by Ryan J. Downey
Last week's mid-season premiere of "The Secret Circle" saw Cassie Blake exploring her dark side. Tomorrow night's "Fire/Ice" will continue down that path, as the young witch at the center of the Circle endeavors to uncover more information about her father. Speaking to Hollywood Crush, the 21-year-old actress talked about Cassie's Anakin Skywalker-like flirtation with the dark side, the developing love triangle, the show's digital effects and whether or not John Blackwell may still be alive and kicking.
"You saw in the last episode, 'Darkness,' that her darker side sort of emerges," Britt reminded us by phone. "In this upcoming episode, she is on the journey to try and figure out where that comes from, what's happening to her, what this means and how to control it, how to handle it and what to do with it. You'll get to see her battle with good and evil, that sort of inside struggle to deal with what's going on. And that gives her the idea to go further into her past and figure out who her father was and why she thinks this stems from him. You'll get to see some of those mysteries revealed a little bit."
While she added that "Fire/Ice" will see "a little bit more of the Circle coming together, having more interaction as a group," she was quick to confess that the friction between Cassie and a certain jealous, brazenly independent Circle member will continue.
"Of course there'll be the classic Faye-Cassie standoff," she teased.
Hollywood Crush has long speculated that Cassie's exploration of her family's history would eventually reveal her father to be something other than "deceased," as we've been led to believe. Delving backward into L.J. Smith's source material, it turns out that's the case in the novels: John Blackwell shows up disguised as "Jack Brunswick" and becomes principal at the Circle's high school! Like "The Vampire Diaries," the television version has taken basic elements of the books and forged its own mythology from them. So can we expect to find Cassie's father very much alive at some point, or will this be something that's left on the printed page?
"I think with shows like this, it's always a possibility that someone's alive, or someone's gong to come back, or someone's going to reveal something. I'm just waiting for the day when Nick shows back up! So the possibility of Blackwell knocking on her door? Yes, it was a big part of the book, so I can only imagine they'll explore that world [of the book] a little more. It's a possibility."
Speaking of possibilities, the strong chemistry between Cassie and Jake will continue to develop in coming episodes. But Jake has a lot of work to do if he wants to get closer, considering his betrayal and the whole running-off-with-witch-hunters thing. "Cassie already has such trust issues that I think it's going to be a bit difficult for him to win her back. But it's possible. I think if the two of them can get past that, there'll be a future for Jake and Cassie, whether it's strictly a friendship or whether it will develop into more. Of course there's always the looming question of Adam versus Jake. At this point, Adam is a little more trustworthy."
With Cassie's father issues, the revelation that it's been foretold that her dual nature will bring balance to good and evil magic and her Darth Vader-like magical choking abilities seen in "Darkness," Hollywood Crush (and a few other blogs) drew immediate comparisons to "Star Wars." It turns out Britt shares our fandom of the classic George Lucas saga.
"Oh geez! I love 'Star Wars'! What a cool comparison!," she said, kicking herself for not having realized it before. "I love how I'm the idiot who didn't realize—the 'Star Wars' fanatic! If it continues to go that way, where she gets to play with the good versus evil side of her, I think that'd be really interesting. It just adds one more mysterious part of who she is and where she comes from."
Like "Star Wars," the production of "The Secret Circle" involves CGI and other special effects, which has been the most thrilling aspect of making the show for the former "Life Unexpected" star. "As miserable as these night shoots are, I find the action and the special effects [to be the most fun]. I had never really done anything involving green screens and digital effects. It's always so cool to me when we're doing the magic [scenes]. Like last night, we were doing this magical spell type of thing and everyone was taking bets on how they were doing it. Because it's always just so intriguing to see this kind of stuff. I think that's just an element that I've never had to think about before, but it's really fun to do it. It's fun to be a part of and to see how they create these magical scenes."
What do you think, Crushers? Do you think Cassie's dad will return to town? Do you want to see her end up with Jake or Adam? Spill it in the comments and on Twitter!
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