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It looks like this is going to be one of those shows with a million different plotlines that each advance a tiny amount each episode, so I'm going to cover them one at a time. You can assume that each of these have a healthy dose of Darryl lurking about and smirking.
Kat and her estranged husband Raymond get back together, then break up again, then get back together when Darryl gives Raymond back his job as Head of Wicks. Raymond claims that the reason he threatened to take the kids away from Kat last episode was that he was in a bad mood after getting hit by a lightning bolt. Well, you try it and see what kind of mood you're in afterward!
Roxie keeps having visions about her new upstairs neighbor being a crazy creepy guy who's going to tie her up, stuff her in the trunk and roll her into a grave. She decides she's just imagining things because he doesn't have a telltale scar, but -- uh oh! -- he brands the scar into his skin at the end of the episode. Also, she lets Chad be an actual boyfriend, even though her husband just died, um, five years ago.
Joanna and Penny investigate Sebastian Hart, a mysterious millionaire with three young ladyfriends who died mysteriously 25 years ago, even though he's quite obviously the same person as Darryl Van Horne. One of his ladies was Bun, who's still in a coma, so they go bother another of them, who's played by Cybill Shepherd toting a shotgun.
Roxie's also dealing with Gus, the young hooligan who tried to rape Mia last episode. He smirks around the town for most of the episode until Roxie, Kat and Joanna all glare at him and he falls off a platform and strangles to death.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!Because we might not have seen the first episode, we start with a ponderous voiceover telling us about how this is a tiny town with three women with magic powers. As it happens, I have seen the first episode, so I don't see any need to pay attention.
You know someone's up to no good when the first thing we see of him is his boot as he steps out of his vintage car. That's how we first saw Spike, I think. Oh, and you also know he's up to no good because he's got Roxie tied up in the trunk of his car. She screams for help, notices a brand on her kidnapper's stomach, and wakes up because this is one of her psychic visions. Or is it? (Yes. It is.)
Later, outside, Joanna enthuses to Kat about HarvestFest, which I believe is an upcoming harvest festival. I pick up on subtle clues like that. Aren't you lucky to have me here? There will be dancing and skits, which sounds horrifying. Joanna has made a turkey centerpiece, which both Kat and Roxie claim looks like a "vazhuzh". I'm not quite sure how a turkey can look like that (and don't email me pictures) but Joanna agrees with them and is mortified. Moving on with the plot, Kat is thinking of calling a divorce lawyer. Roxie approves of this, but Joanna objects, saying "He's also the father of her kids. Her five kids." Look, I watched the pilot. Do I need all this exposition?
The conversation turns to Roxie's dreams of Jamie, the guy who has her in the trunk in the vision. Joanna insists that it wasn't a psychic vision, and Roxie says that "all sorts of strange things" have been happening since Darryl Van Horne came to town. Kat thinks it's a leap to assume that Darryl has something to do with the strange things that have been happening. Well, I guess technically her earthquake and lightning bolt weren't as obviously magical as Roxie's and Joanna's, but still. My point is that it's going to get awfully tiring to have a character who resolutely denies that there's any magic going on when there's obviously magic going on constantly. And Darryl has all but handed them a business card saying "DARRYL VAN HORNE -- DEMON OR POSSIBLY THE DEVIL" on it. So I'd like to move past the part where we have to pretend there's a rational explanation for all this.
Just then! A shelf in Roxie's shop falls down. Kat doesn't think Roxie's psychic at all. And then they all see Jamie approaching the shop and Kat and Joanna are smitten by his floppy hair and British accent, and also his Johnny Depp-style facial hair. They poo-poo Roxie's worries about being killed by this guy and just swoon all over the place. It turns out he's renting the apartment above the store, so he'll be around a lot. And the only entrance to the apartment is through the inside of the shop, which seems like a bad idea.
I hate the title card showing up and then not giving me a commercial break.
Joanna is in the newspaper morgue, flipping through microfiche when Penny comes down and complains that Darryl has put his picture everywhere. Penny recaps the fact that Darryl Van Horn is dead, and Joanna explains that there's a mysterious note saying "8-4-84 Eastwick Gazette", so she's trying to find that issue. She's having no luck, because the archives are poorly organized. Penny takes offense, because she's the one who organized them, but I think she did a lousy job. Newspaper archives are easy to organize; you just put them in chronological order. If you have a specific date, it shouldn't take more than a couple of minutes to determine if that issue is in there. Joanna and Penny theorize about what Darryl's deal is. Joanna believes that Darryl Van Horn has stolen the identity of a baby that died about the right time. That's a classic. I can't remember if I learned about it from The Anarchist's Cookbook or Highlander. Penny seems disbelieving, even though she's the one who told Joanna that Darryl isn't really Darryl Van Horne.
