The Secret Circle 1.19 ‘Crystal’ review: Sponsored by Maury: ‘Diana, Blackwell IS your father!’

After three agonizing weeks without The Secret Circle, one of my favorite shows came back this week… and with a bang– literally (those witches be getting shot at!). Everyone is looking for crystals, but despite the title, this episode reeked of “daddy issues” and nutjob grandparents.

Faye and Melissa snoop in a trunk basically out in the open (good job Dawn), and Faye stumbles upon a not so well hidden diary of her mother’s (Dawn was clearly the first one found in hide and seek as a child). The diary basically said that Dawn and John were having a secret love affair hot steamy sex behind their spouses backs. Ick.

Cassie is avoiding Adam (nothing new there) and she teams up with Jake to find his family’s crystal. Adam and Melissa go to Melissa’s grandma’s house to rummage through her stuff– hold up! Melissa actually has a house!? And a granny!? Don’t get too excited, her grandma isn’t present during this teenage crystal raid. Turns out grandma Glaser is about as relevant as Cassie’s grandma. Adam and Melissa find a shrine to crystals… speaking of looney grandparents.

Jakes grandpa lives on his own in God knows where and has been making an ‘A’ like stalker wall (Pretty Little Liars reference) for the past 16 years. We learn the kids were all born around the same time, that Blackwell wanted kids with Dark Magic, evil plot, yada, yada, yada. Grandpa Armstrong had no idea that Nick was dead (he gets the best grandparent of the year award). What pissed me off was that if he’s so worried about these kids and all this pre-apocalypse crap about to go down… why not warn them? Watch them? Do something besides sit in your house making collages of all the circles that may have been corrupted by Blackwell. Worst Elder, EVER!

Grant (G’Day mate) continues to pursue Diana. They were scheduled to go on some romantic picnic on the boat (that isn’t his) but since it’s crunch time before the epic battle against the witch hunters everyone is looking for their family’s crystal and Diana has to keep ditching the Australian hottie for the circle. How rude. The girl doesn’t want to play find the rock, she wants to get her mack on!

Cassie tells John that Granny Blake is finally coming home from the looney bin. Oh hey, they decided to pay her one last time. Granny comes home, good as new (thanks Charles) and promises to give John a chance for her grand-daughters sake… but we know this is a load of crap seeing as moments later Charles shows up at Blake Manor ready to execute a diabolical plot to kill John for good.

Callum’s being a creeper, borderline stalking Melissa and then follows a few of the circle members and steals Jake’s grandpa’s map to where he’s hidden his crystal. Lucky for the circle, Cassie took pictures of the stalker wall (shameless AT&T plug?) and sends the map to Adam and Melissa who arrive at the mines before the rest of the gang does.

The Adam and Melissa scenes were cute, but a tad bit laughable. The whole part where Adam did his Tarzan swing over the giant hole in the mine made me giggle. The fact that he couldn’t make a decent swing back once he got the crystal and 10 pound Melissa had to save him was hysterical too.

After Jake’s grandpa told them Blackwell wanted to plant his seed in all the circles, Faye put two and two together and came to the conclusion that since her mom was having sexual relations with John, that she must be the other Blackwell child. Cassie looks mortified, like, oh dear baby Jesus don’t let this power hungry seductress be my sister! Jake confirms that Isaac told him there was another Blackwell in their circle (way to go Jakey poo, that is a pretty important thing not to mention once you decided not to continue hunting your fellow witches!).

Callum caught up with them and had a gun? Like, what!? What is this dude thinking… someone punch him in the head. He wants the crystal, so Melissa gives it to him? I find it hard to believe she gave him THE crystal. They had loads in the bag. Maybe she did a switcharoo. Faye, Jake and Cassie arrive at the mine just as Diana is running out of it. Diana tells them she heard a gunshot and that Adam and Melissa are still in the tunnels. Cassie and Jake run up to try and save them but Cassie can’t go in– she begins to choke and when Jake asks what’s going on, Cassie confirms that Jake’s grandpa spelled the tunnel and that no one with dark magic can enter.

Meanwhile, Callum is running away with the crystal and Faye has a bright idea to test out her dark magic by standing infront of his motorcycle. Diana is with her and tries to get her to get out of the way. But no luck… Faye stands her ground, tells Diana she’s testing out her magic. Crazy witch, say what? The speed demon is quickly approaching and just in time Diana pushes Faye out of the way! Oh girl, you love her, you really love her. 😉

Granny Blake carves some symbol under a chair and when John comes over she has him sit in it. It blocks his powers and Charles comes from behind with his crystal. Ha, comes from behind… sorry, I still can’t stop associating Gale Harold with Brian Kinney, the penis loving man whore of Queer As Folk. Anywho, Granny Blake has a cruix from years ago when she was going to kill John, and Charles is ready to set fire to it. But, little did Charles know John had other plans for the sneaky duo. Blackwell replaced his cruix with one for Jane… and when Charles lit the match and dropped it in, poor Granny Blake was dunzo. RIP Jane Blake (Episodes 1-9… 17 and 19).

Adam, Jake and Melissa hold Callum down and mark him so that if he ever comes back to Chance Harbor they will know. They basically told him they’d kill him. Looks like the circle is taking cues from Dawn. Tisk. Tisk.

John lets Charles live, because he says he has one last use for him… (is this sexual innuendo? LOL). Faye finds John at the abandoned house and basically jumps into his lap shouting “daddy!” Blackwell awkwardly tells Faye that her mama be craycray, and he’s not her father. Sad face.

The episode ends with Cassie at Diana’s house. Diana tells Cassie that she wants to take a break from the circle for a while. I understand that Diana wants to live a normal life, frolicking in the fields with a hot, possibly evil Australian without worrying about if she’ll have to ditch him if the circle is in trouble… but, she was the one who put everything in motion, so she kind of, sort of, can’t give up. Also, there’s that whole pending doom thing the circle has got going on for the past— um, whole season? Cassie inadvertently tells Diana that she sucks, and didn’t make it to the mine on time to save Adam and Melissa. Diana tells Cassie that she did make it there on time she just couldn’t get in the mines. That when she stepped in her lungs felt like they were about to explode. Ding, ding, ding. You can just see Cassie’s face change and at that point I knew (well also by process of elimination way before this scene) that Diana was the other Blackwell child! Cassie tells Diana that Jake’s grandpa spelled the mine so that no one with dark magic could enter.

Congratulations Diana, Blackwell IS your father! Oh, and by the way, the hussy that stole your boyfriend of 3 years is your sister! Yippeee. Two for one deal at The Maury Show, guys.

I was thrilled with this episode. Mostly because I’m psyched to see Shelley Hennig kicking some witch hunters ass with her newfound Dark Magic! But, also because it was done really well. There were a few WTF moments, and glitches with random entities, but for the most part bravo, Miller.

What did you think? Are you satisfied with Diana being a Blackwell? Do you think there’s still a chance Faye’s one too… I mean, Johnny Appleseed wanted a whole clan of evil seedlings. It could happen 😉 Leave me your comments below!