The Secret Circle 1.17 ‘Curse’ review: Magical parents go to extremes to stop kids from having sex

This week’s episode is centralized around Adam and Cassie’s resurrection of a “curse” within in the circle. Yippee. (That was sarcasm, BTW.)

Lesbian Adam is staring at a sleeping Cassie, and when she awakes he wants to do magic together. Calm down there kiddo, pretty sure you made some of that last night. Cue awkward sex talk with Daddy Blackwell. Cassie’s father arrives at the house to find dead crows galore and explains to the teens that if the Conants and Blakes “get together” it means bad news bears. Adam is all like “no way,” and Cassie is like “maybe we did do this with our naughty parts.” Clearly I’m paraphrasing.

Meanwhile, Eva is playing hide and seek with Lee’s dead body. Faye thinks things are a little fishy, and doesn’t believe Lee would just leave town so she recruits Diana and Melissa to do a little digging… aka breaking into Lee’s car.

Cassie and Blackwell go visit Granny Blake, yay, they were able to pay her for one episode! She confirms the curse between the Conants and the Blakes. Yada, yada. P.S. she still thinks Cassie is Amelia, clearly someone’s brain is still majorly broken. Good going Charles and Dawn!

Cassie and Adam announce that they have taken their relationship to the next level and because of their horny tendencies someone in the circle might die. Faye isn’t having any of it and denies that there is any curse. Smart girl. Melissa remains mute, and Diana seems disgusted and full of rage and disappointment all at once. Faye leaves to find out what happened to Lee and Melissa and Diana follow shortly after. Good. Let Cassie and Adam figure out this nonsense on their own.

Time to visit Jake. Who, is in bed shirtless. Side note: how the heck do they keep
getting into Jake’s house? I love how no one knocks on this show. Jake is a bit sluggish and feverish and ruh roh, cursed? They go to Calvin’s place to track down some ingredients to undo the curse. The same guy that Jake killed has the key to his survival. Dun, dun, dun. There’s some meaningless banter between Dawn and Charles… Dawn wants her power back and Charles thinks Dawn is craycray. Dawn has done nothing to get her power back so she needs to stop complaining.

Cue fun magic: Diana, Melissa and Faye do the “Unlock, unlock” spell and pop open Lee’s car trunk. There’s a bunch of voodoo crap and Diana points out that she doesn’t think the voodoo bone Faye is holding is Lee. Score for bitchy sarcastic Diana. They hardcore break in to the car and a cop rolls up. Like, seriously… why would a cop be randomly driving on a side road? Unrealistic, but I’ll allow it. The cop asks who’s car it is and Faye and Melissa say “mine” in unison. Ooops. Diana asks to talk to the cop alone and is trying to explain that Faye is an ex looking for closure. That’s probably not the best thing to tell a cop. Melissa and Faye take it into their own hands and magically pop Diana’s shirt open. The cop looks pleased for a second—then locks them in the back of the cop car. Lee’s psycho ex comes out and tells the cop to let them go. She tells them that Lee took his motorcycle.

Dawn and Charles visit Granny Blake and she tells them about the curse. It seems like no one can keep a secret on this show!

Jake is tripping on his guilt and keeps seeing Calvin. While Cassie, Jake and Adam are in the woods looking for some hard to find root Jake is freaking out and basically confesses that he murdered Calvin. There’s loads of sweating and Jake attacks Adam (he thinks he’s Calvin). Choke him again!

Detective Faye still doesn’t buy that Lee left and pokes around in the garage, only to find his motorcycle chilling under a tarp. Ruh, roh, Eva lied. Shocker! Eva finds her in the garage and scares her with magic. Something finally clicks and she tells Eva that the magic is hers! Eva takes Faye to Lee’s dead body. Oh joy. She wants her to help bring him back. Faye says it isn’t possible but realizes Eva has this uncontrollable power and doesn’t want to piss her off any more. She says she’ll help her and has her kneel around the bed. There’s loads of stalling and random chanting and Faye slowly tries to pull the voodoo doll out from under the mattress. I see what you’re trying to do Faye. But so does Eva. There’s running and fighting and magical flying across the room and finally Faye breaks the voodoo doll and Eva seems to have lost the magic. Then Faye just peaces out and leaves Eva to clean up the dead body herself. Nice.

Melissa and Blackwell have a moment and talk about Melissa’s mom. It’s the first time we really hear anything about Melissa’s parents so it’s nice to hear… something. It seems like Blackwell and Melissa’s mom were close. Could Melissa be bonding with her real daddy and not even know it?

They make the potion to cure Jake, but what Blackwell failed to mention was that Adam and Cassie were the ones who had to take it. If they take the potion they won’t remember being in love. Adam doesn’t want to give that up for Jake, the murderer. But Cassie tells him it’s what needs to be done. They take it.

Jake is okay and having a moment with Blackwell… could he be the other Blackwell child? That would be a tad bit creepy.

Fayanalissa share a sweet moment together, after Diana notes that she doesn’t entirely believe everything that Faye said happened. But they stand by her anyways. How adorbs.

Cassie and Adam wake up in each other’s arms and Adam doesn’t feel nervous. Ha. The potion has worked and they are not in love with each other any more. Well, Adam anyways. Cassie still is very much in love with Adam. Sucks for you, kid.

Dawn confronts Blackwell about this “curse” he told the kids about and reveals that there isn’t a curse at all and that Blackwell used magic to make Jake sick and kill a bunch of birds. Sneaky. I knew there was something going on there. Apparently Blackwell is afraid of Cassie and Adam’s destiny hurting the circle, just like he was afraid of Ethan and Amelia’s. I’m assuming that in addition to being too love struck to work together as a circle, if these two join forces they can take down Blackwell with ease? Maybe something a little more elaborate. It all comes back to the hunters… and someone in Blackwell’s circle is working with them. I think it’s Charles. He’s the unlikely candidate, but seeing as we see Charles visiting Granny Blake in the middle of the night to “fix” her so that she could help him take down Blackwell, the idea doesn’t seem that far fetched.

The episode was definitely a good turning point for the show, we’re getting some new story lines and mystery. And hey, Cadam has been put on hold for a while. Thank God, or should I say Blackwell? baha.

What do you think: is Blackwell still trying to protect Cassie despite his d-bag of a dad move? Can Charles stop John? How will Cassie cope now that Adam isn’t in love with her anymore? Will dark magic Barbie take over? Let me know in the comments below.