could be made that he rigged the cruet thinking she’d only get killed if she tried to kill him first and that isn’t what happened here, but STILL).

Okay, it’s time to get to that ending. It was great. I’ve been operating on the assumption that Faye, or alternatively Melissa, was the OCB. I knew it wouldn’t be one of the boys because Cassie has made out with both of them and I just didn’t thing this show would go there. Faye was almost too obvious (especially for most of this episode) but I didn’t trust this show to NOT go with the obvious choice. Watching this episode though, I really found myself hoping that it was Diana – Charles and John already hate each other and Cassie and Diana have all of this complicated history with Adam…it would be delicious. Plus a Dark Magic Diana would be BAMF right?

Well, celebrate good times because it’s all happening! And the scene, with that SONG was just so FANTASTIC. I was watching this episode with total snarkface for most of the hour, but I swear I got chills all up and down my arms when the reveal came, even though I KNEW it was coming. It was just really well-done all around. (And I know that you want to know what that song was because I totally did too, so I’ve included the video below).

So, Diana and Cassie are sisters! Diana has dark magic! Adam has been all up in both of them! All great things, except for one. Charles no longer has any family connections to the circle. This can’t be good for FOGH (Fans of Gale Harold), right? I’m foreseeing lots of bad things coming Charles’ way, and I don’t like it. Obviously Diana still thinks of him as her dad, but once his bad deeds come to light (I’m sure they will), what then? Will her alliance be broken? Will we be forced to go back to a Gale Harold-less television landscape?

So, what did you guys think? Were you surprised? Were you happy? Were you sad for Faye when she found out it wasn’t her and that she didn’t have dark magic? (She was really great in that scene but then at the end it got a little eyesex-y between her and John, which was weird but I could totally see happening because it’s Faye – just me?). Check out the videos below and then hit the comments because it’s been a while and I’m dying to hear what you guys thought!

The Sun – The Naked and Famous

TSC Promo