This entire time I thought this scene was from American Graffiti. Totally wrong, and it took me a bit of searching to figure out it is actually from The Warriors. Perhaps it would help if I watched either movie.
Then I find out American Graffiti is a George Lucas film? That can’t be right either, he hasn’t tried to ruin it by remaking it…
This is my review of Lic Beer Project SAMO IPA (H/T: Iobot)
You can probably deduce where I am going to go from looking at the can. Graffiti is a word derived from the plural Italian word graffito, which means “to scratch.” This makes perfect sense because even if this site wants to credit a bunch of handprints in Argentina for being first, the word itself was coined from evidence of vandalism carved into Greco-Roman monuments. One of the earliest examples is from a walkway in the city of Ephesus, giving directions to the city’s largest brothel…
Nowadays it is thought of as part of urban blight in some circles, but in others it has become an art form unto itself:
…the modern form of street art and graffiti writing was undoubtedly born during themed to late 1960’s. Darryl McCray, better known as Cornbread, is the man who is often credited with being the first graffiti writer, tagging his name all over North Philadelphia. The story goes that he started graffiti writing because of a girl he had a crush on, Cynthia Custuss, which led to him writing ‘Cornbread Loves Cynthia’ all over the area, then continuing with his own tag. Cool Earl was best friend to Cornbread and also became known for his tagging exploits, the pair gaining media attention. Another Philadelphia tagger, Top Cat 126, moved to New York in 1967 and helped to spark the graffiti trend there. Watch Cornbread and Taki 183 in action in this MOCA 2011 video.
[…]
The world of street art and graffiti has changed dramatically since the days of Cornbread, who incidentally, now works with The Mural Arts Program that helps to prevent illegal tagging, with the two movements becoming accepted in the wider art market. Edward Seymour could have had no idea just how much his paint in a spray can invention would change the face of our urban landscapes It is the ultimate guide to the world’s most remarkable pieces of graffiti and street art. This book is the definitive survey of the international movement, focusing on the world’s most influential urban artists and artworks. Since the lives and works of urban artists are inextricably linked to specific locations and places, this beautifully illustrated volume features specially commissioned “city artworks” that provide an intimate understanding of these metropolitan landscapes. Organized geographically by country and city, more than 100 of today’s most important artists—including Espo in New York, Shepard Fairey in Los Angeles, Os Gêmeos in Brazil, and Anthony Lister in Australia—are profiled alongside key examples of their work.
It is a sentiment I am inclined to believe, given what might have been running through the artist’s mind while this was painted on the Belfast “Peace Wall”. I pondered whether Swiss Servator’s series on the Catalan Separatist movement was the main driver; I pondered it enough to take a photo while at a red light on my way out of Belfast. While some look at it as the harbinger for urban decay and avoid such neighborhoods at all costs, it seems that it only harms the owner of the structure–assuming he or she has a problem with graffiti. A problem easily solved by setting up a couple cameras, or at the very least a big dog wandering around.
I will admit this wasn’t too bad for an IPA. It has a blend of four hops, which are common by themselves but not always together. It is unfiltered and has plenty of body. It results in something pleasant in texture, bitter upfront, and fruity in the back. Overall, its a solid build and I can dig it. Lic Beer Project SAMO IPA: 3.5/5
For our third installment of learning Japanese through anime titles I’ve picked a title to introduce honorifics in Japanese.
Japanese: かぐや様は告らせたい ～天才たちの恋愛頭脳戦～
Romanized :Kaguya-sama wa Kokurasetai – Tensai-tachi no Ren’ai Zunōsen
Common English Title: “Kaguya-sama: Love Is War”.
かぐや – “Kaguya” – female given name.
様 – “sama” – honorific – equivalent to Mr., Mrs, Miss, Ms, etc. In Japanese it can be used with both first and last names.
は – “ha” romanized as either “ha” or “wa”, but pronounced “wa”in this usage. This is the topic marker – frequently translated as “as for” in English.
告らせたい “kokurasetai” – passive form of the verb “kokuru” – to confess (one’s love), to propose (marriage), to ask out (on a date) plus “tai” which expresses desire.
I should probably do another entry on passive verb use in Japanese. The passive voice is widely used in Japanese as compared to English. Things happen in Japanese “just happen” similar to the way police officers’ guns just simply discharge in English news stories. Culturally it helps save face and nobody has to accept blame for causing a problem.
～ used as a dash here as far as I can tell. If any of our more Japanese fluent Glibs want to explain the Japanese use of the tilde I’m interested.
天才 – “tensai” – genius
たち “tachi” – makes things plural as relates to people. Japanese usually doesn’t distinguish between singular and plural unless there is a reason to be specific.
の – “no” shows possession. Similar to ” ‘s” in English.
So a literal translation is “(As for) Kaguya-sama (she) wants to be confessed to ~ geniuses’ love brain battle”. Not particularly close to the English title.
Here is your quick lesson on honorifics in Japanese. There are many honorifics so I’m only going to touch on the most common ones here. I’m also freely going to “borrow” and summarize from Wikipedia.
San (さん) is the most commonplace honorific and is a title of respect typically used between equals of any age. Although the closest analog in English are the honorifics “Mr.”, “Miss”, “Ms.”, or “Mrs.”, -san is almost universally added to a person’s name; -san can be used in formal and informal contexts and for both genders.
Sama (様【さま】) is a more respectful version for people of a higher rank than oneself or divine, toward one’s guests or customers, and sometimes toward people one greatly admires. Deities such as native Shinto kami and the Christian God are referred to as kami-sama. When used to refer to oneself, -sama expresses extreme arrogance (or self-effacing irony), as in praising oneself to be of a higher rank, as with ore-sama (俺様, “my esteemed self”).
Kun (君【くん】) is generally used by people of senior status addressing or referring to those of junior status, by anyone addressing or it can be used when referring to men in general, male children or male teenagers, or among male friends. It can be used by males or females when addressing a male to whom they are emotionally attached, or who they have known for a long time. The suffix is also used by juniors when referring to seniors in both academic situations and workplaces. Although -kun is generally used for boys, it is not a hard rule. In business settings, young female employees are addressed as -kun by older males of senior status.
Chan (ちゃん) is a diminutive suffix; it expresses that the speaker finds a person endearing. In general, -chan is used for babies, young children, close friends, grandparents and sometimes female adolescents. Although traditionally, honorifics are not applied to oneself, some people adopt the childlike affectation of referring to themselves in the third person using -chan (childlike because it suggests that one has not learned to distinguish between names used for oneself and names used by others). “Chan” is only used between people who have known each other for a long time or who are of the same gender.
So with this little bit of knowledge you can now quickly determine the relationship of people and social status by how they address each other. Note that for word order in Japanese for native Japanese people your family name goes first followed by your given name. BUT for the gaijin you retain western name order of first name followed by last name.
Japanese people generally don’t use first names until they have an established relationship with a person. However, since westerners don’t usually follow this practice most of the time westerners will be referred to by first name + “san”. This tends to annoy “woke” Westerners in Japan from my readings. It’s never been an issue for me.
Most older Japanese will almost universally use an honorific plus either first or last name. The only time the honorifics get dropped is if the relationship is very close or you intend to be insulting. My understanding is this may be changing with younger people. However all the Japanese people I communicate with including my close friends, we all use honorifics. In the case of my friends first name plus honorific. If any the Glibs that actually live in Japan want to comment about this I’d be interested to hear how they address their close friends and what their experiences are.
Summary
Student council president Miyuki Shirogane and vice-president Kaguya Shinomiya appear to be the perfect couple. Kaguya is the daughter of a wealthy conglomerate family, and Miyuki is the top student at the school and well-known across the prefecture. Although they like each other, they are too proud to confess their love as they believe whoever does so first would lose. The story follows their many schemes to make the other one confess.
This one I can actually recommend. It’s a spoof on the usual high school student council romantic comedy. The two protagonists obviously like each other, but continuously scheme to get the other one to try to confess his or her romantic interest. It doesn’t take itself too seriously and the “will they or won’t they get together” isn’t the point of the series, it’s the gags. Specifically the reason the protagonist is dressed as first name + “sama” is done to suggest high class status and the idea of aloofness.
Junior stood on the sidewalk back against the building wall with his “Abortion is Murder” sign. Most of the passing college students looked at him with disgust. A few were visibly angered and mouthed or muttered insults or flipped him off. He ignored them and kept scanning the crowd for possible threats. A fat dyke waddled by, the saggy jowls of her thighs flapping against her knees. She fixed him with a porcine look of hatred.
“No, monitoring bracelet; she’s Operation: Rescue This! She’s not going to risk a probation violation.”
The dyke flipped them the bird with both hands, and stomped angrily down the sidewalk to the applause and cheers of a few onlookers.
“There. The tall girl with the stringy hair. Wave your sign, Dad.”
“Ohhhh…” Hastur pumped his “Satan Loves Abortions” sign up and down eagerly. Nothing.
Junior expertly rotated and tilted his sign to flash the sunlight off it so as to attract the girl’s attention. Suddenly she noticed the protesters and began to run towards them, screeching. Junior planted his feet apart and crouched down, tightening his grip on the thick cardboard tubing supporting the sign.
“Remember, you can only block them if they attack you or your sign. We can’t defend each other.”
When the girl was three feet from them she reached up to grab at Junior’s sign. He quickly tilted the top of the tube backward. She sensed the trap that had been set for her, and turned to Hastur.
Hastur waved his sign back and forth. “Jesus hates abortions, but Jesus loves you,” he called. That did the trick.
Becky can’t believe that she’s under arrest for stealing something that made her angry.
The girl crouched and jumped at Hastur’s sign, timing her jump so that she reached apogee when the sign waved closest to her. She grabbed the poster board and held on as she fell. Hastur wasn’t anticipating an attack that violent and precise from a Human female. The tubing slipped through his hands until the bottom hit the ground. He regained his grip, but that only caused the sign to tear in half as the girl fell. She stuck her landing and scarpered off with the posterboard, screaming “this is why Womyn can’t get abortions in this state.”
Sad, eight-bit synthesized music played and the message “Player 2 replay level?” appeared in the air ahead of them. Everything else dimmed and stopped.
“Volleyball lesbian, Dad. She’s the toughest one on this level. You want to try again?”
“Let’s move on to the next level before your mother gets here.”
“Wow, you mean she… Well, she didn’t abort me.”
“So what’s the next level,” asked Hastur quickly. Junior was growing up too damned fast, and his first meal hadn’t helped things.
Best timeline, ever. Amirite?
“Rooftop Koreans. We’re on top of a dry cleaning business, but we’re controlling the looters at the electronics store across the street. The electronics guys are protecting our building. Don’t shoot anyone unless they are actively breaking in, or carrying loot out.”
An array of weapons appeared in the space in front of them.
“Which one do I want?”
“Shotgun. Go easy on the ammo. It takes them a while to bleed out.”
Hastur picked the pump action twelve gauge with buckshot, and Junior chose the Mini-14 Ranch Rifle, with the Super Deluxe Tacticool upgrade which he had unlocked through numerous in-game rewards.
“Ready?”
“Ready.”
“This just in. The Simi Valley jury in the Rodney King police brutality case acquitted all four officers of assault and acquitted three of the four of using excessive force. The jury could not agree on a verdict for the fourth officer charged with using excessive force.”
Suddenly the boom boxes on the street below shut off. There was a moment of eerie silence, and then a low roar punctuated by shouting, and the sounds of glass breaking and of solid things beating on clangy things. A police cruiser sped by the intersection with lights and a brief siren whoop – getting the hell out of Dodge.
“Dad! There. Crowbar guy. Wait until I tell you.”
“Clang, clang, clang!”
“Stop or we’ll shoot,” yelled Junior. The skinny Korean in the blue polo repeated his words in slightly accented English.
“One.. two.. three. Now, Dad!”
The fat Korean in the yellow polo fired his shotgun.
“Great nuclear Azathoth,” swore Hastur, his words immediately repeated by his avatar to the puzzlement of the blue-shirted Korean. “That thing kicks like a Shoggoth.”
“Hold it tight to your shoulder. The button under your [untranslatable] sucker on your [untranslatable] tentacle controls what your character says.”
A crowd of people swarmed the entrance to Park Electronics and sheltered in the terrazzo entranceway underneath the marquee. A few faces turned and pointed at the rooftop. Junior squatted down and motioned for Hastur to do the same.
“Clang, Clang, Clang!”
“Can I shoot again?”
“We’d lose the level. There isn’t a clear shot at the door with all those bystanders, which is why they started up the crowbar again.”
Their strategy session was interrupted by three loud and annoyingly perky tones. “Dum. Doop. Doo!”
Junior twitched his tentacles and the word “pause” appeared; the scene darkened and the action stopped. The rooftop scene cut to a white background with a blue logo consisting of a “W” inside a circle.
“Designated visitor Myra incoming,” said an ice princess voice.
“Myra?”
“That’s how the WartCo AI pronounces it. I haven’t figured out how to fix it.”
“Dad…” Junior rolled his multiple eyes. Definitely his mother’s son in that regard.
The WartCo logo contracted until it was a small blue dot in the center of the screen. The dot was replaced with a circular moving image which grew until it filled the screen. The image showed a buxom young woman tugging a rolling suitcase down an urban cobblestone alleyway. The woman walked out of the street scene and into Hastur’s rec room. The street scene cut to the WartCo logo on a white background.
“Wartyvision,” whispered a chorus, followed by a muted “Doo. Doop. Dum.”
“Mom!”
“Honey!”
“Hi, boys. Who wants pizza? Fresh from the oven at Armand’s?”
“Best mom ever,” observed Hastur proudly.
“And how,” replied Junior.
“Junior, take the stasis box from your mother and go set the table.”
Junior tentacle-hugged his mother and took the suitcase from her before exiting.
Hastur also tentacle-hugged Moira, but in a distinctly different fashion than his son had done.
“Somebody missed me.”
Hastur made a surprisingly small and needy noise.
“Me, too,” she whispered. “Just wait until Junior goes to bed.”
“So how was your day,” boomed Hastur.
“Good. You should have seen the face on the Armand’s guy when I put the pizza in the ‘suitcase’ and started rolling it. ‘Hey Lady, you wrecked your pizza.’ It’s Capitol Hill, they’ve seen weirder.”
Our story begins with Mel waking up in the tattoo parlor where she got beaned last week, Jada (previously known as Patchouli Hobo) standing over her. Mel’s like, “What do you want with me?” Jada’s like, “You’re the one who broke in, remember?” Mel recovers from her temporary amnesia and snarks at Jada that the Sarcana should rethink their recruitment methods if they think knocking new members unconscious with a 2×4 is an appropriate initiation tactic.
Maggie, on the other hand, thinks it’s a perfectly appropriate initiation tactic. She says as much when the scene switches over to Mel reporting back to her sisters and Harry. She also warns Mel against letting them do anything like make her eat Oreos until she pukes. Who wrote this? Come on, people, these are FRATERNITY initiation tactics! You could never get away with shit like this under National Panhellenic Conference rules. And let’s be real, all this stuff is the sort of crap guys would think of. Girls are bitchy to each other but they don’t get thrills out of watching each other barf.
Anyway, Harry warns Mel again that the Sarcana are terrorists and that this is an extremely dangerous mission that she should think twice about accepting. They are also pros at mind games—she could be seduced! Mel tells Harry that he’s being hysterical.
Harry: “I beg your pardon, hysteria? Is it quite necessary to use that anti-feminist term?”
(Real Dialogue Alert: That was the real dialogue.)
Suddenly the scene changes and we’re in Bucharest. Wait, Bucharest? Yes, you read that right. After spending the first seven episodes of this show in a tiny town that no one’s ever heard of and never branching beyond its borders, we’ve become globetrotters over the last two: Freyers Township or whatever, and now Bucharest. Wow.