In the hospital, Bun is still in a coma, and Kat is keeping an eye on her. Meanwhile, Raymond is recovered from his lightning bolt to the chest, which is pretty impressive. He wants to go home with Kat, but she hasn't forgotten that threatened divorce. He claims that he was speaking out of anger, and also recent lightning bolting. She relents and allows him back in the house, but warns that he's got one week. He seems a lot nicer now, but it's not clear whether that's the character reforming, a readjustment after the pilot, or just an act so he can get back inside his house.
While reading the 1984 newspapers, Penn and Joanna run across a record store ad and promptly sing "Like a Virgin" and dance around like idiots so that Will can walk in on them unexpectedly. Will's got an extra ticket to Harvestfest and wants Joanna to go with him, but she declines, saying she'd rather go alone. He walks away up the wooden staircase, and there are ridiculously loud footsteps on the soundtrack. Bad job by the foley guys there. Or whoever was in charge of turning the volume down on the sound effects. Penny demands to know why Joanna turned down Will's invitation, and it turns out that Joanna feels bad about hypnotizing Will into liking her. Then she finds 8/4/84, and it shows a story about a young millionaire drowning. And he looks just like Darryl! Well, a little like Darryl, anyway. Actually, I don't see a resemblance at all, but I'm terrible with faces. They cut from the microfiche to the picture of Darryl, though, so I'm pretty sure it's him.
A berobed Darryl welcomes Roxie to his lobby. It's too big to call it a foyer. He strongly recommends some sex before she starts sculpting him, and he is quickly naked. A little something for the ladies! But not Roxie, who declines to even make out a little. She wants to start with his head. Changing the subject, Darryl thanks her for recommending Chad, who is doing some light construction duties around the mansion, like breaking down drywall in the kitchen. There's drywall in this place? It looks like it's made of solid stone! Chad walks up and starts hammering on a wall for no apparent reason. It looks like he's trying to dig his way out of Colditz. After some chit-chat about the guy who tried to rape Roxie's daughter last week, Darryl tries to make Chad jealous that he doesn't know about the situation. And it works pretty well. That's not that difficult a goal. Chad's easy to mess with. As Chad stomps off in a huff, Roxie hears "Crazy" on the radio and flashes into a psychic vision. Her vision has Jamie rolling her into an open grave. It's not a shallow grave, either; it looks like somebody spent some time on this. We see the brand on his hip again.
Joanna and Kat arrive at Roxie's house, and she offers up vodka. Darryl crashes the party and talks archly. He's very pleased with himself. Not about anything in particular. He just thinks he's awesome. He's brought gifts for them. Kat gets a silk nightgown. Joanna gets perfume called Maurice, which Darryl looks really excited about. Joanna doesn't care. She can tell he bought it at the drug store. Roxie gets spirit dice. "If you roll one, you can see the past. If you roll two, you can tell the future. And if you roll three, you can affect the very course of fate itself." And if you roll a natural 20, you get to do double damage if you're wielding a scimitar. Anyway, the change will always bend toward chaos, whatever that means. He did, in fact, get the dice at the mall, from a kid with black fingernails and a cape. He proposes a toast to the coming harvest. Everyone drinks.
Later, in Roxie's place, Roxie and Chad are making out. Chad claims to be "a sexual Batman", which I think I've read stories about. He tries to convince Roxie that he should get to use one of her dresser drawers to store his stuff, but the only unused one has her husband's clothes. The one who's been dead for five years. It's a giant bedroom; couldn't he get some kind of plastic crate? Roxie is frustrated by her boytoy's attempts to forge a real relationship, and he's frustrated by the way he gets to have no-strings-attached sex with Rebecca Romijn. Hey, t
his really is a fantasy!
Joanna is sniffing her armpits in the newspaper break room when Will walks in. She makes up a story about rubbing her armpits with dryer sheets. She might not be making it up, not that that would make any more sense. He asks her out, and she tells him he's not in control of his actions. To demonstrate, she makes him punch himself in the arm and grab her ass. This doesn't seem like it's really going to explain anything to him. Why doesn't she just use her hypno-eyes to return him to normal? Anyway, Penny walks in to see Will grabbing Joanna's ass and tells them that the writer of the "Local Millionaire Drowns" story is here to see Joanna. It's Martin Mull! Although his character is named "Milton", which might be hard to remember.
