Office by Alex Penny
I'm an English Writing and Women's Studies dual major. I'm a feminist, a Whovian, and a writer.
I LOVE River Song and I LOATHE Rose Tyler. Also, I don't like Regina Mills and the fact that she systematically raped Graham, but the writers make light of it because she's "hot." These things will be blatantly clear on my Tumblr. If you can't handle that, it would be best not to follow me in the first place. I do not hold back about the things I love and hate.
Also, important note: I am NOT a spoiler free blog!
It is what it is and if you decide to follow me anyway, welcome! <3
And the part where Eva reveals she has Cassie-like power that she never had before got me thinking. So then I skimmed through “Return” and then through “Valentine.”
Did anyone see which room Melissa overdoses in? I’ve been trying to rewatch the Diana and Faye scenes to figure it out, but I can’t tell. Is it Faye’s bedroom? I think it’s interesting that Eva was the only other character we’ve met so far who also overdosed (both on Devil’s Spirit?).
Just what type of drug is Devil’s Spirit? Does it have some kind of magical or potion-like properties? Could it have interacted with the totems from “Valentine” and “Return,” and somehow created a magical connection between Melissa and Eva because of it? And if Melissa is the other Blackwell, then that could explain why Eva suddenly has individual magic (as opposed to the way-too-obvious Faye explanation).
Edited to Add: I think it is Faye’s room that she’s in! If you look at the clip where Diana walks in after Faye is examining the totem, you can see a wooden thing in the hallway directly across from Faye’s door. Then if you go back to the scene where Diana and Faye rush in to find Melissa convulsing on the floor, you can see a bit of the wooden fixture behind them.
Edited to Add II: It was definitely Faye’s room. I just watched the Lee/Faye scene in “Return” again and there’s a shot of the little round table that Melissa had fallen down by in the room when Faye walks in to find Lee in there.
So I’m staring at the composition of this photograph. I didn’t notice before the way Cassie and Melissa are the ones in the foreground, even though Melissa is so marginalized all the time. Are there other variations of this pic, where the girls are positioned differently?
*cough*Or is it just the Blackwell girls in front?*cough*
I finally watched “Return” last night and, HELLO! More evidence for Melissa being the Other Child of Blackwell!
I mean, did you see the look on Callum’s face when he got a taste of her energy! And I don’t think it’s just because she’s a witch. I think he got a big ol’ smack of her dark magic and he craved more of it! And his cryptic quotes about such a small girl having such big magic!
Plus, did you notice how the camera was cutting in the scene where “the Circle” threw the branch into Evan’s gut? They did a series of medium close-ups that went: Faye, Melissa, Adam, Faye, and Melissa again. Then the camera lingered on her when they did the “Lock: unlock!” spell, with her voice dominating the sound of the spell. Editing-wise, I find it very interesting how they could’ve instead chosen to cut to a shot include all three girls as the spell was, showing that it was a mutual effort to remove the cuffs, but instead they only focus on Melissa and it’s her voice practically drowning out any other voices that the audience hears, followed by an immediate cutaway of the lock opening.
I think that the Callum scene is worth noting too: first they do a cutaway of Callum locking the door and then when Callum starts to get threatening with Melissa, she returns that very badass line (looks and all): “If I really have as much power as you say I do, do you really want to test it?” Who wants to bet she could have easily unlocked (hehe, nice parallel) that door as easily (I think) she unlocked the cuffs on Jake’s hands. And magically ass whooped him in the process. I mean, we’ve seen what Cassie can do, and Melissa looked like she was beginning to have a very dark magic!Cassie moment there. Maybe that’s why Callum backed off as he did, because he sensed that there was something more in her than just her witchy magic? (After all, he seemed to know enough about witches to deduce she was one, so why wouldn’t he also know that she’d be powerless without another member of her Circle?)
bookishbeth: Don't mind me creeping on your ask but-- NOTICE HOW MELISSA FELT THEIR POWER LEAVING FIRST. THEN CASSIE. AND NOOOOBODY ELSE. SHE IS TOTALLY THE OTHER BLACKWELL!!! Ahem.
I’m just about done watching the episode and I was JUST coming to make a post about the same thing!
Plus, once again, who was the one character “incapacitated” this episode? Melissa! Because of the drugs, this time, so she probably wouldn’t have been able to do any solo magic if the opportunity had presented itself, allowing Cassie to shine solo with the medallion.
Okay, after I got semi-over my pisstivity over Melissa not even being in the episode, something occurred to me: Melissa is never around when we’re finding out important Blackwell/Balcoin stuff. She’s always got something else taking her attention away: Nick’s death, then she gets knocked out when Faye tries to steal Cassie’s magic, or she was out of town.
Is it just me or do the writers not want her around because…she’s the other child of Blackwell? For example, if Melissa had been at Faye’s grandfather’s house and she’s the other Blackwell child, then Cassie AND Melissa probably would’ve seen Faye’s memories. Ergo, Melissa had to be written out.
Or during the Fire and Ice dance, if Melissa had panicked because of what was going on, she might have accidentally unleashed dark magic to protect herself like Cassie has been doing, ergo, she had to hit her head on the counter and be knocked out.
And tonight, if Melissa had been with them at the Boathouse, she might’ve been able to connect/see Jake’s memories if she had been there or possibly connected with Cassie when they all put their hands on her chest to stop her from coughing, ergo, she couldn’t be in the episode at all.
I know everyone’s thinking Faye at the moment (the assumption being that Cassie and Faye might be half sisters, if Dawn really did have more than a crush on John as was hinted at during the fundraiser between Dawn, Charles, and Jane), but that seems too obvious.
Plus, it might be worth noting that Melissa is the only one in the Circle who is biracial. I thought this was purely a casting choice since they were condensing the series for television and instead chose to loosely base an “original character” off multiple characters from the book, so as long as they were doing the “original character” angle, they might as well add in some skin pigment diversity too. (Don’t even get me started on how irritating it is that so many shows are way too “white” - only albinos are truly white - skin dominated and then when they do introduce non-“white” characters, they almost always get the short end of the stick. I was very happy that they went that direction with Melissa, even though I wasn’t sure what kind of intentions they had when they did it.)
But now with the whole Blackwell revelation, I’m wondering if maybe her biracial lineage might also be a plot point? Instead of the Cassie and Melissa half sister angle, could one of Melissa’s parents be an “illegitimate” Blackwell/Balcoin descendant?
