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akinoameDisclaimer: My sister was the deciding factor on one of the most horrible puns I've ever made. I asked her opinion, and she agreed it was too awful not to use. You'll know it when you see it.
C is for Changes (Nicole Dubuc): Nerissa scolds the KoV for "sulking" after their defeat last episode. When Miranda suggests they get their revenge on Elyon, Nerissa gives her a reality check, pointing out that if they couldn't stand up to the palace guards, how could they beat their godlike queen? Instead, she suggests the Guardians, instructing the shapeshifting Miranda and Sandpit to head to Earth.
At school, Cornelia notes that Alchemy is in the principal's office and might miss their test. Will panics, having forgotten to study—her duties as a Guardian are killing her grades right now. Also, as she sighs, some static electricity appears in her hair. Funny that. During the test, her calculator starts talking to her, and she tells it to shut up. Collins sends her to the office for "cheating."
Okay, stop right there. You were right next to her, Collins. You would have heard her telling somebody to stop talking to her. That's not cheating, that's someone trying to tell someone else to STOP cheating. Ask her who it is, then when she can't answer, have a talk with her afterwards about not trying to protect someone who's doing something wrong.
...This is a sign, isn't it, episode? I'm complaining this early into it.
Waiting outside the office, she hears a clock start talking to her. Yelling at it like a loon, she attracts the attention of a new girl, Totally Not Miranda. Alchemy emerges from the principal's office and reveals that Elyon and her folks have been gone for so long that she convinced Knickerbocker to call the police. ...Why not call them yourself, Alchemy? Or talk to your parents or something? Are the background characters really this clueless?
Later that day, Will explains the police problem to the others and reveals the truth about her calculator, who calls himself Sammy. To her surprise, the others can hear him—nobody else can. This goes for all other electronics around Will, and it's been happening ever since they went to Kandrakar. Even unplugging things doesn't help. The magical talking Disney objects include her cell phone, voiced by a nagging Steve Blum. Wait, isn't this the plot to some toku show starring alumni from Kamen Rider Ryuki and not Steve Blum? Will's mom arrives and kicks the others out, grounding her. She heard from "Dean" on the phone about the test and cheating accusation. Look, if you're dating a woman, you should NOT be teaching her daughter. That's a conflict of interest. Mrs. Vandom tries to explain that she understands that Will is changing, but Will being Will, she's too stubborn to try to talk to her and defend herself, and she blows up and heads to her room. Teenage wasteland. Furious, she almost throws Sammy out the window, but he screams he'll be quiet in class. She's convinced enough and leaves him on the windowsill. Somehow or another, she totally misses him getting taken by Sandpit. Miranda decides he'll be perfect evidence against Will...all while putting her fingerprints all over him. You know, even the dumbest detective would be unable to pin this on Will when there's an unknown set of fingerprints. Fortunately, we have the worst detectives in the universe on call.
When Irma gets home, her dad, a police officer, grills her on not mentioning Elyon's disappearance. Irma insists she's on an extended vacation. But when her dad continues to interrogate her, she silently pleads for him to pick on her brother, Chris, instead. Suddenly, her dad has the overwhelming urge to lecture Chris. But it doesn't stop him for long. The next day, before Irma can warn everyone, the girls are rounded up by Detectives Medina and McTienan, along with Officer Lair for questioning about Elyon's whereabouts. But none of their stories match up, and the detectives believe they're hiding something. By the way, while I'm not an expert in legal and criminal justice proceedings, I'm pretty sure that what they're doing here is highly illegal. With the exception of Irma, none of them have their parents or a legal advocate with them to ensure that their rights are being respected, and the principal certainly isn't helping them. Knickerbocker should be sacked for agreeing to this. Lair wonders if they're just repeating rumors and don't know the truth, but Totally Not Miranda appears and tells them that they hated Elyon and lured her to her basement, which seems to be exactly what they want to hear, and they promise they'll look into it. I'm sorry, but even a shred of investigation would debunk this. First off, Cornelia and Elyon have been friends forever. Everyone knows this. Second, nobody can account for "Melinda's" existence. Third, these detectives are IDIOTS. They don't respect the girls' rights, and they're running into an investigation with the preconception that the girls are guilty. Can I please replace them with a team of Kaoru Ichijou, Shotaro Hidari and Philip, Gil Grissom, and Lin Bei Fong? Someone, write that crossover. And fourth, now that his daughter is a person of interest, Lair should not be working this case!
Lair questions Irma again while she's innocently doing her homework, and she's understandably defensive and confused, particularly when he mentions that he got a tip from an unknown "Melinda." By the way, what kind of fucktard reveals the name of a tipster? He slams his fist on the table, and I start to get very uncomfortable along with a panicking Irma. Jets of water erupt from the kitchen sink, and when he goes to check it out, she darts out the door and finds the others. They reveal they know everything she went through because Taranee is now telepathic with the team. On top of it, Hay Lin can turn invisible, which she uses to nearly get hit by a car. Cornelia mentions that her powers have been screwy since Kandrakar, which prompts Taranee to make the link that Kandrakar is the source of these changes. She applies the law of conservation of energy: energy cannot be created or destroyed. When the Veil was lowered, the energy maintaining couldn't just disappear—it had to return to the Heart and by extension, the Aurameres. Irma brings up the question of "Melinda," and Will admits that she met her, though she doesn't know why she's trying to frame them.
