Well, in case you haven’t heard, I’m sorry to break it to you that Melissa’s new motto for the circle jerkers shall not come to pass. Which is a shame, because I would have been down for a ‘more fun’ version of this show. All the usual sites are reporting that the show has officially been cancelled by the CW. Take a moment to reflect and grieve, and then we’ll get into my recap of what is now the series finale.

Damn. Well, first thing’s first. I gave my word last week that if Grant wasn’t revealed as evil by the end of the season, I’d dedicate a paragraph of this review to discussing Cassie’s positive qualities. Never in a million years did I think I’d actually have to do it. But, here we are (although, if this show had been renewed I’d still be betting on Grant being shady). As promised, here is my Ode to Cassie:

Cassie is brave, and she has pretty hair. Her grandma was real nice. She’s not afraid to almost kill her friends to get shit done. She managed to keep her still-in-tact feelings for Adam to herself because she knows how much the show suffers when Adam is too busy being entranced by her Dark Magic Vagine to have a personality. She turned on her dad when she had to in order to protect her friends. She managed to get through at least one take of the beach scene without bursting into a fit of laughter and/or uncontrollable tears over how stupid it was. So, she’s not ALWAYS the worst. There you go, Cassie. You’re welcome.

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It's been so long since they've been in school, their bodies are starting to physically reject it.

You guys, this is the penultimate episode of the season, and we don’t know yet if it’s coming back next year! And to be honest I’m kind of bummed out because TSC has really and truly stepped up its game in the last part of the season. I know I sound like a broken record, but for real – ever since Adam became a real boy instead of a depressing and crotchety Cassie superfan and the show’s focus has turned to the witchy stuff rather than relationship melodrama, it’s been almost…pretty damn good?

This week we got a story that was both witchy AND relationshippy – it was definitely Nick that everyone saw at the amusement park last week.  Yep, Melissa’s boyfriend’s back and there’s gonna be trouble:

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Okay people…this was a great episode, right? There was funny dialogue, hot chemistry, some really strong emotion, a creepy amusement park and a reveal that I did not see coming at all. What’s not to like? Besides Cassie, I mean. #JustKidding #SortOf #NotReally

Blackwell’s plan is really starting to come together. The circle is close to tracking down the last two crystals, and now Blackwell has found a way to cement the group’s collective desire to destroy the witch hunters: Jane’s death. Blackwell has turned into a one-man Hollywood PR team, spinning the situation to his advantage by blaming it on Eben and friends. I mean, it’s not like Charles is going to be volunteering the truth anytime soon, right? He may not have planned it, but this is a pretty flawless way to get the child army on board the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull Witch Hunter Death Pact. (I saw a couple of you mention in the comments last week that the crystal skull thing is from the books and therefore totally unassociated with the Indiana Jones franchise, but I prefer to ignore that for the sake of the jokes).

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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.

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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!!]

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Another good episode?  I think it was! There were a lot of things that I really liked here – mostly because of what they portend for the future of TSC should it continue for another season and for my own sanity while I recap the remainder of season one.  There were some logic leaps, but whatever – I’m willing to let that slide (to a degree) if the show is entertaining me, which it did last night.

Let’s get the Lee situation out of the way first, because it was a smaller component of the story and a lot of it didn’t make a whole lot of sense (although it definitely provided most of the night’s laughs).  Faye hounded Ava and committed petty crimes until she finally found what she was looking for: Lee.  Unfortunately, when she found him he was still dead. And old. Ava confessed what she did and begged for help to reanimate him (she obviously hasn’t read Pet Semetery or watched any zombie movies), but Faye explained that she had just recently mastered the art of opening her locker, and even in that case she still needed her gang to help her out (memorizing combinations is for losers).  But Ava was determined, and also armed with Faye’s power (which she could use freely – I guess the use restrictions don’t apply to non-circle members? We’ll go with that), so Faye went along, sort of.