Anyway, there’s this big old cathedral with a skeleton reposing in a glass sarcophagus before the altar. I forgot how weird European churches can be. Connerparkerdemon and his Demon Brother come beaming in through the stained glass and smoking in through the vents and stuff, because just walking through the door isn’t good enough for demon royalty.
They approach the skeleton, St. Dragos. St. Drogo? No, St. Dragos. The saint is all dressed up with a crown and lots of jewelry, including a big pendant with a white stone on it: The Amulet of the Archangels. Demon Brother tells the skeleton that they’ve come to relieve him of his bling (RDA). Connerparkerdemon phases through the glass and removes the pendant, which isn’t clasped or anything, perfect for easy thieving.
An Orthodox priest comes running in just then, waving a stick and screeching “INFERI!!!” The demons prepare to Do Battle. The priest uses his stick to blast them backwards and begins performing a spell to open what appears to be a gateway to Tartarus. So I guess the Moon Stick isn’t the only key! Why Mr. Walton didn’t think of that when he was all pissed off about Jada getting the Moon Stick, I don’t know. Could it be that the writers are coming up with this crap as they go?
“Well I mean PieInTheSky said it was the greatest city in the world”
Demon Brother makes a running leap, jumps over the opening to the gateway and tackles the priest. The priest drops his staff, closing the portal. Demon Brother begins choking the priest to death, and Connerparkerdemon tells him to let the priest go, as they have the amulet now. They argue about CPD’s human side, but finally Demon Brother acquiesces and agrees to let the priest live. CPD actually believes him and just leaves. Demon Brother picks up the priest’s staff and stabs him through the throat with it, then takes the staff for his own.
The scene switches and suddenly it’s Christmas! Snow is gently falling just outside the window, the first flurry we’ve seen so far in MICHIGAN. I’m going to go out on a limb here and guess that it will be the last sign of snow we see in the entire series until next Christmas. There will be no 20-foot snow drifts or lake-effect blizzards in any of the upcoming episodes. What was the reason we decided to have this town be in Michigan and not California, again?
Anyway, as Harry and Mel decorate the tree, Maggie brings them a concoction called ḉóqúít́ố. It’s like eggnog, but MUCH better because it’s ethnic. Harry says if he has to try her culture’s foods, she has to try his, and gives her some of his homemade fruitcake. She gags because White Man Food is gross, unlike eggnog with coconut, which sounds much better.
WHITE MAN FOOD BAD! BROWN WOMAN FOOD GOOD! EVEN WHITE MAN SEE!
Six minutes into the episode, Macy appears out of nowhere to tell us they found the driver who hit Friendzone. Oh yeah! I killed Friendzone by sheer strength of will at the end of the last episode! Except Macy informs us that he luckily escaped with just a broken leg. Goddammi—
Mel and Maggie theorize that since the driver was drunk and had two prior DUIs on his record, maybe the accident was just a coincidence and had nothing to do with the mark that suddenly we know Friendzone’s grandma put on him which was the obvious conclusion but since Harry and Macy jumped to a different one in that episode it became really confusing when everyone just suddenly knew his grandma had done it. Macy decides to call Miss Cleo Mama Roz, whose phone number she suddenly has, and find out more information.
Maggie the Millennial checks her phone and tells the sisters that Ray is on his way. Who? Oh, no one important. Just Mel and Maggie’s father.
???
I guess I just assumed that the identity of their father would be a mystery because wasn’t it in the original show? But no, this guy is just a deadbeat dad. They call him by his first name to show off what a deadbeat they find him to be. Maggie the Gullible Millennial still has hope they can have a good relationship now, 15 years after he abandoned them, though. That’s why she invited him to the Vera-Vera-Vaughn family Christmas! He will definitely come and not stand them up.
Macy comments how odd it is that they call him by his first name, since her own father (you know, who raised her??) was always called ‘Dad.’ Maybe because he raised you?
And while we’re on the subject of your dad, Macy, I have some questions—is he your birth father or were you adopted? If he was your birth father, why do you keep saying your mother “gave you up” instead of just assuming that your dad got sole custody? If he was your birth father, why did he and your mother split up? Did he know she was a witch? Is he the reason for the non-melanin-related “darkness” within you? Well? Speak up—
Never mind that, back to Mel and Maggie’s deadbeat! He left them the day after Maggie’s fifth birthday! He’s the literal worst!
The doorbell rings. It’s Friendzone, fresh from the hospital! Macy doesn’t know whether it’s safe to go near him, so she asks Harry to distract him with ḉóqúít́ố. On his way in the door, Friendzone tries to ambush Macy with mistletoe. This ends with him slipping on a banana peel and falling on his ass, courtesy of the mark. Good times are had by all.
Lest you think I was kidding
Meanwhile, over at the Generic Science Lab, Mrs. Walton (Macy and Friendzone’s boss) is talking to her son, Connerparkerdemon. I had basically suspected that she was Mr. Walton’s wife or ex-wife since she’s a high-up at WalDemon, but this is the first episode where it’s actually confirmed. She’s taken the three samples of Charmed One blood that they’ve collected over the last several episodes and run tests on them, confirming that the Charmed Ones’ powers could indeed be used to create a cure for Connerparkerdemon’s Affliction. The cure would kill his human half, making him pure demon. Connerparkerdemon isn’t convinced that the tradeoff of losing his human side would be worth it, but Mrs. Walton is like, “DAMMIT, YOU’RE MY SON, YOU MUST LIVE!”
She urges Connerparkerdemon to take the Amulet of the Archangels he and his brother procured in Bucharest (how did they get there and home so fast? Is everyone in this show able to apparate except the sisters?) and give it to Maggie. Since she’s the empath, if she wears it long enough, it will drain all three of their powers, because logic. As their powers drain, the stone will turn black; but if she takes it off before their powers have completely drained, their powers will return. Connerparkerdemon’s like waaaah I don’t want to hurt Maggie! Mrs. Walton’s like it won’t hurt her, just take away her magic. Connerparkerdemon’s like ☹
Meanwhile, over at the Walton Lair, Mr. Walton is discussing the current state of affairs with Demon Brother. It turns out the reason Mr. Walton wants a cure for Connerparkerdemon has nothing to do with familial affection—apparently there’s some kind of prophecy that when the apocalypse happens, the Source of All Evil will take a demon born of a human as his vessel. Mr. Walton believes that the prophecy refers to Connerparkerdemon, and if they can get rid of his human side, then the Source will possess him after they free it and Mr. Walton will be able to RULE THE WORLD! MWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Back at the house, Harry is doing a very excellent job of distracting Friendzone with completely heterosexual dialogue such as, “How do you like the tree? The balls are very well spaced,” and, when Friendzone asks where Macy is, “That little lady is in the kitchen cooking up a storm, so don’t even think about dragging her away from that stove.” (Real Dialogue Alert: I didn’t make any of that up.)
Mel heads off to a pledge meeting for her sorority—my, how the tables have turned! As she heads out the door, Connerparkerdemon strolls in, laden with PRODUCT PLACEMENT!
Because it’s typical to give your Christmas gifts in bags that say GAP on them rather than “Seasons Greetings” or “Ho Ho Ho”
Connerparkerdemon gives Maggie her gift and urges her to open it now. She adequately fawns over the amulet, which he claims he picked up at a vintage boutique, which men are known to shop at, and helps her put it on. He also shows her the gift he got for the mysterious Ray, who’s “in Japan for the year” (is… he a professor too? Maggie said he was driving from Minneapolis earlier?): a chess set inspired by Japanese netsuke carvings. See, shit like this is why I hated this douchebag before we found out he was a demon and he automatically became interesting. Maggie says she doesn’t deserve him because he’s too perfect. Connerparkerdemon’s like ☹
Over at the tattoo parlor, the witch sorority is like, BOOM SHAKA LAKA! And Mel gets a magic tattoo on her wrist, no bloodletting required. As the initiation ceremony is completed, a bunch of crows appear and fly around the room. CROWS, YOU SAY?
Five minutes later, she’s back at the house and telling Harry all about it. The crows + the Lichtenberg figures clearly = Jada killed Dead Hippie Mom. Harry seems convinced. Macy comes bursting out of the kitchen like BITCH WAT U DOIN UR SUPPOSED TO BE DISTRACTING FRIENDZONE AND PLYING HIM WITH ¡ȻỐQỪỈTỢS! Harry’s like calm your tits, Connerparkerdude’s distracting him! Macy peeks in on them chatting and when they do the bro high five-handshake thing that guys do, CPD collapses in pain while Friendzone’s cowrie shell mark glows. Maggie assumes CPD’s just losing his powers again, but having seen the mark, Macy knows otherwise. She rushes outside to give Mama Roz a call, because I guess the house has bad cell reception or something who knows.
Much cold, very snow. Realistic fog from mouth.
Mama Roz tells Macy that if the mark caused CPD to have that reaction, it’s a sign that he’s a magical being with a strong evil energy inside him, most likely a demon. Macy gets off the phone to warn her sisters, but is CLUBBED OVER THE HEAD WITH A SHOVEL! So Mags Visaggio is a writer on this show? Because there’s a lot of blunt force trauma to the head going on here.
The perpetrator, Demon Brother, drags her into the garden shed and ties her to a chair with zip ties. Ah, bondage. He then takes her form and tries to go back into the house. Unfortunately, his demonic energy is so much stronger than CPD’s that Friendzone’s mark just NOPEs and repels him straight out of the house as soon as he set foots in the door.
Mel comes running to see what happened and find “Macy” flat out on the ground. She asks “Macy” what happened, and “Macy” tells her that Mama Roz said that Friendzone’s mark is malfunctioning, which is a thing that makes sense, and that it’s hurting people who are innocent, so they need to take it off him. “Macy” gives Mel a spell that “Mama Roz” “gave” “her” that is supposed to remove the mark. It’s a potion which can be mixed into the ḉóqúít́ố. Mel mixes it up and gives it to Friendzone who’s like, “Oh geez, not more of this shit, please,” as Mel pins him down on the couch and shouts, “DRINK, BITCH.”
(Dialogue Alert: Some of that was real, you get to figure out which for yourselves.)
After Friendzone has imbibed, Mel returns to report to “Macy.” “Macy” says the best way to test out whether it worked or not is to snuggle up to her man and see if she can get a little stocking stuffer tonight. I… think Demon Brother is gay? He keeps over-the-top flirting with other males while in female form, including his BROTHER which was eww. Anyway, Mel is like, “Whoa, Macy, you’re not seriously thinking of losing your virginity tonight, are you?” Guess there was definitely no deflowering on Halloween, then. Demon Brother is like dafuq at this revelation, but plays it off like lol jk and they go into the house.
At first Friendzone was like WTF, but then he went, “You know, it’s been a week since I got any, I won’t look a gift pussy in the mouth.”
In the dining room, Maggie and Connerparkerdemon are admiring the Victorian ice skating figurines that Maggie has set up on the table. Maggie complains that Mel hates it and won’t ever let her put the whole set out, because “All the figurines are super white and conforming to traditional gender roles.” (Real Dialogue Alert: That was the real dialogue.) At those words, Connerparkerdemon begins to die of consumption. I know, CPD, I know.
Maggie frets over him and asks if he brought his meds. CPD tells her that he’s supposed to be starting a new regimen, one that could cure him, but he’s worried about the side effects: they may make him feel like a different person. Maggie says that anything personality-altering sounds like bad news and maybe he shouldn’t take it. CPD says he doesn’t want to but his family is pushing it on him. Maggie says it’s just because they love him and want to save him. CPD laments that none of them care what he wants. Maggie says she’ll always listen to him. They undress one another with their eyes as the amulet turns from white to black.
Mel sees the amulet change and her eyes bug out. Still suspicious of CPD after the incident with Friendzone’s mark earlier, she drags Maggie upstairs and asks her what the meaning of this necklace is. Maggie suggests that maybe it’s a moodstone. It sure is gaudy enough to be one. Maggie gets mad that Mel is implying CPD is a demon, because the additional implication is that Maggie is so stupid that she’s been reading his thoughts for months and hasn’t noticed yet.
Well… hon…
Just then, her phone dings—a text from their dad telling them “lol just kidding I’m not coming.” He said he was on his way and then he lol jk’ed? Maggie runs away yelling at Mel that she’s always right. Connerparkerdemon runs after her to console her. They embrace in her room as she confesses that Mel always treats her like she’s stupid and naïve. She asks him about the necklace and he reiterates that he got it at a vintage shop and that it probably is a mood necklace. He promises to never hurt her, and while they mack, he unhooks the necklace and slips it into his pocket. As soon as he takes it off her, the stone turns white again. Mel, watching from the doorway like a peeping tom, sees the stone change, which makes her Even More Suspicious.
“You are my queen, now and always.”
She runs to go tell “Macy,” who, being in actuality Demon Brother, now knows that CPD betrayed them by taking the necklace off. Meanwhile, in the garden shed, real Macy has regained consciousness and is trying to get the gag out of her mouth with her telekinesis. As Mel and Harry formulate a plan with “Macy,” the real Macy succeeds in removing her gag and calls Harry. Harry goes, “Macy, I hear you calling me, but you’re right here?” Demon Brother realizes the jig is up and attacks Harry. He hurls him through the attic window—that’s the second time that window’s had someone hurled through it—and pursues him down to the garden.
Macy calls Harry again, and he apparates away from Demon Brother and into the shed to free the real Macy. Mel and Maggie, meanwhile, run into the garden and find “Harry” there. Now begins the hijinks of “who’s the real So-and-So?!” as Demon Brother shapeshifts from person to person. These shenanigans are brought to an end when Connerparkerdemon runs out, sees what’s going on, and charges his brother. They get into an “epic” fight (bearing in mind this show’s budget), with the two of them shifting back and forth into their shadow and smoke forms.
Demon Brother temporarily stuns CPD and barrels toward Mel. Mel tries to freeze him but has just about as much luck as she did when she tried it before. Just then, the magical tattoo she got from the witch sorority starts glowing, and a murder of crows swarm in and attack Demon Brother, driving him away. Mel realizes that the crows came to protect her, and wonders if the crows that were in the house the night their mom died weren’t the accomplices of the murderer, but rather had come to protect her, too.
Anyway, Demon Brother is gone and now everyone knows that Connerparkerdemon is the shadow demon who stole the Moon Stick from them a few episodes ago. He says he can explain, and then kidnaps Maggie so he can explain, because that’s how we do things on this show. If someone needs to do some ’splainin, they kidnap the person who needs the ’splainin to. He takes her to some snowy gazebo where he tells her The Whole Story. Maggie is like “zomg you lied to me! I’m just as naïve as Mel said I was! I never want to speak to you again!” and runs back to the house.
Such effects on this show
Maggie pouts a little bit to her sisters and Harry about CPD’s betrayal, but they don’t get much time to recoup before Demon Brother is BACK. He comes down the chimney in his smoke form like Santa Claus, Merry Christmas Ho Ho Ho. He’s like u bitchez gon die bc u cut mah pretty face (No, really) (Gay), but is stopped in his tracks when Connerparkerdemon materializes with the Orthodox priest’s staff in his hand. He uses the staff to open the portal to Tartarus. Or, at least, that’s what he TRIES to do, but he starts coughing his damn brains out in the middle of the spell.
The three sisters run to support CPD and perform the spell for him. The portal to Tartarus opens, sucking Demon Brother in… and sucking the staff and Harry in, too! Harry dangles on the precipice for a single instant before murmuring, “Fly, you fools,” and disappearing into the fiery bowels, the floor sealing closed after him.
As the girls stand there staring aghast at the floor where once there was a hole where once there was Harry, Friendzone awkwardly clears his throat behind them. Whoops, forgot about him, didn’t you? He’s apparently been sitting there the whole time and no one noticed. Essentially his role on this entire show.
“What the hell?” he asks.
What the hell indeed, Friendzone!
Fin.
