Witches of East End - Art of Darkness - Review

This week's Witches of East End was another potent witch's brew of romance, adventure, mystery, suspense, and big trouble.  Killian finally started to catch on to Eva's true nature, while Dash continued to show his charm and villainy, and Frederick showed his hand as we learned more about his orders from Asgard.  Meanwhile, Freya fumed over the increasing closeness between Ingrid and Dash, and Wendy encountered a surprise face from her past.  

Eva's tricky sorcery has had Killian in a frustrating haze for the last bunch of episodes, but it began to dawn upon him that something was wrong when he saw his wife momentarily transform into an old woman while they were in bed.  Eep!  Killian soon discovered an ominous "Don't trust Eva" message on the bathroom mirror, followed by a video message from himself, warning him that Eva was up to no good, controlling him and making him forget that...he loves Freya!  Even though we knew all of this was true, boy, was it nice to have it confirmed.  Now, once Eva left the house, my first instinct would have been to run far, far away from home.  I know she could have easily tracked Killian down, but at least that would have earned him a respite to plan retaliation and seek help.  But no, Killian opted to spend the time sifting through Eva's things until she inevitably returned home and respelled him.  Ugh!  Still, we had some progress in this plotline, and answers are satisfying.  I'm looking forward to learning the details of Eva's scheme.

Elsewhere, Joanna walked in on Frederick while he was having a seizure...right in the middle of a steamy encounter with his Sudden!Girlfriend Caroline, who was topless and later felt embarrassed, though true-to-form Joanna was not bothered by the embarrassing situation.  So, as Joanna confronted Wendy about how the latter knew all about Freddie's seizures, it turned out that Wendy knew all kinds of other facts about his recent activities, too.  Like how Frederick met Caroline because she's teaching a course he's auditing.  I guess this answers the questions some of us have had about whether Frederick has a life of his own outside being torn between his grandfather and the rest of his family.  Poor Joanna felt like nobody ever tells her anything, which is ironic, as Wendy pointed out, given that Joanna is quite the secretive one herself by nature.

During a dinner with Joanna, Freddie, and Caroline, an old "friend" from Asgard showed up at the door. Joanna knows Tarkoff (James Marsters!) as a dear pal from back in the day who helped her and Victor acclimate to life away from Asgard.  Unfortunately, Frederick ran into Tarkoff earlier and knows all too well that his true intention is to weaken Joanna so that Grandfather will have an easier time "dealing" with her (ruh-roh).  Freddie had been ordered to dose Joanna with a potion ASAP.  Because, as we now know, Frederick houses his grandfather's spirit and has been sent to find an earthly host for it.  

One pleasant aspect of this otherwise excessively awkward and deceitful gathering was hearing Victor's name come up and seeing some evidence of Joanna's continued grief.  I know Joanna is very conditioned to tragedy and can be introverted, and I liked the flirtation with Alex, but I also didn't like seeing the aftermath of Victor's demise being fast-forwarded through recently.  Anyway, while Tarkoff tried to goad Freddie into letting Joanna drink poisoned wine, he ultimately refused to comply after his mother gave a lovely speech about how much she loves her son.  An angry Tarkoff threatened to cut Grandfather's essence right out of that brand on Freddie's chest, but that wasn't happening, so the most he could do was suggest other violences.  Frederick seems to have begun this mission under the impression that he should do this to get his sisters back with him in Asgard, but now that he's newly bonded with Joanna, it will be intriguing to see how he can fight against his grandfather's plans.  I'm happy to see confirmation that Frederick's better nature can effectively combat his grandfather's manipulations and evil agendas.

Of Tarkoff, I must also observe that he still doesn't seem immune to Joanna's charms, which is interesting.  He doesn't seem entirely evil, but we shall see.

Wendy, Freya, Ingrid, and Dash attended a fancy art gala, wherein they all looked fantastic, and Wendy looked especially fierce and gorgeous in her midriff-baring number.  It turned out that the mysterious painter was Wendy's three-time-ex-husband Ronan, a totally enticing and irresistible con artist.  Even though I've enjoyed Wendy's relationship with Tommy, and she feels so contentedly in love with him, I have to admit that the scenes between Wendy and Ronan had me shipping them pretty much immediately due to the sizzling chemistry and sparky banter.

While Freya shot irritated glances at the flirty Ingrid and Dash, the two seemed oblivious, just as Ingrid had earlier when shaking off Freya's totally logical warnings about how Dash is going off the deep end lately.  No matter how sincere Dash's affections for Ingrid are (and they do seem to be very real), he was hella creepy throughout this episode.  Dash took things way too far in this episode, shamelessly!  He happened to run into the father of his blackmailer (who Dash killed a few episodes ago) and after learning that the man suspected him of doing what he had indeed done, Dash smoothly took Hutton outside and killed him with his warlock lightning.  As if that weren't horrific enough, Dash made things even worse by lying to Ingrid, again, about his actions.  The scariest part is that with each new wrong action, Dash is getting more cool and confident about doing "shudder"-worthy things, and he's now more out of control than ever.  It's awful that Ingrid and Dash's first kiss had to take place in circumstances like this, especially after the sweet interactions they had throughout the episode before Dash seized the opportunity to play God - or the devil - once again.

Don't forget to catch an all new Witches of East End, in two weeks on Sunday at 9/8c, Lifetime!  I'd also love to hear what you thought of this episode in the comments.

About the Author - Virginia Mae Fontana

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

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