Witches of East End - The Fall of the House of Beauchamp - Review

There was sadness aplenty with some scant glimmers of hope mixed into a tantalizing and compelling new episode of Witches of East End this week.  The aftermath of last week's shocking and heartbreaking cliffhanger led to some inevitable consequences that brought the Beauchamp family saga full circle while raising some new questions.  Meanwhile, Killian and Dash dealt with their own varyingly bizarre issues.

Watching Joanna respond to losing her daughters yet again was gut-wrenching, and Julia Ormond gave a touchingly believable performance that was most tragically seen when Joanna tried to take her own life in the bath.  Luckily, Wendy was on hand to keep her sister alive against her will, throwing in some poignantly needed quips to let Joanna know that she had to keep fighting - not that Wendy was giving her a choice, thank goodness.  Wendy's next move was a difficult step, not least of all since it required a team-up with Freddie, whom she'd bitterly ousted from the house after Freya and Ingrid's bodies were found.  But the only way to bring the girls back was to seek help from the King, which meant that Wendy and Frederick had to go to Tarkoff (still alive and kicking despite the scorpion snack Freddie treated him to last week...man, this guy is hard to kill!) and encourage him to complete the ceremony placing the King's spirit in Tommy's body.  Le sigh.

Wendy was so badass in this episode because not only was she willing to give her own last life to help the girls (an option quickly discarded by Joanna for logical reasons, but still noble), but she also put aside her issues with Freddie and even the horrible Tarkoff, not to mention the horror of seeing Tommy in such a state, in order to bring it all together. Nothing was going to stop her from getting her nieces back and saving Joanna from the ultimate despair.

I have to say, once the King returned, he was kind of making me chortle almost immediately with his alternatively dry humor and saccharine promises of love and forgiveness that seem thinly veiled enough to cover some considerable bad intentions underneath.  Tarkoff, at least, was discarded for now due to his unrequested murder of the girls, and it was fun to see him cast into a cell.  Once Wendy and Freddie returned home with the King, Joanna was significantly less than thrilled to see her dad, since she insists he absolutely cannot be trusted and there are strings attached to everything he does.  While I'm inclined to believe her continued distrust of this overtly sketchy character, I also agree with Wendy that they didn't really have much of a choice but to let him help, as he was the only one capable of saving the sisters. 

Oh my Frillian!

While the Beauchamps were engulfed in their family drama, the Gardiner brothers were enmeshed in their own issues after the huge fight they had last week, in what I consider to be the weaker part of this episode.  Was it even necessary for Dash and Killian to have their own subplots this week, given the major crisis that was on hand?  I really would have liked to see them involved in trying to get Freya and Ingrid back, but instead Dash had a weird tryst and Killian found some new clues about the weird shenanigans of Eva and her family (if we thought that plotline was over, not so much!).  Eh.  At least when Killian found out about Freya's death, he had a visceral reaction, clutching her body and then spending some time miserably overcome by grief before stumbling upon a statue that led him on a path to Eva's great-granddaughter (hello again, Bianca Lawson!). But Dash's grief for Ingrid was played off in a rather shallow vein, since his Bent Elbow sorrow-drowning was interrupted by Raven, a new gal in town who swept him off to the notorious storeroom for a steamy encounter.  I'm really disenchanted with the uneven way Dash has been portrayed in the last few episodes.  Do we really believe he'd be so casually jovial with Raven, post-tryst, so soon after learning what happened to Ingrid?  Hrmm.  Anyway, we later learned that Raven is much more than a sexual thrill-seeker.  She's also the agent newly arrived to the scene of the dead body of Dash's blackmailer that recently washed up on shore.  That, at least, should provide some interesting fallout.

Possibly my favorite nerd-out moment of this season was the reveal of the time door - the mysterious door Joanna refused to explain a bunch of episodes back, which can apparently spirit people back in time.  Sure, one can't alter events from the past, but one can retrieve items from way back when.  While Freya and Wendy unhesitatingly followed Joanna into the past, trusting in Joanna's explanation about the King's nefariousness and the need to thwart him, Ingrid was hesitant and decided to stay behind to enjoy the world's most awkward family reunion.  Does she want to investigate whether her grandfather is truly the evil man Joanna claims, or a redeemable figure such as Freddie suggests he may be? The King claims to want his loved ones with him back in Asgard for pure reasons, but has old age and illness truly rendered him so forgiving and reformed?  Doubtful.   Now that the Beauchamps have gone from a house fallen to a house divided, it will be fascinating to see how Joanna can fight her father's machinations.

What did you think of this episode?  Share your thoughts in the comments!  And don't forget to catch an all-new Witches of East End, Sunday on Lifetime, 9/8c.

About the Author - Virginia Mae Fontana

Virginia is happy to be reviewing The Vampire Diaries, Beauty and the Beast, and Witches of East End for Spoiler TV. She enjoys obsessing over films and pop music - in addition to tv shows, of course! You can find her blog, SugarRushed, at http://virginiamaeblog.blogspot.com/ and her Twitter handle is @SugarRushedBlog

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