No Strangers Here
Episode 2 of Fate: The Winx Saga begins with Farah and Saul discussing the Burned Ones. Specifically, Farah intends to use her powers to mind read the creature and find out what it’s hiding. As flashes of the past bleed through when she does, Farah Dowling suddenly jumps back in shock. Back at school, a new day dawns and all the characters prepare for their magical lessons. Aisha encourages Bloom to be excited while Terra finds herself struggling to show the others her body. Eventually they all get dressed as Stella arrives and tells them all to keep quiet about the missing ring and what happened with the Burned One. The first year faeries gather at the stone circle as their first lesson begins. While everyone manages to control their magic, Bloom meanwhile cannot. In fact, she can’t even conjure up flames. As the lesson comes to a close, Bloom gains confirmation from Dowling that she is, in fact, a Changeling. Unfortunately, Dowling doesn’t know who Bloom’s parents are either. The boys meanwhile continue to practice their fighting moves outside. As they do, Stella and Sky get talking about the missing ring and try to concoct a plan to bring it back. Among the male faeries is Riven, who Beatrix recruits to help break into Dowling’s office. He eventually agrees to do so. At lunch, Sky arrives and sits with Bloom asking if she’s okay. Stella watches them suspiciously as Bloom agrees to get Stella’s ring back for her. Sky isn’t so sure this is a good idea though and follows after Bloom, trying to dissuade her but to no avail. Instead, Bloom heads down to the stone circle again where Stella shows up and begins antagonizing the trainee faerie. As she mentions her birth parents, Bloom finally manages to muster up some flames. It’s not enough for Stella though, who pushes her to do more. On the back of this lesson, Bloom begins to use anger as a way of channeling her magical use. Aisha spies Bloom’s open journal and tries to dissuade Bloom from using anger as a method of using her powers. Anger of course leads to hate, which in turn leads to suffering and the dark side. Musa winds up with a new love interest, an Earth fairy called Sam. Meanwhile, Terra grows closer to Dane. Only, Riven messages and antagonizes Dane, calling him a flower picker. On the back of this message, he hurries away. Later that day, all of our fairies head off together to get Stella’s ring back. Aisha warns that negative emotions are unpredictable and unreliable, but the others refuse to listen. Anyway, they cross the barrier and head into the barn where the Burned One is tied up. Only, it’s actually gone missing. Musa senses something outside and immediately doubles over in pain. The others however find a whole trail of dead bodies lying on the floor like a bloodied carpet. Saul is still alive though, breathing heavily and sat against a tree. He’s been infected too but thankfully Terra’s quick thinking allows her to give him a potion to heal for the time being. Bloom though wanders off on her own and finds herself face to face with the Burned One. Thankfully Aisha arrives at the last second and blasts it with water, impaling the creature against a log. Thankfully they manage to get Stella’s ring back from it too, which happens to be inside the creature. Bloom recovers the ring and brings it back to Stella, as the trainee faeries can breathe a sigh of relief for now. Back at school, Professor Harvey and Farah patch up Saul after his run-in with the Burned One. Apparently he saw someone in the road too. This someone let the Burned One loose and as we soon see, it happens to be Beatrix. She’s currently in Dowling’s office and desperate to uncover the secrets lurking in its depths.
The Episode Review
Episode 2 slows the pacing down of Winx as we’re greeted with a fetch quest for our faeries in the form of retrieving Stella’s ring. With precious little time to play with, the simmering romances don’t have a lot of time to be worked into the story. Meanwhile the editing is a little sloppy at times, with weird pop tracks playing during tense or dramatic moments. The characters here are a far cry from those seen in Winx Club and those earlier ideas around friendship are removed in favour of a much more palatable and somewhat average teen drama to bleed through. The show will undoubtedly find its audience but given the changes made to the source material, this feels much more akin to a rehash of Harry Potter and I don’t think that’s necessarily a good thing. Still, there’s just enough intrigue to stick it out with this one for the time being.