The detectives search the basement and find a hollow wall. Because five thirteen-year-olds can build a perfect sandstone wall, that's right. As they leave, Sandpit reverts forms, and Miranda plants Sammy. The detectives then grill Will on how she got rid of a fake wall—oi, idiots, listen to yourselves. You're asking a young teenager how she build and disposed of a stone wall. What are you on? They show their evidence, with Will surprised they have her calculator. She admits she's ready to confess, but she needs water. They let her go, stopping her from taking the bag as she drops her phone in. In the bathroom, she transforms and escapes to Taranee's. Taranee's phone calls Steve Blum, who nags Will before she tells him it's an emergency and she needs to talk to Sammy. Sammy explains who's trying to frame her, and they realize it's Sandpit and Miranda.
So Taranee, Cornelia, and Hay Lin head to the Browns', where Miranda and Sandpit attack. Irma races home to find the three stooges demanding Will's location. They hear of a disturbance at the Browns' and take off, bringing Irma with them. Irma tries to psychically convince them away, but Amazing Mighty Taranee creates a pillar of flame of "biblical" proportions. They arrive, but Irma convinces them to head to the airport instead. Meanwhile, the new civilian powers come in handy, with Taranee's telepathy cluing the others into attacks, Hay Lin's invisibility making her a hard target, and Cornelia's newfound telekinesis a great ace in the hole, and the baddies are forced to retreat.
The dumbass detectives arrive at the airport and see Will. She finally asks just what they're accusing her of, and surprise, surprise, they don't know. Elyon and her parents arrive, as if having just gotten off a plane, and they're surrounded by luggage from a long trip. She introduces her cousin, Caleb (that crush in her first appearance is awkward now), and her new puppy (Blunk in a cage). Lair is forced to apologize, and Medina and McTienan realize they wasted their time. I hope you get fired.
Elyon reveals that Will convinced her parents to let her finish off the schoolyear on Earth, and just in time too, because being Queen was dull as hell, since she had to overlook everything and never got to be a princess. She and Caleb will be commuting, since he's protecting her. Alchemy is happy to see her back, and Elyon apologizes for being gone so long.
Later, Lair comes in to apologize to his pissed off daughter. She forgives him, admitting that she's grown up, and he's proud of her for that. Will's mom worries that her daughter isn't adjusting, given her terrible grades, and she requests a transfer out of Heatherfield...
D is for Dangerous (Andrew Robinson): Nerissa performs a spell, adding some of Elyon's hair to the fire. Got to wonder how she got hold of that. I'm sure it's not a plot point. With a shot of Quintessence, she creates the Annihilators from the ashes. She tells them to march to the palace, wiping out anything and anyone in the way.
Taranee helps Will with her algebra at lunch, and this is something that gets me thinking that this episode and the next were originally plotted in reverse, which I'll get into next episode. It's revealed that Taranee is at least a year younger than Will, as she's not in the eighth grade. Caleb asks to join them at the table, but Cornelia makes up a bullshit reason to say no. He sulks at the next table, loudly complaining and making people who are not Cornelia uncomfortable. Will tries to flag down Matt, but he decides to sit with Caleb, since he's decided they're buddies now. Will wonders when that happened, but Taranee reminds her that XY + XY = Ho Yay. Matt reveals to Caleb that he wants to fight alongside the Guardians, and he needs Caleb to teach him to be a warrior. He offers a deal—Caleb teaches him to be a badass, and Matt will teach him how to survive school. Caleb scoffs, but he goes against Matt's advice not to eat the meatloaf and pays for it dearly, forcing him to agree.
So Caleb begins teaching Matt that he must be swift as the coursing river, with all the force of a great typhoon, with all the strength of a raging fire, mysterious as the dark side of the moon…
…No, wait. I’m sorry, that was Mulan.
And like Mulan, Matt is really pathetic. We're talking Ziggy levels of pathetic. Even Ryotaro levels of pathetic. That's how bad. He's getting his ass kicked by targets and getting thrown into the pool while Blunk laughs. But when Will calls asking for Caleb, he convinces him not to tell her what he's up to, fearing she'll freak out. Yes, because when you have shots like this when you're asking Caleb to make a man out of you, not telling your girlfriend the truth is the best possible decision. Caleb has to ditch his new boyfriend for an attack, where the Guardians are about to fight the Annihilators. But the moment Elyon, Caleb, and Blunk arrive, the Annihilators disintegrate into ash. They assume that Elyon did it, but Elyon admits she didn't see anything. Julian looks it up in the library, revealing what the Annihilators are. And so it continues: Matt klutzes his way through basic training, Caleb and/or the Guardians fight the Annihilators as they trash Meridian, they vanish when Elyon arrives, and Caleb fails at school—mostly from trying to impress Cornelia and doing dumb stuff like mixing up basketball with football.
Taranee helps Will ace her math test, and Mrs. Vandom takes them to the Silver Dragon to celebrate. Matt and his grandpa arrive, and Will slips away to talk to him. As this happens, Grandpa introduces himself to Mrs. Vandom and is surprised she's never met Matt, especially after he gave her Huggles and that the two of them are dating. The revelation hurts her, since Will never hid things before, but she says that Heatherfield won't be a problem much longer. Back over to the lovebirds, Will calls Matt out on avoiding her, and he can't explain why he's been "busy" lately. She worries that she did something, and before he can sound too much like an Inoue character who never explains shit, he tries to hold her hand...only to get hit with some serious static shockblock. While all this is going on, Hay Lin discovers that Mr. Huggles, relinquished by Will in season 1, has escaped. She recruits Taranee to help her catch him, but he escapes into the restaurant and panics the customers, who threaten to call the Health Department. Mrs. Vandom refuses to let Will take him back, sticking him with Taranee...whose father is allergic. She keeps him hidden for the night, but he escapes and aggravates her dad's allergies, and her mom says to dump him.