Overall thoughts: Damn, I was hoping Friendzone would be leaving the show soon, not becoming more important!
Ramesh came to a Tee in the corridor. He stopped, looked and listened. Identical corridor in each direction. From the right he heard a muffled chorus of screeching, from the left he heard peppy Latin music.
The choice was obvious.
Today’s Story…
Ramesh turned left and once he was around the corner shrunk up against the wall. He pulled out his phone and found it had powered itself off. He hit the power button and nothing happened. He could have sworn he had decent charge. He tried again. Nothing.
Here he was locked in an underground dungeon with a kinky gay Troll who could punch a dent in a metal door. His NYPD escort didn’t know where he was. His phone was dead. He was being used as a drug mule. At least he could skate on the last part if he ever got out of here.
Ramesh prayed silently – first to his Hindu grandparents’ multi-limbed gods, then to his mother’s crucified god, and for good measure recited the Bene Gesserit Litany Against Fear.
“I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.”
He began to feel better. On the positive side there was a good chance he could pass as a respected member of the community, although that carried its own risks. Today seemed to be some kind of special costume-wearing day which provided further cover. And then there was the weed which could be used to explain strange behavior, and win friends.
Ramesh heard a commotion from behind. He turned around and saw three men and a handcart approaching him. The commotion resolved into an annoying electronic beeping “preet, preet, preet,” followed by a voice announcement “Gangway, Gangway. Please move aside so that your WartCo technicians can bring you the finest service anywhen.”
The cart contained a large spool of thick cable. The foremost crewman was an older athletic man who stood on the front of the cart turning the spool and yelling back at the other crewmen, two chubby younger guys. The crew were all wearing white coveralls and hardhats, each bearing a logo consisting of a stylized “W” inside a circle. The second crewman was pushing the cart from the rear. The last crewman was taping the cable to the floor with a rolling device on a stick.
Manually laying floor tape is one of the most tedious, time-consuming and painful jobs many of us have to deal with. But with the high cost of a trip or fall, safety has to be a priority. Finally, there is a better way: introducing the GaffGun™. No longer do you have to be on your knees or use excessive tape to make your cables secure.
“Dammit Corey, put some muscle into it,” yelled the chief to the crewman working the taping machine. “And keep that cable as close to the wall as she’ll go. Steady Brian,” he said ducking down to avoid a light fixture, “and a warning would be nice.”
Brian smirked, and pantomimed jerking the cart sideways which the chief ignored.
Ramesh decided to ask for directions. “Hey, how do I…”
The crew chief shook his head. “Sorry Sir, we’re just techs. Your site POC should have all your destination info. Someone named Fist of Etiquette”
Corey giggled.
“Remember lads, we’re here to lay cable not to judge our clients.”
“Yeah, we all know whose cable you’d like to lube up and conduitize,” observed Brian, aping the posture and gait of a Troll.
“Shut your piehole and push the cart. His Growlr pic is totally hot, but it’s a decade and a hundred pounds out of date.” The WartCo crew receded down the corridor.
Something really big was about to happen at Thought! Magazine, at least with the commenters. Ramesh wondered how many of the handles he had seen while lurking were, well, whatever these people were. Was this somehow related to the music video? Thought! had the most notoriously rabid, snarky and informed comment section in the political arena. And it was well-known that there was no love lost between the commenters and staff. The boss had asked Ramesh to look for a weak point that could be exploited to further alienate the two sides from one another, but it appeared that was happening on its own.
“Hello,” said a close by voice.
Ramesh shrieked and started. Standing next to him was a man wearing a red and black checked flappy hat, matching flannel shirt, and loose-fitting jeans semi tucked into unlaced work boots.
“Hey, sorry about that. I didn’t hear you come up.”
“Good one, Doc.”
So apparently he did look like Doctor Bombay.
“Hey, I’m glad you’re back, eh. I’m headed over to Mario’s. He’s taking this really hard. Can you spare a second to help cheer him up?”
“Sure, I need to drop off something from Godwin, anyway,” said Ramesh as he started walking again.
“Thank God, he’s frantic. I wonder how long he can make that last? He’s going to Holland, but decades before the green cafes – if they even exist in that timeline. Where are you going?”
“To be a junior federal prosecutor working for Preet.”
“Beauty. Wreak havoc. The Squirrels really have a hardon for him, eh?”
“Sounds like.”
“And speaking of whom.” The Canadian paused and opened a door which somehow Ramesh had failed to notice. On the door was a sign reading “Data Processing.”
The room contained a complicated, multi-level structure of of small ramps, chutes, hamster wheels, spinning levers with balls attached, all now silent and still – a Sciuriac, an antique Indian squirrel-powered computer which used acorns to encode and store data. The Indian Museum of Digital Computing had an exhibit with part of a unit and a brief film loop of countless squirrels running to and fro along the ramps and wheels, taking acorns from the various output cups then dropping them into the various input chutes.
“Let’s not leave Mario hanging,” said Ramesh.
“Right. Good point.”
As they walked down the corridor the peppy Latin music started up again, and grew louder as they walked. They passed a door labelled “Men” and from around the next corner Ramesh saw a man in a black dress and low-crowned, broad brimmed hat approaching, as he got closer Ramesh saw the simple wooden cross on the twine around his neck, and the notched collar on whatever the dress-type garment was called – some sort of clerical outfit.
“Hello, Your Holiness,” giggled the Canadian.
“Hello Rufus, Heathen. I’ll pray for you both. Better get to your boy, he’s crying like the sissy bitch he is.”
Okay, so first things first. We established last time that whoever is writing this is a weeb Sailor Moon fan, right? Good, because that’s the only possible explanation for the opening of this episode. With no prelude or explanation whatsoever, for some reason this episode starts out with the girls in some other city that’s not Hilltowne, chasing around the Patchouli Bag Lady who stole the Moon Stick. The Sailor Guardians hurl some magic at the lightning youma, but she’s too fast for them, so they give up and go home. Seriously. They just LEAVE.
All right.
As soon as the sisters take off, Patchouli Hobo apparates back in and, with the coast clear, plunges the Moon Stick into the ground. Guess she’s opening the door to Tartarus after all! Too bad she was too swift and clever for this trio of witches who are supposed to be the most powerful and undefeatable sorceresses of all time. The ground splits open and the Moon Stick breaks back into three pieces as a zombie hand emerges from the earth.
むさぼれば 美しいしかばね それでも
Now that we’re all totally confused, the episode begins in earnest! Back at the house, Harry and Charity are looking at a broken rock on the table. Harry tells the girls that if this lodestone is broken, that means the Moon Stick is broken too. I… did I skip an episode somewhere? Where did the lodestone come from?
Charity informs the girls that the broken lodestone = broken Moon Stick = a demon must have been released from Tartarus, but they don’t know which one it was. However, whoever it is can most assuredly be assumed to be The Supreme Evilest (*cough* Trump *cough*), so the girls need to be ready to fight. They will have a window where the demon is weakened from its imprisonment in Tartarus, so if they want to defeat it, they’ll have to move fast.
Harry and Charity flirt, everyone gags, Mel tells Charity she’s been researching electricity demons who can teleport and hasn’t found anything, Harry acts surprised that Patchouli Hobo was able to teleport, I am even more confused because he saw her do it, right? He said that only Whitelighters could do that and it was all like ooooh evil Whitelighter, remember? Is there a gas leak in here?
Since I guess there’s not an imminent crisis or whatever, Macy heads off to work and Maggie heads to an internship recruitment meeting. Some fucking weird-ass hipster whistle music ironically twees at us while two yuppie Pinoys tell Maggie and a group of rapt millennials about their new dating app, which sounds like it’s exactly the same as other dating apps (it works using algorithms!), but it’s special and different and will help you find your one true love. You see, since Maggie has found her one true love in the form of a demon princeling, she wants to spread her happiness and is therefore interning with this company to… get her sisters laid, I think? Anyway, whoever refers the most new customers to the app gets to go to Chicago for some kind of seminar or something over the summer, and Maggie is all about that because Connerparkerdemon’s dad, CEO of the WalDemon, has a branch in Chicago, so they can spend a loving summer in the city.
Connerparkerdemon’s dad has other plans, though. He wants some of that sweet, sweet Charmed One blood, and the easiest way to do that is to employ all three sisters so he can mandate a blood test. Thus Connerparkerdemon suggests to Maggie that she instead come work with him at WalDemon this summer, so that they can make out during their breaks and for no other reason whatsoever. Maggie, a waman making her own way in the world, declines. It’s on to Plan B, then!
Back at WalDemon headquarters, Connerparkerdemon is getting a thorough dressing down from Mr. Walton. Why are you such a failure, blah blah. While he yells at him, Connerparkerdemon is overcome by a fit of tuberculosis. I guess that rare autoimmune disease thing from last episode wasn’t a lie after all. Since he’s half demon and half human, his halves are trying to kill each other, so he really is dying. WalDemon has been using their epigenetic whatevers to produce a serum that he injects to keep himself alive for however long. Apparently the reason Mr. Walton is trying to get Charmed One blood is to make a Better Cure that will keep Connerparkerdemon from dying. This seems uncharacteristically caring of him. Anyway, Connerparkerdude’s dying-ness makes for a brilliant Plan B. But more on that later.
Every good father knows the best way to get your child to stop coughing is to beat it out of them
Meanwhile, somewhere… for some reason… two gay dudes are on a date. They met each other on Maggie’s dating app and it was twu wuv at first sight. Isn’t it so sweet, this young love? Until it turns out that one of them is a demon and HE EATS THE OTHER ONE’S FACE! HOW’S THAT FOR TWU WUV?
Back at the house, Charity and Harry are flirting while the underemployed grad school dropout Mel sits on the couch “researching” things in the Book of Shadows, because today it’s a book that actually has to be read rather than just “magical Siri give me the answer.” Her studying is interrupted by a Google news alert on her phone reporting the disappearance of the gay dude whose face got ate. He disappeared in [Whatever Fucking City that isn’t Hilltowne from the Beginning]! That’s where we lost Patchouli Hobo! Let’s roll out!
They get to the crime scene and Mel freezes time. They help themselves to rubber gloves from the police’s stash, and Charity explains to Mel that they need to determine whether the incident was demonic or human in nature. If it’s a normal human crime, they would back away and leave it to the police; their jurisdiction only covers supernatural crime.
Mel, apparently trying to fill the void Niko left in her life by becoming a junior crimestopper, is incensed. Shouldn’t they be using their powers to help everyone?! Charity points out that if they used their powers to deal with human crime over a planet with seven billion people, it would leave them no time to deal with the demons who would just kill all the humans anyway. Mel ignores her and starts snooping in the back of the missing gay guy’s car. There she finds glowing blue… stink bug carcasses? Honestly, I can’t really tell, but it’s insectoid in nature. Cue Harry flipping out like a little girl.
As they leave the crime scene, they are watched by a homeless woman using a storm drain as her toilet. Oh, I mean by Patchouli Hobo.
Back at the house, Macy is discussing her lack of social life with Maggie. Macy believes that being a workaholic is the best way for her to have an amazing career. Maggie tells her she needs to “shake that gorgeous hair of yours out” and live a little.
AND THEN SHE TOUCHES MACY’S HAIR AND MACY DROPS EVERYTHING TO GIVE HER A LECTURE ABOUT HOW YOU DO NOT TOUCH BLACK WOMAN HAIR
NO, I’M NOT KIDDING, SHE SERIOUSLY DOES
TO HER OWN SISTER
Finally this show remembers that it’s supposed to be Woke Charmed
With that educational moment out of the way, Maggie suggests Macy sign up for her dating app, telling her that if she gets the most signups she gets to go to Chicago for the summer. Macy has a sad because she wants to have a sister summer. Weren’t you just screaming at her not to touch your sacred black woman hair?
Macy guilts her that she’s not allowed to leave her sisters because they can’t use the Power of Three without her. Maggie points out that Chicago is only a two hour drive away, and if it’s an emergency, Harry can apparate her. Macy says they can’t keep doing that to him because it makes him sick. I honestly thought they weren’t going to bring that up again ever, since it was just a throwaway line in the Belinda Carlisle episode, but I guess it is supposed to be important.
Over at the bar that didn’t exist until two episodes ago, Mel is taking out the trash, and, wonder of wonder, encounters Patchouli Hobo Dumpster diving. PH throws a lightning bolt at her; Mel freezes time to stop the lightning before it can hit her. PH flirts with her in the style of Garrus Vakarian, all reach and flexibility. Mel demands to know who she is. PH informs her that her name is Jada Pinkett-Smith and she’s here to recruit Mel for the Sarcana—short for Sisters of Arcana—an elite organization of witch mercenaries.
Mel is dubious that Jada is a witch and not a demon. Jada explains that she’s actually half witch, half Whitelighter, which is apparently Forbidden™. Thus, the Elders have tried to wipe her out of existence, but she’s managed to stay one step ahead of them with the help of the rogue witches in the Sarcana. Mel asks if she’s been killing the Elders, including her mother, because of their stance on Whitelighter/witch halfbreeds. Jada tells her that Dead Hippie Mom was secretly an ally of the Sarcana, and urges her again to join them and use her Charmed One powers to do good. She points out that the Sarcana help all of humankind, not just the magical ones, so if Mel were to join the Sarcana, she could fulfill her dreams of becoming Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Witch.
Jada leaves Mel with instructions to look for a spell on page 672 of the Book of Shadows, the Désénnnmáscárrrrrrárrrrrrrrrrrr spell. She helped Dead Hippie Mom write the spell, so if it’s there, it will be proof to Mel that Jada is telling the truth. She also gives Mel a shard of the Moon Stick so that it can’t be reassembled, as further proof of her loyalty. She tells Mel that she used it to free a witch who had been wrongly imprisoned by the Elders. She warns Mel that, Charmed or no, if she breaks the wrong rule, she could be the next to end up in Tartarus. Then she swishes her cape and swoops out.
Mel races straight back to the house and blurts everything out to Charity, because that seems wise. Charity is like, “That’s not possible. I mean, we killed the Sarcana.” LMAO you’re really helping your case there, Charity. But they’re terrorists, you see. They practice illicit magic in order to carry out vigilante justice. They don’t follow law and order at all. Very bad, very naughty. Mel asks how Jada could have known about the Désénnnmáscárrrrrrárrrrrrrrrrrr spell if she were lying. Charity says because the Sarcana were founded by a rogue Elder who used to have possession of the Book of Shadows. Mel hrrmmmms.
Meanwhile, Macy has caved and signed up for Maggie’s dating app. She’s not convinced she’s going to have any luck, though, because “studies have unanimously found that black women and Asian men are not only the least swiped on, they’re the least matched,” and on the off chance she did match with someone, “I’d likely be fetishized by those matches, and the last thing I want is some guy I just met telling me how exotic I am and how cute our babies will be.” (Real Dialogue Alert: That was the real dialogue.)
Finally! Bring me the wokeness!
Later, Charity is sitting outside all contemplatively. Harry comes out and tries to make out with her, but she says no—their love was a mistake, cursed, never meant to be. All right then. Harry’s balls a bright shade of neon blue, they then reminisce about her dead sister, who I guess was the one that Harry was the guardian for who blabbed her secret and got thrown in the loony bin and then committed suicide (from episode 3).
Over at the Generic Science Lab, Friendzone is crying softly in his cubicle. Looks like Summer wasn’t so Endless after all! Seriously, what was the purpose of that plot point? Anyway, Friendzone is single again and isn’t happy about it. He’s all snappy at Macy, who is not here for being spoken to that way by penises. She says, quote, “I don’t know what’s going on with you, but let me be clear: There’s no version of this relationship where you ever get to talk to me like that.” (She asked him where his reports were and he told her that he’d already emailed them to her. But he said it in a mad-sounding voice.)
The penis promptly bows down and begs forgiveness, which she benevolently bestows, as she is in a charitable mood today. He tells her she’s basically amazing and doing a fantastic job. She nods graciously.
