Witches of East End - Box to the Future and For Whom the Spell Tolls (Season Finale) - Review

The two-part season finale of Witches of East End was as full of magical twists and dark shocks as we've come to expect from the show, with a healthy dose of soapiness as well.  While Joanna, Wendy, and Freya had to find a way to escape the 1840's, back home Ingrid and Freddie had their hands full with the King's conniving and violent ways.  And as Killian fought against a deadly potion, Dash was forced to deal with his misdeeds and came up with an unconventional solution.

The entire 1840's setting worked much better for me this week than last.  I really enjoyed the exposition of how Freya can see Killian's soul in its various incarnations, and her warm, sensitive interactions with Poe were charming.  It was also beyond awesome that they teamed up to swipe the time door key from an unwitting past Wendy!  As for Joanna's encounters with Tarkoff, they were incredibly creepy and disturbing due to his repulsive behavior while drugging her.  It serves him right that he ended up trapped in the past (and doomed to die unless he thinks of something really clever, very fast) as Joanna, Wendy, and Freya zoomed back to 2014 with Ingrid's help from the other side.

Ingrid went through the ringer this week.  Her smart endeavor to hoodwink her grandfather failed, leading to her being trapped and tormented by the family patriarch.  Freddie was way too stuck in his old hand-wringing ways, revealing betraying secrets about Ingrid to the King one moment and then turning around to try and kill the old man the next.  While his fate at the end of the finale seemed bleak, I'd still like to see Frederick live to see another season.  He may have a knack for disappointing his mother, aunt, and sisters, but there's something fascinating and endearing about him as well.

Of course, Ingrid's troubles were far from over, as the King proceeded to reveal that she is pregnant.  What.  This, for me, was probably the best twist of the finale, and I never saw it coming.  A quick look back at Ingrid's sexual resume reveals that this news could have some very problematic fall-out.  Maybe this also explains the writers' big rush on the Dash/Ingrid romance, so that the timing could match up with Ingrid's pregnancy quandary.  I must admit, when the best case scenario is that your baby daddy is a selfish killer and the worst case is that he's a blue tentacled monster from another world, that's quite a kettle of fish.  All this trauma helps me forgive Ingrid for some of her lesser moments in these episodes, such as trusting Dash not to read those journals. Sigh, girl.  But at least Dash's typically sneaky habits were convenient this time, since his memories of the pages he read helped Freddie to uncover the perfect spell to foil the King's plots.

Not surprisingly, the King had designs on his family members' considerable powers, and by combining those same abilities, Joanna, Wendy, Freya, and Ingrid were able to combat him quite effectively.  It was great that despite the smug King's theft of Ingrid's powers, she was still able to participate in the spell and help defeat him, getting in a great diss to him along the way.  Once the King was thwarted, Wendy and Freya were both able to pay attention to their other big problems; namely, the deceased status of the men in their lives.

For Freya, the solution was deceptively simple: true love's magical kiss awakened Killian from his deathly state, completing the circle of the Romeo and Juliet plotline in a far happier vein than the Shakespeare version.  Unfortunately, as usual (arghh!), Frillian were not able to enjoy being reunited and in each other's arms for too long.  That's because Ingrid was on hand to inform them that Dash had been arrested (Raven managed to get a search warrant for his house, based on very scant evidence but good instincts, turning up his notoriously ridiculous hard drive with all his misdeeds on display).  Yup, and since these three keep caring about Dash's fate for reasons even I can't fathom, down to the jailhouse they went.

Killian's recent brush with death had made him more open-minded about reconciling with Dash, despite his residual desire to sock him in the nose.  But Dash was less interested in brotherly love and more driven to pull a devastating bait-and-switch.  Quickly enacting a spell, Dash switched bodies with Killian so that his brother would have to take the rap for his crimes while he waltzed off with Freya.  What I liked about this turn of events was that it showed very clearly Dash's trickster nature, the Loki side of him previously hinted at by Tarot.  After all of the super-obvious, ham-fisted tries with villainy Dash had this season, it was cool to see him do something genuinely surprising and game-changing.  I was less thrilled with Dash's glee at being reunited with Freya, which makes Dashing seem like the weird tease it perhaps always was.  Is the Killian/Freya/Dash triangle doomed to repeat itself endlessly, or is Dash just reveling in the chance to rub Killian's face in his newly horrific situation?  Hrmm.

Btw, if Freya can see Killian's soul in any body, shouldn't she be able to tell when his soul is not in a body?  How long can Dash really fool her?

Wendy took one look at poor, dead Tommy and decided to take a drastic step of her own, as selfless as Dash's move was selfish.  Using her last life, Wendy sacrificed herself so that Tommy could live and be with his daughter.  While it was terrible to see Wendy die and Joanna have to grieve yet again, this led to a fantastic cliffhanger.  Wendy awoke in the fiery underworld, only to be confronted by a mysterious and unseen female observer who greeted her as "Sister."  What?  Was there a sorority in Asgard, or do Wendy and Joanna have another sister?  This leaves us with plenty to think about until season 3!

What did you think of the season finale?  What would you like to see happen with some of these cliffhangers next year?  Share your thoughts in the comments!

About the Author - Virginia Mae Fontana

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

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