Matt's fighting skills improve greatly, though Caleb still defeats him all the time at martial arts. Blunk clues them in to a big attack in the market. Matt tells Will, Taranee, and Cornelia, with Cornelia trying to foist Huggles back off on him as he runs to go play messenger boy for the others. The battle is fierce, with Julian wounded. Fire can't stop the Annihilators, as they were created from it. Cornelia implies she can metalbend, making a quip about iron as she creates a massive anvil out of the soil and drops it on the Annihilators. Unfortunately, it doesn't work as well as in Looney Tunes. Huggles escapes as she's about to be attacked, but Caleb saves her while Blunk is sent after Huggles. Naturally, Caleb and Cornelia start fighting in the middle of the fighting. Caleb doesn't see why Cornelia's not happy that he's on Earth every day, but Cornelia argues that he's there for Elyon and not for her. He doesn't get that the "why" has to be important. Elyon's arrival stops the Annihilators, and Caleb asks Matt why Earth girls are "so impossible." Cornelia hits him in the back of the head with a hairflip. Matt sympathizes, with his own relationship pains coming in when Will comes over to scold him for coming, accidentally shocking him with a larger amount of electricity.
At home, Huggles disappears on Cornelia again, but Lillian reveals she let him out to play with Napoleon. Cornelia freaks, remembering Tom and Jerry, and their mom comes home to broken glass and a dormouse chasing a kitten.
Strategizing over lunch, nobody listens to Matt until he eats the brownie that was standing in for Elyon's castle. He reveals that he's figured out everything. Because he's part-Weisman. The Annihilators are heading for the palace. They don't exist when Elyon is there. The plan is to imprison her in her own world. So he asks her to trust the others to defeat the Annihilators for good. Elyon takes charge of Huggles as the Guardians and Caleb head to Meridian. Matt wants to come too to see his plan out, but Will refuses because it's too dangerous. But he manages to convince Blunk to take him, bribing him with a garden hose. He slides down on his shield, giving a confident wink to Will, and tricks two Annihilators into destroying one another. But they rise from their own ashes and start to attack him. Will panics trying to save him and blasts them with electricity. When he sees that the shock to their systems destroyed the two Annihilators for good, Matt puts together another plan. They corral the Annihilators into a trench with the hose and Hay Lin's air, melt the sides into glass, fill it with water, and Will blasts it with electricity, destroying them. Then Matt falls into the water, because it's a running gag and his luck proves he's secretly part-Nogami too. Back home, he confesses that he's been so avoidant because he's been taking badass lessons with Caleb. He wanted to feel dangerous instead of useless, but in comparison to his girlfriend learning to shoot lightning, he feels stupid. Will realizes that she has the best boyfriend in the whole wide world and insists that she doesn't need a dangerous guy. Huggles escapes again, running to Matt, and he agrees to take him back, as he's the only one capable of taming him.
E is for Enemy (Samuel Bernstein): The episode opens at the Dragon, with the Guardians and Matt eating. Huggles gets loose again from Matt's backpack and makes a mess of soy sauce when they try to catch them. Will notices the Chinese Zodiac on her placemat and...oh no. We're going to have to deal with the Devas, aren't we? The snake glows and comes to life, eating Huggles and turning into Cedric. Then Matt starts playing the guitar. Cedric apparently isn't the soft rock type and grabs him while Will is helpless and unable to transform while the other girls are oblivious to everything going on. Will hits her shoulder and watches Matt get eaten. Then she wakes up in class, screaming. Whew. Glad it was a dream. Otherwise, we're off to the start of the trippiest and most depressing episode ever. Collins comes to check on her, so she pretends to be following the lesson on the Mongols, but Collins insists they were studying the Huns. That's okay. Mulan made the same mistake. Her shoulder is still hurting, and Nerissa's laughter sounds. Will is sent to the office and...okay, time to complain again. Are you kidding me, show? She explains that she can't sleep because of nightmares, and she's clearly started screaming in her sleep. That's not something she should be sent to the office for. If I were her teacher, I'd have skipped that bullshit and sent her straight to the clinic to rest, worried she was sick, in Reason #897 Why Akino Is Scarily More Of A Responsible Adult Than Those In W.I.T.C.H.. They call her mom, and they start arguing in front of Collins and Knickerbocker, making the both of them uncomfortable. Mrs. Vandom decides to reveal she's moving Will back to Fadden Hills at the end of the term. Everyone is shocked, and Collins warns her that she might be going too far, but she insists she knows what's best for her daughter. You know what's best for your daughter right this second? No conflicts of interest between her mom and her teacher, nobody trying to blame her for every little thing that happens, and somebody letting her take a fucking nap, that's what she needs!
