ian nottingham

im not sure raven took the journals. i think it was freddies killer. with grandpa dead (IF he really IS dead..) the show needs a new bad boy/girl whos obviously some witch hater. could be raven, could be someone else..

i really liked tommys performance as grandpa. wanted to mention this last time already.. the two characters he played were really different and i think he elaborated them quite nicely.. what really bothered me was that scene when ingrid went to dash after saving killians life without mentioning killians situation with even a single word and only dealing with the spell books instead. i mean there are billions of mistakes in the writing, but this one was just too hard. sure, killian made clear he didnt want dashes help, but not even tell him that his brother is about to die..? didnt work for me at all.. similarly stupid: what makes dash confident enough to sleep with the fbi agent whos investigating a murder he committed and clearly treats him as a suspect with a bunch of black magic spell books on his desk. (ill skip the comment on the attic.) i mean is he a total moron or something? it almost physically hurt to follow this brainless plotline.. what came out of the spell box when joanna dropped it? i thought the lunatics spirit had gone "straight to hell"... the collective parricide scene was interesting. and i also liked that one shot of dash when tommy-grandpa kept talking about his inner war and the right side of his face was illuminated while the other one was dark with the eye squinting, that was quite thoughtful.. they actually read the switching spell out loud twice, once when they were checking the journals for suitable spells against grandpa and again when they were extracting the memories from dashes subconscious.. the first time ingrid says something about a spell to switch bodies with another witch, later it is a spell about switching souls with another witch. in order to make it "undetectable" for freya it would in fact have to be the second version which of course is a huge nonsense because you dont need to hold a phd in philosophy to spontaneously wonder how one should actually imagine such a "soul switch". its just stupid.. i agree, most of the special effects were a total disaster though i thought the body/soul switch in the end was sufficiently well done.. what you call "snakes" were thorny lianas or so and they definitely were the worst. seems to be much more expensive to have those things done properly than i thought so far.. id really like that too, but im afraid youre expecting far too much from both, the show and the character...

ive downloaded the episode from itunes and the lines are: freya: "is this some sort of nightclub?" wendy: "it's more of an opium-den-slash-brothel." and concerning the fortune telling joanna says: "the two of you had a side business telling fortunes and offering luck spells." the fact that freya answers "because im not just a barmaid" to poe to me doesnt seem to be a good argument for her being a hooker because i think the implied statement here is more: "but a witch too", but the lines above imo do strongly suggest that they were all part of the "main business". on the other hand its quite clear that and why the show doesnt get explicit about this topic.. however, i think the hints are quite clear.. nevertheless your deductions are totally valid too and someone who wants to see it your way certainly can. so far the issues open for interpretation.

yeah, i didnt make that point so clear.. so, i dont think either that anyone will actually "be inspired" to become a prostitute by this one episode of the show, but i do think that for people who grow up in an environment where prostitution or drug dealing in fact are tangible alternatives (and i know that for many people its hard to actually imagine growing up in such an environment) its not of big help to be fed with unrealistic sugar-coated images of those lifestyles by the media all the time – i dont think exclusively of "witches of eastend".. but i see why someone might find this comment a bit over the top regarding this particular example. it was just another thought crossing my mind.. thanks for the reaction anyway..

yeah, my thoughts went the same direction. the show obviously trys to break a little "taboo" every now and then (e.g. by introducing joannas lesbian ex lover – yawn..), but i think they kind of overdid it with that brothel thing. i mean from my personal point of view it really doesnt matter what kinds of kinky past lives theyll surprise us with next, but i suppose there are loads of teen girls watching that crap who might indeed feel tempted to "follow suit".. after all tv unfortunately does have something like an educating effect and when im 15 and see that its okay that my favourite character from my favourite witch show was a drug dealer in one of her past lives and a whore in another that might indeed modify my way of looking at these things in a questionable manner.. :D thanks for a good laugh...

oh, something else.. did i get this right that back in 1848 the whole clan were working as hookers..? any comments on that..?

yeah, that crossed my mind too that they could turn defeat into victory by a gradual format switch to comedy.. i wonder if anything like that has ever been done before..

and why does agent hot-pants TASTE the poisonous quicksilver stuff from dashes fireplace!? sorry, but if she doesnt turn out to be a witch or anything similar herself, this is just another needlessly absurd detail...

thanks for helen keller! and thanks for the cluster fuck! what a glorious post! anyone noticed that the positive (and even the neutral) feedback on the show seems to gradually disappear..? i got to admit that ive also almost arrived to that point where im watching it mostly because ive got kind of used to seeing those peoples faces every once in a while and driven by the unpleasant curiosity about how long theyre actually able to delay the final hard landing on rock bottom. im afraid with poe theyve yet again effectively lost a few hundred feet of height so that the title of this episode might soon prove to be a bad omen for the entire show.. id really like to know for how many episodes the cast have actually signed their contracts.. and watching the show i just cant stop wondering how many percent of them actually still feel comfortable about their involvement in this..

i suppose the last "his" should be a "her". imo the phone call was a video recorded by himself in a "lucid" moment in which a sudden consciousness of what was going on made him take precautions for the probable case that he would slip back under her spell.. what other explanations have you been thinking of..?

thanks for a good laugh! :D BUT except the fact that killian indeed looks like taken from an interior catalogue casting his acting is crappy enough to ruin even a potential sweaty sex scene.. no matter with whom!

maybe they had enough of deep and serious conversations in one of their past lives when they had a higher iq too (maybe sometime in the 50s – the 80s drop out on this, i suppose) and decided to take it easy and try to focus on the "fun part" in this one...

i hope his part in the books is a more grateful one...

well, youre probably right.. i just wondered why he kind of doesnt participate in the moral metadiscourse thats going on regarding the rest of the characters. for instance, we have to listen to a discussion about freya having sex with her soul mate (!) being unethical because hes married to some chick hes known for not more than a couple of weeks.. i mean come on.. now, how can writers that suppose a congruent mindset in their audience ever expect them to relike freddie whos not only a compulsive liar and a traitor to his family, but also the killer of a bunch of innocent people. okay, dashs a killer too, but this issue is discussed as explicitly and moralizingly (!) as freyas and killians adultery. moreover, in his case we have lots of "excuses" at hand that kind of keep his character ambivalent. in freddies case theres nothing like that. when he still had his seizures, one expected the good old obsessive-schizophrenic pattern, but now this possibility seems excluded and except not killing his girlfriend and, okay, killing tarkoff now (well probably never know why tarkoff didnt manage to foresee this attack just like the last one, but lets not get encumbered by details..) he hasnt done anything so far that could possibly suffice to release him from the great share of purgatory the average view must (or at least should!) wish him..

getting into the countless contradictions regarding the "rules", possibilities and limits of witchcraft explained or hinted at in the series seems a pointless mission.. what im curious about is e.g. what you people think about freddie.. i mean whats the point in introducing a character who proves to be a pathological liar over and over and over again, on the other hand fails in every single one of his actions (no matter if its part of being a good or a bad guy) and keeps saying "im so sorry, mum" all the time? not to mention the fact that he seems to be unemployed, but busy without business ever since his arrival – but of course still makes his college teacher fall madly in love with him! – without even showing his only real quality in presenting some magic tricks!! whatever, by now everyone hates him and i wonder how he could possibly be made an intact member of the clan again. logical conclusion: this character is either a total dead-end street or a number one candidate to sacrifice himself to revive the dear sisters. i mean its not that hes not been announcing his suicide for a few episodes.. any opinions on this issue?