So Milton wrote this article about Sebastian Hart, the local millionaire who drowned in 1984 and he claims to remember almost everything he ever wrote. But he denies remembering anything about these stories. Joanna immediately whips out the hypno-eyes and demands that he tell her everything he remembers about Sebastian Hart. But he can't remember any details. He remembers that he (Sebastian, not Milton) was young, surrounded by women, and scary, but he can't remember why. Thanks for coming in, Martin!
Roxie is sitting outside her store and has rolled a candle, a rope, and a ladder. The manual doesn't explain what that means, although I'd like to point out that two of the three are murder weapons in "Clue". The guy who tried to rape Mia walks past and smirks. Then he leaves. Jamie comes by and mentions having been to the library, and Roxie gets all snotty: "I thought only old ladies and perverts went to libraries." What? Screw you, lady. Libraries are awesome. Roxie walks Mia away, but Mia detaches herself from her mother, insisting that she doesn't need a new dress because she's not going to HarvestFest. Not go to HarvestFest? Why, my dear, it's the social event of the season! Simply everybody will be there!
Sorry. I think I turned into a Regency-era fop there for a second. I'll try not to let it happen again. Anyway, Roxie gets in her Jeep and pulls up to Gus (the kid who tried to rape Mia) and starts to threaten him. Then he says she's "the slut who killed her husband so she could bang half the town. So she knocks him down with her Jeep. She does not run him over, though.
The Kat residence! Kat's coaching her daughter Emily, who's apparently some kind of yellow gourd in a children's performance which will take place at HarvestFest. Raymond watches significantly as Kat talks about how Emily has to fulfill her obligations. Then Emily sings "A-Tisket, A-Tasket" while surrounded by CGI butterflies. It's mildly heartwarming, I guess, if you don't mind the lousy singing.
Meanwhile, Roxie is having trouble molding Darryl's head into clay. (Be a nose! Be a nose!) She explains that she's a little distracted because she wants to see Gus strung up in the middle of town square. Yes, make wishes in front of the creepy wish-granting guy. Good plan. Darryl goes on a little rant about how women need to learn to harness their anger. Then he sits behind her and puts his hands over hers as she sculpts, and Chad walks in to see them reenacting Ghost. Naturally, Chad stomps off in a jealous snit.
Roxie confronts Chad about his attitude, saying "Chad, I'm a widow. I don't have boyfriends." I don't want to tell you how to grieve, lady, but even the Victorians allowed women to move on after five years. Chad walks off, despondent. He's also probably still in that snit.
Kat's watering her garden in a nightgown when Raymond comes out and puts a can of beer on the back of her neck to cool her down. Incidentally, do you know what Kat's last name is? Gardner. Subtle, right? Because she makes plants grow? Anyway, Raymond says that he knows it's probably too late, but he wants her to know that he's sorry, she's the love of his life, and he misses her. That's a good angle, Raymond. And it seems to be working on her. As they make out in the garden, the plants grow dramatically. She never really explains why she was wearing her silk nightgown while outside at night watering the garden.
Joanna and Penny break into the historical society (because Joanna won't wait until the morning when they'll be open) and find a file labeled "Sebastian". They start singing "Like a Virgin" again, and I think you'll find that your really good cat burglars almost never sing during a job. Except for Hudson Hawk. Just then! A dog appears to growl, bark, and eat the file. Penny is mostly concerned about where she should pee. The dog barks a lot, but he's clearly a good-natured fellow. The only thing Joanna can salvage from Sebastian's file is a picture of him with three young women, one of whom is Bun. She sprays the perfume at the dog (who doesn't react in any way) and they run out screaming. See, if they'd just come back during business hours, they could have gotten the file legally and would have all the information, not just a random photo.
The morning, Raymond and Kat are spooning. He's happy; she's freaked out. She insists that they're not back together. She should probably not have slept with him, then. They have their argument again about how he has been a lazy bum ever since he lost his job. Kat feels like she's been doing everything on her own and she can't wait around anymore. End of scene!
Roxie works on her jeep and Jamie shows up. He helps her change her tire, which someone (Gus, one would think) slashed. Jamie complains about her not liking him and talks about how he's a writer about folklore. He also brags about how his last book got "a five-star review online", which isn't much of a distinction. He wants to talk to Roxie about her art, which he thinks has a spiritual potency. She finally checks out his torso, and there's no scar. Yet! I, um, mean, "Gosh! I guess those weren't really psychic visions after all!"
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Joanna comes up to Penny babbling about Eleanor Rougemont, who started the Eastwick Historical Society with Bun and still lives in Eastwick. Penny isn't all that interested, preferring to sit on the park bench and eat her lunch. Joanna is not deterred, insisting that one of the women in the picture might be Eleanor (spoiler: It's Cybill Shepherd, so that's definitely her in the picture. Like I don't know what Young Cybill Shepherd looks like?) So maybe she knows something! Joanna insists that they can't just wait for Bun to wake up from her coma. Just then, in the hospital, Bun wakes up from her coma. Irony! Specifically, Dramatic Irony, and I can defend that with the dictionary definition of "Irony", so you can just keep your emails saying "You misused the word "irony" to yourselves.
It's time for HarvestFest! It's a raging party! Roxie eyeballs Gus, and he eyeballs her right back. Roxie's delighted to see Mia at the party, because it means Mia is rising above it. Mia tells her mother that she seemed happy with Chad. Kat shows up with an enormous pumpkin. Roxie admits that Jamie doesn't seem all that bad, and also that he's missing that scar. Kat I-told-you-sos, and calls Raymond an ass for not understanding that their impromptu sex was a perfectly normal way to end a marriage. Just then, Roxie sees Raymond and Darryl talking. Raymond's got his job back! He's in charge of wicks again! Raymond and Kat are back together! I think it's interesting that instead of a "When will they finally do it?" plot, we've got the much more rare "When will they finally divorce?" going on. Roxie finds Chad and tries to apologize, but he goes off with some chickie named "Melody".
Joanna and Penny are at a house in the woods. Penny expresses annoyance that she's not at HarvestFest, eating pie and getting drunk. There's a symbol burned into the wood, and it's the same thing that the Jamie in Roxie's psychic vision had. Eleanor is an old, suspicious version of Cybill Shepherd. She's got a fancy headdress and a sassy attitude, saying that Joanna and Penny remind her of squirrels she used to shoot. She's not that helpful when asked direct questions about Sebastian Hart, either: "Remember him? Honey, I was the one who killed him." Then she slams the door in their faces. Then she opens the door, holding a shotgun. Joanna tries her hypno-eyes again because she hasn't learned that it doesn't work on women. Or maybe Eleanor's a Toydarian. That would be neat. Anyway, Penny would like to go get drunk, and Joanna agrees. This show has a lot of drinking on it, doesn't it?
Back to HarvestFest! Gus is watching all the dancing from up on a platform that's strung with Christmas lights. If you stretch, you can imagine this being related to Roxie's candle (Christmas lights), rope (the lights are strung together), and ladder (that's how you get up on the platform) roll on the spirit dice. Roxie becomes enraged by the site of Melody grinding on Chad and tells him he can have a drawer. Melody stomps off in a snit, which she presumably picked up from Chad. Snits are contagious, you know. Proven medical fact. Roxie calls Chad her boyfriend.
Will comes up to Joanna and Penny, who have already gotten back to HArvestFest and started drinking. Will has gotten the band to do a rotten cover of "Like a Virgin" (because once you've paid enough to have the song in your show, you might as well use it as much as possible) and convinces Joanna to dance with him. Suddenly, Darryl cuts in and asks how her investigative journalism is going. Then he threatens her and tells her to let sleeping dogs lie. Man, make up your creepy mind, creepy guy. First you want her to investigate you, then you don't want her to investigate you. I know it's your job to drive the plot, but I'd like a bit of consistency here.
Jamie watches the dancing from his solitary room. Then he brands himself with an iron bar he'd been heating up in the fireplace. Weirdo. Anyway, he has the scar now.
Darryl (alone and inside, although he was outside and dancing with Joanna a minute ago) rolls the Spirit Dice. In case you're interested, I believe they're an eight-sider, a ten-sider, and a twelve-sider. He pets a dog.
Back at HarvestFest, The children of the town are doing their wretched performance. Gus winks at Roxie from his platform and then looks shocked that he gets glared at. When Kat, Joanna, and Roxie all glare at him, he steps backwards and then falls off the platform and strangles to death on the lights. Strung up in the middle of town square, see. There's applause, but it's probably for the kids, not the strangling.
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You can email Monty at montykins@gmail.com if that's your idea of a good time.
Discuss this episode in our forums, then see what vlogger Sean Crespo thinks of a TV show based on a 20-year-old movie in No Prior Knowledge.
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