Cornelia and Caleb are arguing on Shell Beach, and Cornelia decides to win the argument by tossing him into the river. Unfortunately, Gargoyle takes him. Raythor then appears on a stream of water, playing a tune on the flute, hitting Cornelia with the wave. Cornelia wakes up, dripping water. She and the rest of the girls are exhausted the next morning, and they realize they all have been having nightmares. But Will's more worried about the fact that she's moving. So they decide that they're going to intercept the transfer request and prevent the move. I smell shenanigans. They meet Will's mom's secretary and convince her that Mrs. Vandom is waiting for them to meet her at work. They split up, with Irma and Cornelia asking for the bathroom. Taranee asks to interview the secretary for a school project while the two sneak into the janitor's closet. Make of that what you will. Cornelia tries to dump a filled vacuum bag, accidentally dropping it on the boss, Mr. McGruder, who stumbles into the ladies' room. Taranee chases off the secretary by making her coffee boil over, and the others scatter. Taranee tries the bathroom, because we're never going to see this idea in a Weisman show ever again. She freaks upon finding McGruder, but when he realizes his mistake, he runs for it. I'm not even going to bother with the rest of the horrible things they do to him. It's a painful running gag, not even a funny one like Matt last episode. Hay Lin and Will take the other janitor's closet. Night falls, and the tired girls fall asleep, with Cornelia groping Irma because that's what we're here for. They all hear Nerissa's laughter, and the nightmares begin.
Irma is in a beauty pageant hosted by Martin, with Cornelia shoving her on stage. Blunk and an orchestra of Passlings are playing the same music as the flute. Irma tries to speak, but the mic steals her voice ala The Little Mermaid. The mic becomes the Tracker, and he starts speaking with her voice. See, this is why I keep saying he needs to stay mute. He's just not scary when he talks. His doggie attacks and rips Cornelia's skirt.
Will and Hay Lin find themselves in the Silver Dragon, in outer space, having to clean an endless line of tables. I'll admit, that's an effective nightmare. Yan Lin is rollerskating around, playing the same music on her trumpet. Hay Lin starts to get suspicious—which is actually really appropriate, given how much she thinks outside of the box. Miranda is at a table and grabs Yan Lin to eat her...wait. Two dreams with eating people? Samuel Bernstein, do you have some kind of fetish I don't want to know about? Nerissa appears and uses her staff to trip Hay Lin before she can rescue her, but the gravity fails and the girls are floating helplessly.
Taranee is called on in class to solve a problem on advanced physics. The numbers attack her, Collins puts a dunce cap on her, and the class laughs...including Nerissa. The board becomes a void and begins sucking everything into the vacuum of nothingness. Collins turns into Frost and reveals to her that if you die in the dream, you never wake up...though to be honest, they never reveal if the end result is a coma or death. Just saying, for fic purposes and all. Falling through the rabbit hole, Taranee grabs a piece of magic chalk and creates a door out of her dream, waking herself up. Miss Awesome, bruised and sore, uses telepathy to wake everyone else up and save them. Fuck yeah, Taranee. Everyone is beat up. Hay Lin hurt her knee, Cornelia's dress is torn, and Irma's mostly lost her voice. Taranee tells the others to stick to the plan because she's got some keywords and a lookup to do. About five of you get this reference without me having to link it. So they chase McGruder out of his office and pick on him some more before tearing up the request.
Taranee reveals her research...which she apparently did really fast. This is, what? 2007? iPads didn't exist yet, and she doesn't seem to have a smartphone. I'm very curious how she did all that research so fast. Does she have a card to the Gaia Library? An unknown person is hijacking their dreams, using their deepest fears to send old enemies against them. Their new psychic abilities are causing effects of the dream—injuries—to manifest in reality. Okay, I can buy Cornelia telekinetically ripping her skirt. But explain how the Guardian of Earth can soak herself? Taranee thinks lucid dreaming is the key—realize they're dreaming and take control. And if shared locations means shared dreams, then it's impromptu sleepover time!
Mrs. Vandom is understandably upset about this and calls Will out on her behavior again. This time, Will swallows her pride and says her friends were so upset about the move that they asked to stay with her for possibly the last time. Though annoyed, when she hears that the others all got permission, Mrs. Vandom relents. They fall asleep, hearing the music and Sandpit. They awaken in a desert, with Sandpit attacking all around. Will tries to transform, but the Heart goes dark on her. Taranee reminds her that they control their dreams, and they transform, attacking their enemies. She then decides, to hell with it, and uses the dream to give herself ridiculous powers, becoming the embodiment of the element of Fire. I'm sure this is not in any way foreshadowing. The others follow, with Irma and Hay Lin becoming the Dragons of Water and Air and Will becoming the electrifying Xin Jing. Cornelia, however, has to make a show of it and uses her hair to fight. Hay Lin still hears the music after they defeat the baddies and reasons that it's not the end. She dreams that they can see the notes forming a curtain before the true enemy, Nerissa. They destroy the curtain and realize she's controlling everything else like puppets, so they defeat her. They wake up, rejoicing and realizing that Nerissa's behind everything in Meridian too. Mrs. Vandom comes in, angry at the noise. The girls try to talk her out of the move, insisting Will's their family, and Will admits she's connected to something greater than she ever had in Fadden Hills. They promise to help Will's grades—and here is where I think that in the planning stages, this episode came before "D is for Dangerous." The theme of this episode is "dreams," and it makes sense that it would have been "D is for Dreams." Taranee helping Will pass the math test makes more sense after this episode, where she promises to help tutor her. And if Will's grades are beginning to improve, Mrs. Vandom wouldn't worry quite as much about the report card and would withdraw her request because this may be a sustainable improvement. However, the discovery of Will's new powers was necessary in order for the dream to make much sense at the end, and that's probably why it got changed around. Will insists that the place isn't what's important, but the people around her, so Mrs. Vandom decides to tell McGruder to ignore her request. The girls can't believe that they did all that for nothing, but at least they'll be together.
