Great show tonight... Stevie was really great and the two piano versions she played were beautiful! Can't wait for finale night at the end of the month... She'll be back! Here's are a few reviews from the show tonight.
The episode's transition from a negligible slide show of CliffsNotes to something genuinely moving is best illustrated by the Nicks appearances that bookmark it. Nicks's first song, a performance of "Rhiannon," is an awkward cap to Misty's preoccupation with the legend's work, but her second performance at the end, a heartbreaking version of "Has Anyone Ever Written Anything for You," is a succinct embodiment of Fiona's unrelieved loneliness, which is poignant even as its understood to almost certainly be the font of her evil.
Stevie Nicks shows up, introduced as a powerful white witch, and her first line of dialogue is, “You must be Misty. I’m Stevie Nicks,” and it’s the greatest thing that’s ever happened on television, basically, because everybody is so agreeably self-aware about all of it. But then she just kind of hangs around and plays a few songs on the piano, and the novelty wears off (though I did enjoy her and Misty having a shawl-spin-off). Still, the weirdness of Stevie Nicks being there, constantly referred to with both names, and the show being smart enough to basically treat her as a Love Boat guest star made up for a lot.
STAND BACK | When Cordelia tries to blame herself for Hank’s “heroic” suicide mission, Marie reveals both that he was a witch hunter and that he was on her payroll. At once, Fiona moves to strike — Marie, it looks like. Instead, Fiona slaps Cordelia — hard! — and shrieks, “You’re not just blind, you’re willfully blind!” Later, while Fiona and Marie continue to bond as they cast a spell to bankrupt Delphi, Fiona and Cordelia’s already awful mother/daughter relationship deteriorates further. No, you can’t help us, Fiona shrieks at Cordelia. (Come to think of it, she pretty much shrieks everything she says to Cordelia in this episode.) “You’re worthless! Hopeless!” Oh my. Afterwards, Myrtle tries to cheer up Cordelia by suggesting that maybe she could work on a cruise ship — you know, like that perky Julie McCoy — but this only results in the disgraced sorceress throwing a lot of pots and smashing a lot of beakers.
TALK TO ME | Meanwhile, since Fiona remains as intrigued as ever by Marie’s (extremely fetching) longevity, the voodoo queen finally explains to her new frenemy that she was given immortality by Papa Legba. The price? Her soul. First, the spirit (styled to resemble a kind of African-American cross between Slash from Guns N’ Roses and Gary Oldman in Dracula) took her baby, and ever since, he’s forced her to provide him with an innocent per year. This all sounds fine and dandy to Fiona, so she lays out some enchanted cocaine — what would you serve? Cookies and milk? — and summons Papa to the negotiating table. Unfortunately, when they seal the deal with a kiss, he calls the whole thing off. “You have nothing to sell,” he realizes. “You have no soul.” Back to Plan A, the Axeman suggests — do away with the new Supreme. Screw that, Fiona says. “I’ll just kill ’em all.
STOP DRAGGING MY HEART AROUND | After the teenage witches decide that Queenie is really, most sincerely dead (hmm… ), Nan finds out that not only has Joan killed Luke, she’s had him cremated as well. (No Mistyrection for you, bub!) In retaliation, the wannabe Supreme psychically forces the murderess to suck down a bottle of bleach. Recognizing that whether Nan is the new Supreme, she could still be a threat — especially after she offed Joan — Fiona suggests to Marie that she doesn’t have to make the newborn she’s abducted this year’s sacrifice to Papa Legba, they can give him Nan instead. So they drown her. Just like that. Emerging beside Papa, Nan frets that now she’ll be stuck wearing the same frumpy dress for all eternity. But he assures her, “The other side is filled with treats for a girl like you.” And that’s that — off they go to the other side.
I CAN’T WAIT | Before all that, however, Fiona interrupts Misty’s shawl-twirling practice to describe the Supremacy as a “skeleton key” — an all-access pass to anything she wants, including Fiona’s old friend, Stevie Nicks! “You owe me five bucks,” Fiona deadpans to Stevie when Misty faints at the sight of her idol (who, it bears mentioning, looks as great as she sounds — and she sounds fantastic!). Listening to Stevie sing “Rihannon” for Misty, Madison is so consumed by envy that she first tries to convince her rival that the superstar is just using her — “Players only love you when they’re playing,” she hints as if her knowledge of music history predates Ke$ha — and then clocks her with a brick and has her entombed in a cemetery! (Is the elimination of the competition one of the Seven Wonders? If so, check!) Finally, as the hour draws to a close, Stevie serenades Fiona with a lovely rendition of “Has Anyone Ever Written Anything for You?”
Okay, your turn. What did you think of the episode? Were you surprised that Nan was killed? (She was starting to convince me that she really WAS the Supreme.) Do you believe that Queenie is dead? What about Marie and Fiona’s truce? You buying it? (That look on Marie’s face after she called Fiona an equal makes me wonder.) As much fun as Stevie was, Myrtle still takes the cake for me. Between her theremin-playing and her ideas for Cordelia’s future (“Your salad dressing is absolutely magic — maybe you could bottle it!”), she just cracks me up.