by Ryan J. Downey
Last night's episode of "The Secret Circle" featured a huge payoff front and center: the "Return" of John Blackwell!
After the steamy raciness of last week's "Valentine," the show returned to its slow-boil pace and gave us long moments to contemplate Blackwell's true intentions, to wonder even more about the fire and the other big events from 16 years ago, to consider for a moment why Cassie's father clearly favors Jake over Adam and other such plot threads. Of course, witch hunters just love to interrupt our pondering!
From the very beginning of the series, when the show's teen witch hero lost her mother and it was said that her father was also gone, we just knew that Cassie's dear old dad had to actually be out there somewhere—very much alive. You see, we met Cassie's mother (just before she was killed by Charles) but we never saw her dad. And when it was revealed Cassie has dark magic inherited from her father's evil side of the family, we just knew John Blackwell was too good of a character to keep in the shadows. And we were right!
Cassie packs her things over at Diana's place (where she's been staying and where Diana's father, Charles, has taken a fatherly liking to her, despite having secretly killed her mother and all) after telling Diana that her grandmother, the somewhat magically mind-wiped Jane, will be returning to town. Back at her own place, Jake shows up to alert her to the fact that his witch hunter frenemies have marked her house all nefariously with ashes and salt. But she's much more concerned about the next visitor at her place: Mr. Blackwell. (Why point out that the actor playing Blackwell is only a year younger than the actress playing Jane? They both look great, so whatever.)
Blackwell seems to be an effortlessly powerful witch from the jump off when he opens Cassie's door without using his hands. Much like Jake, he wants to let Cassie know she's in danger. He also wants to make sure she keeps his "Return" a secret from her Secret Circle pals. Of course she ends up telling Adam all about it and her father makes it clear this episode that he doesn't care for Adam's family line.
We were beginning to think that just like Mystic Falls, Chance Harbor only had one hangout/restaurant in town. But not so! Cassie has somehow fit a part-time job into her busy schedule of high school dances and battling ghosts, snake demons and witch hunters. It's there at this local coffee shop where Melissa and Faye have a run in with voodoo boy Callum, who invites them both to a party. Faye doesn't think it's such a good idea but Melissa has become such a fiend for the Devil's Spirit that she's more than happy to go against her friend's advice. Speaking of advice, in a rather heavy metal-like description, Lee tells Faye (and Diana) that Callum practices some type of evil left-hand path stuff ("Evil Left Juju" sounds like a Danzig song, right?) and they head off to the party to try to keep Melissa from harm.
Down at the docks (always loved that phrase, too!), John Blackwell reveals what he's really interested in from Cassie at this particular moment: his medallion. Considering this is her reunion with her long lost parent (and the guy who could tell her so much about her past and her power), this wasn't exactly what she was hoping to be talking about. Filled with anger, she peaces out… Right into Eben's hands! Cassie soon finds herself tied to a chair and being somewhat magically tortured by the witch-hunters, with ash and other goop all over her.
Meanwhile Melissa and Callum are having a make-out session of sorts that involves voodoo dolls as their surrogate proxies (we don't get it either) but before any sense can be made of all of the spellbinding voodoo eroticism, Callum let's his true (dark) colors show. Once he's aware that she's a witch, he locks her in a room away from the rest of the party but she manages to escape before his powers get the best of her. Quite smartly, Melissa makes it clear to Faye that she probably shouldn't trust Lee and his voodoo doll stuff, either.
Jake discovers Blackwell lurking around the Secret Circle clubhouse—which makes sense, considering the abandoned house where they hang out was, in fact, Blackwell's once upon a time as we've semi-recently discovered. The two of them have a bit of a "moment" before Jake slithers away to see Eben to suggest a trade. If Cassie can have her freedom, the witch hunters can have a bigger prize: her father!
Jake gets Blackwell into the woods to make the exchange but Eben has other plans: he'd rather have Jake than John! Man, there are so many father issues (blood fathers and father figures alike) playing out in this episode! (And we love it.) Never one to sit idly by while Jake does all of the work to save Cassie, Adam has assembled the Circle at the boathouse like his name is Nick Fury and they're The Avengers. They arrive to the forest just as Eben is about to kill Jake.
Reminding us about the shared power of the Circle that is at the heart of the series (father issues aside!), the sometimes bickering but nevertheless always bonded (by destiny, lineage and more) crew teams up in just the way we like it and sticks Eben to a branch. Ouch!
But you know, for a bunch of witch-hating witch hunters, Eben and his crew sure have a lot of rituals, weird mojo and supernatural leanings of their own. For starters, there was the whole ash/salt/good thing this episode. More importantly, Eben escapes death by disappearing in a magical fashion. And finally, Cassie seems to be under a spell commanding her to kill her father. As we've known for a while now, she can set things on fire with her mind and Blackwell is the latest person to find that out the hard way. Fortunately for him, Cassie's friends aren't about to let her kill her father (at least without finding out more about him first!), and they save the day again.
Yes, our little blonde Luke Skywalker has gone dark again, but this time, she's got dear old daddy Darth Vader to talk to. Despite the fact that we're pretty sure we saw him use magic to get into Cassie's house with ease toward the beginning of the episode, Blackwell tells Cassie that he's more or less powerless. Nevertheless, he says he's going to stay in town to keep her safe from all of those bad guys.
As the episode closed, we saw that Faye ignored Melissa's advice about Lee. She's busy making out with him while his girlfriend is waking up from her comatose state. While Cassie is cuddling with Adam, the other two important men in her life are agreeing to look out for Cassie together. Blackwell and Jake both want to keep Cassie safe from harm, but can she really trust either of these guys?
Will John Blackwell turn out to be Cassie's protector, or her greatest foe? And will she end up with Jake, or Adam, in the end? We're going to have to wait a while to find any of this out, as last night's episode was the midseason finale! (D'oh!). Leave your thoughts in the comments and on Twitter!
** Hollywood Crush Twitter