Less "British Buffy", More "Lesbian Randall & Hopkirk (Deceased)"

Yeah, I'm not sticking to the Sugar Rush theme for post titles for these. Let me warn you now, this is going to be a hella long post, because EIGHTY MINUTE EPISODE. Jesus.

Hex Episode 1x01 - "The Story Begins" (Hex episodes come with actual titles of their own!)

Episode Grade: C


First up, the word "H3X" in Standard Gothic Font With Backwards E inside a fiery hexagon, so we know what show we're watching.

Moody piano fades into the extrmely badly lit exterior of a large building of a type that is unidentifiable due to previously mentioned bad lighting. A blonde girl with somewhat ludicrous dangling earrings stands in the equally badly lit interior. OK, I'm adjusting the contrast settings on my screen. Blonde Girl walks down an ornate staircase, and we can see (just about, if we squint really, really hard) that she's also wearing an old-fashioned nightgown, and the that wholely inadequate lighting is coming from a few candles dotted here and there. The point we're supposed to take from this is that this is Not Present Day, I guess. Blonde Girl eavesdrops for a moment on some rich arseholes in the next room, laughing about slaves dying and shit, then moves on. One of the rich arseholes follows solely for the purpose of informing us that her name is Rachael. She tells him she's needed in the kitchen. A lantern bobs up and down and heads towards the kitchen. I imagine it's being held by Rachael, but I still can't see shit. Inside, an old black guy does some sort of ritual involving chanting, a phallic blue vase and decapitating a chicken, while a less old black guy starts totally having sex with Rachael right there, and the rest of the assorted black people in the room watch one or other of these activities.

Credits. More black backgrounds and orange fiery stuff, and a song I don't know (though I'm going to assume it's by Garbage), with all "I would die for you" lyrics. Tone it down with the oppressively cheery stuff here, guys, I feel like I'm watching Barney!

We're once again outside the building, but now it's daytime, so I can actually see it. It's some sort of big manor house or something. Man, I feel obliged to provide some sort of description after bringing to attention the fact that I couldn't see it, but, not doing such a great job. Anyway, there are also a whole bunch of Young People milling around outside in modern day Young People attire, so I guess we're not in the past any more, either. And also, this place is clearly not some sort of manor house any more, it's a college. Inside, there's some sort of english literature or somesuch class, and we get our first look at a bunch of the major characters. So. Girl with weird bowlcut hair and too much makeup, who'll be known as Cleopatra until further notice. Generically pretty blonde girl, who is the main character, and will be called Cassie, since it's her name and I can't be bothered to come up with a nickname for the few minutes before we find that out. Offering her an already sucked lollipop is every lesbian stereotype ever, rolled into one, who'll be known as Lesbian until she gets a name/other character traits. The teacher, who, much like Drew Barrymore in Donny Darko, is trying to be Down With The Kids. Picking a name totally at random here, she'll be Jenny. Girl who, from a two second glance, is quite clearly a bitch. Guy who is probably supposed to be the attractive male of the piece, but is worryingly remniscent of Jamie Oliver. And finally, Danny Out Of McFly, Who Until I'd Almost Finished Writing This Recap, I Had Confused With Dougie Out Of McFly, So It's Possible I'll Miss Correcting Some Instances Of Referring To Him As Dougie Out Of McFly. After Jenny finishes reading a poem to the class, Cleopatra asks "What does it mean when it says 'sucked on CUNT-ry pleasures?'" Fucking teenagers, eh? Jenny rolls eyes and tells her to use her imagination. Jamie Oliver suggests that Lesbian can show her later, and also names Lesbian as Thelma. Danny Out Of McFly says he'd like to see this, because being a horny idiot is his character trait. Cleopatra continues to feign ignorance, so Jenny tells her "Maybe your boyfriend doesn't like you enough. Oh, burn.

At their lockers now, Thelma is telling Cassie about a special offer on waxes or something. Cassie points out that Thelma has never waxed in her life, Thelma flirts "No, but you have", because there is clearly a thing going on between these two. I totally didn't know this show is also about lesbians, I swear. There's more vaguely interesting banter about this, and also, Thelma is disgusted by Jamie Oliver making out with Two Second Bitch right in the corridor. Cassie looks somewhat crushed, because clearly, she has a thing for one or the other of these two.

Girls bathroom. Two Second Bitch looks through an astoundingly large and easily accesible ventilation shaft straight into male shower room. Yeah, right. She names Jamie Oliver as Troy, and makes fun of the size of some other guy's cock, then starts yammering about the wonderfulness of her relationship with Troy, so that Cassie can stand in the background looking sad and pensive some more, in case we hadn't got the point.