Luckily, one of Lee’s one-eyed monsters (heh) was under the mattress so Faye used it to get her power back from Ava, and left Ava to deal with the rotting 20-year-old senior citizen corpse in the bedroom.  My issues with this plot were mostly just that it felt sort of rushed and pointless and didn’t make a whole lot of sense.  Like, Faye got over Lee’s murder pretty easily, it seemed – and I know that Tonkin is capable of the emotions, so it was clearly a writing or editing issue.  Also, nobody seems concerned that there is this dead body lying around and what that might mean for everyone.  And, is Ava just like, gone now?  Is she done?  Because if so, I don’t really see the whole point of her coma, Lee’s murder, and the transfer of power – that’s a lot to go through for a two episode arc, you know?

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And…we’re back. It’s been so long that for once I actually needed to pay attention to the previouslies, because I almost forgot where we left off.  I think I liked this episode overall – it was well-paced and suspenseful, and there were lots of different things happening at once, keeping the show bouncing around from somewhat intense to lighthearted to creepy.

I think I felt an initial sense of disappointment for reasons that were totally my own doing, so I’m trying not to let it color my opinion of the actual episode.  I had heard that a regular character was going to die, and knew that there would be a big reveal regarding a secret of Ethan’s.  So, I was all psyched to watch John Blackwell take Ethan out and then sit back and watch the ensuing Shakespearean tragedy of it all rip Cassie and SADam apart.  Because, let’s face it – while lonely SADam can be tiresome, he’s just flat-out boring when he’s happy with Cassie.  They are both those people – too serious, too narcissistic, too incapable of having a good time.  They each need to be with someone different from them to make them pop, because when they’re together, they form a sucking void of nothingness where laughter goes to die.  This is also how I feel about Stefan and Elena on TVD by the way, and this is why we all love those rare, precious scenes of Stefan and Caroline hanging out – she makes Stefan fun by proxy.  Murderous alter egos also make Stefan fun, but hanging out with Caroline is a lot less messy.

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Welcome back to another edition of the Teen Witch Cleavage Hour! Have we ever talked about the serious cleave that TSC puts on display before? Because there is a lot of it – on both the boys (well, Jake) and the girls.  The boys (well, Jake) have their deep V’s, and the girls have super deep scoop necks, unbuttoned Henleys, unbuttoned Oxfords, satin bras, and just plain old toplessness.  Maybe they store their magic in their tits and just need easy access or something, I don’t know.

About the title of the post, I know that the bigger story here was the arrival of John Blackwell and its implications for Cassie and her magic vagine, but how often do you get to use a Smiths lyric as an apt title for a post about a teen witch soap opera?  Almost never.

Charles is back, and he got a haircut that makes me think of Brian Kinney, so that’s something.  Look how handsome:

But then Cassie went and told him that her grandmother was coming home from the Witch Brain Clinic, and the smile faded because he knows that Gran could take him down depending on what she remembers:

Bye Charles – hopefully we’ll see more of you next time.

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Off the top of my head, I can think of four things that I  really liked about this episode:

1) It was a return to fun, with Faye hosting a drug-fueled slumber party involving a porntastic pizza guy seduction theme, thanks to Diana and Melissa.

2) It was legitimately (a little) scary at times – I rarely get frightened while watching so-called scary shows or movies, but I am always more affected by a slow, creepy burn rather than big, in-your-face spectacle.  And those Death Eater-like hooded ghost witches? Creepy.

3) SADam is continuing (slowly but surely) to improve as a character. Sure, this could be due to the fact that the big baby is finally getting what he wants (Pretty Princess Cassie, she of the golden V), but at least he’s showing more than one emotion, many of which even involve smiling.

4) Jake and SADam took what I hope are the first steps toward the budding love/hate bromance that HAS to be developing.  I think I said last week that SADam needs some buddies – he has NO FRIENDS outside of the four girls connected to him by force. We know that Zylka and Dekker are tight – we need these two hanging out together and exchanging scathing yet witty repartee.  Like, yesterday.

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