Casual Haitian flag in the pencil cup, in case you forgot
At home, Maggie urges Macy to take advantage of Friendzone’s newfound singleness to “climb him like a tree.” Meow. Macy insists that ship has sailed, and also reminds her of the cowrie shell protection mark on him: “The one his grandma put on him.” Wait, what? I thought the last time we talked about this, you and Harry decided you’d put it on him yourself with your Afrocarribbean magic? Or something? I really feel like I’ve missed an episode, or perhaps the writer of this episode did.
Anyway, now Macy wants to take advantage of the new Asian guy who matched with her on the dating app—after all, since they’re both the bottom of the barrel, they can trust each other or something. This show is so anti-racist that it’s honestly kind of racist.
Maggie heads off for her own date with Connerparkerdemon. They’re eating WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK IS THAT
I don’t even want to know what this is
Over the course of one episode Maggie has apparently forgotten that she’s vegan and is now happily munching on what the actual fuck. We are distracted from this atrocity when Connerparkerdemon begins “losing his powers”. He runs to the bathroom to try to regain his composure. There, he is felt up by the waitress. Oh, I mean his brother the shapeshifter, pretending to be the waitress. That makes it less gross, definitely.
Demon Brother, previously known as FBI Agent Demon Guy, informs Connerparkerdemon that he’s here to ensure he stays on task. He can’t be distracted by Maggie’s feminine wiles. He can’t fall for the witch, dammit, a demon could never fall in love with a witch! He may be half human, but Demon Bro knows that inside, he’s a true demon. This dialogue is so hamfisted, I’m telling you what. It can be really hard to keep a straight face watching this.
Anyway, “losing his powers” at the dinner table made for a great excuse to get Maggie’s blood. When he returns, she asks if he’s okay, and he says that he’s been feeling sicker recently because he’s supposed to get a plasma transfusion but they haven’t been able to find a matching donor. Maggie volunteers to be tested to see if she’s a match for him, which conveniently gives the Waltons access to her blood. Hook, line, and sinker.
Meanwhile, another innocent couple (this one hetero) is on a date, marveling over how they found their perfect match on Maggie’s dating app. Wait a second—isn’t that the gay guy? He’s not gay anymore? He’s bi? It doesn’t matter, HE’S EATING HER FACE! NOM NOM NOM!
Definitely less gross than whatever Connerparkerdemon and Maggie were having for dinner.
Back at the house, Mel is having a crisis of spirit while Harry whimpers to himself about insect demons. When Mel mentions to Harry that she’s having second thoughts about Jada, Harry tells her that Charity’s sister who died (Fiona) had apparently been tricked by the Sarcana into revealing herself and was then abandoned by them. He warns Mel that they’re ruthless and he doesn’t want another of his charges to end up dead. Mel whatevers him and changes the subject.
At some other restaurant, Macy is on her date with the Asian guy and the two of them are commiserating about being statistically the least desirable members of humanity. This show is definitely not racist. Macy is attracted to his admission of unattractiveness. He thanks her for not being racist. (No, really, RDA.) But I think this entire episode just proved that she is? Anyway, no matter, he escorts her to her car, they kiss, and YOU KNOW WHAT HAPPENS NEXT.
Oh, so the perfectly nice Asian dude is a demon? I see how it is.
Back at the house, Maggie has returned from her date just in time to find Mel and Harry discovering a lead in the Book of Shadows: the demon who made the missing gay guy go missing was likely a cicada demon, and the things they found in the back of his car were pieces of exoskeleton. This demon appears every 17 years, taking human hosts to mate with before going dormant again for another 17 years. The last time it awoke, three Hilltowne University students disappeared.
Um, a lot more than three have disappeared this time.
Maggie takes a look at the list of missing people and realizes that they’re all people she’s signed up for the dating app. Whoopsie! Realizing Macy must be next, they race to find her. But it’s too late—Macy is already caught up in their web. Their web? These are cicadas, not spiders…? No matter! Gross bug thing!
They decide to try heading down to the dating app’s headquarters. Once there, Mel freezes time so Maggie can read the employees’ minds without them resisting. They discover that the colony’s queen is holed up in the basement, preparing to lay her eggs in each of the stolen host bodies. Eww. Once there, they find all the missing people all caught up in web. Spiders…? Harry has a panic attack. Mel and Maggie push through and find most of the victims have already had eggs laid in their mouths. This is even grosser than it sounds.
While they retch and gag, they’re confronted by one of the two yuppie Pinoys who founded the app, now in full bug form with some truly excellent CGI. /sarc Mel gives him a good stab through the head. Now all that’s left is the Queen Pinay. They free Macy, who’s dazed because the venom was pretty strong. Spiders…? As she recovers, Queen Pinay descends on her web. Spi—
Ella from Camp Rock sure has changed!
They cast the banishing spell. It doesn’t work. IT NEVER WORKS. Queen Pinay starts making the room get really hot, which is apparently something bees can do. Bees now?? No matter; Macy uses her telekinesis to bring a heavy object down on her, because everyone knows the easiest way to kill a bug is by smashing it.
So did everyone else who got kidnapped die, too? This isn’t made clear. They did get their faces et, but I mean so did Macy and somehow she’s fine.
The sisters return to their house, where Maggie announces that she’s decided against going to Chicago this summer—this near death experience made her realize she could lose her sisters at any times, and you know. Hos before bros and all.
To an extent, at least, because the next order of business is to try to make Macy/Friendzone happen. AGAIN. Macy resolves to give him a call and try to work around the cowrie shell mark that whoever put on him.
The next day at work, Mel is taking the trash out again. At least, I think she’s at work? I don’t know where else it would be, but they’re suddenly using a much larger cityscape stock photo for their lead shots, so I can’t tell Hilltowne from Freyersville or whatever the fuck now. Anyway, in the alley, some dude in a ski mask is mugging some woman. Mel starts to use her powers, then thinks better of it and goes running in to try to stop him the human way. She’s interrupted by Jada, who just tasers the dude with her lightning power and then uses her Whitelighter power to wipe the woman’s mind. How convenient! Whitelighters and witches definitely shouldn’t be allowed to reproduce. Such forbidden.
Jada tells Mel off for not stopping him herself. Mel argues that she was going to, the human way. Jada snarks that she’s kowtowing to the Elders, and when she’s ready to make a real difference—silence that stretches out about 5 seconds too long and veers into squirming discomfort territory—to come find her. Before she apparates out, Mel notices a tattoo on her hand that surely has some deeper meaning.
Mel rushes to Harry’s office, where we find a poster on the wall which asserts, Women’s Rights Are Human Rights. Once there, she summons Charity, telling her she needs to talk to her about what’s really going on with the Elders. Charity is like, “We were just about to summon you!” and leads Mel through a portal to WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK
If this doesn’t give you nightmares, zoom in on it
So it turns out the Elders are actually made up of a bunch of department store mannequins with a variety of ethnic hairstyles. This is normal. Charity assures Mel that their faces have been strategically blurred by the production team of Cops in order to protect their anonymity, since someone’s gunning for them and whoever that someone is can’t tell who they are just from the fact that they’re radiating magical energy or whatever.
Mel asks the Elders for more information about the Sarcana. Charity tells her that the Sarcana are tricking her by pretending to care about innocent people; the Elder Council protects the world, whereas the Sarcana are only concerned with serving their own ends, and won’t hesitate to harm innocents if it suits their own causes. Mel asks if Charity is referring to her sister, Fiona. Charity says that yes, Fiona is an example.
She then tells Mel that the Elders have chosen her for a mission: they want her to act as a spy on the Sarcana.
Dun DUNNN
The scene switches to Maggie going to visit Connerparkerdemon to tell him she had the plasma testing that morning. She also tells him that Mel went with her for moral support and donated plasma as well; she figured if neither of them were a match for Connerparkerdemon, at least someone will get some help out of it.
Oh, Connerparkerdemon says cheerfully, someone out there will be helped very much wink wink nudge nudge.
Meanwhile, over at the bar that didn’t exist until two episodes ago, Macy is boozing up in preparation for asking Friendzone out. She gives him a call and asks him to come meet her. Being pussywhipped, he says he has a few things to finish up at the Generic Science Lab and then he’ll be right over.
Mel has copied down the tattoo she saw on Jada’s hand and tracked it down to a tattoo parlor for which it’s the logo. The tattoo parlor looks like the inside of Miss CleoMama Roz’s nail salon, but my sister said she thinks it’s supposed to be a different place and they just used the same set. Inside the darkened parlor, Mel uses the Désénnnmáscárrrrrrárrrrrrrrrrrr spell, which opens a hidden door. She passes through… and is viciously clubbed to unconsciousness by some woman wielding a two-by-four.
She hit her so hard she rolled like ten feet. Like a boss.
Jada comes running in like, “Whoa whoa whoa, what are you doing, she’s the one I was trying to recruit!”
Hey man, your invisible glowing mark tried to warn you!
Overall Thoughts: While not as severe as in the first couple episodes, there was some delicious woke in this episode. It seems like they’ve switched from Mel being the main purveyor of woke to it being Macy. I mentioned before that despite being the worst actress, they seem to be giving Mel the most plot, and Maggie and Macy are sort of filler (although Maggie’s getting a bit more actual plot now that CPD’s been revealed to be a demon). She also is the top-billed one, which is odd because I don’t think any of these actresses have ever been in anything before. However, as mentioned previously, Mel’s actress is the only actual Latina one, so maybe that’s why.
Anyway! I think the ending of this episode is proof that I’m the real witch. I managed to kill Friendzone with my words alone. Maybe my sister and I will turn out to have a secret third sister, and then we’ll be the true Charmed Ones, destined to bring these pretenders down in a maelstrom. I can dream!
The door opened and Ramesh found himself face to face with a Troll, a Troll like in The Hobbit. The Troll was doing a dope deal with a chunky young Korean dude.
“Oh shit, the cops,” shrieked the dude.
And at that moment Ramesh remembered that he was wearing a badge.
Today’s Story…
The Troll stood about six foot eight even with his slouchy posture, with a bald head and gray goatee, and several obvious piercings. He was fat, like three neckrolls fat, and dressed in Doc Martens boots, calf-length baggy black jorts, and a black t-shirt with the Thought! Magazine nameplate over his left breast. And large and surprisingly shapely breasts they were, which was a bit unnerving for Ramesh. The Troll looked at Ramesh and grinned widely. His teeth weren’t as fangy as Ramesh expected, and were clean and some had silver fillings.
“Look who’s back. Hi Doc,” said the Troll to Ramesh before turning back to the dude.
“Stuff it, Cho. Doc Bombay ain’t no more a cop than me.”
“Nice suit, Doc,” said the Troll, turning back to Ramesh. “Big change from your usual outfit.”
“Hi. Thanks.” said Ramesh, very curious but deciding his best action was to play along. He recognized the handle “Doctor Bombay, You Know from Mumbai” from lurking on the Thought! website at his boss’ behest. Perhaps all South Asians looked alike to Trolls, and obviously the dude didn’t know Doctor Bombay.
“Hey, can you drop something off with Mario,” the Troll asked Ramesh.
“Sure.”
“Great, I’ll make it worth your while. Here’s his zee,” said the Troll producing a sealed plastic bag of weed.
“Alea iacta est,” thought Ramesh and stepped through the door.
“Here’s a bud for you. Pineapple Express.” The Troll unpalmed a smallish colita and handed it to Ramesh along with the bag.
“Pineapple Express combines the potent and flavorful forces of parent strains Trainwreck and Hawaiian… This hard-hitting sativa-dominant hybrid provides a long-lasting energetic buzz perfect for productive afternoons and creative escapes.” -Leafly
Ramesh had smoked quite a bit of pot before becoming a federal prosecutor. His gift bud appeared to be from the same batch as the weed in the bag. He gave the megabud a good sniff. It was indeed the Express, and of a most fragrant character. “Thanks,” he nodded appreciatively to the Troll and dropped the pot into his suit coat pocket.
“What are you going to be, Doc? Detective? Which timeline?”
“Junior federal prosecutor, working for Preet,” said Ramesh, remembering that the truth was the best lie of all.
“Hurr-Durr,” laughed Godwin. “No way…”
Wow, so Trolls really did laugh like that, thought Ramesh.
Godwin’s laugh degenerated into a long, nasty series of lung noises which culminated in the production of a sizeable loogie which the Troll expertly spat into a short, widemouthed brass vase sitting on the floor. The loogie hit with enough force to cause the vase to tip slightly, whereupon it started rotating making a wuka-wuka noise before finally coming to rest. The oyster, which had been sitting on the lip of the vase covering the opening, slowly burbled up then burst with a wet “plorp” and oozed slowly into the vase.
“Hey Godwin, my bags look kind of light,” whined Cho holding up two anemic snack baggies containing shake, stems, and seeds – the worst sort of schoolyard schwag.
“Take it or leave it, Cho. And tell Mr. Rico Suave he’ll get a nicer bag if he came down himself instead of sending his fanboi interns, and buy more than a dime bag at a time. You’d think he could afford that, right? Your bag is light because of the risk I’m taking,” said Godwin hooking his huge thumb at the sign on the door. “I’m doing good in commenter training and don’t want to fuck it up. Why are you still here?”
Cho stuffed the bags in the pocket of his skinny jeans, and hustled out the door and up the steps, shaking his fulsome rump in its stretchy denim cradle to Godwin’s obvious enjoyment. “Doctor Gilhooly is right, you people are all just one step away from Nazis,” called Cho petulantly over his shoulder.
Ramesh expected Godwin to pursue and catch Cho, and subsequently dismember and/or eat him. Instead, Godwin just slammed the great door shut and began beating on it with his huge fists. “That little shit,” bellowed Godwin. Ramesh now understood how the dimple had formed in the door.
“Hey, could you have the Paw do me one last time,” asked Godwin, still slightly tumescent from his scene with Cho and subsequent raging.
Ramesh didn’t know what Godwin meant by “do me,” but he was about to find out. He had nothing against gay, but working a zombie monkey paw to give a Troll a telekinetic handy was just a bit out there.
“Sure,” he said, playing for time.
To Ramesh’s surprise, Godwin turned his back and bent over slightly cupping his knees with his huge palms. There was ample buttcrack showing. The troll was wearing a black jockstrap with “NASTYPIG” woven into the waistband fabric in red, along with a pig snout logo. Ramesh suddenly felt queasy, like an hour after Chipotle queasy.
Ramesh slowly reached into the purse and extracted the Paw by the stump and held the hand upright, palm towards Godwin. He knew it was best to be very specific with tulpas, but he also didn’t want to risk giving the wrong instruction. And Godwin had said “one last time,” so presumably the paw knew what to do.
Monkey Paw, Monkey Paw,
Make Godwin happy.
Monkey Paw, Monkey Paw,
Just like before.
Sad monkey hoots. The Paw slowly formed its tiny hand into a claw and started flexing its fingers. Ramesh noticed a twitching lump underneath Godwin’s shirt in the vicinity of the shoulder blades. He waved the Paw around with a vigorous circular motion and as he did so the shirt lump tracked the movements of the Paw. Godwin began making a series of happy grunts. Ramesh started moving the Paw down then up, from as high as his arm would reach down to the point in space where the jockstrap waistband began to move. He didn’t want to risk taking the Paw below the equator. Dark spots appeared at several places on Godwin’s shirt, as the Paw popped pustules and expressed bullae.
“Right there,” grunted Godwin in a voice an octave below basso profondo.
Ramesh worked the paw extra special hard and wondered what he had done in a past life to deserve this. He finally finished everything that could reasonably be considered Godwin’s back, and paused.
Godwin straightened up, as much as one could with his physique. “Thanks, Doc. I haven’t had one that good since Lützi Steegenwould was here. She took the MTA out to Brooklyn to buy a garden rake with her little intern stipend just to scratch my back. Godwin became lachrymose, which eventually caused the production of another loogie and another ringing of the vase.