C is for Changes (Nicole Dubuc): Nerissa scolds the KoV for "sulking" after their defeat last episode. When Miranda suggests they get their revenge on Elyon, Nerissa gives her a reality check, pointing out that if they couldn't stand up to the palace guards, how could they beat their godlike queen? Instead, she suggests the Guardians, instructing the shapeshifting Miranda and Sandpit to head to Earth.
At school, Cornelia notes that Alchemy is in the principal's office and might miss their test. Will panics, having forgotten to study—her duties as a Guardian are killing her grades right now. Also, as she sighs, some static electricity appears in her hair. Funny that. During the test, her calculator starts talking to her, and she tells it to shut up. Collins sends her to the office for "cheating."
Okay, stop right there. You were right next to her, Collins. You would have heard her telling somebody to stop talking to her. That's not cheating, that's someone trying to tell someone else to STOP cheating. Ask her who it is, then when she can't answer, have a talk with her afterwards about not trying to protect someone who's doing something wrong.
...This is a sign, isn't it, episode? I'm complaining this early into it.
Waiting outside the office, she hears a clock start talking to her. Yelling at it like a loon, she attracts the attention of a new girl, Totally Not Miranda. Alchemy emerges from the principal's office and reveals that Elyon and her folks have been gone for so long that she convinced Knickerbocker to call the police. ...Why not call them yourself, Alchemy? Or talk to your parents or something? Are the background characters really this clueless?
Later that day, Will explains the police problem to the others and reveals the truth about her calculator, who calls himself Sammy. To her surprise, the others can hear him—nobody else can. This goes for all other electronics around Will, and it's been happening ever since they went to Kandrakar. Even unplugging things doesn't help. The magical talking Disney objects include her cell phone, voiced by a nagging Steve Blum. Wait, isn't this the plot to some toku show starring alumni from Kamen Rider Ryuki and not Steve Blum? Will's mom arrives and kicks the others out, grounding her. She heard from "Dean" on the phone about the test and cheating accusation. Look, if you're dating a woman, you should NOT be teaching her daughter. That's a conflict of interest. Mrs. Vandom tries to explain that she understands that Will is changing, but Will being Will, she's too stubborn to try to talk to her and defend herself, and she blows up and heads to her room. Teenage wasteland. Furious, she almost throws Sammy out the window, but he screams he'll be quiet in class. She's convinced enough and leaves him on the windowsill. Somehow or another, she totally misses him getting taken by Sandpit. Miranda decides he'll be perfect evidence against Will...all while putting her fingerprints all over him. You know, even the dumbest detective would be unable to pin this on Will when there's an unknown set of fingerprints. Fortunately, we have the worst detectives in the universe on call.
When Irma gets home, her dad, a police officer, grills her on not mentioning Elyon's disappearance. Irma insists she's on an extended vacation. But when her dad continues to interrogate her, she silently pleads for him to pick on her brother, Chris, instead. Suddenly, her dad has the overwhelming urge to lecture Chris. But it doesn't stop him for long. The next day, before Irma can warn everyone, the girls are rounded up by Detectives Medina and McTienan, along with Officer Lair for questioning about Elyon's whereabouts. But none of their stories match up, and the detectives believe they're hiding something. By the way, while I'm not an expert in legal and criminal justice proceedings, I'm pretty sure that what they're doing here is highly illegal. With the exception of Irma, none of them have their parents or a legal advocate with them to ensure that their rights are being respected, and the principal certainly isn't helping them. Knickerbocker should be sacked for agreeing to this. Lair wonders if they're just repeating rumors and don't know the truth, but Totally Not Miranda appears and tells them that they hated Elyon and lured her to her basement, which seems to be exactly what they want to hear, and they promise they'll look into it. I'm sorry, but even a shred of investigation would debunk this. First off, Cornelia and Elyon have been friends forever. Everyone knows this. Second, nobody can account for "Melinda's" existence. Third, these detectives are IDIOTS. They don't respect the girls' rights, and they're running into an investigation with the preconception that the girls are guilty. Can I please replace them with a team of Kaoru Ichijou, Shotaro Hidari and Philip, Gil Grissom, and Lin Bei Fong? Someone, write that crossover. And fourth, now that his daughter is a person of interest, Lair should not be working this case!
Lair questions Irma again while she's innocently doing her homework, and she's understandably defensive and confused, particularly when he mentions that he got a tip from an unknown "Melinda." By the way, what kind of fucktard reveals the name of a tipster? He slams his fist on the table, and I start to get very uncomfortable along with a panicking Irma. Jets of water erupt from the kitchen sink, and when he goes to check it out, she darts out the door and finds the others. They reveal they know everything she went through because Taranee is now telepathic with the team. On top of it, Hay Lin can turn invisible, which she uses to nearly get hit by a car. Cornelia mentions that her powers have been screwy since Kandrakar, which prompts Taranee to make the link that Kandrakar is the source of these changes. She applies the law of conservation of energy: energy cannot be created or destroyed. When the Veil was lowered, the energy maintaining couldn't just disappear—it had to return to the Heart and by extension, the Aurameres. Irma brings up the question of "Melinda," and Will admits that she met her, though she doesn't know why she's trying to frame them.
