In the midst of all the other supernaturally-themed trends going on right now (superheroes, werewolves, vampires, zombies--although I guess that's not exactly supernatural but whatever) this show kinda snuck in the back door and I appreciate that it didn't go the route of the categories I listed above. As the vampire craze (which my sister and I were full-heartedly on board with--hello fellow Twihards!!) finally begins to die down and the zombie craze has taken its place (Walking Dead, although too gory for my taste, is the shiz) it was actually pretty nice to see a show that had none of those things. The main characters are below, and I had to include those promo pics because they're freakin' stunning.
Joanna Beauchamp (played by the awesome Julia Ormond) is the matriarch of this family. She is very powerful and unfortunately very cursed as well. Immortality, a quality usually coveted by various supernatural creatures, is actually part of Joanna's curse as it will force her to watch her daughters, Ingrid and Freya, continually be killed young over and over again. Before finishing the grieving process, she spontaneously becomes pregnant and the cycle starts all over again. Due to this curse, Joanna finally has enough and decides not to tell her girls they are witches in order to protect them and give them the chance to finally live full and happy lives as this opportunity was always taken from them in the past. She is a very cautious sort, having been through so much, but this comes to bite her in the ass as she now has an unknown shifter out to destroy her and those she loves. By not telling her daughters of their true identity during this lifetime, she has actually left them more vulnerable as they now have to learn a lot very quickly. Joanna is often the voice of reason, the calm within the storm, during stressful situations. She's very straight-laced and sometimes I find it annoying lol, but I can see why she is the way she is. 
Wendy (played by my newest girlcrush, the stunning Madchen Amick) is Joanna's younger sister and she too is cursed. Their father came to power in their native land and became corrupted, then banished Wendy and Joanna, cursing them in different ways. Wendy's curse was to take on the ability of shifting into a cat (which has benefitted her in more ways than one), however, towards the end of the season we come to find that Wendy is on her ninth and final life. Due to accidentally killing one of her nieces in one of their past lives, she is out of the loop for the next hundred years and suddenly shows up on Joanna's doorstep after being killed, but she comes to find her place within the family very quickly. She's much more mischievous and reckless than Joanna and this gets her in trouble on many occasions. She is irresponsible where Joanna is not, but she is free whereas Joanna is uptight. She balances the family out with both her knowledge and her charm but you can see that she's got her own set of problems. She's probably my favorite of the bunch. 
Ingrid (played by Rachel Boston) is the older of Joanna's daughters and according to Wendy, the most powerful. In addition to being cursed to constantly die and be reborn, not only will she not remember any of her past lives but her and Freya usually end up dying on the same day. Ingrid is a librarian and much like her mother, uptight. She prefers a very safe, quiet existence where she can blend in. However, one of her past lives reveals a time where she was anything but responsible and safe. Ingrid also has a stubborn streak a mile long and is very headstrong, which is actually a good deal of the reason why she ends up in the situations she does throughout the season. The irony with Ingrid is that before discovering she was a witch, she was logical and rational to the level that she did not even believe in coincidences. Becoming a witch challenges all of her previous beliefs, and she has been shown to struggle the most with coming into this new identity and discovering more about herself. She coincidentally is also an expert on matters of witchcraft, having written a dissertation on it and researching it for a number of years. My sister and I are in full agreement that Ingrid is easily our least favorite of the bunch, but I think I love Rachel Boston. lol 
And finally, Freya (played by the gawgeous Jenna Dewan Tatum) is the younger of Joanna's daughters and a close second for my favorite character on the show. We have another day/night situation here as Freya is very passionate, where Ingrid is rather cool (for now). Freya is also very intuitive and thinks with her heart, whereas Ingrid thinks with her mind and doesn't often lose control of herself. Freya is engaged to a hot doctor (Eric Winter) and all seems well, until his younger, smokin' hot brother Killian (Daniel DiTomasso) rolls into town and shakes Freya's world up. With two men vying for her affections and being told one of them is her soulmate while the other is her destroyer, sounds like Freya's got some tough times on the way! An extra piece of drama here is that the boys' mother Penelope (played by Virginia Madsen, an excellent casting decision for this role) has been outed--to the viewers--as the enemy that wants the Beauchamps dead as well as the daughter of a man that Joanna killed (in some twisted stuff, in the lifetime that Wendy accidentally killed Ingrid, she was actually aiming for Ingrid's fiance; Penelope was in the way and in shielding her, Ingrid absorbed the blow and fell off of a balcony to her death) AND the person that stole Freya's powers last week. Busy woman, right?