Ramesh had worked up a bit of a sweat. That was the difference between Western magic and Eastern magic – wizards just waved their wands and shit happened; shamans had to expend energy equal to the effect they achieved. The Paw waited for a few seconds after Ramesh stopped moving it, then started cleaning under its fingernails using its thumbnail, then vice versa. Finally the Paw balled its tiny fist then unballed it quickly three times in succession then shook its fingers out. Funny that something dead and rotting, and animated by the darkest necromancy, should be so fastidious. Ramesh dropped the Paw back into the purse.
“I guess I’ll head over to Mario’s now,” said Ramesh.
“Yeah, I know you all have to get ready. I’ll miss you guys,” snuffled Godwin.
“Hey, you’re going to make a fine commenter,” said Ramesh, extending his hand.
“That means a lot, you being a William and Mary graduate.” At that, Godwin pulled Ramesh in for a big hug, and Ramesh found himself smothered in Troll moobage.
“Thanks,” said Ramesh once Godwin relaxed his embrace.
Ramesh turned and walked down the corridor, trying to be nonchalant as if he did this every day. He wondered if Godwin was checking out his butt. But even more disturbing was how Godwin knew he was a William and Mary alum. Unless Doctor Bombay was also an alum, but that would be suspiciously coincidental.
He came to to a Tee in the corridor. He stopped, looked and listened. Identical corridor in each direction. From the right he heard a muffled chorus of screeching, from the left he heard peppy Latin music.
Hello and welcome to another mind-bleaching episode of Woke Charmed! My sister joined me for this recap which always helps get me through this insipidity, so let’s just jump right into it!
Our story begins in a hipster wine shop. Yet another generic white guy with a beard is selling Mark Zuckerberg’s wife and her boyfriend a wine that pairs well with a heavy red sauce and a garlicky bruschetta. As the couple leave with their fine purchase, the generic bearded white guy pauses to sample some of his own wares when suddenly the lights go out. Generic bearded white guy hears a sound in the back of the shop. When he goes to investigate, a shadowy figure approaches him. Oh, wait, it isn’t a shadowy figure—it’s a figure that’s actually a shadow. The shadow picks up the white guy and hurls him into a table laden with wine bottles, which smash with a satisfying smash noise. As the white guy writhes in pain, the shadow approaches him and… PULLS OUT HIS KIDNEY! WHAT?
Kidney stones getting you down? We have the solution!
His kidney is all glowing and shit. It looks like a red-hot poker, or perhaps a freshly forged horseshoe pulled from the blacksmith’s fire. (“Ferrier,” my sister corrects me.) Why does this generic white guy have a magical kidney?
I guess we’re not going to find out right now, because the title card flashes and the scene switches to Connerparkerdude knocking on Maggie’s back door. She comes prancing out in a skin-tight, cleavage-bearing minidress at 2:00 in the afternoon, you know. As you do. She demands to know what Connerparkerdude is doing here. He tells her that he can’t stay away from her. “That smile… gets me every time.” To quote Belinda Carlisle, gag me with a spoon.
Connerparkerdude informs Maggie that Regina George has a new boyfriend now, so what’s to stop them? He wants to take her on a proper date. He tells her that he has tickets to Beyoncé. At this, my sister and I looked at each other and said, “Did he just say he has tickets to Beyoncé? Why would a guy have…?” and we had to pause it and rewind it and try to figure out how to turn on subtitles on Roku. Sure enough, he said he had tickets to Beyoncé. This WTF-ery became clear when the camera panned to Maggie, grinning in amazement, and turned back to find Connerparkerdude shirtless and holding a kitten.
AHHH. It’s a dream. You clever writers, so original.
The dream is interrupted by Mel banging on Maggie’s door. Macy wants to get to work early today, and Hilltowne, which appears to be approximately two square miles in size and comprises only the college, some neighborhoods and the police station, is apparently too large for them to just walk to, so they’re carpooling, which means that Maggie has to stop using Harry’s training orb for masturbatory fantasies.
Excuse me, what?
Yes, it turns out that she wasn’t just dreaming, she was projecting a fantasy using that thing that Harry used to create a mini dimension for them to train in way back in episode two. Eww. Mel asks her why she’s so interested in a philandering frat boy. I guess her whole “I was wrong about the Greek system” epiphany from last episode couldn’t be expected to last. Also, Connerparkerdude is a frat boy? I guess it makes sense since he was dating Regina George, but idk, in my experience, frat boys were… honestly, Animal House wasn’t that far off. I can’t see some hipster douchebag who quotes classic literature making it through initiation without getting paddled to death. Although maybe he could make it in one of the gay fraternities. After all, my favorite frat story will always be the one about the Sig Eps all sticking it in each other’s butts until they formed a conga line.
The Sig Eps would probably love this.
Maggie points out that he’s only philandering because she kissed him, and more importantly, when are we going to tell Macy about how we traveled back in time and overheard pregnant Mom talking about there being something wrong with the baby? That was a perfectly logical sentence progression and definitely not just the writers using bad dialogue for exposition. Mel reminds Maggie that Macy is already worried enough about what the psychic said, you know, about Macy having hidden darkness. Probably best not to worry her more.
Meanwhile, in the other room, Macy puts the pentagram pillar key around her neck, looking in the mirror to admire herself before reciting Bloody Mary three times. Definitely no darkness to worry about here!
From downstairs, Harry summons the girls to breakfast. Wait a minute—didn’t he move out?? He had suitcases! He said he was going back to the condo! Yeah, they initiated him into the shower pouf sisterhood, but no one said, “Harry, don’t go.” So why is he…? Never mind, it’s not important. All that matters is that he made them all bacon butties for breakfast, because British.
As they all stare at his quaint foreign food with great trepidation, Harry asks them if any of them noticed any strange seismic activity last night. Macy points out that earthquakes in Michigan would be very un-Scientific, but Maggie interrupts that yes, she noticed a tremor in the night when she got up to pee. Thanks for that visual, Mags! Harry’s fears are confirmed. Not about the peeing thing, but about the earth shaking thing. It was… A HELLQUAKE! Nothing to worry about, though. More importantly, where’s his orb? Maggie hands it back over. Harry looks like he wants to drown it and himself in hand sanitizer when he finds out what she’s been doing with it.
Mel says that instead of masturbating to Harry’s orb 24/7, Maggie should be registering for classes for next semester. Maggie says she’s considering dropping out of school. I think that would be a great, economically responsible decision. Mel is HORRIFIED. College is a really important time to figure out what you love to do, after all. Maggie asks if bartending is what Mel loves to do. Apparently the secretary job (gasp) fell through, so now Mel is working at the bar that didn’t exist until last week.
Now we all throw our heads back and laugh!
Macy commiserates that jobs in academia are hard to come by. Now that the Walton Family of Epigenetic Demon Guys has bought out the Generic Science Lab, apparently Dr. Kevorkian’s been fired (is that what we’re calling it nowadays?) and Macy is concerned she may be the next one on the chopping block. Considering that last week Dr. Kevorkian was stabbed in the neck and nobody even knows he’s dead, a literal chopping block wouldn’t be an unfounded fear.
Her fears do turn out to be unfounded, though; when she gets to the lab and meets her new boss, Mrs. I’m-Assuming-She’s-A-Demon Walton, it turns out she’s actually been promoted! Macy is getting Dr. Kevorkian’s old job, but it comes with a catch—Wal-Science is facing budget cuts as part of its restructuring, and that means someone’s gotta go. And we all know who: FRIENDZONE! He’s too expensive and he’s not important. Mrs. Walton gives Macy the job of firing him. When Macy protests that he’s her friend (IYKWIMAITYD), Mrs. Walton explains that she’s thinking like a vagina, and if she wants to succeed in the world of business, she needs to think like a penis. Penises fire each other all the time and then go out and play golf afterwards! So fire that Friendzone, dammit.
Over on campus, Maggie is being stalked by Connerparkerdude. He says he hasn’t seen her in World Lit since the Incident. So lmao she asked her teacher for a midterm extension and then just completely stopped going to class? Girl, it’s time to drop out.
Connerparkerdude asks Maggie if she saw the group text from Regina George. It turns out that she’s dating the Old Spice Guy now! Having traded up, she texted Maggie and Connerparkerdude with her blessing.
This is why Regina George is the most pure character on this series.
He then proceeds to ask her out using the same dialogue as from her creepy orb fantasy. “That smile… gets me every time.” Isn’t this an episode of Sabrina: The Teenage Witch? She somehow managed to make reality play out like her fantasy? He does not have Beyoncé tickets, though. Maggie requests that they go somewhere quiet and low-key for their date. He suggests he pick her up after her shift at the restaurant/café/whatever tomorrow. She gets off at two, right? Maggie asks how he knows that. The audience screams, “BECAUSE HE’S STALKING YOU.”
Over at the bar, Mel’s new place of employ, she is working on her graduate thesis: “The Future of Intersectional Feminism: Where do we go from here?” (Real Dialogue Alert: Okay, it wasn’t spoken, but those were really the words she typed.) As she mulls over her own genius, she is approached by a woman of whom, if I saw her on the street, I would cross the street to steer clear and with whom I would go out of my way to avoid eye contact. She looks like she would fuck you up and then take a leak on your maimed body as you bleed out. You know, like a good 2/3 of the vagrants in Portland.
Does she make anyone else viscerally uncomfortable?
Okay, I’m going to be honest with you guys. I already forgot that Mel is a lesbian. So when this hobo starts hitting on her, I’m like, “Whoa now.” And then Mel reciprocates and I find myself screaming, “Why? Why? Why did we have to write Niko out of this show? Look at this woman! Look at her! She looks like she smells of patchouli and cat pee! Niko was cute! Niko was pretty! Niko was easy on the eyes! Are you going to make me look at this escapee from Portlandia for the next umpteen weeks? Isn’t it bad enough that I have to look at the clone of Chelsea’s ugly boyfriend from Days of Our Lives? Am I going to have to see the person who spit on my shoes for not giving her a quarter in Pioneer Square, Seattle naked?”
Mel is so delighted by this bag lady flirting with her that she excitedly Facetimes Maggie. Her sister doesn’t have time for this exciting news, however. She’s too busy thinking about dropping out of college. This news is enough to knock all the hobo-flirt endorphins right out of Mel’s system. You can’t drop out of college, what do you mean by “I don’t know if I should waste all this time and money if I don’t know what I want to do,” that’s quitter talk and my mama didn’t raise no—
A knock at the door spares Maggie from this. She hangs up on Mel, goes to open the door, and the KIDNEY-LESS WHITE GUY collapses into her arms! “Charmed One, please, help me,” he begs before keeling over onto the floor.
Commercial over! Somehow Mel and Macy, without Harry’s instant travel powers, make it back to the house before the kidney-less wonder regains consciousness, and the four of them manage with great effort to carry the unconscious guy to the couch. Why Macy doesn’t just levitate him is beyond me. Maggie comments that he smells like a wet dog. Mel doesn’t notice the smell—she obviously doesn’t have a sense of smell, since she found patchouli hobo attractive—but she DOES notice that he’s wearing shoes, which are not allowed on the couch. She pulls the unconscious dude’s shoes off and Dear Lord He Has Goat Hooves.
He’s a satyr! Apparently we’re doing all of that on this show. Witches, demons, banshees, creatures from Greek mythology, WE’VE GOT IT ALL. This show is still relevant, goddammit.
Harry uses his Whitelighter powers to heal the satyr’s missing kidney, just like in Star Trek IV. The goat man jolts awake and starts immediately fawning (or should that be fauning? ??) over the Charmed Ones. Harry starts to introduce himself as the one who, you know, healed his kidney. The satyr dismisses him out of hand, because penis.
The satyr informs them that he was a guardian of one of the shards of the Scythe of Tartarus. When Macy, who apparently doesn’t know everything after all, asks what that is, the satyr does this:
Instagram fabulous
My sister: “If this is supposed to be Greek, why did he give them all flower crowns instead of laurel wreaths?”
Me: “Because they really enjoy emasculating Harry, okay?”
The satyr informs them that blah blah Greek mythology, you all know what Tartarus is, right? So apparently there’s a scythe you can use to get into it, but Zeus broke it into three pieces and entrusted it to three sentinels. The shadow demon figured out who the sentinels were—MIRACLE OF MIRACLES, THEY WERE ALL IN HILLTOWNE, MICHIGAN—and is trying to collect the pieces of the scythe so he can get into Tartarus and break the Even Worse Than The Ones We’ve Met Before, Yes Even Including The Harbinger demons out.
In order to locate the pieces and then bind them together, a beacon is needed. When the beacon is activated, it causes the pieces to start attempting to draw together. The beacon has likely been activated already, which is how the shadow demon is able to trace the sentinels of the shards. This all seems so very anime.
Over at the Waltons’ Epigenetic Demon Headquarters, the Head Walton is admiring one of the shards of the scythe. Big surprise there. “One down, two to go,” he says to the shadow demon. He also exposits to the shadow that the reason he wants to get into Tartarus is because he can’t get the goddamn paint can with the Harbinger inside it to open. He’s tried every spell and incantation—“Get it? In-CAN-tation?” (Real Dialogue Alert: That was real dialogue)—to no avail. He’s assuming someone in Tartarus will probably know how, and if not, eh, no skin off his nose. With nary a chuckle at Walton’s amazing pun, shadow demon shuffles silently away.
Back at the house, Harry is wearing sunglasses indoors and has passed out on top of a working blender. It took a few minutes, but by putting our heads together, my sister and I finally figured out that the hipster wine shop-owning satyr drank them all (except Maggie the soror whore) under the table last night and they’re all hungover. This show is great at beating you over the head with some things and leaving others completely vague and unclear. They formulate a strategy for stopping the demon. Without the beacon, they can’t trace the other two sentinels, but they might be able to trace the demon itself. Harry gives a sample of demon DNA from satyr’s wound to Macy to analyze. Mel says she’ll comb the Book of Shadows for information about shadow demons, and Maggie the Uncanny Millennial sets up a Google alert on her phone for any reported blackouts in the area.
Then she heads off to her date with Connerparkerdude, who says, quote, “I didn’t think it was possible to get this excited about broccoli.”
?
??
???
Who is this guy?! WHY must we be subjected to this bland, uninteresting hipster douchebag just because Maggie needs a mouth to stick her tongue into? Maggie is like, “It’s so sweet that you knew I’m vegan.” I’m like, 1. You are? 2. HE IS STALKING YOU
They’re eating raw broccoli with chopsticks. I long to die.
Maggie and Connerparkerdude bond over their conscientious abstention from animal byproducts (so I’m guessing those boots you’re wearing are faux leather, Maggie?) and their terrible fathers. Maggie’s father was, of course, absent from her life. Connerparkerdude’s, as previously mentioned, was the sort of person who made his children read classic works of literature and discuss them at the dinner table—which was always laid out with a white tablecloth and three varieties of forks. Ye gods, no wonder these two are so insufferable.
They start making out, and Maggie overhears him thinking, I can’t let her find out the truth.
My sister: “Oooh! Deep, dark secret? Maybe he’s a demon!”
Me: “…”
Her: “…”
Both of us: “HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA”
Maggie calls Macy to wail about whatever Connerparkerdude’s hiding from her. Macy tells her not to worry. Maggie is like, “But what if it’s a deep, dark secret?” Macy, in a definitely not defensive way, reminds her that having a dark thought doesn’t make someone a dark person; maybe his secret is just something that’s difficult for him to talk about, but not a bad thing. But she doesn’t have time for that right now—she has to fire Friendzone.
Or that’s the plan, anyway. Friendzone spends the entire conversation subtly pointing out how indispensible to the Generic Science Lab he is. He also says, and I quote: “Gregorian was a dick, Thaine was a straight-up sexual predator. I’m all for having some badass ladies taking over and righting the ship. It’s about damn time.”