The detectives search the basement and find a hollow wall. Because five thirteen-year-olds can build a perfect sandstone wall, that's right. As they leave, Sandpit reverts forms, and Miranda plants Sammy. The detectives then grill Will on how she got rid of a fake wall—oi, idiots, listen to yourselves. You're asking a young teenager how she build and disposed of a stone wall. What are you on? They show their evidence, with Will surprised they have her calculator. She admits she's ready to confess, but she needs water. They let her go, stopping her from taking the bag as she drops her phone in. In the bathroom, she transforms and escapes to Taranee's. Taranee's phone calls Steve Blum, who nags Will before she tells him it's an emergency and she needs to talk to Sammy. Sammy explains who's trying to frame her, and they realize it's Sandpit and Miranda.
So Taranee, Cornelia, and Hay Lin head to the Browns', where Miranda and Sandpit attack. Irma races home to find the three stooges demanding Will's location. They hear of a disturbance at the Browns' and take off, bringing Irma with them. Irma tries to psychically convince them away, but Amazing Mighty Taranee creates a pillar of flame of "biblical" proportions. They arrive, but Irma convinces them to head to the airport instead. Meanwhile, the new civilian powers come in handy, with Taranee's telepathy cluing the others into attacks, Hay Lin's invisibility making her a hard target, and Cornelia's newfound telekinesis a great ace in the hole, and the baddies are forced to retreat.
The dumbass detectives arrive at the airport and see Will. She finally asks just what they're accusing her of, and surprise, surprise, they don't know. Elyon and her parents arrive, as if having just gotten off a plane, and they're surrounded by luggage from a long trip. She introduces her cousin, Caleb (that crush in her first appearance is awkward now), and her new puppy (Blunk in a cage). Lair is forced to apologize, and Medina and McTienan realize they wasted their time. I hope you get fired.
Elyon reveals that Will convinced her parents to let her finish off the schoolyear on Earth, and just in time too, because being Queen was dull as hell, since she had to overlook everything and never got to be a princess. She and Caleb will be commuting, since he's protecting her. Alchemy is happy to see her back, and Elyon apologizes for being gone so long.
Later, Lair comes in to apologize to his pissed off daughter. She forgives him, admitting that she's grown up, and he's proud of her for that. Will's mom worries that her daughter isn't adjusting, given her terrible grades, and she requests a transfer out of Heatherfield...
D is for Dangerous (Andrew Robinson): Nerissa performs a spell, adding some of Elyon's hair to the fire. Got to wonder how she got hold of that. I'm sure it's not a plot point. With a shot of Quintessence, she creates the Annihilators from the ashes. She tells them to march to the palace, wiping out anything and anyone in the way.
Taranee helps Will with her algebra at lunch, and this is something that gets me thinking that this episode and the next were originally plotted in reverse, which I'll get into next episode. It's revealed that Taranee is at least a year younger than Will, as she's not in the eighth grade. Caleb asks to join them at the table, but Cornelia makes up a bullshit reason to say no. He sulks at the next table, loudly complaining and making people who are not Cornelia uncomfortable. Will tries to flag down Matt, but he decides to sit with Caleb, since he's decided they're buddies now. Will wonders when that happened, but Taranee reminds her that XY + XY = Ho Yay. Matt reveals to Caleb that he wants to fight alongside the Guardians, and he needs Caleb to teach him to be a warrior. He offers a deal—Caleb teaches him to be a badass, and Matt will teach him how to survive school. Caleb scoffs, but he goes against Matt's advice not to eat the meatloaf and pays for it dearly, forcing him to agree.
So Caleb begins teaching Matt that he must be swift as the coursing river, with all the force of a great typhoon, with all the strength of a raging fire, mysterious as the dark side of the moon…
…No, wait. I’m sorry, that was Mulan.
And like Mulan, Matt is really pathetic. We're talking Ziggy levels of pathetic. Even Ryotaro levels of pathetic. That's how bad. He's getting his ass kicked by targets and getting thrown into the pool while Blunk laughs. But when Will calls asking for Caleb, he convinces him not to tell her what he's up to, fearing she'll freak out. Yes, because when you have shots like this when you're asking Caleb to make a man out of you, not telling your girlfriend the truth is the best possible decision. Caleb has to ditch his new boyfriend for an attack, where the Guardians are about to fight the Annihilators. But the moment Elyon, Caleb, and Blunk arrive, the Annihilators disintegrate into ash. They assume that Elyon did it, but Elyon admits she didn't see anything. Julian looks it up in the library, revealing what the Annihilators are. And so it continues: Matt klutzes his way through basic training, Caleb and/or the Guardians fight the Annihilators as they trash Meridian, they vanish when Elyon arrives, and Caleb fails at school—mostly from trying to impress Cornelia and doing dumb stuff like mixing up basketball with football.
Taranee helps Will ace her math test, and Mrs. Vandom takes them to the Silver Dragon to celebrate. Matt and his grandpa arrive, and Will slips away to talk to him. As this happens, Grandpa introduces himself to Mrs. Vandom and is surprised she's never met Matt, especially after he gave her Huggles and that the two of them are dating. The revelation hurts her, since Will never hid things before, but she says that Heatherfield won't be a problem much longer. Back over to the lovebirds, Will calls Matt out on avoiding her, and he can't explain why he's been "busy" lately. She worries that she did something, and before he can sound too much like an Inoue character who never explains shit, he tries to hold her hand...only to get hit with some serious static shockblock. While all this is going on, Hay Lin discovers that Mr. Huggles, relinquished by Will in season 1, has escaped. She recruits Taranee to help her catch him, but he escapes into the restaurant and panics the customers, who threaten to call the Health Department. Mrs. Vandom refuses to let Will take him back, sticking him with Taranee...whose father is allergic. She keeps him hidden for the night, but he escapes and aggravates her dad's allergies, and her mom says to dump him.