We spend a few minutes watching Cassie walk out through the corridor, along a path outside, and into some sort of dark room full of junk, because I guess if they didn't show that, I'd be all "What? But she was in the bathroom? HOW DID SHE GET THERE?!" Thanks for helping me out there. Pan slowly across the room to Cassie, smoking. She looks at her watch, and puts the cigarette out, but trips on some crap as she's walking out, and thus decides that she doesn't, in fact, need to go somewhere urgently, and has time to slowly pick up a little bone cross and the phallic blue vase from the teaser. Slowly. Apparently the vase an important object, and thusly deserves a nickname, so; Smurf Penis. Thank you, I'll be here all night. She cuts herself on one of the sharp protrusions at the bottom of the Smurf Penis, and drips blood into it ominously. And slowly. If it seems like I'm repeating myself a lot in this recap, it's because I'm trying to convey an accurate portrayal of the experience of watching the episode.

Night time now. Turns out Cassie and Thelma are roommates, which is no massive shock. Cassie draws charcoal pictures. Thelma is bored and gets all in Cassie's personal space for a bit, then starts needling Cassie for having a thing for Troy. Cassie unconvincingly denies it. Thelma continues to annoy her. Cassie continues to display a total lack of remarkable personality traits. Thelma notices the Smurf Penis on a chest of drawers, and asks Cassie about it. Cassie has nothing interesting to say about it. I can see that becoming a trend.

Later that night (I assume), Cassie is having a nightmare involving Rachael, dead bodies hanging from trees, bald Rachael, and the word "AZAZEAL" carved into a piece of wood. Cassie wakes with a start, Thelma hurriedly comes over to comfort her. It's just a dream, Thelma says. But it FELT REAL, Cassie replies. Dun dun dun. Also, Cassie calls Thelma her "dyke in shining armour", and is the only one to laugh at this, because it's not actually funny.

Outside, Cassie's carrying a large pile of her drawings, to be contrivedly knocked all over the floor when Troy runs into her. Yes, really. Troy is friendly, but on the other hand, he looks like Jamie Oliver. Cassie gazes wistfully after him for a while. Jenny appears to ask her to give a presentation on whatever "this week's film" is. There's a little friendly banter to demonstrate that Cassie is a good student, and Jenny is a good person and blah blah.

Art class, in which we learn that a) Cleopatra does, in fact, have a forehead and b) the art teacher at this school is an absolute dick. Cleopatra shows her painting, which is a grey/black blob with stylised pink and red flowers scaterred around, to the class, claiming "It's about desire. Sexual desire." and how "When you desire something, or someone, it can be very frustrating." Art teacher calls her Roxanne and tells her he sees none of that, and that her painting is shit, basically. Dick. Danny Out Of McFly gleefully puts his hand up and shows a drawing of a huge >_< face, labelled "ROXY". Art Dicko calls Cassie up to show her painting, which is somewhat more traditional art. Roxanne bitches that "someone needs to get out more". Art Dicko mocks her some more, and enthuses about how great Cassie is. He asks what inspired her and such like, but Cassie says nothing, because she is Shy. Danny Out Of McFly suggests that her inspiration was "I need a shag". Also, we find out his actual name is Leon in this scene.

Cassie showers, and you can totally see her nipple, which I mention because apparently Christina Cole had no idea this was going to happen until the after the episode aired or something. Her nipple being shown, that is, I assume she was at least aware they were filming her at the time. Also, there appears to be no point to this scene other than to show Cassie naked. Well, they have to do something to try to keep interest, I guess, and the dialogue sure isn't working so far. The Smurf Penis sits ominously on the chest of drawers for a while. Cassie gets out of the shower, and hears some ghostly whispers of "Azazeal", then turns to see bald Rachael bleeding in the mirror, which then explodes a little. Which would all have been very shocking, I'm sure, if it wasn't for the "Tension! Is Ramping Up! Tension! Tension! Tension!" strings beating me over the head for the last nine hours or so. Cassie looks mildly perplexed.

Thelma comes into their dorm, where Cassie is lying in the foetal position on her bed, and starts complaining about the yoga teacher sexually assaulting her. She absent-mindedly grabs some food (of a kind that is indistinguishable due to bad lighting) from Cassie's bedside table and starts eating. Cassie takes the unkown food and pissily says "they're mine!", then goes back to curling up and staring at the wall. Thelma chews angrily at her for a while, then asks "Are you going to be a miserable cow all night?" The answer, apparently, is yes.

