Hex recap (series 2, episode 3) (Original airdate: 2 Oct 2005)

THIS WEEK'S INCANTATION:

We embrace thee, Thelma, and the open heart
that compass'd night and love against all hope.
Hold fast, and wait, and take on all
this vile and evil scape — through death, we cope.

The previously — Oh, right, Cassie's dead! How did I forget that? Well, probably I forgot it because I'm guessing hers will be the sort of death that Buffy generally suffered: the temporary kind.

Medenham Hall — The horrible popular people — plus one (Ella) — are taking bets on how Cassie died. At least, I think that's what's happening: they're talking about mutilated bodies, and Leon is fascinated by the possibility of sexual molestation. Of course, that would be true of Leon if he were talking about a glass of water. Oh, wait: I've just given myself a horrible mental image.

Anyway, Leon insists they were all thinking about molestation. Ella disagrees, pointing out that most of them are not obsessed with sex, and Roxanne says that's because most of them are getting some. Ella snickers, but then Thelma suddenly appears behind Roxanne... Thelma is teary-eyed, bereft, and disapproving. And Ella looks like she genuinely feels sorry.

The Headmaster gives a little speech, saying that they still have no news about Cassie's disappearance (after "a number of weeks"), and that the college will be returning to normal. You know, in the Medenham sense of normal — whatever that is.

Hey, what's with Roxanne — does she not look sort of strange this series? Yes, the makeup's different, and she's lost weight, but there's something else I can't quite suss out. It's going to bother me the way Miss Stewart's radical change of appearance in Bad Girls series 2 bothered me. Well, no it's not. That was an entirely different (and entirely better) kind of bothered.

As the denizens disperse, Ella looks around for Thelma, but the ghost has vanished. Ella finds her outside, and Thelma starts to grouse. I'm trying to pay attention to the dialogue, really, but Thelma is extremely... er... bouncy as she stomps off. Ahem. But it's sort of a serious moment:

Ella: "Thelma, we've got to get past this."
Thelma: "Oh, I'm sorry, have I been sad for too long?"
Ella: "Yes."
Thelma: "You have no idea what it's like."
Ella: "Oh, because you're the only person that's ever lost someone."

Ah. Fair point.

Ella's more interested in finding the demon child. But Thelma says it's nothing to do with her.

Suddenly there's a squishy noise and an odd CGI shape hopping from tree to tree. Ella watches it in that gaspy overwrought I-can't-actually-see-what-I'm-supposed-to-be-seeing sort of way that makes everything seem slightly out of sync, and then a huge tree bursts into flames. Ella just sort of stares at it, transfixed, so Thelma shouts her out of her trance.

They run to some kind of shed, but it's locked. Thelma can't yet walk through doors (that must be an advanced ghosting level), so she asks Ella to open it telekinetically, which of course Ella does with a mere squint. Sometimes this show reminds me of Xena, not Buffy — everything's just a bit exaggerated, both overdone and under-acted. But that's a good thing, if you like camp, which I do — thus my appreciation of Thelma's bounciness.

Anyway, once they've got the door shut tight behind them, Thelma wants to know why Ella was so freaked out. Ella says the fire was a seraph.

Thelma: "I'm guessing that's a bad thing."
Ella: "They're like the rats of the spirit world."

The rats? Well, that doesn't sound so bad, actually: not compared to the leeches, say, or the maggots, or other squishy things that find their way into orifices. Thelma might be thinking the same thing, because she wants to know what the seraphs do. "They eat souls," says Ella. Oh. That kind of rat.

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