Matt's fighting skills improve greatly, though Caleb still defeats him all the time at martial arts. Blunk clues them in to a big attack in the market. Matt tells Will, Taranee, and Cornelia, with Cornelia trying to foist Huggles back off on him as he runs to go play messenger boy for the others. The battle is fierce, with Julian wounded. Fire can't stop the Annihilators, as they were created from it. Cornelia implies she can metalbend, making a quip about iron as she creates a massive anvil out of the soil and drops it on the Annihilators. Unfortunately, it doesn't work as well as in Looney Tunes. Huggles escapes as she's about to be attacked, but Caleb saves her while Blunk is sent after Huggles. Naturally, Caleb and Cornelia start fighting in the middle of the fighting. Caleb doesn't see why Cornelia's not happy that he's on Earth every day, but Cornelia argues that he's there for Elyon and not for her. He doesn't get that the "why" has to be important. Elyon's arrival stops the Annihilators, and Caleb asks Matt why Earth girls are "so impossible." Cornelia hits him in the back of the head with a hairflip. Matt sympathizes, with his own relationship pains coming in when Will comes over to scold him for coming, accidentally shocking him with a larger amount of electricity.
At home, Huggles disappears on Cornelia again, but Lillian reveals she let him out to play with Napoleon. Cornelia freaks, remembering Tom and Jerry, and their mom comes home to broken glass and a dormouse chasing a kitten.
Strategizing over lunch, nobody listens to Matt until he eats the brownie that was standing in for Elyon's castle. He reveals that he's figured out everything. Because he's part-Weisman. The Annihilators are heading for the palace. They don't exist when Elyon is there. The plan is to imprison her in her own world. So he asks her to trust the others to defeat the Annihilators for good. Elyon takes charge of Huggles as the Guardians and Caleb head to Meridian. Matt wants to come too to see his plan out, but Will refuses because it's too dangerous. But he manages to convince Blunk to take him, bribing him with a garden hose. He slides down on his shield, giving a confident wink to Will, and tricks two Annihilators into destroying one another. But they rise from their own ashes and start to attack him. Will panics trying to save him and blasts them with electricity. When he sees that the shock to their systems destroyed the two Annihilators for good, Matt puts together another plan. They corral the Annihilators into a trench with the hose and Hay Lin's air, melt the sides into glass, fill it with water, and Will blasts it with electricity, destroying them. Then Matt falls into the water, because it's a running gag and his luck proves he's secretly part-Nogami too. Back home, he confesses that he's been so avoidant because he's been taking badass lessons with Caleb. He wanted to feel dangerous instead of useless, but in comparison to his girlfriend learning to shoot lightning, he feels stupid. Will realizes that she has the best boyfriend in the whole wide world and insists that she doesn't need a dangerous guy. Huggles escapes again, running to Matt, and he agrees to take him back, as he's the only one capable of taming him.
E is for Enemy (Samuel Bernstein): The episode opens at the Dragon, with the Guardians and Matt eating. Huggles gets loose again from Matt's backpack and makes a mess of soy sauce when they try to catch them. Will notices the Chinese Zodiac on her placemat and...oh no. We're going to have to deal with the Devas, aren't we? The snake glows and comes to life, eating Huggles and turning into Cedric. Then Matt starts playing the guitar. Cedric apparently isn't the soft rock type and grabs him while Will is helpless and unable to transform while the other girls are oblivious to everything going on. Will hits her shoulder and watches Matt get eaten. Then she wakes up in class, screaming. Whew. Glad it was a dream. Otherwise, we're off to the start of the trippiest and most depressing episode ever. Collins comes to check on her, so she pretends to be following the lesson on the Mongols, but Collins insists they were studying the Huns. That's okay. Mulan made the same mistake. Her shoulder is still hurting, and Nerissa's laughter sounds. Will is sent to the office and...okay, time to complain again. Are you kidding me, show? She explains that she can't sleep because of nightmares, and she's clearly started screaming in her sleep. That's not something she should be sent to the office for. If I were her teacher, I'd have skipped that bullshit and sent her straight to the clinic to rest, worried she was sick, in Reason #897 Why Akino Is Scarily More Of A Responsible Adult Than Those In W.I.T.C.H.. They call her mom, and they start arguing in front of Collins and Knickerbocker, making the both of them uncomfortable. Mrs. Vandom decides to reveal she's moving Will back to Fadden Hills at the end of the term. Everyone is shocked, and Collins warns her that she might be going too far, but she insists she knows what's best for her daughter. You know what's best for your daughter right this second? No conflicts of interest between her mom and her teacher, nobody trying to blame her for every little thing that happens, and somebody letting her take a fucking nap, that's what she needs!