People are all calling Kevorkian a dick even though the dude got stabbed in the neck last episode. RIP, Kevorkian, lying somewhere in a shallow, unmarked grave.
Meanwhile, Maggie drops in on the frat house where Connerparkerdude lives bearing a bottle of wine from the satyr, as you do. She is referred by one of the brothers to his bedroom. Bow-chicka-wow-wow. Maggie heads up to his room and knocks, only to find the door unlatched. She pushes it open and sees Connerparkerdude… injecting something into his left arm! DUN DUN DUNNNNN
First of all, I couldn’t even see what he was doing until we rewound it three times. Secondly, he had his arm kind of splayed across his stomach, so my sister thought he was injecting something into his stomach, so we were both assuming he was injecting insulin. Diabetic, huh? There’s some deep, dark secret, if you’re a member of the Baby-Sitters’ Club. But of course Maggie thinks he’s shooting up and runs away weeping.
Back at the house, Mel is not working on her graduate thesis. She calls Harry to tell him she found a shadow demon banishing spell. Harry says great work, how’s your thesis coming? Mel says she needs another extension. Harry tells her the university told him he couldn’t give her another one. I don’t understand this whole subplot about him being the head of the women’s studies department. Harry recommends she use her powers to freeze time while she works on her thesis, speculating that since it wouldn’t be the most exciting personal gain in the world, the karmic aftereffects would probably be pretty mild. So wait, did we ever establish whether Mel’s powers freeze the whole world or just a small radius? Regardless, she tells Harry and her thesis to get bent.
Mel isn’t in the mood to write 50,000 words on the topic of intersectional feminism? What is this show coming to?!
Just then, Mel’s phone dings, saving her from this riveting conversation. There’s been a power outage at the Hilltowne Fertility Clinic, which this town is apparently big enough to have. The shadow demon attacks some broad and grabs her piece of the Scythe, which triggers another hellquake. He escapes with the shard just as the sisters and Harry rush in. They hurry to the aid of the broad.
After getting the lights back on and apprising her of the situation, the broad admits that she suspected something like this was going to happen, as she’d noticed her Scythe piece vibrating repeatedly over the last week, like it was calling out to the other pieces. Maggie asks the broad if she’s a satyr; the broad huffily replies that exCUSE you, she is Tawaret, ancient Egyptian goddess of fertility and childbirth. Apparently this is also a thing we’re doing. The sisters awkwardly genuflect at her, which isn’t weird or anything.
No, but you don’t look like a hippopotamus either, so…
Back at the house, Macy speculates that maybe the reason the shards are reaching out to each other is because they’re magnetic, like a lodestone. Science! Their discussion is interrupted by a fuckton of bees trying to break into the house. Harry informs the sisters that he’s entomophobic and proceeds to squeal and cower like a little girl. Macy, remaining cool, calm, and collected, explains that bees navigate with a form of magnetic resonance, and that the fact that they’re trying to get into the house indicates that… THE LAST SHARD IS SOMEWHERE INSIDE!
Now, what would the shard be doing inside their house? Mel wonders if it’s because their mom was a sentinel. Macy wonders if maybe their mom used the scythe to bust a demon out of Tartarus. (MACY’S DAD PLEASE MACY’S DAD.) Maggie wonders why it couldn’t have been the fun kind of Beyhive trying to break into their house. (Real Dialogue Alert.) Harry is too busy screaming about the bees to be much help in anything. Macy decides to open the doors and let the bees in to find the shard for them. The bees lead them to the attic, where they start swarming around a hatch in the ceiling. Macy uses her powers to open the hatch and bring down a box that has the last shard inside. The bees conveniently go away. They open the box, and another hellquake erupts.
Once the hellquake passes, Mel notices that there’s some kind of dancing going on under Macy’s shirt. She assumes that it’s because there’s a bee in Macy’s shirt, but SURPRISE! Magnetically, the key Macy found at the end of the last episode and has been wearing under her shirt pops out and goes sailing into the butt end of the scythe shard.
Oh, yeah, guys, I meant to tell you about that…
The sisters compare notes about the whole “Key to your past”/“Ibi”/“There’s something wrong with the baby” thing. They realize their mom’s key is the beacon, and Macy putting it on is what made the shards start vibrating at each other. Whoopsie. But the girls don’t have time for much more than a brief “we need to not keep secrets from each other” lecture before they realize that they need to brace for the shadow demon, who will undoubtedly be arriving to claim the last shard at any moment. They prepare the spell that Mel found in the Book of Shadows, which will banish the demon with light. Hipster music wails as they prep the spell in slow-mo. Mel says a Latin incantation with a Spanish accent. Etcetera, etcetera.
The demon shows up, knocking out the power to the house, but because of their prep work, eight billion candles are lit that the demon can’t extinguish. As the demon enters the attic, they cast the spell to bind it. But before they can finish it, the demon materializes the two other shards, one in each hand. They pulse and begin drawing toward the last shard, which the girls had placed back in the box that came out of the ceiling hatch. The box opens, but Maggie dives over the shard, pinning it under her body before the demon can grab it.
The demon dives on top of Maggie, and when they connect, the two of them are able to phase through the floor into the room below. They land on the bed in a romantic tangle, and my sister says, “I ship her with this shadow demon more than Connerparkerdude.” Maggie wrestles the shard away from him and runs out into the hallway. The demon pursues her, brandishing the two Scythe shards, which draw Maggie back towards him. She keeps her grip on her shard and the demon loses his, causing the fragments to fly together, reconnecting and forming the goddamn Moon Stick from Sailor Moon. I told you this was an anime!
ムーン・スティック
The shadow demon lunges for Maggie once more. This time when they connect, she is able to read the demon’s thoughts. She realizes the demon is in pain, and asks him why he’s trying to get the shards. The demon doesn’t answer her, merely staring silently. I mean, the thing’s a shadow—why do people keep expecting it to talk?
Taking advantage of the demon’s distraction, Macy uses her powers to rip the Scythe away from him and bring it into Mel’s hand. Before Mel can react, though, she’s struck by lightning. She drops the Scythe, and it falls over the landing down to the entryway below… where’s it’s caught by none other than the patchouli hobo from the bar!
She and Mel lock eyes, and then she apparates out in the exact same way that Harry does, only with added lightning effects. With the scythe gone, the shadow demon also flees.
With the power back on, the girls and Harry regroup. Mel tells them that she saw that woman before. Macy asks if she’s a demon—Harry says that the fact that she stole the Scythe would indicate so, but her teleportation spell was the same as a Whitelighter’s. Macy asks if she could be a rogue Whitelighter; Harry admits that he’s not sure. He wouldn’t think a Whitelighter would go rogue, but he has to consult the Elders to be sure.
Maggie mentions the fact that she was able to sense the demon’s feelings, and takes it as a sign that her powers are escalating. She wonders how it’s possible that she could read a demon’s mind; Harry speculates that, like with Angela Wu, the demon may still have some shred of humanity left inside it. Maggie decides that her new career goal is to become a demon psychiatrist.
During this exchange, Mel is nursing her shoulder, which was struck by the patchouli hobo. Harry asks to look at it so that he can heal it; she pulls her sleeve aside and reveals that her shoulder is now covered in Lichtenberg figures, like the ones that were on her mother’s body as well as the bodies of the other dead Elders.
All riiiight! The bag lady is the one who’s been killing all the witches! This just gets better and better.
Mel asks Harry not to heal her shoulder, because the mark is like a physical connection to her mother. Macy whines about how her only connection to their mother is her internal evil. She also whines again about how her mom “gave her up.” ExCUSE me, why has no one mentioned Macy’s father since the first episode? Why is no one wondering who this dude is/was??? They have never once said that Macy was adopted, they said that she was raised by a single father who lied and said her mother was dead. Why am I the only person who remembers this? Shouldn’t Macy remember, you know, her own life?
Harry tells Macy that everyone has the capacity for darkness, but it’s your actions, not your nature, which define you. Macy takes this to heart and heads to the Walton Family Generic Science Lab, where she tells Mrs. Walton that she refuses to fire Friendzone: he’s too important to the lab. She says that it’s the way of the penis to lay people off, but, being a vagina, she tells Mrs. Walton she believes she knows of another way. Mrs. Walton says that if she can find a way to save the lab $40K, then girl power. Macy agrees and proceeds to head out to fire this guy instead.
Since I can’t gif from Amazon, I’ll just tell you that this guy isn’t having a seizure, he’s trying to catch a jellybean in his mouth.
Sisters are doing it for themselves.
Back at the house, Maggie gleefully informs Mel that she has signed up for her courses for next semester. She’s decided that she’s going to study psychology in order to pursue her new dream career of being a demon psychiatrist. Mel congratulates her and tells her that she’s made a decision of her own: she is going to drop out of grad school. Apparently her dreams of becoming a renowned women’s studies professor have begun to fade. She realizes that she was only doing it to follow in their mother’s footsteps, but now that she’s been horribly disfigured, she has a new connection to her.
But what about the articles in Critical Inquiry that make men feel as though their penises have been torn from their bodies?
This scintillating discussion is interrupted by Connerparkerdude, who has come to tell Maggie his deep, dark secret. He reveals that what she saw him injecting wasn’t drugs. It was “medicine” (but not insulin). You see, he has a “rare congenital autoimmune disease” (but not diabetes). It’s degenerative, and he’s slowly dying. He’ll be lucky to reach forty.
My sister: “So what is this ‘medicine’?”
Me: “Stem cells.”
My sister: “What, just liquid stem cells?”
Me: “Yes.”
Connerparkerdude admits that he hasn’t told anyone about this, not his frat brothers or even Regina George. He always felt like if people knew he was dying (albeit slowly), it would make people treat him differently or be a drag on the frat brothers’ good times. Maggie promises to keep his secret, and they stick their tongues in each other’s mouths. I sigh at the utter banality of this “deep, dark” secret.
Later, at the Walton Headquarters, Epigenetic Demon Guy is not pleased with the shadow demon. Where is the Scythe of Tartarus, goddammit?
The shadow demon steps forward to answer, and
OH MY GOD OH MY GODDDDDD FUCK YES HE’S THE DEMON FUCK YES FUCK YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS
Connerparkerdemon says, “Sorry, Dad”—insert more screams of delight from the cheap seats—“it got away from me.” He explains about the patchouli hobo, whom he believes to be a lightning demon. His father mocks him for being bested by a piddly little lightning demon.
In true Thanos fashion, he pits Connerparkerdemon against his brother, FBI Agent Demon Guy. “Never send a half-demon to do a full demon’s job,” he sneers. Ah! So Connerparkerdemon is a HALF-demon! No wonder earlier when he and Maggie were having their banal chit-chat, he told Maggie that his father always said his marriage to his mother was the biggest mistake of his life.
Dear God, please may Maggie and Connerparkerdemon not be siblings. Please may this not be Shadowhunters redux…
Demon Dad tells Connerparkerdemon that he’ll look for another way to open the paint can, but in the meantime, he needs him to use Maggie a little longer. Connerparkerdemon pleads that Demon Dad promised once the Scythe assignment was over, he wouldn’t make him do any other demonic errands. Demon Dad taunts him some more for being a whiny little bitch, and demands to know what Maggie’s power is. Connerparkerdemon tells him she’s an empath. Demon Dad is pleased, stating that this is something they can use. The episode ends with him sneering, “Don’t fail me again, son,” as Connerparkerdemon looks all emo-ly into the camera.
?????????? good shit go౦ԁ sHit? thats ✔ some good??shit right??there??? right✔there ✔✔if i do ƽaү so my self ? i say so ? thats what im talking about right there right there (chorus: ʳᶦᵍʰᵗ ᵗʰᵉʳᵉ) mMMMMᎷМ? ?? ?НO0ОଠOOOOOОଠଠOoooᵒᵒᵒᵒᵒᵒᵒᵒᵒ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? ? ??Good shit
Overall thoughts: Finally this show gets goddamn interesting. I’m telling you what, I had no clue what was going on for most of this episode because, with the exception of the slow-mo montage of them setting up the spell to wailing hipster music, it was breakneck fast. Even with subtitles on I had to watch it twice before I caught everything they said. But the two reveals of the homeless Seattle bag lady being an evil Whitelighter (?!) and then Connerparkerdude being Connerparkerdemon was like sweet, sweet candy. I’m actually unironically excited to see where this goes, until it inevitably lets me down. And then we can laugh at the fallout!
Spoiler alert: I watched the next episode already. The wokeness finally returns next week!
“Sergeant Brown, since it’s going to be a while may I go inside and use the bathroom,” asked Ramesh.
“Sure,” said Brown. “Just stay on the First Floor.”
“I’ll keep an eye on him,” said Murphy.
They walked through the glass doors and into the building lobby. Behind the empty security desk a grimy Panasonic CRT monitor slowly cycled through different security camera feeds. They reached the elevators and Murphy paused.
“You going to be long,” asked Murphy.
“No,” said Ramesh feeling as if he was eight years old on a roadtrip with his parents.
Murphy stopped to read the Vandersnatch Building directory signboard. Ramesh hurried past Murphy, grateful that his surveillance didn’t extend to pee breaks.
Ramesh returned to the lobby with his badge better mounted so as to flash out from behind his jacket as he walked. He found Murphy smoking a cigarette in defiance of the “No Smoking” sign posted in the lobby just above a well-used ashtray.
“Damn, this place has gone downhill. Cryptid Quarterly, Tinfoil Times, ReptilianWatch, Orgone Research Foundation – whatever the fuck that is. I remember when Thought! was the most crackpot thing here. Back when your fashion and lifestyle magazines were still here, before the wacko crowd started moving in.”
Ramesh’s curiosity was piqued. What the fuck was an Orgone? He pulled out his phone to look it up on the internet.
“Hey kid, I’m gonna go drop a deuce. You going to stay here or go back outside?”
“I’ll go back outside,” mumbled Ramesh without looking up from his phone.
“Okay.”
While Ramesh was lost in his research he became vaguely aware of someone else in the lobby. His eyes flicked up and he saw a man pushing a housekeeping cart towards the back of the lobby. Ramesh returned to his phone. Reich was a badass. Kicked out of the Communist party, books banned and burned by the Nazis, kicked out of the psychiatric association, then the whole Orgone thing. The FDA enforcement action against Reich sounded like the type of crusading work his boss did, but they’d never get a ruling that sweeping today.
“Yep, they sure puthimthrough the spice grinder,” said a voice in Gujarati.
Ramesh started then looked around. The man pushing the maintenance cart was now facing him as he towed the cart through a door at the rear of the lobby; it was the shaman from the bad production number which had started this whole thing, now dressed in khaki slacks and mustard uniform polo embroidered with a sun logo. The shaman disappeared through the doorway, followed by the cart, and the door swung quickly shut and clanked.
Ramesh sprinted to the door. He worked the bar and charged the door only to have it open a few inches then stop, jammed by something. Ramesh looked through the opening and saw the landing of a stairway. The cleaning cart had been placed so as to impede his progress. He stuck his hand through the door and rotated the cart so it would allow the door open wider. He pushed the door open as far as it would go and slid sideways through the doorway to find himself at the top of a stairwell with cinderblock walls, concrete floors and stairs, and metal railings and trim. The stairwell was lit with dim yellow lights in metal cages. Ramesh headed down.
He reached a landing where the walls changed from cinderblock to dark gray stone blocks, black stone stair treads with noticeable wear at the centers replaced steel-edged concrete, and the railings became more ornamental and antique looking. On the landing floor was a camel scrotum leather pouch with a flap closure – a purse. His instincts, honed by countless hours of dungeon crawling games, kicked in and he scooped up the purse.
A powder flask made from a camel scrotum.