Boys run around outside. The headmaster (which I know because Jenny actually calls him "headmaster", rather than ever telling us his name) somewhat seedily admires them. Again picking a name totally at random, I'm going to call him Rupert. Though, to be honest, he's really more Robin Wood. They banter a little, then Rupert gets to insulting Roxanne some. She's clearly an idiot, but I haven't seen anything worthy of the utter despisal the entire staff of the college appear to have for her. Rupert and Jenny also get to talking about Cassie, what with her being the main character and all. Jenny starts "I know you have a soft spot for her..." Rupert asks "Is that a technical term?" By all rights, that should not be a notably interesting line, but... I have to take what I can get. Jenny is worried that Cassie lacks confidence, and would rather be "stupid and popular", which she might regret in later life. Rupert replies "Hopefully not. Hopefully, she'll be regretting all the men she's slept with." Also, throughout this conversation, he's doing weird things with a knife and an orange. Wait, is that an actual interesting character? Woah. Jenny gets tired of his crap, and strolls out. "Or women," Rupert adds as she leaves.

Cassie and Thelma are outside, apparently having a picnic of some kind. Cassie tells us she would shag Saddam Hussein, marry Tony Blair, kill George Bush, because apparently this stupid game is what passes for wit around here. A group of guys including Troy runs past, so Cassie takes the opportunity to direct some lust his way before generically listing three Hollywood actresses for Thelma, who answers instantly. "Thought about that one before, haven't you?" Cassie taunts. Hilarious. There's a little sudden seriousness, Thelma asking if Cassie is not having more "funny turns" which almost approaches sweet, then Thelma goes off to her ceramics class and the scene ends.

Cassie walks. For a while. More ghostly "Azazeal" whispering, and Cassie spots a guy too far away to see anything other than that he's dressed in black on the other side of a river/lake/some kind of body of water. Cassie walks some more. Again with the ghostly whispers and the stupid Tension! Tension! Tension! music. Close-up flash of the guy, who, from that quick flash, looks a lot like Gaius Baltar. But I'm going to call him Azazeal, because SPOILER, he's Azazeal. To be fair, the show actually treats that as an "oh, please don't tell me you hadn't figured that out yet" rather than a big reveal when it finally gets around to it. Anyway, at this point a tree branch falls off a tree. Cassie looks mildly perplexed again. She walks a little further, and happens upon Roxanne being broken up with by the art teacher, whose name is apparently Ben. Which is an actual awesome bit of plotting straight out of left field, because I sure didn't see that coming. So, kudos for that, at least. Roxanne is not taking it well. Cassie is nice to her, and they have a sweet moment. It's taken a full twenty minutes, but it seems maybe they've at least started to find ways to hold my interest now.

In her room, Cassie examines the Smurf Penis some more, and traces a finger along a carving on the side of it, which gives her a flash of Rachael in the throes of torture and/or orgasm. Cassie jumps back and breathes heavily for a while, then touches the Smurf Penis some more, and is gifted with images of dead Rachael floating in the SKOBOW (Some Kind Of Body Of Water, natch), the usual ghostly whispers, then somewhat less dead Rachael making out with Azazeal. Cassie again jumps back and again breathes heavily. She gets startled by a knock at the door. Tension! Tension! Tension! It's Roxanne. "I'm not interrupting anything, am I?" she asks as she barges straight in. But no, don't worry, Cassie was just fondling phallic objects and breathing heavily. Roxanne's here because she wants to make sure Cassie isn't going to tell anyone about her and Ben, but she's pretty nice about it, and it's apparently out of concern for what it will do to his career as much as for herself. She thanks Cassie for being so nice to her, and invites her over to watch a movie with "us". No prizes for guessing who that entails. Cassie shyly says she'll see if she's not too busy, then goes back to staring at the Smurf Penis once Roxanne has left.

Cut to Cassie, sitting and watching porn with Roxanne, Leon, Troy and his still nameless girlfriend and a few extras. Everyone else is amused by Leon's open-mouthed intense concentration on the film.

Thelma enters her room, bringing a mug she made for Cassie in Ceramics, cider and scones, suggesting they have "a cream tea. Without the cream. Or the tea." Uh huh. Thelma is surprised to discover that Cassie is not actually there, but apparently immediately figures out where she is. She enters, waits for Cassie to see her hurt look, then leaves. Cassie looks slightly apologetic, but stays put. Later now, Cassie tiptoes into their room, so as not to wake Thelma.

Next day, Thelma is being pissy at Cassie in the cafeteria, so Cassie wanders off, bumps into someone, then notices a painting of Rachael on the wall. Rupert sees her looking at it and decides that it might be an idea to get the plot moving along a little in the next hour, and starts off on some unsolicited exposition. So pertinent imformation: Rachael McBain, first mistress of the estate, became fascinated by the religion of the African servants; voodoo, and apparently sacrificed a young maid to try to summon someone or something. Yeah, no prizes, I'm afraid. She later went insane, and her husband stayed with her to the bitter end because "Sometimes love is a sacrifice too." Exposition now thoroughly exposited, Rupert wanders off and leaves Cassie to looking mildly perplexed at the painting as the ghostly whispers ghostly whisper "Rachael" at her. Cassie then goes outside to look mildly perplexed at the SKOBOW. For a while. Not even halfway through yet, guys.

In Generic Town now, Cassie happens upon Roxanne and Nameless Girlfriend outside a café or something. Cassie says hi, Roxanne offers a seat, the other bitch bitchily completely ignores her for as long as possible. Roxanne finally informs us the other chick's name is Gemma, and tells Cassie that she has nothing to wear for Leon's party tonight. Plot point! Gemma gives up on ignoring Cassie and bitches "You must have the same problem", because, if you were wondering, she's a total bitch, guys. Roxanne starts teasing her about the fact that she's only going because Troy will be there. Gemma denies this (bitchily) and walks off. "Funny how toilet and chocolate cake always seems to go together," Roxanne comments as she leaves. Dude. Let me tell you, Roxanne is undoubtedly the best thing about this show thus far. She thanks Cassie for keeping quiet about the affair, then passive aggressives that no one else knows about it, "so if it gets out, I'll know it was you," then invites Cassie to Leon's party.

At home, Cassie is deciding on an outfit when she accidentally knocks the mug Thelma made for her off the bedside table. Quick zoom to her squinting eyes, and the mug starts rotating, suspended in mid air. That's telekinesis, Kyle. Cassie stares at it for a while, looking, of course, mildly perplexed, until her concentration is thrown by Thelma entering, and the mug crashes to the ground. Thelma is a little angry at this, obviously, and Cassie tersely apologises then snaps at her for not immediately shutting up. Thelma is a little taken aback, and asks if something is going on with Cassie; "I'm thinking sudden character change usually attributed to drug addiction, parental divorce, secret membership of the CIA..." Heh. Cassie continues to be pissy at her, and eventually storms out of the room.

Mournful piano slowly montages us through Cassie wandering through Generic Town, buying clothes from Generic Clothes Shop, trying on clothes, blah blah blah. Totally ignoring the fact that things are clearly not great between them, Cassie insists on getting Thelma's opinion on the outfit. Thelma is non-committal. Cassie starts yammering about this and that and SHUT UP, ending with "I just don't have that... thing, you know?" Man, do I ever. She finally gets the idea that Thelma is not happy with her, so the scene can end.

Generic Club. Cassie looks uncomfortable for a while, then spots Roxanne, and meanders her way through the dancefloor towards her. Roxanne tells her she looks amazing. Cassie notices her watching some guy and friendlily tells her "He's cute! Looks more your type." Roxanne pointedly asks "More than...?", but Cassie is an idiot and needs to have "DO NOT TALK ABOUT IT" actually spelled out for her. Also, Roxanne's accent, which has been varying between upper class English and some kind of Eastern European throughout the episode has suddenly become completely Australian, so I don't know what the hell is going on there. Roxanne walks away to talk to Mr. More Your Type, and Cassie goes back to looking uncomfortable until she spots Troy with no bitch hanging off him, and goes to talk to him. They share some reasonably amusing banter about how the large crowd is only there for the free bar, but Troy won't care "as long as he gets his end away", but then Gemma arrives to bitchily pull Troy away and once again make bitchy comments to Cassie for no particular reason.

Roxanne approaches Leon to manipulatively tell him that Cassie is totally into him and told her she'd be giving him a present that she thinks he'll like. Well, there goes that. There's really no need for two totally iredeemable bitches, guys. Well, there's really no need for one. Fuck off.

Leon gets his deluded self over to Cassie and asks where his present is. She unwittingly flirts "I think I left it at home", and offers to buy him a drink. Wait, did you not say it was a free bar just five minutes ago? Come on now. Leon wants to bypass that and go straight to the present, and asks if she doesn't want to give him a taster before they go. Cassie is like, WTF? Leon kisses her and asks if that was what she had in mind. Cassie tells him no, and says she's going to go find her friends now. Leon pissily tells her "You haven't got any!", then starts getting all grabby. Cassie pulls away and goes to the corridor outside. Leon follows and apologises, telling her "I really like you, Cassie." For some fucking reason she replies "And I like you, Leon." Seriously, what the fuck? Leon, understandably, takes this the wrong way, and by "the wrong way", I mean "the only fucking way anyone would take that", and starts getting handsy again, so Cassie uses her newfound powers to throw him off guard by exploding a nearby fusebox.

Cassie runs towards home. Tension! Tension! Tension! strings Tension! Tension! Tension! their way into a frenzy as she TRIPS OVER A ROCK OR SOMETHING. She goes inside and, ridiculously slowly, starts ascending the staircase, as the camera slowly starts zooming towards her arse, then jumps through completely random angles for no particular reason, then a ZOMBIE HAND grabs her arm. Hi, Rachael. She walks in a circle around Cassie a few times, and The Ghostly Whispers play their smash hit "Azazeal, Azazeal, Azazeal". Cassie looks mildly perplexed over and over, until the Tension! Tension! Tension! is broken by Jenny appearing at the top of the staircase and asking Cassie what's wrong. Cassie has no reasonable answer to give, so she just carries on giving a mildly perplexed look until the director decides to end the scene.

Cassie, looking actually a bit distraught, walks into her room crying. Thelma takes this actual reasonable point to forget the arguing that went on, and asks Cassie what the hell is going on. Eventually Cassie explains all about the telekinesis and suchlike, and it takes a pretty long time, and she offers no imformation that we didn't already know, so, that's nice. Well, she says it happens when she's angry or scared or upset or whatever, and she has no control over it, which were only implied before, I guess. Thelma, for her part, is pretty cool throughout. I'm warming to her a lot. She notices Cassie looking pointedly at the Smurf Penis, so she goes over to it. Cassie tells her not to touch it. She hesitates momentarily, then does anyway. Cassie asks if she feels anything, then at the lack of reply, sniffs "You think I'm crazy." Thelma sweetly has faith in her, and Cassie tells Thelma she's the only person she trusts with this. It's quite a nice moment.

Next day. Cassie and Thelma talking by their lockers. Leon and Troy walk past, Leon glares at Cassie, then they start pointing and laughing. Scene ends.

Outside, Thelma is yammering her heart out to Cassie about how she senses her presence even when she's not there, and Cassie totally ignores her to stare at Azazeal ominousing in the distance. Thelma notices and calls her on it. Cassie denies that she wasn't listening, Thelma asks what she just said then. "That you wanted my arse", Cassie tells her. "God no, I'm quite happy with my own," Thelma replies. Well, that actually resembles wit.

Inside, Cassie is doing her nails, and telekinetics the nail polish across the table, which is a) just plain lazy and b) you don't look very angry, scared or upset, Cassie, and c) why was it even on the other side of the table if she'd already started? Thelma gets weirded out by this actual proof of the crap Cassie was saying last night.

And now we're watching Frankenstein. OK. Uh, disembodied eyes following Bunsen burner. Disembodied hand spazzing out. "Fascinating, isn't it?" asks a guy who I guess is probably Dr. Frankenstein. "Not really, I've seen better hotel porn," says Leon. Which is Jenny's cue to stop the tape and ask "Luke" to get the curtains. The rest of the class start making mocking "Lukey Lukey Luke" noises at him, which I do find kind of hilarious, because it's basically the actors with actual work making fun of an extra. Jenny tells the class their homework is to compare and contrast the different film versions of Frankenstein they've seen with Mary Shelley's original. Class all groan and mutter "bitch" and suchlike. After everyone else leaves, Jenny cautiously asks if Cassie is OK after her total freakout last night. Cassie is totally dismissive, Jenny keeps on asking, so Cassie gravely tells her "I'm addicted to freebase crack." "Right," Jennie whispers. "And I've taken to prostitution to feed my habit." "Good choice." Hee! Cassie starts to leave now, and Jenny calls after her "You can always buy me a drink, if you want to talk." There's showing concern for your students, and there's full-on being a creepy obsessive stalker, Jenny.

The Sad, Mournful Piano Of Mourning Sadness plays as we slowly zoom onto the worst lit scene yet. That patch of slightly off-black kind of looks like Cassie's hair, so I guess she's sitting there. Probably looking sad and pensive. I know you guys are trying to create an atmosphere and all, but it would be nice if I could actually see what was happening, especially in dialogue free scenes. Blurry probably-Cassie moves around a bit. Oh, I think she's reaching around the little nook and/or crannie where she found the Smurf Penis. Yeah, there's that little bone cross, and there's the piece of wood that might, in fact, actually be a slab of stone that has "AZAZEAL" carved into it. Cassie looks at it. I can't see her face, but I'd bet she's looking mildly perplexed. Thelma shouts "Cassie!" from the doorway, Cassie hurriedly puts the wood/stone back into the nook/crannie. Thelma asks if she's OK, Cassie dismissively says she fine, Thelma hesitates, then says "I need a favour."

Said favour is, apparently, Cassie lying on her back, in her underwear on a large sheet of paper, so Thelma can draw around her outline. There's no pertinent reason for Cassie to need to be in her underwear for this that I can see. Flirting, giggling, rah rah rah. It's cute.

Another art class, Leon is loudly declaring that Cassie's vagina is going to rust shut and suchlike, which Gemma is bitchily finding hilarious, while Thelma glares at him. Cassie takes a more proactive approach, and, quite deliberately telepyromanically sets fire to a wireframe bug thing suspended from the ceiling above his head. I'm totally in favour of this. Everyone runs around screaming when it falls to the floor and sets his trousers on fire. Cassie gives a satisfied smile, Thelma gives her a suspicious look.

In his office, Rupert is angrily hammering at his laptop keyboard. Cassie hovers in the doorway and waits for him to notice her. He does, tells her to sit down, and asks what happened. Cassie immediately gets all defensive and, like, "I didn't use my psychic powers to set that thing on fire! You can't prove anything!" Rupert's like, "Duh. I'm just legally obliged to ask everyone what they saw." Cassie saw nothing, NOTHING I TELL YOU. She does admit that she "can't think of anyone more suitable" for spontaneous human combustion. Rupert gets bored of the fire thing and asks if she's happy here. Cassie, as always, is dismissively happy. Rupert asks if she has a boyfriend. "Not exactly," Cassie replies, by which she means "No, but I am totally leading my lesbian roommate on, so I think I should get some points for that." Rupert is all "No? What am I teaching these boys?" He's kind of awesome when he's not having to be Exposition Guy. Which is, sadly, kind of rare. Cassie suggests that maybe it's not them, it's her. Rupert smiles and decides that's enough discussion about the incident and she can go now. Cassie pauses before leaving and decides to ask him who Azazeal is. Rupert gets an "Oh, is it time for more exposition already?" look, and tells her that Azazeal is the leader of the Nephilim, which is Hebrew for "Fallen Ones". Angels who fell in love with mortal women. There are dozens of them, dozens! Uh, I mean 200. God cast them into the abyss, where they've remained ever since. Hooray! "But what if they haven't?" Cassie asks. Oh no! "Well, there's some stuff about feasting on the souls of men, but I wouldn't lose any sleep over it." Oh, Ok. Cassie asks if he thinks the Nephilim really exist, to which he replies "Absolutely. Most of them are in Year 11." Heh. And that's apparently a good enough place to end a scene. Fine.

Locker Room. Thelma is all teasingly "So, I thought we could watch a movie, play some scrabble, find a man with an extra large hose in case some else decides to spontaneously burst into flames." "No one's as toxic as Leon," Cassie replies. Yeah, once we passed the halfway point, the writers seemed to work out what wit is. Cool. Thelma's all "J'accuse!". Cassie claims it wasn't deliberate, just "divine retribution". Also, she's looking significantly at Gemma bitchily hanging onto Troy at this point. Cassie's starting to seem slightly less boring and slightly more psychotic at this point, which is a change I think I can get behind. Cassie tries to cajole Thelma into going to a party tonight. Thelma is reluctant.

Then to Cassie and Thelma's room for a bit of classic "people totally make sex noises when trying to put on clothes that are too small for them" "humour". Yeah, that will never get old. Apropos of nothing, Cassie asks if Thelma's ever thought about plastic surgery. "Absolutely," Thelma replies, "I've started saving already!" There's a little talk of "designer vaginas" which Cassie agrees with me is a somewhat disturbing concept, then "Lady Marmalade" starts up to segue us into the party.

