The Secret Circle recap – 1×21: ‘Prom’

With its future in question, The CW’s The Secret Circle heads into its second last episode determined to set up a boatload of conflict for the finale as we end with not one, not two, butthree big reveals/cliffhangers.

Unfortunately there’s also a whole lot of garbaggio nestled in between.

Let’s bitch it out…

As usual on The Secret Circle, we’ve reached a milestone in the school year that has seemingly come out of nowhere. Despite the episode taking place immediately after last week, it’s now prom (though apparently one so unmemorable that it doesn’t even have a theme). And even though literally no one has spoken of it before tonight, they all have tuxes and cleavage-y gowns prepped and ready to go (but not limos or champagne…who planned this clambake?!) Not that it matters because – as Diana (Shelley Hennig) would whine – they’ve got witch business to take care of!

Last week we learned that the sixth and final crystal is located somewhere in the school. No one knows exactly where, but Blackwell (Joe Lando) tells Cassie (Britt Robertson) that she can use her magic Balcoin blood to track it (hmm…blood at the prom. I think I know how this ends). Since she only gets a glimpse when she tries the spell, Cassie recruits half-sister – and total grouchy pants – Diana to lend her a (blood) hand. Together they “time travel” (Diana’s words) back to 1995 to the day of the ferry fire and observe a conversation between Amelia (Andrea Brooks) and Elizabeth (Elise Gatien), Diana’s mother, about how Blackwell is evil. Seems Amelia knew bad sheot was going down at the ferry and wanted Elizabeth to take baby Diana and Charles and get the hell outta dodge. It’s at this point that SirBeegus and I turn to each other because we realize how hilariously trashy this show is: so all six of their parents had babies in high school?! And they were all married, too?! As if! Never mind being witches – these kids would have been social lepers due to the fact that they were married and had kids before they graduated!

Mooooving on…the time trip is actually pretty interesting and gives us one of our big reveals: Blackwell is confirmed evil and the kids know it. As Grandpa Exposition yammered on about a few weeks ago, Blackwell bred them as his own circle and now he’s using them to acquire the crystals to build “the most powerful weapon on earth”. I gotta say, I called Blackwell being a bad guy the moment he showed up, so although this not exactly a revelation, at least it’s out in the open and the kids know not to trust him.

Oh wait, except that they don’t have a lot of choice. In the climax, Blackwell shows up to kick some butt when Nick (Louis Hunter) steals the final crystal and tries to exchange it with witchhunter Eben (Sammi Rotibi) for the return of his demon. I quite liked the junk yard fight scene, even if it was over far too quickly. Blackwell gets a car flipped on him, Faye (Phoebe Tonkin) is abducted, and Melissa (Sarah Jessica Parker) grows a pair and stabs Nick to save Jake (Chris Zylka) from being strangled to death. But now Blackwell has the crystal and the witchhunters have one of the circle”s members! So that’s cliffhanger one.

The other big reveal of the episode is just how easily Charles (Gale Harold) cracks under duress. All it takes is a crank call from Blackwell using audio from the pilot between Cassie and her mom, as well as some flashy mind-pyrotechnics for Charles to confess to Diana that he blew up Cassie’s mom. Not unsurprisingly, Diana doesn’t take the news well. But hey, all we need now is the news that Charles killed Grandma Jane and we’ll really be cooking with gas. Thankfully for the dark haired dunce, Grant – aka Prince Chompers (Tim Phillips) – is back in town and ready to console her. I’m sure the poor fisherman is quite disappointed that showing up at Diana’s house didn’t get him a different kind of action, but he should probably get accustomed to the celibate life of teen witches before things get too serious. After all, we don’t want anymore dead birds on the lawn, amiright?

Other Observations:

• So that is more or less the good stuff. The worst part of the episode is easily how stupid Diana has become in just a few episodes. Again, I get that she’s still processing that her mom was a ho who slept with the devil, but blaming Cassie for bringing Blackwell into their lives and blaming Cassie’s mom for getting her mom killed? That’s…a unique interpretation. It’s not wrong, per se, but in terms of big picture focus, I don’t think Diana really took away the main argument.
• Following closely in second for biggest dumba** is Melissa who spends the episode defending Nick’s murderous actions and whining about how the circle has no friends to sign their yearbook. Prioritize sweetie: you not only have killer witchhunters and homicidal ex-boyfriends running loose, but you can do incredibly powerful spells…like pipe in music from the dance and turn on an ugly orange spotlight in the hall. Things are gonna be okay, sugar. Now shut yer trap.
• I remain convinced that Grant is eeevil. No one can have that many teeth in their mouths and not be the son of satan (maybe he’s one of Blackwell other children…you know, from when Blackwell was out spreading his seed and ignoring his Chance Harbour daughters?). We’ll have to wait and see if Grant tries to roofie Diana in next week’s finale. Also, WHY IS HE BACK? Ugh
• Side Note for The Secret Circle‘s wardrobe dept: I know that the mid-90s were oh so long ago, but can we talk about Elizabeth’s amazeballs side part for a second? Fug to the tee! If you were really trying to recreate a time period, this girl would have had a Rachel.

Best Lines of the night:

• Adam: “Let’s meet at the abandoned house and all go to prom together” If only the show recognized how unintentionally hilarious lines like this are. Consider how cool it would be if they added a laugh-track?
• Nick: “I WANT THE CRYSTAL” Oh man, I forgot how awful an actor Louis Hunter is. Thank goodness Nick is dead again
• Faye (consoling Melissa about Nick’s reappearance with champagne): “The bubbles will help – I promise.” Considering Nick practically broke Melissa’s back a few seconds earlier, this is not the most supportive comment Faye could have made
• Cassie (about Diana’s tendency to bail on Grant): “Maybe he thinks you’re a spy.” Diana: “He does, actually.”
• Melissa: “All we do is look for crystals.” Pretty much sums up the show, yeah
• Faye (as Nick leads them to a junk yard): “Why is it always old, dirty places with him? Why couldn’t he hide in a mall or a nice hotel?”

The Secret Circle airs Thursdays at 9pm EST on The CW