He trotted down the next flight of steps to a landing with a door. Ramesh grabbed the handle and gave it a turn – it was locked. Maybe the key was in the purse. He opened the flap and looked inside, he didn’t see anything. He shook, then palpated the scrotum but felt nothing inside. Finally he turned the purse upside down and tapped it out. A small cascade of sand, dust and fluff tumbled to the floor, but no key.
The only thing he could do was continue downwards. He descended to the next landing and turned the corner to see a tall, thin table made of carved rosewood atop which lay a silvery plastic tray containing a small lavender colored packet – a Twinings Darjeeling teabag. He opened the purse and dropped the packet inside.
After the next flight down he reached a large metal door without a handle or keyhole. The center of the door was dimpled outward. The area where one would expect the handle to be had been reinforced with plates to deny access to the slit between the door and its frame and to cover the area where the lock mechanism presumably was. There was a yellowed sign on the door – “Absolutely NO Thought! Magazine Interns Past This Point. -R Kestrel, ed.” The sign had been adorned with a penis graffito.
The purse and the teabag had obviously been left for him to find, and were somehow related to his getting through the door. The logical thing was to put the packet inside the purse, which he had already done. He opened the flap and peered inside. Nothing discernible had happened. He had no water and no heat source, hence no means of making tea. He removed the packet and tore it open and found that it contained the expected teabag. He dropped the teabag back into the purse and closed it and squeezed it. Again, nothing.
And then it dawned on him that he was being trolled to no lesser a degree than his boss had been. The teabag was a clue, not an artifact. He rubbed the purse on his forehead, first shyly, then more enthusiastically. He had, after all, gone to Woodberry Forest, and wasn’t one of the athletic or popular boys; he was no stranger to the feel of a scrotum on his forehead.
Suddenly he heard the vocalizations of a langur monkey and felt something stiff and bony moving around inside the purse. Ramesh shrieked and reflexively dropped the purse and stepped back. The purse hit the floor, lay still for a moment and began pulsating. The flap opened slowly, and a small furry hand emerged crawling on its fingers and pulling the stump of its lower arm behind. The monkey paw was mostly mummified, yet some fleshy parts remained and those were in a liminal state between putridity and mummification; two small jagged bones poked out of the stump. The paw picked up steam and swarmed up Ramesh’s leg and onto his shoulder finally hopping up onto his head where it started grooming his scalp with its nails.
Unbidden, a childhood memory rose up from the depths of his mind, and he blurted out a nursery rhyme he had been taught by Bhagavaandaas, the old man who lived in a lean-to built against the outside wall of his family’s compound in Gujarat. The old man had no discernable job, yet was respected by all. He sat outside his house all day and received visitors with whom he had long, quiet conversations and served tea. Once young Ramesh had learned that it was only okay to approach the old man between visitors he found that Bhagavaandaas was an endless source of tales.
Monkey Paw, Monkey Paw,
Be now my servant.
Monkey Paw Monkey Paw,
And me defend.
At that, the Paw did a little dance across Ramesh’s shoulder, then ran down his leg and over to the door. The Paw then turned around and ran back to lie down beside Ramesh’s foot. Its small hand formed into a fist and the Paw twitched then went limp.
The Paw was telling him he needed to knock on the door. Kind of obvious, but whatever. He picked up the Paw and the purse from the floor and dropped the Paw into into the purse. He heard the sound of a monkey shriek and the teabag and its wrapping came flying out of the purse and fluttered down to the floor. Apparently the Paw was particular about its lodgings. He looked down at the teabag and wrapper and tried to decide what, if anything, to do with them. The decision was made for him as they became first translucent, then transparent, then disappeared altogether. He approached the door and heard muffled voices coming from inside. Ramesh raised his hand and rapped twice with his knuckles. He waited, but nothing happened. He balled his hand into a fist and beat on the door four times, producing a loud booming which echoed through the stairwell. Still nothing.
Ah, he needed to use the Paw to knock on the door. Ramesh retrieved the Paw from the scrotum, and held it so as to knock on the door. The Paw was not cooperating – the wrist was limp and the hand was no longer formed into a fist. He waved the Paw at the door causing the nails to scritch on the door to the accompaniment of an angry series of monkey barks.
The Paw was totally being a bitch, but that was the nature of tulpas; they were not mere automatons like golems, but had agency. Ramesh had first heard the word “tulpa” during a Cultural Anthropology course at William and Mary, long after Bhagavaandaas was dead. The old man had given him a thorough education about tulpas and Ramesh had thought it was merely a bunch of rhymes and stories. He decided to wheedle the Paw.
Monkey Paw, Monkey Paw,
Open the Door,
Monkey Paw, Monkey Paw,
Give me good luck.
The Paw formed into a fist and thrashed five times, miming a fist knocking on a door, then paused, then thrashed twice more. Each thrash of the wee fist was followed by the sound of a hearty rap on the door. “Tap, tappa, tap-tap… tap-tap.”
The door opened and Ramesh found himself face to face with a Troll, a Troll like in The Hobbit. The Troll was doing a dope deal with a chunky young Korean dude.
“Oh shit, the cops,” shrieked the dude.
And at that moment Ramesh remembered that he was wearing a badge.
We begin with Mel drinking alone in her bed. Her sisters come in and tell her she can’t keep hiding out and sulking, she needs to go face the world. I would like to remind them that due to her fucking with the fabric of time and space, Mel now no longer has a job, so what reason is there, really, for her to get out and face the world? Perhaps hunting for a new job, but lol, of course they don’t suggest that. They just want her to be social, because I guess the house they inherited from their hippie mother was mortgage-free, and no one’s taken capital gains tax or property tax or utilities or groceries or anything like that into consideration.
Mel drunkenly slurs that she hasn’t just been self-medicating and wallowing in self-pity; she’s been doing research, goddammit. She’s found a lead on the marks that were found on their mother’s and the other dead Elders’ bodies. They’re called Lichtenberg figures. Macy, being a Scientist, has heard of these. They’re associated with high-voltage electricity and are found on people or places that have been struck by lightning.
The cops saw these marks on Dead Hippie Mom’s body and didn’t think anything of it…?
Mel found 893 demons in the Book of Shadows associated with electricity and/or lightning, which makes it difficult to narrow down Whodunit. Is that what we’re doing now? Is this some sort of magical crime procedural, and we’re looking for demonic suspects? I don’t understand how the logic on this show works.
Anyway, we don’t have time to worry about stuff like that. What we need is a good old-fashioned girls’ night out. Because Mel hasn’t been doing enough drinking. So Macy and Maggie drag her out of bed and haul her off to the thematically-named Haunt, a Halloween-themed bar that they’ve apparently been going to all this time but this is the first time we’ve heard of it. Maggie toasts her sisters, calling them bitches. Mel finds this offensive from a feminist perspective, but Maggie is like, “No, it’s code! Since I can’t say the W-word.”
Wamen?
Harry (who’s suddenly there—wasn’t this supposed to be a girls’ night?) comments that he will miss their inane chatter once the Elders deem that it’s time for him to move out of their house. Mel asks if this will be soon, since they have the Book of Shadows back now. Why…?
Why am I even asking why?
Maggie takes the opportunity to pout about how it’s Initiation Week, and if she hadn’t gotten kicked out of Kappa, she’d have been a full-fledged sister soon. Mel takes the opportunity to remind her that Greek life is toxic. I take the opportunity to remind you all that Maggie’s supposed to be a freshman and here she is in yet another bar drinking alcoholic beverages with her sisters (and Harry). Macy takes the opportunity to remind the viewers that also, Friendzone was marked by a demon and she can’t find the mark in the Book of Shadows. Harry takes the opportunity to warn her that there have been several recent instances of humans being marked by demons as “part of a seemingly larger plan.”
Okay.
Now that we’re done reminding everybody about what happened last episode, the waitress comes by with the check and Mel, whose shirt is inside out because so great is her depression, asks someone to pay for her because being jobless also means she’s money-less, the first acknowledgment of money this show has made. Harry tells her that he learned about an opening in the administrative department at the university and that he pulled some strings and got her an interview. Mel groans about this being a glorified secretarial job and it’s so sexist that she as a waman is expected to fill such a stereotypically “traditionally female” job. Everyone tells her she needs a job/to get out of the house and to shut the fuck up.
While she grumbles that she’ll go to the interview but that doesn’t mean she’ll deign to take the job, Regina George and the other Plastics strut in and give Maggie the bitch stare. Maggie decides to bring them a pitcher of skinny mojitos as a peace offering. Regina George dumps it out over Maggie’s head. Mel freezes time before the liquid makes contact with Maggie, though. Maggie tells her to let her take her punishment like a good little bitch. Macy intervenes by moving the pitcher slightly so that when time unfreezes, it looks like Regina just missed, and the booze dumps out all over Maggie’s boots instead of her head. Regina says “I meant to do that” and does this really weird thing where she makes the OK gesture, but with both hands in front of her face like a Junior Birdman or something.
Is this white supremacy?
After the sisters leave, Gretchen admonishes Regina that she is forgetting the Kappa motto: WWGPD? Regina responds that even Gwyneth Paltrow has her limits.
Real Dialogue Alert: That was the real dialogue.
Karen tells Regina that her vibe has seemed way off recently, and that she needs to find her zen, stat (Real Dialogue Alert). Regina takes this advice to heart, returning to the house and searching through a storage closet through the 80,000 ritual candles for something scented and calming. She needs some damn serenity. (RDA) Near the back of the shelf, she encounters an ornate blue ceramic candlestick, which she takes to… the Buddhist temple in the basement of the Kappa house? What the fuck is this? There’s like a mosaic tile fountain in the background and palm trees and dildo candelabras and shit.
Anyway, she lights the weird candle, sits down in the lotus position, and then the greatest scene of the entire series ensues, as the peaceful flute music playing in the background is interrupted by her taking out her AirPods, looking up at the ceiling from which loud voices and thrumming bass can be heard, and screeching, “KEEP IT DOWN, BETCHES, I’M GETTING MY ZEN ON IN HERE!”
Seriously, all of you saying that Regina George is the true hero of this series? I think you’re right.
She settles back in for a good, peaceful omm, and the lights flicker. A ghostly specter emerges from the candle, flying around Regina in circles before soaring out of the room and flying all over the house, knocking over knickknacks and causing general mayhem before settling into the TV. Ah, so now the Kappa house is possessed, excellent.
Over at the Generic Science Lab, a crew of Walmart employees is moving in a bunch of boxes as Macy comes in the door. She’s approached by an aging bald white man named Dr. Kevorkian or Dr. Gregorian or something like that, who hands her a clipboard with a waiver for a blood test mandated by the new sponsors of the lab, the Walton Family of Epigenetic Demon Guys. Purportedly this is a drug test, but since Epigenetic Demon Guy said last episode he wanted Charmed One DNA samples, we know better than that.
Across the lab, Friendzone is speaking to one of the Walmart employees. As they talk, he lifts up his shirt to scratch his side. Macy sees that the not-succubus mark on him is glowing and getting brighter. She texts Harry, who tells her that she needs to stick close to Friendzone and watch out for demonic activity. Thus, she invites herself to his birthday party. Friendzone tries to explain to Macy the concept of “you’re not invited, though.” She tells him she’ll bake something for the occasion.
Over at the Kappa house, the doorbell rings. Regina George answers it to find Maggie standing there wearing whatever the fuck this is:
I think what pisses me off the most about this is the choker
Regina tries to explain to Maggie the concept of “I don’t ever want to see you again.” Maggie, like a true stalkery ex-girlfriend, tells Regina that she’s never going to give up. Through the television screen, I try to explain to Regina the concept of a Persona Non Grata form, and how campus police can be summoned if she tries to break it. Before I can finish my sentence, Go-Go’s-era Belinda Carlisle appears behind Regina’s shoulder tells Maggie she needs to leave. Instead of acknowledging that she’s not wanted here, Maggie drags Belinda’s 80s Chic fashion sense, almost as if she hasn’t seen herself in the mirror today, and demands to know who she is. Regina reminds Maggie that Belinda is a Kappa sister—a very important one. Well, obviously. If she’s ever been in a grocery store, she’s heard Belinda’s dulcet tones over the loudspeaker. Does she or does she not remember that heaven is a place on Earth?
But Maggie has never seen Belinda before! Dun dun dunnnnn
With Maggie neatly disposed of, Belinda leads Regina into the TV room, asking her if she’s psyched for Hell Week. You know, all this stuff that the sorority on this show does is fraternity stuff, by the way. Good fucking luck hazing your pledges with National Panhellenic Conference looming over your shoulders. But regardless, HELL WEEK PUNS! Regina is like, “YASSS KWEEN!” (Real Dialogue Alert.) She goes to high-five Belinda, who fritzes out like a bad VHS recording, but Regina doesn’t notice.
Wait, you guys don’t think Belinda Carlisle is a demon, do you?
Back at the sisters’ house, Maggie is laptop surfing instead of helping Mel pick out an outfit for her secretary (ugh) interview. When Mel calls her out on it, Maggie tells her that she thinks something is up at Kappa.
Mel: “Agreed. They’re internalizing the patriarchy, for starters.” (Real Dialogue Alert)
Maggie explains that Belinda can’t be a real Kappa sister, because during her first week as a pledge she had to memorize the names of all the active sisters (+ their majors + favorite order at Starbucks) and she wasn’t one. But no worries, after 30 seconds of searching with only a first name to go on, she finds a newspaper scan revealing that Belinda was a freshman who died after drinking too many wine coolers and falling off the roof of the Kappa house back in 1989.
Belinda is a ghost?! What?! Wouldn’t have guessed that! Dun dun dunnnnnnn
Harry warns them that ghosts can be more dangerous than demons. (Which reminds me, Harry, what about you??) Mel and Maggie head off to go consult Magical Siri about the ghost, which should take about 30 seconds considering this show’s track record. While they handle that, Harry offers to escort Macy to Friendzone’s party in an attempt to make it less awkward. Yeah, that will work.
As predicted, Mel and Maggie find the spell they need instantly. In order to exorcise the ghost, they have to find the moment from her life that’s keeping her tied to this world. They perform the spell, which sends them back in time to the Hilltowne University of 1989, which looks a little something like this:
But it’s not all bad, there’s also this:
Mel is extremely triggered by this display, by the way. It’s an “Aerobics for Alzheimer’s” charity. Maggie comments that the campus now holds a “Pilates for Poverty” charity that’s the same idea. Mel rages that it’s a farce of a fundraiser designed specifically for the male gaze, so creepy frat guys can ogle them. Maggie says it’s not like that now. Mel gives her a “Bitch, please” face. I guess Mel has forgotten that she’s a lesbian and thus this display is also for her benefit.
Across the quad, Maggie spots Belinda and hurries over to find her in the midst of an argument with 1989’s Regina George. 1989!Regina tells Belinda that she’s no longer a pledge of Kappa, something she thought she made very clear on her answering machine, okay? (RDA) Kappas combine the class of Princess Di with the sass of Duchess Fergie, and Belinda SO does not. (RDA) Belinda says she thought that was a pledge prank. 1989!Regina tells her she’d never be so cruel to a pledge, but Belinda’s not one anymore, so it’s okay. When Belinda blinks at her, 1989!Regina explains, “Brenda, you’re bugging, and it’s skeeving the whole chapter out.” (RDA) I think that clears everything right up.
This interesting excursion into the darkest corners of 80s slang is interrupted when Maggie and Mel spot Dead Hippie Mom, now currently not dead and, in fact, just about to pop with Macy, sitting on a bench across the quad beside the living Portrait of Señora de Urcola in a Black Mantilla. Dead Hippie Mom is telling the Señora about a recent checkup she had, in which the obstetrician assured her that everything was fine, but the obstetrician doesn’t know, you know? The Señora assures her that it doesn’t matter that she’s a witch (so I guess the Señora is also one), she just has first-time mom jitters. No, Dead Hippie Mom responds; remember, she’s not just a witch, but a witch who can see the future. And she has an unshakable feeling that there’s something wrong—really wrong—with the baby.
