Fiona, a teen that comes from a long line of witches, is starting to feel that her genetic identity as a witch is over-powering who she is as a person.
Spoilers Ahead
1.Confusing World Building
When the episode starts we are thrown into a world that feels akin to something like Sabrina the Teenage Witch where the majority of people have no idea that witches or the supernatural exist, but our lead, Fiona, has a few friends that know she is the descendant of some mighty powerful witches. Almost immediately we learn that witches are a known thing. It is also referenced more than once that Fiona is only a partial witch, but both of her parents are magical? At first it seems like her father is the odd man out in their house, but he’s low-key spells throughout the episode. Her parents also don’t seem to do anything to cover up the fact that they aren’t human? It sets up rules to just not use them when it’s inconvenient for the story. Or maybe they just forgot.
2. Uncomfortable Beauty Standards
Fiona is constantly changing her appearance throughout the episode. She uses a magical wart remover, uses brown contacts to hide her witch-y purple eyes, dyes her hair to cover white streaks, and more. This all happens before any form of message really comes into play. Even when her cousin Luna shows up, the character who fully embraces her witch-self, she’s a beautiful young woman, who had nothing to hide outside her purple eyes (which she doesn’t). And let me add that Fiona is also beautiful. Look, they’re on a Disney show for tweens so of course they’re gonna be a bunch of good looking kids, but even the wart that sprouts on Fiona’s chin is barely noticeable. They aren’t transforming into horrible old hags, they’re pretty kids who would fit right in at Hogwarts. Life can be hard for teens on the outside, but these kids are all perfect looking and march to the beat of their own drum. Woe is me. This is a very confused episode in terms of its themes and ideas, which leads me to…
3. Mixed Messages
We learn right away that witches are liked by pretty much every human, witch history and lore runs rampant – and this town has a long history with them so it’s part of their culture, but we get multiple moments of kids making fun of Fiona for being a witch, calling her weird, typical bully stuff. This feels like a “You like what we bring to society, but you don’t like us.” statement and it never works. Unlike good horror or science fiction, it is unable to make the social statement subtly.
There’s discussion of a character getting his online genetic test back stating he has a small percentage of witch in his bloodline. It’s clearly trying to make statement on people who claim they’re 8% African or 3.2% Native American who don’t necessarily look it, and while that can make for some good commentary, it simply does not work on any level here. I had to re-watch a few scenes to make sure that’s what they were even getting at. It’s at times both heavy handed and never has the strength to hold up what it’s trying to say.
4. Unlikable and Annoying
Every single character is either whiny and annoying or thoroughly unlikable. It is impossible to connect with anyone. The supporting characters are nothing more than cardboard cut-outs with pretty faces, the main characters are irritating and there is no reason to care about or sympathize with them. Even the teen romance that should at the very least be cutesy, it DOA, and not just because one of them turns out to be a vampire. This episode and everyone in it is a pale comparison to other great teen horror-lite shows and movies that have come before. I can’t put all the blame on the actors when the writing is so poor and typical.
5. Humor Falls Flat Like A Witch Under A House
Every bit of the silly family humor doesn’t work. It isn’t just on the level of corny dad jokes, it’s extremely dated sitcom fare that is neither funny nor clever, even for kids. They make Harry Potter jokes and references to witches and witchcraft through film history. None of it works. It’s a hard nudge in your ribs asking if you got the joke rather than a understated witty remark or callback. Nothing lands without a hard eye roll. This episode is first REAL stumble from this show. It was honestly hard to get through.
