Secret Circle - Valentine recap/review

Happy Valentine’s Day indeed. This is not only the best episode of The Secret Circle’s season, it might be the best Valentine’s Day episode we’ve ever seen. It had just the right mix of recognizing the holiday and continuing on with all the drama and scares. Diana was our MVP of the night, showing off just about every side of her personality. We want to be friends with this girl. This episode was appropriately funny, scary, and eventful. The actresses playing Diana and Melissa have great chemistry together and are talented to boot. Put these two together more, show!

Jake and Faye wake up after their ill-advised hook up, fight, and then have sex again. At school, Cassie talks about how she felt a connection to her father in the basement. Diana wants to have a guy-free Valentine’s Day. Melissa comes up with the idea that they should all go to Faye’s and have a girl’s night and sleepover. Adam asks Cassie to go on a date with him. Cassie points out that it’s Valentine’s Day, to which Adam responds, “What? That’s so random.” Later, Adam moans about the poor decision to say that. Oh Adam. You're so adorable.

When Cassie is getting something out of her car, there is a man in a hooded robe standing behind her, haunting/hunting her. Later, Cassie sees this dude and freaks out appropriately. Jake talks to his witch hunter boss, Isaac, and finds out that John Blackwell killed this coven and stole Cassie’s medallion from them. The medallion contains the power of thousands of dead witches. Now, that coven wants revenge and the hooded ghost stalking Cassie is a part of that coven.

At the sleepover, Melissa convinces Diana to try her witch drug. Hilarity ensues. Diana is in a great, ballsy mood and is even more adorable than usual. Melissa, Diana, and Faye do a spell to bring to bring them a hot pizza guy. Lee rings the doorbell and Diana kisses him. Faye points out that Lee is not the pizza guy and Diana breaks off of him. Lee came over to fix a broken totum he gave to Faye earlier. The totum is supposed to sleep in Faye’s bed with her every night until it sucks away all her weakness, leaving only pure power. The totum looks like it’s made of bits of people. It’s the creepiest thing, but Faye is ambitious and will try anything. The real pizza guy comes later and he is hot. The spell must have worked. Diana kisses him too.

The party is really cute and fun, even though it’s that way mostly because Diana and Melissa are on drugs. Cassie shows up to ruin the fun (as usual), talking about her dead dad and hooded figures. The girls pull out an Ouija board and get a message. It’s just one word and it’s “sacred.” This is useless to them. Cassie realizes that she’s ruining the party and leaves. Jake shows up shortly after, looking for Cassie to warn her about the ghost coven. The girls chase him off. Girls only, cootie-bringer. As she is driving home, the medallion starts choking Cassie and she gets into a car accident. The car flips and it’s pretty sweet. Cassie, you are a moron. You should have hit the brakes when that necklace started tightening around your neck. You can’t fend off choking and drive at the same time. She's probably pretty glad she wears her seatbelt.

Jake gets Adam from the docks so that he can help find Cassie. The boys call Diana for information, and Diana is not happy. She tells them that maybe Cassie found a third boyfriend and is off with him. Diana’s happy high is wearing out, and she’s getting all honest. She tells Faye that Melissa prefers her as a friend and Faye is jealous. Faye retorts that Diana dropped Melissa as a BFF in middle school when Diana started dating Adam. It happens. People dump others when they get boyfriends and girlfriends. It still sucks for friends and family though. Their fight is interrupted when they find Melissa overdosing on the witch drug.

Melissa vomits the stuff up. We guess these girls thought an ambulance was unnecessary? Well, they're witches, so maybe it's understandable. Melissa wants Diana to take care of her sick self, not Faye. Faye looks hurt. Hey, Faye, if you want your friends to like you, stop trying to take their power, stop being mean, and don’t be such a slut. We still like you though, Faye. The girls give Melissa a talk about not taking the drug anymore. It’s like an episode of Intervention only everything is a lot easier! The key to addiction is friendship! Tell the experts!

Cassie gets out of the car after her accident and sees the hooded ghost, who leads her to a creepy abandoned church. Cassie yells at the ghost to come out and face her, even though she is in the creepiest, darkest church ever and should not challenging ghosts. The entire coven comes out in their hoods and encircle Cassie. Of course Adam and Jake get there just in time. The ghosts start to surround Adam. The robes drop to the ground and the spirits go right into Adam, all possessing him at once. They say, “Give us the medallion!” Whoa, Adam is Gollum now, and we like it.

The ghosts start making Adam cut his own wrist with his knife so that Cassie will cave and give over the necklace. Jake warns her not to, screaming that this is too much power to give to dead, angry witches who hate Cassie’s father and would probably kill her for revenge. Cassie looks like she is going to give the medallion to Ghost Adam, to save him, so Jake lamely yells, “I choose you!” and starts to interfere. Cassie uses her magic to toss Jake into the pews like an annoyance. Cassie is no Pokemon, Jake. Cassie crushes the medallion, destroying it. For some reason, the ghosts don’t take their revenge for that. Maybe they don't have the power to do it, now that the medallion is gone? Whatever, it was awesome. The witches leave Adam, and he and Cassie hug while poor Jake looks like he’d rather not be watching this embrace. It was actually a pretty bad-ass scene.

Jake brings the crushed medallion to Isaac who moans that Jake disobeyed his orders, has too much anger, and cannot be helped now. Faye and Diana make up, and it’s sweet and redeems Faye a little. Diana too, because she had her mean moments this week. She was totally entitled to them though. Lee is trying to heal a catatonic woman (probably his old girlfriend), and it looks like he is doing it through the totum. Is he going to steal Faye’s life energy or something? Faye had better watch out. Lee has a master plan, and it’s to heal this catatonic person, not to help Faye. Adam shows Cassie that he set up a Valentine’s Day dinner on his boat. He comforts her after she says that she wanted her father to be good because she didn’t want to believe she was evil like him. Adam assures her that she’s just fine and they make out. On the dock, we see the back of (presumably) John Blackwell and his scarred hand. Finally!

Episode grade: A+