Dun dun duuuuu—
Are they in front of a green screen? Is a green screen really necessary for a bench in a park?
As Maggie and Mel stare slack-jawed at their mother, Belinda runs away from 1989!Regina George, passing through them with that same VCR-glitch effect, and the sisters are sent back to the future. Whoopsie! By getting distracted by their mom, they missed out on the rest of the conversation that was supposed to tell them what was keeping Belinda trapped here on Earth. Unless, you know, it really was the whole “bugging and skeeving” thing.
But it’s okay, because Maggie turns the page in the Book of Shadows, and since on the next page it talks about banshees, she decides that this means Belinda is a banshee. I’m sorry, what is your evidence for this? Have you heard her screaming and wailing to wake the dead? Has her appearance heralded the death of someone else? Has her screaming and wailing caused someone to die? Has she, with one crook of her bony finger, summoned the Cóiste Bodhar? The only thing we possibly have to go on is that the real Belinda Carlisle is a singer, and guess what, that’s just my code name for her! This bitch is actually named Brenda Mancini, so so much for that.
Mel thinks it would be just desserts if they didn’t banish the Belinda Banshee, because, being a feminist who supports other wamen, she thinks the Kappas deserve to be punished for not conforming to her ideals of wamenhood. Maggie ignores her, snapping a picture of the banishing spell on her phone like the uncanny millennial that she is, and they head off to save the day.
Meanwhile, Macy and Harry have arrived at Friendzone’s party. Harry is literally dressed like Harry Potter. Since Macy burned her pie earlier, Harry has come bearing Welsh rarebit. This elicits all sorts of jokes of the high caliber you’ve come to expect from this show. But never fear! Friendzone’s Practically Perfect in Every Way new girlfriend, Summer, runs over squealing, “Welsh rarebit? I practically lived on the stuff during my semester abroad at Cambridge!”
Jesus CHRIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIST
RAREBIT WITH AN ENGLISH ACCENT SOUNDS LIKE RABBIT DO U GET IT
Summer gushes to Macy that Harry is a keeper. Harry and Macy awkwardly stammer that they’re friends! Just friends! Just friends, I swear. Just friends. As Summer backs slowly away from them, Macy asks Harry if he thinks that went well. Harry responds, “I wouldn’t know. I’m British, awkward is kind of our thing.”
Real Dialogue Alert: That was—
Across the room, Friendzone is changing a lightbulb (?), conveniently making his shirt go up. Macy points out the demon mark, but Harry can’t see it, just like Maggie couldn’t last episode. Before he can comment further on this, Summer darts into the frame, glaring at Macy for staring at Her Man. Are we still sure she’s not a succubus?
Later, Macy is admiring all the photos of Friendzone that Summer assembled for the party. In one of them, he’s hugging his grandma, who is wearing a cowrie shell necklace. Macy realizes that the mark she’s seeing on Friendzone looks like a stylized cowrie shell. Friendzone comes over, sees her looking at the picture, and takes the opportunity to brag about his marginalized backgrounds: Haitian, Dominican, Puerto Rican, you name an island in the Caribbean Sea and he’s got a relative from there. And also pirates. Arrrrr—
Summer interrupts this fascinating discussion, sending Friendzone off to deal with yet another maintenance issue (what kind of dump did he rent for this party, anyway?) and telling Macy to Back the Fuck Off Her Man. Macy starts whimpering and tells Harry she wants to leave. Harry protests that they’re about to start karaoke, but one death glare from Macy puts the wayward Whitelighter back in his place. No joy for you, Harry.
Meanwhile, Maggie and Mel are breaking into the Kappa house. Once inside, they find the house dark and all active sisters locked in a closet, bound and gagged. Maggie frees Gretchen, who informs her that that “that crazy bitch” Belinda did this to them and then kidnapped Regina George. The other Kappas affirm that they’d never seen Belinda before, meaning that Regina George is the only one Belinda had somehow mind-controlled into believing she was a Kappa. Gretchen and Karen explain that they heard Belinda saying she was going to use Regina to get revenge on someone for their treachery. Mel and Maggie deduce that Belinda is planning to possess Regina and use her body to enact revenge on 1989!Regina.
You fools! Don’t you recognize a hazing ritual when you see one?
Mel and Maggie call Harry to wipe the Kappas’ memories. Maggie tracks down the sorority composite from 1989 and discovers that 1989!Regina’s name was Jenna Gordonson. Harry, still sulking about missing out on karaoke, reluctantly uses his professorial credentials to get into the alumni database and track down Jenna’s address. Of course she still lives locally, because it turns out that Hilltowne, Michigan is actually the Hotel California—you can graduate anytime you like, but you can never leave.
Once Maggie and Mel head off in search of Jenna, Harry apparates back to the sisters’ attic, where Macy is reading about cowrie shells in the Book of Shadows. The Book states that cowrie shells are used as emblems of protection against demons and other magical dangers. She explains to Harry that she thinks that Friendzone’s mark is a cowrie shell, and Harry speculates that maybe Macy, the Spicy Afro-Caribbean Witch that she is, may have unconsciously placed the mark on Friendzone herself when she kissed him (apparently there was no deflowering), and that her own protective spell is what caused Friendzone to separate from her after that night.
Macy says she thinks her own standoffishness is what really drove Friendzone away from her. She and Harry have a moment. I ship it?
And then Macy friendzones him. AHAHAHAHAHA THE LOOK ON HIS FACE WHEN SHE FRIENDZONES HIM AFTER BEMOANING FRIENDZONING FRIENDZONE
bitch you will die alone
Macy then has an epiphany, remembering that Friendzone’s grandma, who in the photo was wearing the cowrie shell that made Macy think the symbol was a cowrie shell to begin with, was from Haiti, and that the cowrie shell being used for protection was a Haitian thing. Wow, so you’re saying that maybe the Haitian is Haitian and the cowrie shell is a cowrie shell? Amazing. She and Harry look up a practitioner of Haitian witchcraft on Yelp, and they decide to go check her out.
Meanwhile, over at Jenna Gordonson’s apartment, Jenna is not dead yet—which Mel points out aloud, to Jenna’s face, which doesn’t make Jenna suspicious in any way. Maggie assures Jenna that she and Mel are reporters from Buzzfeed, and that they’re there to do an article about the Ten Spookiest Deaths in the Greek System. They, of course, are referring to Belinda, but Jenna reveals that she wasn’t the only girl who’s died that way. Apparently it’s relatively common for Kappa sisters to climb up on the roof while drunk and fall, but the alumnae board covers up the sorority connection so that it doesn’t make Kappa look dangerous. However, Mel and Maggie make the connection that Belinda was the first death, and it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to deduce that it’s been her ghost responsible for all these deaths over all these years.
Mel asks Jenna for more information about Belinda—she says she knows she was bullied and kicked out of her pledge class, but Jenna cuts her off here. She says Belinda wasn’t bullied, she was the bully. She’d gained a reputation during her pledge period for being manipulative and cruel, but the final straw had been when she began sleeping with a string of other sisters’ boyfriends. Jenna had cut her from the pledge process because, you know, she was a hosebeast, and in retaliation, Belinda had broken into the house and climbed up on the roof to hang a banner calling the Kappas a bunch of cunts. She had also stolen the candle that had been meant to be her initiation candle, which is the candle that Regina George lit at the beginning of the episode, thus summoning her spirit. Unfortunately, Belinda had been drunk while trying to hang the banner, which caused her to lose her balance and fall to her death.
Mel freezes time and tells Maggie that if Belinda died in anger rather than sorrow, she would have become a revenant, not a banshee. They realize she’s been killing Kappa sisters for years, making them die the same way she died. And they realize she’s not planning to use Regina’s body to kill Jenna—she’s going to kill Regina for having slighted Maggie the same way Belinda feels she was slighted.
Back at Kappa, Regina is on the roof complaining that wine coolers taste like cough drops. Belinda tells her to shut up and chug, loser.
Regina is over these wine coolers and she’s over this roof and she’s over Belinda’s pink-and-purple eyeshadow
Mel and Maggie call Harry, who is on a date with Macy in the Haitian witch priestess’ nail salon (after all, we all have day jobs). Harry asks Macy if she can handle the witch priestess solo. Macy agrees, and as soon as Harry disappears, the witch priestess, who is named Mama Roz because of course she is, comes sauntering out from the back room. It’s $20 for ten minutes, and she has bills to pay, so fork it over, bitch.
Macy shows Mama Roz the mark she saw on Friendzone. Mama Roz tells her it’s a sign to stay away. Macy asks if it’s because she could be leading Friendzone into danger, but Mama Roz tells her that the mark appeared on Friendzone as a warning to Macy, a sign to protect her rather than him, and that Friendzone could be endangering her. Mama Roz also says that Macy has the Ibi in her. When Macy asks what this means, Mama Roz is reluctant to tell her, but when Macy waves more dollas under her nose, she acquiesces: Macy has darkness in her. It’s been there since she was born. She’s different from her sisters, but she’ll have to search within herself to find it. Macy runs out the door as Mama Roz yells, “The pillar of your past holds the key to your darkness!”
SJWs everywhere: REEEEEEEEEE SO YOU’RE SAYING THE BLACK SISTER HAS DARKNESS IN HER REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
Me: Oh please may Dead Hippie Mom have slept with a demon
Back at the Kappa house, Regina is still lucid enough to register that she is in a scary place and Belinda is starting to freak her out, but Belinda starts chanting at her to DO IT! DO IT! DO IT! DON’T BE A COWARD
Regina takes a step forward but is saved in the nick of time by Harry, Mel and Maggie apparating in. Apparently apparating other people drains Harry’s energy and he mentions that he feels sick now, but these sisters don’t give a flying fuck. Well, to be fair, it is an emergency, because Regina is right on the edge of a tile roof and it would be giving me vertigo if the effects weren’t so terrible.
Maggie yells for Mel to start the revenant banishing spell while she tries to get through to Regina and break Belinda’s hold on her before she jumps. However, the banishing spell doesn’t work, because Belinda’s strength is too tied to Regina’s own feelings of betrayal. At the sight of Maggie, Regina starts sobbing and begs for Maggie to leave her alone, because every time she sees her she’s reminded of how they were friends and she trusted her and Maggie stabbed her in the back.
Belinda figures it out and starts yelling reminders to Regina of all the ways Maggie hurt her, and how the best way to get revenge on Maggie would be to kill herself. JUMP, HO! Regina jumps.
Mel freezes time, catching Regina in midair, which makes Belinda lose her damn mind and turn back into the smoky ghost form from the beginning of the episode. She swirls around Mel, screaming, trying to get her to break her concentration so Regina will fall. Harry says that he thinks Regina’s pain is the source of Belinda’s power, and Maggie realizes that instead of healing the source of Belinda’s pain, they needed to be focusing on healing Regina all this time.
Harry apparates up into midair, grabs Regina before falling himself, and apparates her down to the ground. Somehow this seems to be less taxing on him than when he brought Mel and Maggie in, but maybe it’s the adrenaline, or perhaps bad writing. Maggie tries to apologize to her, but Belinda is back like DON’T ACCEPT APOLOGIES! KILL! KILL! FINISH HER
Regina lunges to strangle Maggie, but Maggie starts saying the right things—that she never should have tried to play the victim the way Belinda had, that she was just as bad as her, that she deserved to get kicked out of Kappa, that she shouldn’t have kept trying to get in Regina’s face when Regina was begging her for space, that she doesn’t deserve Regina’s friendship. Regina accepts her apology, and Belinda screams and disappears in an effect that looks like an old TV switching off. How clever! The effects on this show are so great and high-budget.
As soon as Belinda is banished, Regina passes out. She wakes up later in the house, not remembering what happened but irrationally feeling less angry at Maggie (and also hungover). Maggie explains that she had drunk a lot of wine coolers (Regina acknowledges this as a new low) and that they’d had a talk while she was drunk, apologizes again, tells her she’s going to give her space but that she’d love to be friends again someday.
When Maggie leaves the house, Mel has this really UNBELIEVABLY out-of-character moment where she admits that she was wrong about the sorority and between what she learned from Jenna and Regina tonight that she sees now why Maggie wants to be in Kappa. WHAT. WHAT. WHAT. She says that they all need to have lives outside of being witches, and that she’s sorry Maggie can’t have her sorority, and also she misses Niko. Sadface.
Maggie and Mel go to the Halloween bar to meet Macy. Maggie says that they need to tell Macy aboot seeing their mom in the 80s. I remember that Maggie’s actress is Canadian and snicker to myself. Before they can tell Macy aboot what they saw, Macy tells them aboot what the Haitian witch priestess said re: the darkness. Maggie and Mel suddenly realize what they overheard might be tacky and change the subject. Macy asks how things went with the Kappas, and Maggie says they’re fine now and should be wrapping up the initiation ceremony soon. Mel and Macy decide to head back to the house and set up a faux sorority initiation for Maggie into their sisterhood to make her feel better. THEY DO THE THING WITH DRINKING THE WATER AND DECLARING THAT THEIR BLOOD IS COVENANT. Someone did remedial internet research, I see!
As the initiation wraps up, Harry strolls past wearing a trench coat and fedora and carrying a suitcase. It seems that the Elders have deemed that now that the girls have the Book of Shadows back, they don’t need extra protection, so he’s moving back to the condo that he, a dead ghost man person, had been renting. What was the point of this subplot again?
Before he leaves, though, Maggie decrees that she wants to give Harry the initiation ceremony, too. He can be an honorary sister. What was it he said in the first episode to Mel? He felt as if his penis had been torn from his body? I imagine he felt something similar here. They crown him with a shower pouf, calling him “Poof.”
RIP Harry’s last shred of masculinity
I believe Harry is supposed to be straight. That was the implication I got from his supposed past with Charity, and also the moment with Macy in this episode. I guess this is what feminists imagine straight guys are cool with.
Um, anyway… We haven’t forgotten the Walton Family of Epigenetic Demon Guys! Remember Macy’s mandated blood test? They do, too. Walton the Younger, a.k.a. the FBI Agent Demon Guy from the last episode, is rummaging through the vials of blood at the Generic Science Lab. If his father’s company is the one who mandated the drug test, shouldn’t they have access to it anyway? Or couldn’t he have taken the form of someone who does have access to it? No matter. Dr. Kevorkian catches him in the act of stealing the blood, and gets stabbed in the neck for his trouble. Goodbye, Dr. Kevorkian, or whoever you were.
Back at the house, Macy is in her room and she notices the Photoshopped picture of Dead Hippie Mom holding Baby Macy sitting framed on her dresser. As she looks at the photo, Mama Roz’s warning echoes through her head: “The pillar of your past holds the key to your darkness.” Macy notices a pillar on the porch behind her in the photo. She goes out to the front porch and investigates the support pillars. There’s a barometer mounted on one of them that she can’t get off with her fingers. She uses her powers to cast it aside, and behind the barometer is a hole with a small box inside.
Inside the box is a skeleton key with a pentagram on top. Macy stares at it and the episode ends.
I realized after doing the screenshots for this episode that Dead Hippie Mom is wearing this key around her neck when she’s talking to Señora de Urcola in 1989
Okay. I’m sorry, you guys. This episode was barely woke at all. It was actually… kind of good. I actually enjoyed it. Yes, the writing was stupid, but I’m pretty sure that the writers of this show may have just moved up from writing Nickelodeon shows, so what do you expect? I really like how they’ve been handling Regina George in the last few episodes. I like that she really got the spotlight in this one. I’m interested in the subplot about Macy and the ~mysterious darkness~. I can’t believe Mel wasn’t even that big of a cunt in this episode.
If this show can’t produce wokeness, am I going to lose my job? Am I going to end up on the streets? I work with the material I’ve been given, people!
Nowadays it is thought of as part of urban blight in some circles, but in others it has become an art form unto itself:
