Failed Again!

So, seeing as how I've given up entirely on the concept of 'schedule' as far as Torchwood recaps go, they're not the only things you'll be getting. I'm going to try for at least one recap a week, but they could be Torchwood or they could be Hex or they could be Sugar Rush or they could be Skins or possibly something else entirely. I'm sure the surprise will be highly enticing.
One thing I do plan to do is actually keep up to its schedule once the third season of Sugar Rush comes around in the summer, but until then, it'll all be potluck. Enjoy!


Hex Episode 2x01 - "Cursed"

Episode grade: C-

Previously: This show pretty much just sucked, but thanks solely and completely to the talents of Jemima Rooper, I was able to convince myself that maybe it didn't, for a while. (That might occasionally happen again; that Jemima is a talented girl.) Somehow, it got a second season of thirteen whole episodes, in spite of the previously stated sucking, and also the fact that, hilariously, like, half the cast decided to quit in the interim. So, remember Thelma's new girlfriend, Pippi, or Peggy, or whatever? The show would like you not to. She's just gone, with no explanation for her disappearance, or indeed any indication that she ever existed in the first place. Troy and Gemma, you are allowed to remember, and there is a single line explaining their sudden disappearance, but otherwise, they are not heard from or mentioned ever again, and are swiftly replaced by Troy 2.0 and Gemma 2.0 (Actual names Tom and Alex, the latter of which I don't think I learned until, like, the second from last episode, so she will always be Gemma 2.0 to me. Tom I might start calling by his actual name at some point, we'll see how it goes.). There might be some others I've not thought of, and also, this is just the ones that haven't agreed to at least make a couple of appearances to let their characters leave the show somewhat organically. And, given that one of those characters is CASSIE who is actually supposed to be THE main character, they kind of had to make some sudden changes to the direction of the entire show. So, the first few episodes are a transition period to Hex 2.0, and the transition period kind of sucks, but all in all, I do think I prefer Hex 2.0 to Hex 1.0. But I'm getting a little ahead of myself, let's get to the start of the frantic retooling of every single plan they had for the overreaching story arc.

Also previously: Cassie got knocked up, and an Evil Christian doctor who was supposed to abort the devil child chose instead to remove it by caesarean without Cassie's knowledge or consent, which totally sent the world to Hell, which is where it already was, so actually, nothing much has changed, I guess. Straight into credits after that, which are cunningly disguised as being identical to season one credits right at the moment, although some of the names have changed. Laura Pyper's just been tacked on the end of the list with the non-important people, like Ella's not going to become the replacement main character once Christina Cole buggers off.

London, 1849. A blonde girl who pretty much looks like Cassie levitates a vase, in front of a crowd of stunned onlookers. She may be a McBain, but all the nonsense about the McBains that bored the crap out of me in the first couple of episodes of season one turns out to serve no purpose whatsoever in the grand scheme of things, thanks to Christina Cole's departure, so that was all a waste of time, really, wasn't it. A dude in the back watches intensely, and I think it's Azazeal, but I'm kind of thrown by the crazy huge sideburns and top hat. There are, like, pigmy tribes living in those sideburns. He tips his hat to, I don't know, the freak show organiser or whatever. I don't really know what's going on here.

Later, the girl is lying in bed. Azazeal, sans top hat now, and it definitely is him, walks in and kisses her and then leaves. I have seen the entire series now, but it's been a while since I saw this episode so right at the moment I could not possibly hope to tell you what the point of any of this is, but I do wish someone would actually say something. Azazeal wanders around, and like throws some keys or something at some guy and then goes outside, where the peasants are milling and oh, right, now I see the point of all this; this girl with dark red hair and psychotic eyes is following Azazeal and glaring at him, and the point of this is so we're all like "woah" when she shows up in the present day scenes later. Right, so, this is Ella, although they probably won't tell us that for hours, because, as you may recall, this show is kind of horrible about actually telling the audience the names of its characters. And then I just name them after Buffy characters because Joss Whedon is literally God, and all of that. I'm gonna try to cut down on that a little, so from now, David will be "David" and not "Rupert", and Jo will be "Jo" and not "Jenny". Back to what's going on right now; Ella is delightfully unhinged, which is what makes her far more interesting as a main character than Cassie, and because she is so wonderfully crazy, she slits the girl's throat. You know, the one who is Cassie, but not. Ella's hair is actually black, and also curly, in the past, but I couldn't see that before, because she was wearing a hood. But any other time we see her (including any other flashbacks, as far as I recall), it's red, and straight.

Right. The gasp of the throat slit girl segues us to Cassie also gasping, because Thelma has just thrown water at her to wake her up. Cassie bitches, Thelma is cute, it's all eerily familiar. OK, right, Cassie's been having bad dreams (the most recent of which I think is supposed to be the flashback we just saw) and her solution to this problem is apparently "Don't sleep", which is akin to "pull out before you finish" as far as effective solutions to problems go. She complains at Thelma for letting her fall asleep, Thelma tells her she'll go crazy, Cassie's all "Cool with me!" Then she takes some pills and wanders out into the corridor. Outside, a stone gargoyle on the roof cocks its head, Cassie hears the noise of this and is slightly wigged and oh God, I'd forgotten how slow moving this damn show is sometimes. Cassie stops, and waits around for the next creepy thing to happen, and eventually, it does; there's something moving outside the window. Oooooooooh-er.
Cassie ducks into a kitchen, which is sensible, because the kitchen is probably the closest thing to an armoury in this or, indeed, most other buildings. For some reason, there's a plate of mousse on the table, which Cassie decides to dig into, but she's shocked to be distracted from it by the door slowly creaking open, and, man, is her short term memory really that bad? She levitates a baking tray at the intruder, and then grabs a ladle to beat it with, but of course, the intruder is no kind of demon, it's just Felix. You know, the dumb guy who babbled incessantly about Aliens back in whatever lame episode. I'm not going to look it up. Cassie apologises for attacking him, saying "I thought you were someone else", and instead of asking, like, "Who were you planning to assault with kitchen utensils?", Felix just accepts this and tells her he was after some hot milk. Cassie cheerfully tells him she'd better leave him to it, he watches her leave with a clear look of longing.

Next day, Cassie's getting stuff out of her locker and describing the thing she saw outside the window to Thelma; "It was hideous. So hideous I almost felt sorry for it." Thelma giggles and asks Cassie if she's sure she isn't talking about Felix. Poor Felix. I'm not saying I feel sorry for him, that's just his full name, like Boone, God's Friggin' Gift To Humanity. Cassie and Thelma throw around the exposition ball some; that critter that was not Poor Felix was a Nephilim, remember, and that means that Cassie's son is not dead like he should be, remember. Thelma asks if Cassie plans to claim child benefits. Heh. Cassie said she plans instead to opt for finding, torturing and killing Azazeal. Well, one out of three ain't bad, supposedly.

In class, Leon, Roxanne and Gemma 2.0 are quickly providing the explanation for Troy and Gemma's disappearance so we can get on with the business of forgetting about them completely, and man, it's funny to see Leon acting like such a dick when I'm now so used to the new version of Leon, who is actually pretty OK. More on that story later. So, apparently Troy thought Cassie's baby was his and left the country, and Gemma followed. Now that is an airtight story. Cassie is looking glum, I guess because Troy has left, but man, that was pretty much her fault anyway. Thelma asks her "If there was something you'd always wanted to do, but never could, and then you found a way, but the way was morally dubious, what would you do?" I have no idea what she's talking about. Cassie goes with "I'm not going to sleep with you, Thelma," but apparently that is not it. OH! Wait, I do remember. Go for it, Thelma. Jo comes in, swigging from a bottle of water and looking generally haggard and forgetting what Shakespeare play it is they're supposed to be covering now, and everyone looks concerned and/or amused.

Cassie takes a trip to the hospital, Evil Christian Dr. Condescencion sees her in the waiting room and tries to flee, but Cassie catches up with him. He tries to claim that he's very busy, she tells him he's been avoiding her, and she wants to know what he did with her baby. Dr. Codescencion is all condescendingly "If you're having doubts now, I'm afraid it's too late", and tells the receptionist to call security. Cassie gives up on getting anything from him and leaves, and hegoes into his office, where Ella is waiting. This'd be the point where we're supposed to go "woah". Let's all take a moment to do that. Woah.

OK. Cafeteria, Cassie's complaining to Thelma about how the not so good doctor "can't just going around saving people's babies", Thelma points out the inherent hilarity in bitching about people saving babies, Cassie resolves to go back to the hospital and beat the truth out of the doctor, or something. On her way to her table, Poor Felix accosts Cassie to say "Hi" and invade her personal space, Cassie apologises again for attacking him with kitchen utensils, and Poor Felix just stands there grinning until Cassie gives up on attempting to communicate with him. Thelma walks past and gives Poor Felix a disdainful look up and down, hee. Cassie sits down at a table with David and Jo, which, I know she apparently has no friends who aren't dead, but that doesn't seem like her. She doesn't acknowledge them at all, and vice versa, and we pan over to their conversation, where Jo is totally absent. David reminds her about the governor's meeting next week that she's supposed to have written a report for. Jo has not done anything of the sort, and David jokes that she spent "too much time at the Christmas sales". Jo tells him "I know you think you're charming, but actually, you're just a sexist pig" and storms out, and maybe if she actually did her damn job, she'd have more ground to stand on there.

Hospital. Thelma complains that the nurses' uniforms are lot less PVC than various clothing outlets had led her to believe, and see, this kind of thing is why she's the one that gets me through the less than stellar episodes of this show, and God knows there are more than a few of those. Cassie tells her that most people come here to die, Thelma points out that dead people have desires too, and yeah it's another "By the way, Thelma is a lesbian! And a ghost! She's a lesbian ghost!" scene, but at least they managed to get through this one without using either of the actual words. Inside, Thelma holds Cassie back and points out that finding out for sure that her son is still alive will be a totally life changing event, and maybe she should think twice before going through with it. Like, Cassie pretty much knows already, but as long as she doesn't have concrete proof, they can pretend that nothing has really changed from the good ol' days when they had not a care in the world. Apart from Thelma being dead, of course. Cassie asks if while they're at it, they can pretend that she's "an international popstar and dating Brad Pitt", and while they're busy doing that, I'm going to pretend we've already done the part where it turns out that Cassie's son is alive, because we all know he is already, and no matter how cute Thelma is playing with random hospital equipment, this is hella tedious. And then Cassie finds Dr. Condescension's bloody corpse. Hooray!

Later, Thelma sneaks back into the hospital, steals the sleeping security guard's food, and heads into the morgue. She pulls corpses out of their drawers, shaking her head at an old woman and a fireman, before she settles on an attractive young blonde woman, and starts taking off her dress. It's really not nearly as gross as it appears to be right now, though, so I can carry on loving Thelma, thankfully, because man, I don't know how I'd get through this show if that stopped happening.

Cassie's asleep in the common room, and dreaming of Azazeal, and then herself, naked. We can't actually see her face, so it probably isn't really Christina Cole, but they sure do love to show Cassie naked, in spite of the fact that I'm guessing the whole Nipples Without Warning incident may have had something to do with Ms. Cole's early departure. Anyway, Dream Cassie is breastfeeding Li'l Lucifer, only she is lactating blood instead of milk. Cassie is woken by Poor Felix, who continues to be obviously lusting after Cassie and incredibly socially awkward. Fuck that shit, right. I get the point. Poor Felix wants to know what's wrong, "Is it Thelma?" Cassie stupidly is all "No, Thelma's fine, she's being really good at the moment", and there's awkward silence and then Poor Felix rambles about how he had trouble letting go of his mother when she died too. Cassie thanks him for his help as he goes, though it had nothing whatsoever to do with her actual troubles, because she's so friggin' NICE. Yawn.

Back in the morgue, the security guard wakes up, finds his cake missing, and discovers Thelma's clothes discarded on the floor. Somehow he instantly knows to open the door immediately to the right of the clothes to discover the body of the same girl Thelma did, only she is now naked. With lipstick smeared all around her mouth. It's not what it looks like! OK, uh, Thelma had a little trouble getting the top off her? And the lipstick got kind of smudged in the process of doing so? Let's go with that.

Right, see, because Thelma was just stealing the dead girl's clothes so she could wear them because she was fed up of resembling a Final Fantasy character what with the never changing of the clothes. Well, not that her original outfit was anything near the level of ludicrousness required to join those fabled ranks. I mean, the big red flower was a little much, but it's hardly a spandex one-piece with short shorts plus matching gigantic leather boots and bracelets and bizzare outer thigh coverings and tiny bronze wings. They really outdid themselves on that one, and I could not previously have imagined that to be possible. Anyway, Hex. Right, Thelma's got herself a brand new look, and Cassie tells her she looks amazing and she is not wrong. Cassie also asks where she got the clothes, of course, and Thelma is all "you don't want to know" and Cassie realises that this is the morally dubious thing she was talking about earlier. Thanks for clearing that up, guys! Thelma explains that, in addition to being able to walk through car doors, but not other kinds of doors or walls as far as we know, and also being able to touch anything except actual living people, I think, she can only wear dead people's clothes. Yeah, that makes the exact opposite of sense. OK, Cassie is kind of grossed out that Thelma is stealing dead people's clothes and, hey, she didn't even see the lipstick!

A little later, Thelma's making one of her regular vending machine stops when she spots Jo looking incredibly shifty and walking hurriedly down the corridor. Thelma follows her, of course, because maybe she'll get to read some more of Jo's erotic fiction, and Jo takes a large wad of cash out of safe, and then suddenly is driving, and Thelma has done her car door trick again. Well, come on, it's not like any of the rest of her ghost powers would keep you amused for long. Jo hands over the money to a Scandinavian looking dude, and by that I mean he is tall and strong and blonde and blue-eyed/pure and healthy, very wealthy/SWEEEEEEDEEEEEEEEEEN! Mostly just the first part. In return, he hands her a SUSPICIOUS PACKAGE. Could this be a drug deal going down?! THAT WOULD SURE EXPLAIN THE TOTAL SHAKES THAT JO SEEMS TO HAVE ALL THE TIME NOW!!! It's not a drug deal, but here's a boring anecdote from my life that tangentially related, skip to the next paragraph if you don't care. So, the other day, my housemates and I went on a three hour drive, for Krispy Kreme donuts and nothing else (TOTALLY WORTH IT. FOR REALZ.) some of which we sold on at a meager profit, which, due to being unable to find our various customers' actual houses, we did out of the back of the car, with the two front seaters getting out to open up the boot/make sure there was no surreptitious stealings, while me and t'other back seater handled calculation of cost for whatever weight (or number, if you prefer) of donuts they wanted and receiving/counting of money, respectively. And we all observed how much this resembled a theoretical drug deal, and how simple it would be to replace the donuts with crack and we would totally not get caught in the slightest, and laughs were had by all. So, that's my boring story. I hope you have a more interesting life than me!

Anyway, it turns out the SUSPICIOUS PACKAGE is actually baby formula, for Azazeal and Li'l Lucifer. Stunner. And also, Li'l Lucifer is still growing way faster than normal children, just like he did in Cassie's uterus, because we don't want to have to wait through, like, fifteen seasons of this crap before we can get on with the teenage Antichrist storyline now do we.

Thelma flees the scene, running into loud, clattering rubbish bins and tripping over her feet and crying out and just generally trying as hard as possible to alert Azazeal to her presence, and, surprise! It works. But all he does is glare at her. Come on, you could at least have said something totally unremarkable in a really threatening tone, like, "Lovely weather today, isn't it, THELMA." You're not even trying here.

Meanwhile, Cassie swims, hears something whispering her name, and is yet again suddenly surprised by the appearance of Poor Felix. This is getting ridiculous. Poor Felix has sleeping pills for Cassie, Cassie spots a Nephilim and follows it and inadvertantly walks in on Poor Felix in the shower and blah blah embarrassment cakes.

Cassie gets home, and Thelma's sitting on the bed crying. Cassie asks her what's wrong, and Thelma tearfully tells her "I got mud on my new clothes!" Aww, Thelma! Cassie acts all appropriately maternal, and Thelma eventually confesses that this may not be the only thing that was bothering her and tells Cassie about Azazeal and the baby but not Jo, oddly enough.

Cassie decides to go confront Azazeal, because that's always worked out so well for her in the past. He tells her that she'll soon come to realise that she wanted to keep the baby as much as he did, and that's just stupid. Sure, she'll realise she did want the baby after all, that's conceivable, but I'm pretty sure she wouldn't go out of her way to manipulate people into stealing foetuses that they are supposed to be killin', you know? Cassie tells Azazeal that he is arrogant and has no respect for her, and his slicked back hair is lame. Azazeal just smirks, and Cassie complains that she hasn't slept for days and there is a weird bad special effects demon stalking her. Azazeal names said demon as Barracuda or something that sounded vaguely like that and tells her he's an archangel blah blah mythology cakes. Cassie asks when the other 199 bad special effect demons might be making an appearance, Azazeal just says "All in good time", and brings over Li'l Lucifer for her to hold, telling her he has inflicted the poor child with the name of Malachi, like we needed any more proof that he's evil. (No offense to any Malachis out there, like. At least it's not Eugene.) Azazeal wants them to be a proper family, Cassie tells him to suck it and leaves, but not without a drawn out pained glance back at her 'proper family'.

Cassie walks through the gardens of the college, lost in her thoughts and Poor Felix approaches once again, although it's not a total jumping out from behind her thing, for once. Cassie asks him if all men are bastards, he tells her that they are, actually, "something to do with the genetic makeup. I don't consider myself to be particularly male. I'm more like a hybrid. I mean, I still produce milk." Cassie smiles and tells him that whatever he is (DISTURBING is the answer), Poor Felix is an improvement on most of the guys Cassie has met, and Poor Felix lights up like the proverbial extremely socially awkward and seemingly slightly mentally handicapped kid in a candy store. Cassie remains totally obvlivious to the huge crush Poor Felix is quite obviously developing.

Cassie hangs out with Thelma in some generic spot on the school grounds, Thelma quite rightly makes fun of Malachi's name. Then they provide some exposition about how it is not surprising that he is growing up so ludicrously fast, because that inevitably happens to every baby on every TV show that has ever existed. Except the ones where they just don't grow up at all. Cassie and Thelma start to walk away, and we pan over to a sleek black car pulling into the drive, out of which hops Ella. Hi!

David leads Ella through the cafeteria and tells her thrilling stories about the works of art the school occasionally has to sell to buy new computers, and everybody stares at the new girl, because she is the new girl, and also she is wearing a crazy badass leather trenchcoat. Thelma loudly proclaims Ella's hotness, Ella looks straight at her and gives her a wink. Cassie and Thelma share confused looks.

In their room, Thelma asks Cassie if she thinks Ella's a "Nephrilim", assuming that, being female, she'll be more dangerous; "brains and brawn, lethal combination". Then her train of thought merrily derails and she asks what Cassie is planning to do about Malachi. Cassie tells her to stop asking questions and gets all indignant that Thelma is attempting to engage her in conversation, because she is too tired to deal with such trifling matters as the most important friendship in her life right now, OK?

Outside, there's lightning, and christmas lights, and disco lights, and a general theme of light. Leon asks Troy 2.0 if he's ready for "a night of hardcore drugs and kinky sex". Troy 2.0 complains that Leon said they were just going for a few quiet drinks, Leon quips that "It always starts out that way", Troy 2.0 looks distinctly uncomfortable.

And inside, Leon and Roxanne and Gemma 2.0 get him to drink to the point of vomitting, and laugh at how lame he is, since apparently it didn't take too much. There's a little more exposition about the whole deal with Troy 2.0; he's replacing the original Troy in a very real sense, seeing as how he's Leon's new roommate, and Leon is mad at Troy 1.0 for leaving him, and is taking it out on Troy 2.0, since that's the closest thing he has now, I think is the gist of it. Not even the slightest hint that we're doing anything but pretending that Gemma 2.0 has been there the whole time, however. Cassie shoots dissaproving glares at them all from her place on the sidelines. And from his place on the other sidelines, Poor Felix throws some smiles and waves and OMG OMG SHE IS LOOKING AT ME CASSIE AND POOR FELIX 4EVA IDSTF!!!! looks in her direction, which Cassie acknowledges with a friendly smile and a drink raise. Ella strides into the party, and Thelma is immediately back on the subject of thinking about her, naturally. Cassie jokes that they'd better hope she does not have a Lasso of Truth if they want Thelma to keep any secrets from her, Thelma gives a cute "YOU SHALL PAY" smirk. Ella goes over and introduces herself to the Horsemen of Apocalame with a bottle of absinthe, which wins her Roxy's approval. Leon incongruously does not apparently know what absinthe is, which Ella thinks is cute, I guess, because she starts flirting with him and then apologises to Roxy for not making sure that Roxy had not already staked a claim on Leon. Roxy's all "God no," and notes that "he's a little inexperienced, if you know what I mean", and I can't imagine that anyone could possibly not know what she means. Ella apparently has no problems with this revelation either.

Cassie walks outside and finds Poor Felix smoking, and is surprised because she didn't think he did that. Poor Felix tells her that indeed he doesn't, but shrugs that "I was bored." And also "contemplating the quantum universe". Cassie tells him he'll make a great old man, Poor Felix gets disheartened and then hopeful and then disheartened and then hopeful at further conversation that I can't be bothered with. The gist of it is, as the gist of roughly half of this stupid episode has been, that Poor Felix lurves Cassie, but she does not feel the same way. Can we just get to the scene where she rips his metaphorical heart out and then a Nephilim rips his actual heart out already? Oops, spoiler.

Thelma walks the halls of the party, people ducking to one side to let her past even though they cannot see or feel or observe her presence in any way, and finds Ella. Ella asks if she's always as rude as she was earlier and snorts a little coke and asks if Thelma wants any or if she plans to just stand there gawping all day. Thelma eventually stutters out a "No, thank you" and leaves.

And right, Poor Felix asks Cassie out, she says no, and then he dies and I sure did not see this coming at all, and I am so very saddened by his shocking and pointless death. And then the Nephilim that killed him stalks around for approximately eight hours and then stradlles Cassie. Oh, isn't that spooky. Aren't you just going 'brrrrr'. No? Me neither. And then Ella appears and poses for a while, and for fuck's sake, could this scene be any more stupidly drawn out. Net result, Ella telepathically stranglectrocutes the Nephilim with Christmas lights, and tells it "This is one party you're going to wish you'd missed" and, not that I think anyone could have done much with that line, but that was a pretty horrible delivery. Ella smiles in satisfaction at a job well done, until she sees Cassie crying over poor, poor Poor Felix. Thelma checks that Cassie is OK, Ella assures her that Cassie was not in any danger, Thelma bitches that the thing probably looked pretty vicious from where Poor Felix was standing. Ella agrees, but explains that Cassie was in no danger, because the thing was actually sent to protect her, since she's the mother of Azazeal's child and all, and obviously it percieved Poor Felix as a threat. Thelma asks Ella if she is not Nephilim, then, and takes her word for it when she says she isn't, for no particular reason that I can see. And Ella tells Cassie and Thelma they should get out of there, "This party's lost it's appeal", and you know, maybe I just hate the way she says 'party'. And the fact that those are both truly horrendous lines. But really, when she says 'party' she sounds completely Australian, despite not doing so at any other point, ever, as far as I recall. That's kind of weird.

Next day, Cassie and Thelma watch the police cars pulling up, again, and Thelma tells Cassie about various theories floating around the school as to how Poor Felix died, and assures her that it wasn't her fault, at which point Ella comes in to tell Cassie that, actually, it totally was her fault. And also give some clue who the hell she is; Azazeal been trying to get a girl knocked up for centuries, but Ella's always been there to kill them before he had the chance, until now. Not that she actually mentions the "killing them" part. Thelma angrily asks if Ella could be a little less patronising, please, Ella retorts "Could your friend keep her knickers on?" Cassie doesn't care for petty squabbles, she just wants to know how to make sure no more Poor Felixes turn up dead, because you've got to assume the school has a fairly limited supply. Ella says of course she knows how to stop it, and starts walking out so she can dramatically turn around and dramatically intone that they have to dramatically kill Cassie's child. OK, a) DUH. and b) it's not like Cassie didn't already try to that in the episode prior to this one, so no, I'm afraid that ending does not rate even a single "dun", let alone all three. Suck it, Hex.

Christians Ruin Everything!

Yeah, uh, I still exist. Really! So, pretty heavy workload this week, plus internet connection acting up Wednesday & Thursday has led to some things being rather later than I'd anticipated. It's not an entirely valid excuse, but it's something. Net result: There's going to be, like, four posts today. I SWEAR.

Hex Episode 1x05 - "The Release"

Episode Grade: B+


This was a very hard one to grade, because the difference in quality between the first half and second half is uniformly wildly different. Seriously, there's a cutoff point almost exactly half way through the episode, after which everything that is awesome in the episode happens. So, if I was grading the two halves as separate episodes I'd give C+ and A+, which averages out to a B+. Anyway, let's get on with it.

Previously: Cassie went Sassie and screwed a) Azazeal, and b) her life. Thelma met another lesbian ghost, who, as it turns out, is actually called Peggy and not Pippi, and I should pay more attention to the end credits, I guess. Speaking of credits, here are the opening ones. Yeah, I'm missing KimVo and her lame segues. Shut up.

Return to find Thelma feeding peanuts or something to Peggy, who comments that she'd never be allowed to do such things in her time, and continues way past the boundary line of TMI (whatever the hell that's supposed to mean (yes, I realise that I am the one who just wrote it)) by telling Thelma that she often wished she was an Egyptian slave, "not one of the sweaty pyramid building types, a lowly servant girl to a high-priestess." Thelma runs with this, commanding her to "get down on your knees and scrub my floor". Clearly all the showering just wasn't enough pandering for someone's liking. Peggy steers the conversation back to actual plot relevance by declaring that she's been thinking that maybe, just possibly, fucking history is fucking repeating itself, and they're experiencing the same thing as the Egyptians. So, do we suspect that there may be some connection between Ben and Glory? She points out that she and Thelma are "living proof" that Azazeal has upset the natural order. Because they are dead, and yet they still walk around merrily breaking into vending machines and interrupting backseat shenanigans. So, "living proof" is not exactly the most logical choice of words there. Thelma asks what is going to happen then, Peggy doesn't know, "but it all seems to centre on the child that Herath was to bear". So I guess thanking them for that subtlety last week was a little premature. "Theoretically, if your little friend is no longer possessed, then the world should have been restored to its natural state." Thelma optimistically suggests that maybe it has, but Peggy points out that if that were the case, she and Thelma wouldn't still be there. At this point, they get bored of the anvil throwing and settle down for some makeouts.

Outside, the camera finds the back of Azazeal's head very interesting. Me, not so much. He's standing under the Hanging Tree again, and watching the school. Oh, and crying his emo tears as well. There there.

Bathroom. Cassie's throwing up. Thelma asks what's up, Cassie thinks she has food poisoning or something, but I'm actually OK with her not figuring it out. Cut to Cassie lying in bed, Thelma asking if she has any other symptoms. Nope. Thelma suggests talking to Jenny about it, Cassie thinks Jenny would freak out, seeing as she's a hypochondriac. Thelma tells her to just get some rest, Cassie asks if she'll stay with her so they can smile at each other and be all sweet. Awwww.

Which is then interrupted by cutting to Cassie throwing up some more. I really don't think we needed to see that twice. But, hurrah, Thelma's stopped pretending like it isn't blatantly obvious what is going on; "At least it'll only last for the first few months." Cassie's all "NO FUCKING WAY", Thelma tells her there's one way to be sure.

In her room, Cassie paces up and down, babbling and in denial. "What about the backache?" Thelma asks, "Tingling breasts?" Cassie indignantly tells her she does not have tingling breasts. Ho ho. Finally, it is time for the results to be revealed. Yes, Cassie is pregnant. Shocking. Cassie's new lineof babbling denial is that it's obviously Troy's, even though she used protection with him, but not with Azazeal, because "feminine intuition." Thelma points out that this is total bull, obviously. Cassie points out an actual good reason to think it's not his; it's only been a couple of days. Thelma finds yet another opportunity to helpfully remind us that she's a ghost, and also that Azazeal is a fallen angel, so, usual rules probably don't apply quite so much. Jenny interrupts by knocking on the door at this point, Thelma hurriedly hides the pregnancy test in a drawer. Jenny is concerned that Cassie doesn't look well, Cassie insists that she's fine, then promptly faints. Convincing! She wakes to find that Jenny is, of course, more concerned, and insistent on calling a doctor. Cassie tries to talk her out of it with such lameness as "I have a doctor phobia", but in the end she's forced to tell Jenny about the whole pregnancy thing. Thelma gives some pretty excellent face pulling throughout.

So, "we need to talk". Those words just never herald good times. Jenny gets Cassie a doctor's appointment after all, then moves onto it. "Maybe we should tell your mum?" Cassie just gives her an eyebrow raise. "Maybe not." Next question is, of course, "Do you know who the father is?" Cassie just shrugs. "Is that a 'yes, but I'm not going to tell you' or a 'no, I've slept with so many people I have no idea'?" Jenny jokes. Cassie continues to say nothing. Jenny's worried now, "There can't be that many options, can there?" Cassie gives an evasive "Hard to say", Jenny's eyes expand to about twice their normal size. "Oh god, please tell me it's not Leon." Hee! Cassie can at least confirm that one. Jenny asks if she's thought about what she's going to do; "Drink a bottle of cooking sherry, take a hot bath and throw myself down the stairs" is the plan. Look, tackling issues! How topical! Jenny's kind of worried that she's so blasé about it all, but ultimately she agrees that it's Cassie's decision to make.

Cassie dreams some more of Azazeal, cheap-looking yellowy demon Azazeal and crude drawings of Robert Smith, then wakes with a customary start. Thelma appears to not be there to fret, for once, so that's all there is to that scene.

Daytime now. Camera pans absurdly slowly across Cassie's bed. Guys, I thought we'd stopped doing shit like that. Come on. When we eventually reach her face, a hand appears to stroke her cheek. I wonder who that could be? The other hand of this person, whoever they might be, puts down a mug of tea on the bedside table, so I guess we can rule out J. Walter Weatherman. Cassie wakes up so we can reveal tonight's mystery guest; it's Azazeal! What a pleasant surprise. He's being his usual creepy all-knowing stalker self. Cassie makes a lame attempt to pretend she totally isn't pregnant at all, honest, Azazeal starts rambling "I've been thinking about strollers, and I've decided that three wheels is a bad idea. If you look at the history of transport through the ages, four wheels has always been best." How the fuck is it possible that he makes that speech so incredibly creepy. Seriously. Cassie politely asks if he's going to leave her alone, which is absolutely the way to deal with demonic stalkers. Azazeal ignores her, asks if she's thought of any names yet, and tells her with great excitement "He's going to be an amazing boy!" Dude, I'm pretty sure you're supposed to agree on whether or not you want to know the gender beforehand. This relationship is just never going to work if you can't get something like that right. He also tells her he knows what she's planning to do, and that she feels more for him than she cares to admit, and she doesn't really want to lose the child, and Cassie does not exactly put in much convincing denial to any of this. And then he leaves. Yeah, just like that. Why not?

Cassie runs a hand over her rather inflated belly and complains that the baby is growing way too fast. Well, that is the way of demonic pregnancies. Because keeping one of your cast members in a fake pregnant belly for an entire season is just too much hassle. Anyway. What's going on? Oh, right. Thelma's reminding us all once again that she's a lesbian. Wonderful. Oh, and a ghost. Even better. Well, onto some actual worthwhile dialogue; "I'll be glad when this is over," Cassie says, and Thelma agrees. Cassie asks "How did we get into this mess?", Thelma suggests "I'm told that when am man and a woman love each other very much..." It's hardly an original joke, but you know. This episode is reminding me of the first two so far, so I take what I can get. I mean, I've seen the rest, so I know it gets much, much better fairly soon, but right now.

Cassie and Thelma head outside, where a taxi's waiting to take them to Cassie's doctor's appointment. Well, the taxi is probably only waiting for Cassie, but you know. Not a problem, since Thelma can walk through car doors. And check me out with the lame segue again; this fact was established with Troy's rustbucket of a car, which comes trundling along the pathway at this very opportune moment. Troy gets out, wants to talk to Cassie. Thelma offers to distract him by driving his car away, but Cassie says she'll handle it. Troy greets her with "You look awful," which is absolutely the way into any woman's heart. Cassie tries to be all casual and dismissive, though she obviously doesn't want to, but Troy is having none of that. He thinks he freaked her out by getting too into her too quickly, "but it's only because I really like you", Cassie tries to claim that they just aren't destined to be together, and Troy notices her inflated belly. Cassie lamely tells him "It's Christmas, I've been binge eating", which probably worked a lot worse than just completely ignoring it would have done. Troy naturally assumes the baby is his, Cassie tells him it isn't, he refuses to believe her because she won't tell him whose it is then, and gets kind of angry, Thelma stands behind Cassie making hilarious devil horn faces. Cassie ducks away into her taxi, and man, the driver was awfully patient there. Troy sadly watches the taxi leave. And hey, Thelma never walked through the door! If she appears at the doctor's office with Cassie, I will have to complain.

So, doctor's office. No complaining, Cassie's on her own. Well, there's a doctor there. Who would like to know when the baby was conceived. Cassie vaguely tells him "Um... I think it was... can't you tell from the scan?" He's like, "You can't remember?" Cassie gives the usual 'I have no actual answer to this question' answer; "It's complicated." And wait, I was wrong, Thelma IS standing behind her. Fine, she can fly, or teleport or something. Whatever. Dr. Condesension tells her to have a guess. "A few weeks?" Cassie ventures. "Try twenty." Cassie takes a deep breath and stammers "Twenty's good." Hah. He asks what kind of contraception she was using, and gives her a "You stupid bitch" look when she says she wasn't (see, there's a reason I named him that). Has she thought about what she wants to do? Yes, we've established that at least three times by now. She's close to the legal limit, so the termination will have to be preformed soon. Dr. Condescension tells her "Motherhood can be a very rewarding experience, are you sure you want to miss out on that?" like, if you could just get on with doing your fucking job, that'd be great. Cassie assures him that she does indeed want to miss out on this rewarding experience, so he tells her he can fit her in next week. She's worried that that might be too late, what with the rapid development of demonic babies, though obviously she doesn't mention that part, and asks if he can't make it any sooner, so after being a patronising dick some more, he tells her he'll see what he can do.

Back home now, Thelma is also complaining about Dr. Condescension; "That doctor was just like my mum. Always taking the higher ground." Hey, both of the main characters have parental issues! You're still not Buffy. No, seriously though, "She thought she was Mother Theresa, but I know for a fact she fixed Pass the Parcel." I love Thelma. Apropos of not a great deal, she moves onto "I think Jesus was a lesbian who loved too much." See? Thelma's awesome. Also, when Cassie was "being the bitch from hell", Thelma reports, "I called a helpline." Well, that answers that question then. It generates a few more, but you know. I just can't be bothered thinking about Thelma's ghost stuff any more. So, anyway, Thelma suggests that she is Jesus to Cassie's Judas. Sure, why not. Anyway, this scene is basically here to remind us Cassie and Thelma being cute together is cute so it'll hurt more when all the shit that goes on later goes on.

It is a dark and stormy night. A taxi pulls up outside somewhere. Jenny steps out. Oh, and Azazeal. Well, that can't be good. She leads him into her room. "The first time I saw you, I thought you were a burglar or a paedophile," she tells him. "Well, you weren't far wrong," he replies. Whoever said romance was dead? He explains that he's the leader of a group of fallen angels, she assumes he's joking, they procede to makeouts.

Library. Peggy's remembered another inscripted stone of hers that she didn't understand before, but with her new information about Azazeal, it makes more sense and sheds more light on things. Basically; The survival or otherwise of Herath (and, by extension, Cassie) was not important, but if her child had been born, all 200 odd Nephilim would have been released, which would probably not be a good thing. Oh and now the episode starts to get pretty excellent. And by 'excellent', I mean 'tugging away at those heartstrings over and over as hard as possible until something breaks'. Because preventing the birth of the child would restore the natural order of things, which, of course, includes the whole 'dead walk with the living' thing. Thelma pretty quickly picks up on the implications of that and starts with the crying. Let me warn you now, there's going to be a lot of that. Peggy tries to comfort her; "We're freaks of nature, we're not meant to be." Thelma emphatically declares "But I like being!", and now I'm going to go ahead and stop dismissing the Buffyness of it all, because that was everything that "I'm 16 years old. I don't want to die." was. And damn but Jemima Rooper can do a good cry. And a good acting in general, especially for the whole of the rest of this episode, which is why it hurts so good.

So, let's get on with it. Thelma wants to know if Cassie would have kept the child, had it been Troy's. Cassie passes on that one, and says she's "given up wishing things were different, it's just a waste of energy". Thelma has a depressive response, which is fair, considering what she's just discovered. Cassie has a letter from the hospital; everything's finalised, "no going back." And she joins the heartstring tug o' war, with a simple "I'm scared." Thelma calmly reassures her and does a pretty good job of it, and they do their usual sweetness and making light of pretty big deals, actually. "It's such a standard procedure these days. Hell, every girl under 20 should have one!" But, soon as Cassie turns away, Thelma's face falls, and the tears, they are coming.

Cassie, pacing anxiously with letter in hand, knocks on Jenny's door. And Azazeal answers. Well now, this is awkward. He's calling himself Ian, Cassie is obviously a little freaked, but does her best to hide it. And also, does her best to hide the letter, she pretends she just wants to borrow a feather duster to get rid of a spider, which is fairly flimsy, but it was pretty short notice, so I'll let her off. Azazeal smugly offers to give her some help, which she quickly turns down, obviously. And runs away, looking rather unhappy.

Cassie's packing for the hospital visit, Thelma makes fun of her for taking so much for a "two night stay at a one star hotel with your butt sticking out". Rah rah banter, "just think, 48 hours, and it'll all be over. How good is that?" Yes, Thelma how good is that? Oh, it's rather horrible for you actually but your going to keep trying to pretend it isn't so as not to give Cassie added stress, even though it's all totally breaking your heart and you really aren't hiding it very well any more? OK. And then Cassie's going to make it even worse by talking about how it'll be great spending new year together, and what do you want to do, and here comes the crying once more. And Cassie notices this time, and tells her to stop this, "I'm the one who's supposed to be crying!" And so she does. And as if all that wasn't enough, they're playing Blur's "Sweet Song" in the background. It's a lot to take. Thelma suggests she talk about something else in the hope that it might repel the crying a little, which prompts Cassie to remember that she has a Christmas present to give to Thelma; a photo of the two of them from a year ago. OK, as far as plans to stop the tears go, that ranks slightly below spraying tear gas directly into her face. NICE GOING, CASSIE. They reminisce a little about the good old days, when they could hug as much as they liked, and Cassie was a carefree girl who didn't have to worry about carrying the actual literal spawn of Satan, and Thelma could walk into car doors without once passing through them. Ah, simpler times. But alas, those days are gone, and Cassie must be off to abort that Antichrist (that totally sounds like the name of some sort of weird gameshow, no? 'We've met today's contestants, so now it's time to Abort That Antichrist!' Come on.), leaving Thelma alone with her memories.

Hospital. Dr. Condescension's confused about the whole demonic rapid growth thing, but chalks it up to incompetence on his part. Cassie's concerned that this might cause a problem with the whole abortion plan, he assures her that she's still within the legal limit, though shows clear disapproval of said limit. Under the circumstances, he thinks they should operate sooner rather than later, which just so happens to put it slap bang in the middle of Christmas Day. But of course. Like we needed another layer on top of all the tragic that's going on. Dr. Condescension tells her the anaesthetic will put her to sleep until after the operation is done, which, duh, and then heads outside. Azazeal watches him from the rooftops, so you know there's some good times in store for the not-so-good doctor.

But before he gets on with that, Azazeal has to go about his usual creepy stalker business, so he's bringing Cassie flowers. Cassie, as usual, tells him to fuck off, he ignores this, and tells her she's hormonal from the pregnancy. "Don't patronise me," Cassie grits. Yeah, she's got a doctor to do that! She turns the subject around to his whole shacking up with Jenny, he claims he had no idea she was Cassie's teacher. He gets his usual creep on a while longer, but eventually relents to Cassie's request for him to leave her alone.

In the corridor, Thelma sees him leaving and comes in to check that Cassie's OK. Physically, she is, but she's most definitely losing it mentally, and she doesn't think she can go through with the abortion; however totally creepy and evil Azazeal is, it's not the baby's fault. Thelma points out that it is clearly not a normal baby, and Azazeal probably does not have good things planned for it. Cassie's all "You don't know that!", Thelma's like, 'actually, kinda do' and fills Cassie in on the whole Nephilim Release Clause, though she refrains from mentioning the part where she'll be actual proper dead, not just 'drinking with your buddies' dead, if the baby doesn't live. There's some more crying, of course, Thelma gets in an excellent line; "There are plenty of men out there with devilish qualities, you don't have to settle for the real thing", and manages to not lie, even when Cassie asks "Will you stay with me?", by telling her "I'll try." Doing good, Thelma.

Church. Priest recites that little known tale of Jesus' birth from the bible, and dude, that's not just any priest, it's GiDeon! Man. Among the rather few gathered paritioners is Dr. Condescension, which does not bode well. GiDeon concludes his recital by asking "what is it's relevance on this Christmas night?" On of the paritioners stands up and says he has some thoughts to offer, and oh shit, it's Azazeal. "For me it's the courage of Mary. Imagine the scandal, a young unmarried girl" -- GiDeon interjects here that Mary was not unmarried, Azazeal proves his superior Bible knowledge; she was betrothed to Joseph, but not yet married, how else would she be a virgin? -- "It was an illicit pregnancy, and everyone in Nazareth knew it." Dr. Condescension watches with interest. "Even long after his birth, the people taunted him. They questioned his parentage." GiDeon, seeming a little annoyed at being upstaged, snits "I don't recall that." "Oh, I do." Azazeal pointedly tells him. Hah! He backs it up with a Bible quote though, so he can seem like your every day crazy obsessive Christian fundamentalist. He moves on to his point here; "Imagine the looks she got. Imagine her plight, her confusion. A mother nowadays might consider abortion." Dr. Condescension has a 'woah' reaction shot. "Then there would be no Baby Jesus, no Christianity." Azazeal is truly a magnificent bastard. GiDeon smiles and rolls his eyes a little; "I take it you oppose abortion?" "It's an act of Herod," Azazeal replies, "The taking of another human life is a sin. And when does a human life begin? Does it begin at birth? Or does it begin at the end of the second trimester of pregnancy when the law says a baby is deemed viable?" The doctor looks majorly spooked. "No. It begins at the moment of conception, because that is the moment that the soul is born." I'm quoting Azazeal a lot more fully here than normal, I know, because a) his magnificent bastard manipulation skill is seriously impressive, and b) I'm extremely relieved that he didn't just stick a bloody maggot in Dr. Condescension's ear.

Hospital. Nurse comes in to do nursely things, and attempts to engage Cassie in small talk about how she's still not done wrapping presents and writing Christmas cards. "If it was just the two of us, I don't think I'd bother at all, but it's for the kids, isn't it?" She gets her irritaing baby voice on; "When you see their little faces!" Cassie just glares at her. She remembers who she's talking to, and there's just about the most awkward silence ever. Hee hee! The nurse quickly makes excuses and gets the fuck out of there.

Montage time! Sad, sad music plays. Cassie is being wheeled off for her operation, Thelma standing by, staying strong. Thelma sits alone by Cassie's empty bed, then slowly fades out as Cassie fades in to the bed. It's a simple effect, but it's pretty damn effective nonetheless. Blurry camera slowly comes into focus as Cassie wakes up, looks over at Thelma's empty chair. Cassie rather frantically calls for Thelma... and Thelma pulls back a curtain and smiles at her. Wha? Thelma has the same reaction. Cassie tells her "My stomach's not flat, but it's definitely empty". Thelma offers that this is "very strange", Cassie doesn't understand, "Isn't that what's supposed to happen?" and Thelma sits down and prepares herself for a Serious Talk. "Do you want the good news or the bad news?"

Music gets pretty intense and awesome, Azazeal tells Dr. Condescension he did a brave thing, "I have a feeling God isn't going to forget this", and the camera pans over to show Li'l Lucifer in an incubator, alive and well. Merry Christmas!

Nine Tenths Of The Lore

Hex Episode 1x04 - "Possession"

Episode grade: A-


Previously: Lesbian ghosts, repeating history, and the bloodshot eyes of demonic possession.

Now: Thelma's sitting alone in the cafeteria again, when she hears some music playing in the distance. She stalks carefully towards it, and you'd think that sooner or later she'd pick up on the fact that NO ONE CAN SEE OR HEAR HER. Anyway, it's sort of jazzy or swingy or some other such genre of music that I am none too knowledgable about. Someone's singing "Close your eyes, pretending we're just counting sheep" and the like, camera pans across a room full of people in fancy ballgowns and those glittery eye-mask things to show that it's Rupert. Someone smokes a cigarette with one of those absurd cigarette holders that I just can't see any purpose to whatsoever, and a couple of women stare at Thelma, one smiling flirtatiously, one glaring angrily. These two women then commence making out with each other. I seriously do not have the slightest clue what the fuck is going on here. From the look on her face, neither does Thelma. Hey, there's Azazeal! And, next to him, all dressed up to the point where I barely recognise her, Cassie. Who kisses the girl on her left, then turns and kisses Azazeal. It's all very arty and weird, so I'm going to go ahead and assume it's a dream sequence. Cassie, now looking more like herself, opens her eyes to Thelma's lips right in her face saying "Sweet dreams?" So, yeah, dream sequence. Although it really seemed like it would have been Thelma's. "Yeah, until you appeared," Cassie bitchily replies, then lights a cigarette so she can hold the lighter to her face and show off her bloodshot eyes, in case we'd forgotten what happened last week, and also five minutes ago in the previouslies. Thanks for looking out for your goldfish viewers. Thelma looks surprised, so apparently she's one of them. Credits.

Cassie walks down the stairs to the locker room, hair all coiiffed up weirdly and ridiculous amounts of gold eyeshadow applied to, again, remind the goldfish that she's not herself. Troy approaches for makeouts while the Trio of Suck exchange glances. Bitchily. Troy apologises because he apparently has to take Cassie out for drinks with the Trio of Suck later, but he promises to take her straight home. Hint hint. Cassie tells him she has better things to do, Troy's like "WTF", Cassie teasingly tells him that of course she wants to see him; "I want to see all of you. Just... not any time soon." then wanders off so the Trio of Suck can bitchily admire her attempt to usurp their role.

In their room, Thelma sits looking concerned about the whole possession thing while Cassie tries on clothes. "You'd have me, wouldn't you?" Cassie asks her. Thelma says "I'm not sure, you look... you like you're after something". Tactful! Cassie puts on a mock surprised tone and says "Really?" Thelma digs herself deeper into more hot water in her attempts to disguise the fact that she's fully aware that Cassie's possessed, presumably; "I mean, it's very sexy, it's just not you." Cassie, of course, asks "You don't think I'm sexy?" Thelma's just like "Fuck it" and shuts up altogether. Cassie taunts her some about how she wishes she could touch Cassie again then leaves to "Nowhere [Thelma] would fit in".

Which, as it turns out, is a bar where everyone appears to be groping each other at random and everything is covered in horribly neon lights. Fine. Cassie struts up to the bar and orders straight vodka, and Azazeal stalks up to her. And, oh man, he's smiling. That just does not look right. He tells her he wasn't sure she'd come, she replies "How could I resist?" and he matter of factly says "That's true." Heh. Cassie asks if he doesn't get bored playing the same game, different women for 300 years. No, no he doesn't. Azazeal blathers once again all "This is your destiny" and "You don't have to believe it", so Cassie's like "OK, I won't." I'm going to go ahead and start calling Possesed!Cassie "Sassie", OK? So, Sassie asks just what exactly he did to her mother, "She's completely in awe of you." Azazeal tells her "We had some good times together" and Sassie pretends to be grossed out even though she's possessed and thusly does not give a shit and says "Too much information", which, a) YOU FUCKING ASKED HIM THE QUESTION and b) THAT WAS NO FUCKING INFORMATION WHATSOEVER ANYWAY. Shut up, Sassie. Azazeal tells her the necklace her mother gave her looks good on her. Sassie points out that this is a lame chat-up line, Azazeal claims it works, Sassie suggests it only does so "on a certain type of woman. You'll have to try harder with me." Azazeal leans in for a kiss and asks why she doesn't just give into the inevitable. She teasingly tells him "You know what, I don't think I can" and walks off. Azazeal watches her leave and smiles ruefully.

Back in her dark, lonely cafeteria, Thelma's apparently stolen the key to the vending machine so she can get food from it. I'm glad I don't have to keep wondering where the hell she's getting money from. She's startled by a creaking door behind her, and watches a woman walk through the cafeteria, paying no attention to Thelma, obviously. She follows her, and again we can here Rupert singing the same song. Someone walks through a door in front of her, so Thelma, startled, quickly drops her packet of crisps and hides behind a pillar. Her continuous inability to remember that no one can see or hear her is starting to become pretty hilarious, now. Oh, wait, bad lighting strikes again; it was Sassie, who actually can see her. Dropping the crisp packet was nonetheless funny, and would surely draw a lot more attention to her either way.

Rupert (by the way, it's the fourth episode now, and I still have no idea what his actual name is) and Jenny walk along a path outside. He asks if she'd be upset if he said she was fired due to staff cutbacks, she's like "Duh." He asks if she'd be pleased then, ifhe said she could keep her job by spending her Christmas at the school. Heh. Yeah, the best way to deliver bad news is to deliver fake worse news first so the real bad news looks like good news. I forget exactly where I learned that, but it's an excellent sentiment, anyway. Rupert further entices her by pointing out that Cassie will be there. "And your boyfriend?" he asks rather nosily. "No, he no longer exists," Jenny replies. "Turned out to be an arsehole." And also, not a young demonically possessed blonde girl, I presume. Rupert spots Sassie walking opposite and darts away so he can be the one to start interfering in her business this time. "You look like you had a good evening" he intrudes. Sassie agrees, though she's "wearing the scars this morning." Doesn't look like it. "Still, you can't have pleasure without pain," she adds, and Rupert's like "Woah," and Sassie continues "You should try it some time." Rupert's even more like "WOAH." and he stammers "I don't think the governer's would approve," which Sassie tells him is "all the more reason to do it," with a sultry wink as she slinks off. Rupert's head actually explodes. Well, no, OK, he just gives a hilarious eyebrow raise and stares at her. But that's "enigmatic headmaster" for exploding head, I'm telling you.

Library. Sassie's at a computer, Thelma's doing a pretty good job right now of pretending she suspects nothing as she asks Sassie what she got up to last night. Sassie says "It's not so much 'what' as 'who'" and tells her "You know how I get when I've drunk too much." "Sick?" says Thelma. Heh. Sassie starts going into great detail, but then notices Thelma's "Oh fucking god I cannot keep pretending I don't know she's so totally possessed when she's being so obvious about it" look, takes it for jealousy and says "I guess you don't want to know" and leaves. Thelma looks like Cassie apparently does when she's drunk too much.

Common Room. Troy's smile totally vanishes when Sassie comes in and he tells her he stopped by her room last night and she wasn't there, which is a little suspicious considering she said she was staying in, so what's the deal? Sassie gets right up in his face and asks "Do you think I was with another man? Do you think you don't satisfy me?" Oh man. Troy, concerned, tells her no, so she tells him to "apologise for being such a stalker." Troy starts to see the funny side a little and smiles as he submissively does so, but then brings back the concern and asks "We cool?" Sassie leans towards him a little, then walks off without actually answering. You know, maybe I should be calling her "Cassius". Yeah, it's a Buffy thing.

The Trio of Suck walk down a corridor pointing out the obvious; Sassie is totally leading Troy on evilly, and they can't help but be impressed. Leon suggests that this makes it the perfect time for Gemma to "swoop in and save him", Roxy notes that it's "a bit weird" that "a few days ago she was this hapless virgin, now she's a total whore." Leon says "I like it," (DUH.) "It's kind of like having our own Britney Spears", which, what the hell, that was actually funny. I'm scared and confused. Gemma opines that Cassie "used to be nice. Boring, but nice." I still hate her, so we are not entirely in Bizarro World. Roxy suggests that Gemma could learn something from Sassie, Leon agrees; "Like, not to be so desperate." OK, they're abusing Gemma. I guess that explains why I'm not thoroughly despising them right now. They continue to do so, sarcasming that her concern for Troy is totally all about 'just being a good friend', I'm sure. Gemma complains that Troy seems to be totally in love with Cassie, despite her being a total bitch. I'd have thought Gemma would be pleased that he liked that kind of thing. Roxy adds that what's worse is "she's really enjoying it."

On a path outside, Jenny approaches Sassie. Oh, this is going to be fun. Jenny asks if Sassie's had any thoughts about what she wants to do next term, because she was thinking about putting her in for an English module on "Women in love; romantic heroines through the ages". Sassie gives a disgusted look at this. Jenny says "It's either that or Milton, Sassie, thoroughly bored, relents to the former. Business out of the way, Jenny gets down to why she actually wanted to talk to her; "So, David says you're staying here over Christmas?" He has a name! But, yeah, it's been too long. I'm too used to calling him Rupert by now. I'm sure you knew that would happen. Sassie gives an affirmativ sound. Jenny is a little confused; "Surely they'll let you mum out of hospital?" Sassie tells her "I don't really want to spend my time feeding turkey to a vegetable." Bwah! Jenny gives her a "WTF" look. "So tell me," Sassie continues, "These women in love; are they actually going to do anything? Because supressed desire is all well and good, but it's a bit boring without any action." She takes Jenny's arm and goes in for the kill; "Maybe we should just read some of your erotic stories instead." Hee hee hee. I am really enjoying this. Cassie should get possessed more often.

Night time exterior shot, voiceovered by, I think Roxy, but possibly Gemma asking "So, you have a large penis, but a hairy back, and every time you wax your back, your penis shrinks. What do you do?" Is that even a question? I mean, really. So, yeah, camera jumps inside now, where Sassie and the Four Horsemen of the Apocalame are playing Truth or Dare, in... someone's room. Not Cassie's. Leon's turn; "How old was the oldest woman you've slept with." Leon offers to do two dares rather than answer, but that is not in the rules, dude. He continues to protest, so Roxy tells him his forfeit will be to kiss Troy then. Troy's like "Mate, answer the question, come on!", but his heart really doesn't sound in it. And frankly, I wouldn't be surprised if Leon was happy to do so, either. But anyway, he does decide to answer; "It was a friend of my mother's." Sassie presses for the answer to the actual question, Leon continues to evade with "Old enough to know what to do." so they threaten to all get up and leave if he doesn't answer, so he does; "Fifty... four." and also, "But, she'd had plenty of plastic surgery", which apparently makes it better. Leon is so gross. Thelma stands in the doorway, spying and looking upset. Sassie takes a dare, which is to "pick a victim and put one of your body parts into theirs." So she goes to kiss Troy, turns away at the last second and crawls over to stick her tongue down Leon's throat. Roxy stares like "Dude." Troy stares like "For fuck's sake", Gemma gives Troy an apologetic look. Troy basically tells them to all fuck off, so I guess it's his room. Which, wait, is also Leon's room, so why is he leaving? Oh, so Sassie can totally have sex with him in a shower. OK. Well, Thelma's having none of that, so she turns all the cold taps on in the sinks to make the water in the shower come out too hot and put them off, which works, as Leon apparently assumes this is Sassie's doing, so he tells her she's crazy and runs off. Sassie is obviously suspicious of the magically turning on taps, but doesn't notice Thelma hiding in a different shower.

Same bathroom, Thelma sits in a toilet ranting on the phone about how mean Sassie is, and how totally possessed she is and how Thelma needs to totally electrocute her to snap her out of it because that's what Cassie "always" did that one time, and WHO THE FUCK IS SHE TALKING TO?

Thelma is buying from the vending machine again. I just cannot be bothered. Someone walks past, presumably the same woman as before, Thelma again follows, looking puzzled. She goes into the library, where the woman is inspecting a stone slab with carvings of some kind on it. The woman notices her and asks if she's come to look at the slab. Zwuh? "Because let me tell you now, I haven't spent the last 80 years working on this inscription for some pert-breasted bunty to come and solve it all in a second." Oh right, she's a ghost too. Of course. "OK..." says Thelma, which is about the only thing you can do in this kind of situation. "OK? What does that mean?" the woman asks. "OK, I won't solve it?" Thelma suggests, which brightens the other up considerably. She introduces herself, but talks too fast or too weird for me to entirely understand her. I think her name is Pippi? Maybe? Anyway, it's nice that they at least made an attempt to tell me her name. I appreciat the effort. Also, she is a "full-time esyptologist, part time suffragette." She shakes Thelma's hand and Thelma, in awe, says "We can touch each other." Pippi's all "Steady on, I should at least know your name." I think I like her. Thelma introduces herself, Pippi tells her she died in 1928, her father owned the place then and "I'd like to say he caught me with the scullery maid, but actually it was the flu. How about you?" "I was ritualistically sacrificed by a fallen angel." "Ah, the flu too, eh?" Yeah, I like her. Thelma really likes her, too. Pippi, despite being all defensive about it two seconds ago, bring Thelma over to the slab and explains what exposition she can translate thus far; it's a funeral inscription for someone named Herath, daughter of the pharoah, but there's one name she can't work out, it seems to say Azazeal, which isn't very Egyptian at all. I have no idea how hyroglyphics actually work, but, is it remotely plausible that they'd have a way of writing Azazeal despite that not sounding Egyptian at all? That's not rhetorical, if you can answer, please do so. Thelma tells her "Actually, I may be able to help you." And, shockingly, we're actually spared her doing so. Hooray!

Jenny gives the class homework over Christmas; watch one film and write a review. Troy looks thoroughly pissed, Leon at least has the good grace to look guilty. Leon tells him he has to end it with Cassie, Troy tersely tells him it's not that simple. Leon's like "It's not my fault, I was drunk". Troy points out how lame an excuse that is, sarcastically tells him to "have a nice Christmas, mate" and runs off to chase Sassie. Leon again looks guilty. I'll tell you why I'm not despising him so much now; that's a second dimension to his character! Hooray!

Troy catches up with Sassie, who gives "Right"s to the following; "Leon reckons that you were trying to get off with him." Oh, yeah, trying. Whatever, Leon. "He says you lost the plot." Then to "I don't want to believe him, I mean, it doesn't sound like you." Sassie asks "So, what's the problem?" Troy tells her "I just need to know, is it true?" Sassie just says nothing, so Troy's all "Maybe we should call it a day." Sassie shrugs and tells him "OK, if that's what you want" and he continues to be confused and infuriated. Hooray! Alright, I'll stop that now.

More Wacky, Wacky Hijinks music as we watch Thelma's backside wiggling about under a desk. She's fiddling around with the electrics. She hears Sassie coming in, and quickly gets up, bashing her head on the desk in the process. Sassie suspiciously asks what she's doing, Thelma guiltily says "nothing." Sassie just takes it as more of Thelma's usual weirdness, which is kind of funny, and shrugs. She walks out again, and Thelma immediately goes back to what she was doing.

Later, Sassie comes back from a shower saying "I wish I had an ensuite, it's like living in Auschwitz." Dude. Thelma quite hilariously holds an upside down magazine to her face, very blatantly watching Sassie over the top of it. I'm fully aware that that is not a remotely original joke; the hilarity comes from the fact that Thelma apparently thinks Sassie would find it more suspicious if she wasn't trying to disguise the fact that she was watching her. Sassie drips ominously on the floor, plugs in a hairdryer, flips the switch and... cuts off the power to the entire building. Thelma runs up to her all "Don't worry, Cassie, it's all right, it's probably just a power cut." Sassie looks at her, like, "Thanks, Captain Obvious." Thelma lights a cigarette lighter right in her face to check for bloodshot eyes, which are still present. Sassie asks what she's doing, Thelma lamely claims "I... thought you had a spider in your hair." but fortunately Sassie is slightly distracted from the total lameness of this claim by, I guess backup power kicking in. She does, nonetheless, tell Thelma that she is sometimes a total freak.

Azazeal silhouettically hangs around by the Hanging Tree. That's... not why it's called that, dude. Oh, he's managed to find a thin strip of light that actually lines up with his eyes this time. Good work!

And now he's inside. Ominous Descend Piano Notes of Ominousness play as he walks past the camera, which ignores him to slowly zoom in on a mirror, in which, after a couple of seconds pass, we can see him walk up the stairs. It's an effect that does a reasonably good job of distracting from the fact that we've just spent, like, ten seconds watching someone WALK AROUND.

Sassie wakes up, and there's Azazeal, sitting on a chair, watching her. Because he is a creepy, creepy motherfucker. More creepy; he tells her "I missed you." Sassie smiles and tells him maybe he should call, suggest a drink... So, Azazeal offers her his hipflask of brandy. Sassie gets out of bed, puts on a dressing gown and asks if he was planning to watch her all night. "Yes," he shrugs. But actually, it appears he's planning to start speechifying about how Sassie loves it when she knows it's wrong, but does it anyway, and how women are all the same and other such chauvinistery. He also tells her she's hardly innocent; "You broke that poor boy's heart", so that Sassie can lamely segue into to asking who his last true love was. She suggests Rachel, then the woman he made the pendant for; "Herath," he says. I'm not sure if that's the answer to the original question or if he's just telling Sassie who he made the pendant for, either way, "it wasn't meant to be." Sassie is sorry, Azazeal tells her not to worry; "I've had therapy." Ha! More creepsome music starts to kiss in as he gets up to go sit beside her and tells her "They'll never be another man who waits 250 years for you". Ech. And then they kiss. And there's some nice "la la la la" music, and then Azazeal leaves, smiling.

Next day. Sassie watches Troy get in his car and drive away. He does not look happy, obviously. Thelma tries to sound cheery telling her it's just the two of them and they can have a quiet Christmas together. Sassie gives her a Look and tells her to just ask what she wants to ask. Thelma's like, "Buh?", Sassie tells her straight up, she's been seeing Azazeal, she intends to continue to do so, she doesn't care what Thelma thinks. But she does care enough to try to convince Thelma that they might have misjudged him; Thelma's like "I've got a FATAL KNIFE WOUND IN MY GUT says we didn't." Sassie tells her she's just jealous. All things considered, that is pretty hilarious. Thelma skulks off angrily, Sassie gives her an eye-rolling "Bye."

Tacky neon bar. Azazeal sits with a floozy on each arm, looking more like Baltar than ever. He makes out with them a little, then goes over to Sassie, who's waiting by the bar. Sassie does not care at all about the floozies. She asks what it's like being him, he is an arrogant son of a bitch answering; "The trouble is, you see everything before everyone else, and then you have to wait for them to catch up." Sassie tells him to stop being a prat and buy her a drink, and dude, she's got a side ponytail thing going on. Those always freak me out a little. It's asymmetry where no asymmetry should be. It does look pretty awesome on her though, she should maybe try it more often. Anyway. Azazeal ruminates on how "desire is always greater than the consequences", which doesn't actually mean anything at all. Sassie rolls her eyes, tells him he's arrogant. He's all "You like that", she tells him she prefers shy, retiring types, he's like "whatever, dude". "You're going to fuck me up, aren't you?" Sassie asks conversationally. Azazeal shrugs, "Probably." I love the way they're so completely blasé about all this. They procede to makeouts, followed by a cut to further makeouts in the locker room.

Locker room makeouts are momentarily interrupted by Jenny wandering down the stairs, Azazeal and Sassie hide behind a pillar, he suggestively tells her he feels like a naughty schoolboy. Sassie takes the bait, and they head up to her room for some poorly-lit intercourse. Next morning, she wakes and he's gone, she doesn't care, what with the whole possession thing.

Outside, Azazeal's going for a pleasant morning stroll around the grounds, when he's accosted by Jenny, telling him that this is private property. Azazeal apologises, saying "It must look like I'm casing the joint or something." "The thought had crossed my mind, Jenny responds, and there's an uncomfortable pause before she asks "So, what are you doing?" Hee hee! He pretends he's some kind of architecture enthusiast or something. But still a really creepy architecture enthusiast; Jenny tells him it's a school, he says "lucky kids", Jenny suggests they don't realise it, he ominously replies "No, but they will. When it's too late," thanks her for her time and walks off.

Cassie's room. Hi, Smurf Penis! Haven't been seeing much of you lately. Sassie notices it, has a fondle, and seems rather disappointed that she's unable to achieve the usual flash.

Laundry room, Sassie's cheerily ironing clothes, Thelma asks her what she's so happy about. "Nothing you'd understand" is the response, which is apparently her stock answer to any question Thelma asks, as well as being total bullshit. Thelma mutters "give me strength, if I could slap you I would" to herself, and the Seriously, This Electrocution Thing Is Wacky, Wacky Hijinks music once again starts to kick in as she loosens a nut to start water dripping all on the floor. Sassie engages her in some irrelevant conversation as the water slowly trickles across the floor, somehow not picking up on Thelma exceedingly suspicious behaviour as she wraps her foot around the wire of the iron. Thelma drags it to the wet floor, of course, but Sassie uses her telekinetic powers (remember those?) to stop it before it actually hits the floor. She is having a hard time writing this shit off as accidental, by this point, but Thelma actually manages to look nonchalant for once.

Library. Pippi apologises to Thelma for being so uptight before, Thelma tells her not to worry about it. But enough small talk, what we're here for is exposition. So, Azazeal loved Herath, which we knew, the Egyptian's believed that their union "destroyed the natural order", and "the veil between the worlds was broken, and the living walked with the dead and the dead walked with the living" and so on and so forth. Thelma picks up on her and Pippi being fine examples of dead walking with the living. And thusly, Pippi believes that the same thing is happening again. Man, I am so ecstatic that she did not use the phrase "history repeats itself". The Egyptians banished Azazeal somehow, Herath was left the shoulder the blame, and was buried alive. Friendly people, those ancient Egyptians. Oh, and also, Herath was carrying his child. Just FYI.

Would You Stop It With The Wacky Electrocution Hijinks Already music plays as Thelma rigs up some wiring to electrify Cassie's locker. Also, she is wearing huge safety goggles. It is totally cute. Sassie opens up her locker, nothing happens. Thelma looks annoyed at her tools, then some other generic student sticks her key in her locker and starts writihing. Oh, how wacky this is. Sassie clearly paid no attention to whatever fire/electric safety guy repeatedly visited her primary school, because she flutters around a bit, then grabs the girl's arm, which obviously bring her into the writhing fun. There's a flash of black and whiteness, then the two fall back, still clutching the key. Thelma put her goggles back on and walks away looking humourously guilty.

Ambulance pulls away outside, Cassie, wrapped in a blanket, sits on a bench with Thelma. Jenny comes over to tell her the other girl is going to be fine, and she should get some rest. Thelma asks how she feels; "like I have the worst hangover in the world" is the answer. They laugh about how Jenny was angry, and thinks it was one of the lads pulling a practical joke. Thelma opines that she hopes Leon will get the blame, which triggers horrible memories for Cassie; "Oh God, what did I do to Leon?" They go for a wander through the trees, Cassie tells Thelma that she was "sort of semi-aware" of what was going on while possessed, but she couldn't do anything about it, á la hyena person, or indeed soldier boy Xander. Cassie apologises profusely for being so mean to Thelma, Thelma wonders if this will stop Azazeal coming after her now. Well, that would sure make for a boring season finale, wouldn't it? Thelma gets all cute and tells Cassie that she'll have to keep a tight leash on her now. Cassie thanks Thelma for electrocuting her. "Anytime," she replies. The Wacky Flourish Of I Think The Wacky Hijinks Have Stopped Now, So I Guess I Can Finally Shut Up flourishes.

Cassie sits at a mirror and removes the necklace, realising it offered no actual protection from Azazeal, and notices him lounging in a chair behind her. She asks what the hell he's doing there. He, of course, ignores the question. Cassie tells him to fuck off. He stalks over to her, starts kissing her neck, and asks "why the sudden change of heart?". Cassie again tells him to fuck off, but she's not actually putting up a lot of resistance to the neck kissing. Cassie calmly tells him that whatever happened between them, it wasn't her, Azazeal claims that "sometimes it takes extraordinary circumstances to see what we really want". Cassie lets him kiss her. Cassie again weakly pulls away and tells him to go away, he suddenly gets all intense and yells "Just because your rational mind pulls away doesn't mean your heart has changed." She gets more adamant that she wants nothing to do with him anymore. He does now fuck off, leaving her with "It's a little bit late for that." History repeats itself. Oh, right. Dude, was that some actual subtlety in a revelation I just saw? I think it might have been.

Better To Hold A Candle

Hex Episode 1x03 - "Deeper Into The Darkness"

Episode Grade: B


Previously: Thelma is a lesbian ghost; Cassie is a member of the McBains, a family of Cure fans; history repeats itself; so on and so forth.

So, apparently my stupid optimism wasn't completely misplaced! Isn't that wonderful. We open right where we left off last week, Cassie and Troy on their date, playing pool, Azazeal stalking them. Pool game is irritatingly soundtracked by fucking Joss Stone, like I didn't have enough reasons to complain about this show already. Troy screws up and pots the cue ball along with the 8 ball, so Cassie wins. Troy jokingly tells her not to tell anyone, so as to avoid ruining his reputation, which is essentially the exact same joke he made last week about the car. Cassie somewhat awkwardly segues this into "Surely I'm doing that already just by being here." Troy admits this is true, but he doesn't care, because dull and resemblant of Jamie Oliver as he may be, he isn't a total dick like all of his friends appear to be. Which begs the question of why they're his friends in the first place, of course, but let's not get into that.

Troy drives Cassie back to the college, they share obligatory "I had a really good night"s before moving on to the obligatory making out. All is going well until the Xylophone of Ensuing Wacky Hijinks starts up to announce Thelma's arrival. Thelma gives a loud "psst!" to get Cassie's attention, then starts mouthing at her, in spite of the fact that, presumably, Troy can't hear her. Also, apparently she can walk through walls or teleport or something, because she clearly didn't have to open any doors to get into the car. So, yeah, there's that. Anyway, Cassie silently tries to get her to go away, Thelma refuses, Troy notices that Cassie is distracted and she ends up having to pretend she's still upset about Thelma and can't cope with doing this right now, while Thelma awesomely laughs at their cheesy dialogue, which entirely makes up for the cheesiness of it, hooray!

Having got away from Troy now, Cassie is obviously pissed at Thelma, and rants at her, as Thelma long-windedly attempts to explain why she interrupted, by explaining every last detail of her last scene in the previous episode, and neither of them pay any attention to what the other is saying. Good clean fun. So, anyway, Thelma eventually blurts out the only information she had that she actually needed to say: "You're a McBain!", which shuts Cassie up into the credits.

Afterwards, Cassie stands by a road, looking nervously up at a clocktower. Hey, that's not the college! Wow, other buildings exist too. Who knew? So, anyway, Cassie goes inside, where there's a few extras milling around in nurses uniforms and sitting in wheelchairs and suchlike, and, after some hesitation, knocks on a door. She's greeted by a woman who totally reminds me of Lost's Libby in her institutionalised days. Or rather, seconds. But maybe that's just because they both get fashion tips from Insanity Fair. Yes, that pun is quite clearly stolen, thanks for asking. Anyway, for the two or so people who hadn't figured out who this woman is, Cassie says "Hi, mum", and also feels the need to tell her "It's me, Cassie" just to reiterate that Libby is not exactly all there, mentally. Libby cheerily informs Cassie that "the flowers keep dying," and tries to show her some photographs that Cassie somewhat bitterly tells her she's already seen, "Last time. And the time before." And man, Libby is really bringing out some actual acting talent in Christina Cole. Awesome. Anyway, Cassie's not here for idle jibber-jabber, she's here to tell Libby that she knows the story of the McBains, and that when she tried searching for her father a few years back and Libby freaked out, it wasn't because she was scared of losing Cassie, and it wasn't because she was trying to protect her, because if that was the case, she wouldn't have sent her to Medenham (which I guess must be the name of the college), fool. Wow, that run-on sentence made my wholely unnecessary Mr. T impression even more stupid! "I can only think of one reason that you'd do that. You wanted this for me, didn't you?" Oh, but that is cold. Libby makes futile attempts to deny this, but fairly quickly relents and tells her she did it because "he said he'd make them stop." But, shockingly enough, turns out Azazeal, who is of course the 'he' in question, is not to be trusted, because he did nothing of the sort, and is in fact the reason why Libby is crazy. So, yeah, he's kind of evil, in case you hadn't noticed. Libby repeats Azazeal's whole thing about Cassie having no control over destiny and such like, and also says she's "descended from the Medenham witches". Mostly it's just "You're doomed. Doomed doomed doomed." though. As Cassie gets up to leave, Libby frantically asks "You will come and see me, won't you? You won't leave me?" Cassie just walks out the door without answering, leaving the camera to linger on Libby looking sadly at old, old photos of Cassie. Way the best damn scene in this series so far. But possibly not the best in the episode, shockingly. I know!

Cassie is sitting in her room crying when Thelma walks in (by opening the door, I might add. Apparently she can only walk through car doors). Cassie entirely unconvincingly tells her "Stubbed my toe", Thelma responds with an equally toned "Life's a bitch." Heh. Cassie tells Thelma that "Even though she's away with the faeries, there's still a part of me that hopes she'll sort everything out. Look after me." Awww, man. The good momentum that's been building is slightly thrown off when, once again, the writers feel the need to have Thelma remind us that she's a lesbian! And a ghost! She's a lesbian ghost! Did we mention that she's a lesbian ghost? I'm not sure we did. Anyway. Thelma gets into some angst of her own, she's worried that Cassie is annoyed and/or bored with her, and would rather she wasn't around. "And normally that would be fine. Except I've got no one else to talk to." Cassie apologises sincerely. "And if you're sick of me now," Thelma continues, "What's it going to be like in 10 years? 20 years?" And, I mean, it's pretty obvious stuff, but affecting nonetheless. And the scene doesn't even go on way longer than it needs to! They're definitely improving, I'm telling you.

Later that night, Cassie sleeps, and Thelma sits watching her, drinking a carton of Five Alive. Gah! What is it with that stuff? Thelma has a look through some papers on Cassie's desk, and finds more displays of her Cure fandom. Cassie dreams again about little Esther hanging for the tree, and wakes up with a start. Thelma's immediate reaction is to deny invading her dreams again. "It wasn't that scary," Cassie quips then, she tells Thelma she saw Esther. "Sitting quietly in the corner?" Thelma asks hopefully. "No, hanging from a tree." Cassie replies. Thelma tuts and tells her "Children do that sometimes." I'd complain about the 'show, don't tell thing again, but Thelma's line there was actually funny. Cassie wants to know why she keeps seeing Esther. Thelma, in her usual way, suggests "hallucinogenic drugs, schizophrenia, too much cheese last thing at night," and hesitates before giving the probable actual reason: the ol' "history repeats itself" chestnut.

Common room. Cassie sits alone reading a magazine, Troy and the Trio of Suck sit opposite, Gemma is planning a holiday abroad and wants to know if Troy will come. Troy and Cassie share a significant glance, and he says "Yeah, of course", as Gemma snuggles up to him. Cassie rolls her eyes and leaves. Leon says some stupid crap that I don't care about. Troy sadly watches Cassie go.

Cassie sits on a bench outside looking sad and pensive. Oooh, is that Thelma's bench? Rupert appears and oooooh, says essentially the same thing! He also came to tell Cassie that he thought the memorial service was very moving, Cassie awesomely replies "I thought it was sycophantic nonsense." Hee! Rupert, somewhat shocked, laughs and then says she's probably right. Cassie gets up to go stare at the Hanging Tree. Rupert follows to tell her that Jenny is, as ever, worried about her, Cassie assures him she's fine. How many times have we had that scene now? Rupert notices her looking at the Hanging Tree, and assumes this means she needs some exposition regarding it. So, Esther was hung for having the Devil in her, which Rupert opines is "old country speak for PMT", and blathers some further unimportant details. Cassie asks if he believes in free will. Short answer; no, with a 'but'. Long answer; yes, with an 'maybe'. Also, he calls Cassie "a tough cookie". I don't really know why I mention that, but it seemed worthwhile. I'm probably hungry. Cassie goes to watch Troy play football again. Troy notices, and is momentarily distracted, causing Leon to run up and angrily hit him in the chest to direct his attention back to the game.

Cassie walks straight into Troy's room without knocking, where Troy is being all shirtless, as he tends to worryingly often. Cassie asks why he's been avoiding her, Troy gets all "You started it!", they assure each other they are still into each other. Cassie wants to know what's the deal with the Gemma thing then. Troy irritatingly mocks her for being jealous, then "jokes" that he was hoping for a threesome. "I mean, you've got much better breasts than her, but she's got much better..." Cassie interrupts him at this point, and I really can't think of any truthful way he could have ended that sentence. She's got better... lack of the ability to SET ME ON FIRE WITH HER MIND, I guess. Anyway, Cassie apologises for being weird about Thelma, Troy tells her she doesn't need to apologise about that, and they get with the making out again.

Jenny giggles to someone on the phone as she walks down a corridor, locking a door that's mostly glass behind her so Azazeal can gaze out of it and smile creepily for a while.

In their room, Thelma's babbling on about food again. Cassie asks if she can remember a time before this thing began, whenever that might have been. Right now, it's as ill-defined as Thelma's ghostly abilities. If they can make it through this scene without using any of the words "history", "repeats" and "itself", I'm giving this episode an A+. Thelma treads on dangerous ground there, saying "I don't think there was one." Cassie does, and she wants to hang on to that. "And apart from you, and a small pony, there was always one other thing I wanted, in the time before." And there's some sweet hemming and hawing around it for a not-overly-long while, but Thelma eventually gives Cassie her blessing to make all the out she wants to with Troy. Camera zooms out to show that Azazeal's been eavesdropping, with a thoughtful look. No, I'm not really giving it an A+.

There's some really, really creepy music. Like, carnival creepy. Well, not quite. Actually it sounds very Final Fantasy VIII, though it's been too long since I played that to remember what point in the game. Azazeal walks up to Troy's shirtless sleeping form and fully CUTS HIS OWN PALM OPEN AND ROLLS A MAGGOT AROUND IN IT. Fucking hell! He's picked "dead-eyed stare" from his 101 Totally Creepy Expressions book today. He then takes this bloody maggot and inserts it into Troy's ear. Oh, well, OK then. More creepy staring, then he wanders off, and the camera zooms into to watch the maggot move around under Troy's skin. Fun.

Cassie walking with Thelma outside when Jenny approaches to inform her that Libby's been on the phone in "a bit of a state", asking Cassie to go see her. Cassie thanks her and tells her not to bother calling Libby back, she'll go right away to find out what's wrong.

And so she does. Libby intensely gives Cassie a necklace with a big blue gem in it. Cassie thanks her and tells her it's very nice, Libby crazies "No no no, you don't understand! It's been in the family for years, it will protect you" and insists that she put it on and never take it off, ever, not even for the requisite nude shower scene in the episode, repeating this over and over until Cassie agrees to do so to shut her up. There some tears and hugging, then Cassie leaves, and Libby lies down on her bed to cry. And then a hand appears on her shoulder, and there's a creepy whispered "shhhhh, it's going to be alright" and in the unlikely event that the word 'creepy' didn't tip you off, it's Azazeal. "It isn't going to protect her, is it," Libby says. It's not a question. Azazeal non-answers "You did the right thing", Libby tries to convince herself "you wouldn't hurt her, would you?" and Azazeal turns the creepy up yet further, asking "Have I ever hurt you?" Libby insists on knowing what's going to happen to Cassie, so Azazeal just straight up tells her; the necklace will blind her to the possessed, but he pretends like it's a good thing. "If she can't see them, she can't worry about them, can she?" Eeeep.

In her room, Cassie's already broken her promise, as Thelma is holding the necklace and inspecting it, asking why Libby gave it to Cassie. As per usual, Cassie gives a lame joke before telling her the truth, and gives a slightly less lame joke, suggesting an uzi might be more useful in protecting from Azazeal. If you really believe that, though, maybe you should actually try attacking him in some way instead of just engaging in pleasant conversation whenever he shows up. Anyway, Thelma gets annoyed at Cassie's dismissiveness some more, and makes her promise again that she'll actually wear the damn necklace, but it's possible she might actually keep a promise to Thelma.

Cafeteria, the bitches bitch about Troy and Cassie. Well, Gemma, bitchy as she is, is not entirely in the wrong here, because Troy has been kind of a dick to her here. Roxanne, though, just fuck off, really.

Random corridor. Thelma listens in on the Trio of Suck being their usual excessively bitchy, horny and also bitchy selves, making fun of Troy for not completely despising Cassie in every way, so he storms off. Thelma looks a little annoyed with him for not standing up for Cassie more, but also pleased with him for being pissed off with them about it. Which, you know, is a lot to show in one facial expression, so kudos. Leon follows to apologise to Troy, then immediately completely negates this by asking Troy "you couldn't lend her to me when you're done, could you?". Troy slams him against a wall and posessively (hint hint) threatens to kill him if he says anything else like that about Cassie, which does not exactly make Thelma happy about the whole giving her blessing thing. Leon stumbles off, weirded out, and Troy lights a cigarette so that Thelma and the audience can see his bloodshot eyes.

Naturally, Thelma immediately goes to report the news to Cassie, who's getting ready for a date with Troy, and naturally, Cassie dismisses it as jealousy, and after much arguing, realises Thelma's earlier fears by telling her "I don't want you." As Cassie is getting her storm-out on, Thelma realises she's not wearing the necklace, and makes sure she at least does that. I really do love the way they actually kind of trusted the audience's intelligence for once to get the whole inherent tragedy of this.

Montage time! Generic rockin' riffage as Troy and Cassie are heading off on their date, they get caught in some roadworks, and one of the workers is using a tool that appears to be basically a FLAMING TRIDENT, which, so awesome. Mournful piano as Thelma sits alone in the cafeteria, eating crisps, looking at a creepy pupilless statue.

Generic Restaurant. Cassie and Troy talk about her mother. "I think she was just holding it together until she could get me into school", Cassie says, which is really very sad. Troy tells her he remembers the day she came to Medenham; she was wearing a Greatful Dead t-shirt. Cassie embarrassedly admits that she didn't even like them, she was just trying to be radical. Troy goes one better by telling her "I used to want to be Michael Jackson." Cassie admits defeat right there, because seriously, you can't beat that. Cassie once again apologises for being weird, Troy tells her not to worry about it and creepily adds "Besides, I'm going to make you pay later".

Cafeteria. Thelma paces around on top of a table boredly. That's all.

Troy and Cassie arrive back at college, Troy tells her he doesn't feel like going in to Leon yet, so they go for a walk.

Thelma lies on a table, playing dead. She sits up, looks at the pupilless statue again. She notices something about it, though I have no idea what, and walks up for a closer look. Camera pans around to show that she's actually looking at a painting behind it, of a minotaur grabbing a woman from behind. Also, the woman is wearing Cassie's necklace. And there's a stained glass window that light is shining through onto the painting showing... a goat battling a snake with a crown? I really don't know what's going on here, but apparently this stuff leads Thelma to the conclusion that she needs to go running to find Cassie and Troy. Well, I say 'find', but there's really no way she'd know where to find them unless she already knew where Cassie was, which is probably another one of those ghost things. No wait, she's gone to the car. Oh, Troy's dragged Cassie to the shed where she found the Smurf Penis. OK, it makes some reasonable sense that Thelma would think to look there. Troy and Cassie starts making out and undressing each other as Thelma runs around shouting for Cassie. Cassie and Troy start making sex faces, Thelma figures it out/has a lucky guess and goes into the shed to watch them finish. Troy walks out, and Cassie picks up a lantern to show Thelma and the audience her bloodshot eyes. And, voila, an actual cliffhanger.