He said: The Secret Circle 1.12 ‘Witness’ review: Blackwell Roasting on an Open Fire

The Secret Circle finally provided some interesting details on the mysterious boat fire after twelve episodes, and approximately 7 billion dark allusions (per episode) to “16 years ago”. The revelations felt earned. Cassie’s Inception-style tour of Jake’s haunted memories is the bit of hocus-pocus that served as our window to the horrific events. What really made the backstory resonate was the emotional conflict it posed for Jake. He had snuck into his parent’s backseat 16 years ago, and witnessed the most traumatizing thing anyone can ever be exposed to –the murder of his parents. It was always apparent that the witch hunters manipulated Jake’s pain for their malevolent purposes, but their deception is even crueler now that we know that they killed Jake’s parents. The writers have elevated Jake beyond the typical monkey wrench in the love triangle by layering his character with tragedy and a sense of redemption. He has motivations that the other characters like Adam, Diana, and Melissa are sorely lacking.

Fist pump for Diana smartly assessing that Cassie’s memory lane trip would provide some much needed answers when Adam blabbed about it. Diana’s constant displays of maturity are one of my favorite qualities in her character. She braved the subject of the difficulty of being friends with Adam after their breakup. She really deserved the closure she probably hoped the conversation would provide. However, Adam’s response was confusing! He acknowledge that he didn’t know how to continue on as her friend, but that they needed too. . .how about a reason why? Are you that head over heels for Cassie? Really? Adam’s character is a weird place for me. He’s likeable only because he’s done nothing terrible, but he’s nothing about him is distinguishes him from the paint on my wall. Maybe, I’m being harsh but hopefully he receives an inspired direction soon. Perhaps clueing into his dad’s new mojo?

Ethan has been a character stuck on repeat for the episodes he appears in. He emerges to remind Cassie she looks like Amelia or to wax poetic about the Conant’s and Blake’s star-crossed destiny. He’s FINALLY getting incorporated into the scheming with Charles and Dawn. What really adds some intrigue to the whole affair is that the man who was magically waterboarded in the pilot gave Charles a taste of his own magic. Then he got to basically tell Dawn to get her panties out of a bunch over the crystal, because he’d be babysitting it for awhile.  Also, Ethan had told Adam he wasn’t on the boat 16 years ago during the fire. . .however, what Cassie sees when she’s in Jake’s memories shows him exiting the boat before the murders. What was Ethan up to? He was wearing a baseball cap so clearly something shady!

Speaking of the boat fire, we now know a witch hunter named Evan (I think that’s the name?) was responsible for betraying the witch’s when they thought they were entering a truce with their enemies. The witch hunters were going all medieval on Blackwell, burning him at the stake, yet Blackwell had a medallion that protected him, and set his captors ablaze. This information led Cassie to believe there was a chance her father survived the attack despite him having a grave in the cemetery. Thankfully, we didn’t have to wait another week to know the answer. Cassie and Adam unearthed the grave that was absent of a human, but an animal skeleton was in the casket.

The only part of the episode that was BLAH for me (besides no Melissa) was Faye’s storyline purgatory with the Voodoo Douche Lee. They tried to make things interesting by introducing a witch drug situation with Devil’s Spirit and Callum. I’m ready for Faye to rejoin the action! Her scenes outside of the Circle are lack momentum and are increasingly boring. You would think a quest for dark magic would be more fun.

Elsewhere in Chance Harbor:

*Grandma Jane is still M.I.A. Um, I thought there’d be more to Charles controlling her, but seems like the writers don’t know what to do with that?

*Melissa was out with her mom (who we’ve never met). So since her parents didn’t die in the boat fire 16 years ago we can assume they were as irrelevant to their Circle as Melissa is to the current one.

*What happened to the whole demon storyline? I thought that’s what the Circle released when they were on the boat 16 years ago. Did I miss something? Or perhaps, since we didn’t see Charles, Dawn, and Amelia, we can assume they were off somewhere summoning the demon? Because remember, Heather went to the boat yard that night too, and that’s how the demon entered her. I hope we get some answers here.

* How much did Jake’s parents resemble a modern day Cassie and himself?