Bitchy Review:
I really like this show. As I said earlier, supernaturally themed shows have always had a bit of a place in tv and movies but within the past few years it has really been kicked up a notch, especially in the vampire-zombie-wolf realms. A show about witches hasn't been around since Charmed, which is still on my favorites list today, some 7 years after its finale. People who aren't really aware of the premise of this show tend to compare it to Charmed and while I can see some of the similarities, ultimately Witches of East End is its own show and makes its own impact. The differences between East End and Charmed are very significant in the fact that 1-it's not just about demons; 2-East End's plot and storylines are a little more complex to me, 3-East End is fictional I believe while Charmed is set in the very real city of San Fran, and 4-the Charmed Ones had to stay alive because they were fully mortal, while the East End witches are cursed with a sort of immortality, but this in itself provides a different layer to the drama of the show.
While the Charmed Ones had an ultimate destiny of protecting mankind and the good in the world, we have yet to see what fate has in store for the East End Witches. The acting by all involved is very solid; I have no complaints with any of the casting which is a rarity for me. The imagery is amazeballs, and the plot has a few smaller storylines that ultimately weave themselves into the overall plot, creating something that is new, fresh and very layered. As this first season comes to a close, not only do I find myself wishing that Lifetime had ordered more than 10 initial episodes, but I'm already anticipating season two. I feel like we're just scratching the surface of everything there is to know about these four ladies and the people surrounding them. I don't see recycled plotlines from other shows, I don't see an overwhelming amount of campyness(sp? idk lol) which is refreshing especially considering this is a show about witches, and I don't see becoming bored with where the various storylines are going. There's too much I don't know yet, and I'm interested in finding out about all of it. If I had to come up with any complaints, I guess I would say that we haven't yet seen more of the girls' previous lives, we haven't seen a little more magic involved, and sometimes an episode can move really slowly. I guess the latter is a good thing though because when the shockers do come up it's like boom!-boom!-boom! LOL Don't judge me, that's the only way I could think of to describe it.
Other complaints that I have are more character-related....and mostly involving Ingrid or Joanna being uptight lmao....but these are character flaws that hopefully they will work through as we see the show continue. I can say that the stubbornness in these characters is annoying because it is the reason for a lot of the drama on the show because they make things more complicated than they probably should be, but what's a dramatic show without bad decisions, right? In short (you know, other than this novel I just wrote LOL), this show has a lot to offer. It has a lot of layers, all of which have intrigue and are worth exploring, and the actors chosen to carry this out do so with a layer of reality to it to make it believable. I love that this show is carried by women and that even the main villain is a woman and they are all strong enough to carry the weight of this show without resorting to catfights and other foolishness. They cry but they're not weepy women and I appreciate that. I enjoy the actual interactions between characters because it's refreshingly real, with real issues that don't always concern magic or witchcraft and that's also great to see. I hate when supernatural shows forget about human interaction and human problems in lieu of magical problems and situations. I think this show is a good balance; I would actually prefer a little more magic. lol But if you want a break from the other types of shows out today, you want something exciting and sexy to watch on Sundays and are still reading this review (LOL) then I strongly suggest you check out Witches of East End.
Bitchy Rating:
5 out of 5!
This show comes on Lifetime on Sundays at 10pmEST, 7PST but if you want to catch up on the rest of the season before the newest episode on Sunday, you'd better hurry up because there's only one episode left before the season finale! The only place you can find it is on Hulu Plus but it's web-only so no mobile or console watching for this show! I found this out the hard way....twice. I forgot the first time. lol
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