Cornelia and Caleb are arguing on Shell Beach, and Cornelia decides to win the argument by tossing him into the river. Unfortunately, Gargoyle takes him. Raythor then appears on a stream of water, playing a tune on the flute, hitting Cornelia with the wave. Cornelia wakes up, dripping water. She and the rest of the girls are exhausted the next morning, and they realize they all have been having nightmares. But Will's more worried about the fact that she's moving. So they decide that they're going to intercept the transfer request and prevent the move. I smell shenanigans. They meet Will's mom's secretary and convince her that Mrs. Vandom is waiting for them to meet her at work. They split up, with Irma and Cornelia asking for the bathroom. Taranee asks to interview the secretary for a school project while the two sneak into the janitor's closet. Make of that what you will. Cornelia tries to dump a filled vacuum bag, accidentally dropping it on the boss, Mr. McGruder, who stumbles into the ladies' room. Taranee chases off the secretary by making her coffee boil over, and the others scatter. Taranee tries the bathroom, because we're never going to see this idea in a Weisman show ever again. She freaks upon finding McGruder, but when he realizes his mistake, he runs for it. I'm not even going to bother with the rest of the horrible things they do to him. It's a painful running gag, not even a funny one like Matt last episode. Hay Lin and Will take the other janitor's closet. Night falls, and the tired girls fall asleep, with Cornelia groping Irma because that's what we're here for. They all hear Nerissa's laughter, and the nightmares begin.
Irma is in a beauty pageant hosted by Martin, with Cornelia shoving her on stage. Blunk and an orchestra of Passlings are playing the same music as the flute. Irma tries to speak, but the mic steals her voice ala The Little Mermaid. The mic becomes the Tracker, and he starts speaking with her voice. See, this is why I keep saying he needs to stay mute. He's just not scary when he talks. His doggie attacks and rips Cornelia's skirt.
Will and Hay Lin find themselves in the Silver Dragon, in outer space, having to clean an endless line of tables. I'll admit, that's an effective nightmare. Yan Lin is rollerskating around, playing the same music on her trumpet. Hay Lin starts to get suspicious—which is actually really appropriate, given how much she thinks outside of the box. Miranda is at a table and grabs Yan Lin to eat her...wait. Two dreams with eating people? Samuel Bernstein, do you have some kind of fetish I don't want to know about? Nerissa appears and uses her staff to trip Hay Lin before she can rescue her, but the gravity fails and the girls are floating helplessly.
Taranee is called on in class to solve a problem on advanced physics. The numbers attack her, Collins puts a dunce cap on her, and the class laughs...including Nerissa. The board becomes a void and begins sucking everything into the vacuum of nothingness. Collins turns into Frost and reveals to her that if you die in the dream, you never wake up...though to be honest, they never reveal if the end result is a coma or death. Just saying, for fic purposes and all. Falling through the rabbit hole, Taranee grabs a piece of magic chalk and creates a door out of her dream, waking herself up. Miss Awesome, bruised and sore, uses telepathy to wake everyone else up and save them. Fuck yeah, Taranee. Everyone is beat up. Hay Lin hurt her knee, Cornelia's dress is torn, and Irma's mostly lost her voice. Taranee tells the others to stick to the plan because she's got some keywords and a lookup to do. About five of you get this reference without me having to link it. So they chase McGruder out of his office and pick on him some more before tearing up the request.
Taranee reveals her research...which she apparently did really fast. This is, what? 2007? iPads didn't exist yet, and she doesn't seem to have a smartphone. I'm very curious how she did all that research so fast. Does she have a card to the Gaia Library? An unknown person is hijacking their dreams, using their deepest fears to send old enemies against them. Their new psychic abilities are causing effects of the dream—injuries—to manifest in reality. Okay, I can buy Cornelia telekinetically ripping her skirt. But explain how the Guardian of Earth can soak herself? Taranee thinks lucid dreaming is the key—realize they're dreaming and take control. And if shared locations means shared dreams, then it's impromptu sleepover time!
Mrs. Vandom is understandably upset about this and calls Will out on her behavior again. This time, Will swallows her pride and says her friends were so upset about the move that they asked to stay with her for possibly the last time. Though annoyed, when she hears that the others all got permission, Mrs. Vandom relents. They fall asleep, hearing the music and Sandpit. They awaken in a desert, with Sandpit attacking all around. Will tries to transform, but the Heart goes dark on her. Taranee reminds her that they control their dreams, and they transform, attacking their enemies. She then decides, to hell with it, and uses the dream to give herself ridiculous powers, becoming the embodiment of the element of Fire. I'm sure this is not in any way foreshadowing. The others follow, with Irma and Hay Lin becoming the Dragons of Water and Air and Will becoming the electrifying Xin Jing. Cornelia, however, has to make a show of it and uses her hair to fight. Hay Lin still hears the music after they defeat the baddies and reasons that it's not the end. She dreams that they can see the notes forming a curtain before the true enemy, Nerissa. They destroy the curtain and realize she's controlling everything else like puppets, so they defeat her. They wake up, rejoicing and realizing that Nerissa's behind everything in Meridian too. Mrs. Vandom comes in, angry at the noise. The girls try to talk her out of the move, insisting Will's their family, and Will admits she's connected to something greater than she ever had in Fadden Hills. They promise to help Will's grades—and here is where I think that in the planning stages, this episode came before "D is for Dangerous." The theme of this episode is "dreams," and it makes sense that it would have been "D is for Dreams." Taranee helping Will pass the math test makes more sense after this episode, where she promises to help tutor her. And if Will's grades are beginning to improve, Mrs. Vandom wouldn't worry quite as much about the report card and would withdraw her request because this may be a sustainable improvement. However, the discovery of Will's new powers was necessary in order for the dream to make much sense at the end, and that's probably why it got changed around. Will insists that the place isn't what's important, but the people around her, so Mrs. Vandom decides to tell McGruder to ignore her request. The girls can't believe that they did all that for nothing, but at least they'll be together.