Cassie, after glancing sadly at Troy and Gemma, starts flirting quite blatantly with Thelma. Thelma enjoys this for a while, until Cassie goes back to looking forlorn at Troy and Gemma again. Cassie takes absolutely forever, interspersed with clips of Leon acting like a moron, to squintily telekinetic a wire around Leon's feet, tripping him and making him knock the wine glass from Gemma's hand all over Troy's shirt. Seriously, if you cut scenes like this to their actual necessary length, the episode would be about half an hour long. Gemma bitches at Leon, Leon laughs at her, Troy disappears to a back room somewhere. Cassie stalkily follows him, telling Thelma she's going to get another drink. Roxanne walks in and also laughs at Gemma. Thelma walks past and, uh, grabs Gemma's breast? Maybe? I don't know.

Troy is attempting to wash his shirt, and, him being shirtless and all, we can see he has a tattoo on his arm of what appears to be an amorphous black blob. Yeah, I'm thinking of getting one of those. Cassie stands in the doorway gawking until he notices her. She embarrasses herself with some jokes that fall totally flat, Troy reasonably politely tells her to fuck off, and Thelma takes a turn at the ancient art of doorway gawking. Cassie sees her in the mirror, and takes off after her.

Piano Of Big Emotional Climax starts up as we follow Cassie following Thelma towards a Big Emotional Climax. Cassie's using the always ridiculous "it wasn't what it looked like". Also, "I didn't do anything" and rah rah rah. Her words are pretty irrelevant to the scene, really, because this is all about Thelma and about Jemima Rooper demonstrating that she is most likely too good for this show. Thelma calls out Cassie on the whole 'no control over my powers' crap, and goes on that "this is what you've always wanted, isn't it? A bit of control." Cassie offers substanceless denials, face somewhere between her classic mild perplexity and other classic sad and pensive. Thelma continues; "That's why you like me, you think you can do what you like with me. Because you know how I feel about you." To this, Cassie claims "I feel the same about you". Thelma agrees that she does, and Cassie's suddenly like "Well, not quite the same way." NO TAKE BACKS! YOU LOOOOVE HER! CASSIE AND THELMA, SITTING IN A TREE! etc. etc. Cassie claims of the blatant flirting earlier that "we were just having a laugh!" which is the perfect setup for a closing statement from Thelma; "You were!"
Oh wait, my mistake. That's not a closing statement, just a short interval, because they haven't yet stretched this scene to at least twice as long as it ought to be. Thelma spells out exactly what she's been practically spelling out for the entire scene. I'm sure you can figure it out for yourself. Cassie continues to be useless, Thelma eventually runs off. Cassie lamely shouts "Thelma, wait!", then notices Azazeal ominousing in the shadows. He promptly vanishes. There's some ominousing and tensioning of the soundtrack, and Cassie stands around looking mildly perplexed until the scene ends.

Cassie wakes up with a start. Thelma's not there. Time for another look of mild perplexity! Man, I will never get tired of those.

Outside, police are questioning extras. And now we start getting something that actually resembles good television. Inside, Rupert and Jenny are looking melancholy and uncomfortable, and, along with a police officer, are questioning Cassie. I'm sure I don't need to tell you how she looks. Cassie tells us what happened last night, which of course, we just saw. But we do learn that Thelma has gone missing without anyone even directly explaining that Thelma has gone missing, which is a truly novel way of doing things. Also, they've employed the philosophy of "less is more" to the soundtrack for once, which is most definitely a good move. Oppressive silence in these kind of scenes works far better than oppressive string sections. After some detailed interrogation of things that couldn't possibly bear any importance to a police investigation as far as I can see, but I'm sure that's realistic, Cassie wanders off outside to watch the police question more extras, and no prizes for guessing who she sees hovering ominously in the distance. This time he doesn't vanish, but walks along a path through a gate, so Cassie follows. More terrible lighting as we presumably follow Cassie following Azazeal to wherever he's going. Oh look, it's Rachael's grave. Except her name is actually spelt "Rachel", but fuck it, I've already had to go through correcting "Dougie Out Of McFly" to "Danny Out Of McFly", so previous "Rachael"'s can stay right where they are. Her epitaph, as well as correcting my spelling, says "1715-1746, Beloved wife of Thomas", if you were wondering. I can't imagine you were, but whatever. There's a little more-ghostly-than-usual whispering that might be "Cassie" or might be "Azazeal", then some quiet wandering, and silence suddenly shattered by a car alarm. A Phil Mitchell lookalike wanders into frame and switches it off.

Cassie stands around drinking water from a plastic cup. Strings tension stringily, ghosts whisper ghostily. Cassie crushes the cup in her hand. Very, very slowly, she follows Azazeal into a room where he's being all arch-gothic and playing a grand piano with a vase of red roses on it. What's actually kind of cool is that the piano on the soundtrack quite seamlessly merges into the piano he's playing here. Cassie asks where Thelma is. Azazeal answers that question with a non-answering question of his own. Cassie claims to not know who he is. He tells her not to insult his intelligence, which is advice the writers could have done with throughout. Cassie tries to be all Junior Miss Tough Chick of the Universe, but she's quite clearly way out of her depth with this guy, who, let me tell you, is about a thousand times more creepy now he's actually talking. He tells her matter of factly that he needs to regain his strength, and Cassie is going to help him. Cassie protests, he rolls his eyes and asks "Do we have to pretend that you have a choice?" Cassie simply says "Yes", Azaeal simply says "Fine", then picks a petal from one of the roses and tells her "It wasn't an accident that you found the [Smurf Penis]. Nothing is." and that her powers thus far are "just a taste of things to come." He lets go of the rose petal, and it stays hovering in mid air, which the soundtrack guy who sneakily went back to the piano when Azazeal departed it evidently finds totally creepy. Cassie asks about Rachel, Azazeal claims he did nothing she didn't want, then a tear falls down his cheek as Cassie points out that he drove Rachel mad, which may be the creepiest thing so far. He mournfully tells her that "Rachel was her own undoing", and Cassie obviously realises that she's hit a sore spot and doesn't want to go opening old wounds for the poor satanically evil demon guy, so she gets back to Thelma. Azazeal agrees to take her to see Thelma, and actually opens a secret passageway by moving a book in the bookshelf. I kid you not. He sure loves his clichés. Anyway, he's damn creepy, and I get that this scene wouldn't have worked at all as well if they didn't build him up like they did, but... I really don't think it needed as much as they gave it. Which is pretty much true for just about everything in this episode.

So, Azazeal takes Cassie into the candlelit room where he's got Thelma tied to a chair and blindfolded. He takes off the blindfold, gets out a knife and tells Cassie "It's the only way." Thelma is totally scared shitless. Cassie attempts to telekinetically drop a chandelier on Azazeal's head, but he dodges it unflinchingly, and says "You don't understand yet. A sacrifice must be willing. Must be a sacrifice in the true sense of the word." Cassie tries to telekinetically untie Thelma while Azazeal strides menacingly towards her and goads her into admitting that she loves Thelma, and would give herself for her, thus making it a willing sacrifice. And so he stabs Thelma. I don't quite see how that works, because Cassie was the one who made the sacrifice, not Thelma, but whatever. Dude, Thelma's dead. They sure like to remove their likeable characters one way or another, huh? Azazeal casually wanders, probably into a pentagram on the floor, and says "I told you I needed a willing sacrifice", like, WE GET IT ALREADY, and his eyes go bloodshot, then in a massively cheap looking effect, he morphs into a yellowy anorexic wingéd thing and raises his hands in an "I am an instrument of God" fashion. Well, I mean, not actually the "instrument of God" part.

Cassie wakes up with a start. Thelma's not there. Time for another look of mild perplexity! Man, I will never get tired of those.

Outside, police are questioning extras. Ah! Infinite loop! Ah! Ah! No, wait, these are different extras. Cassie saunters over to the SKOBOW, where a policeman is pulling Thelma's totally dead body out of the water, and Cassie breaks down crying.

Funeral, priest blathers funeral talk, some of which is there to make it clear that everyone appears to believe that Thelma died by drowning, some of it just for atmosphere, everyone stands around looking sad. Cassie stands out among all the black by wearing a massively inappropriately bright red beret. Everyone is looking all sad, Leon particularly so, which is interesting. Troy gives a half-smile at Cassie, she returns it. Roxanne, despite sticking with black, has one-upped Cassie on the ridiculous hat front by wearing an entire black sheep on her head. Azazeal watches creepily from a distance. Cassie looks sad some more, but the mood is suddenly broken when Thelma appears next to her and says "They're bloody loving this; 'Don't be a dyke or you'll end up topping yourself'. Hee! Cassie looks shocked, nobody else reacts, because evidently they can't see her. And, mercifully, the episode is finally over. Seriously, EIGHTY MINUTES. Man.

So, while I kind of hated this episode, it definitely looks to have the potential to get much much better. I mean, Thelma is kind of cool, and could go either way on that as a ghost, and in future there won't be an hour of buildup before Azazeal gets to be a creepy fucker so, we'll see.