Fate: The Winx Saga – Season 1 Episode 5 Recap & Review

Wither Into The Truth

Episode 5 of Fate: The Winx Saga begins with screaming as Beatrix is tortured by Dowling. Pushing through her mental defences, she wants to know exactly why she’s at her school. Beatrix has the headmistress’ number though and plays the victims, promising to turn Dowling into a monster.

Meanwhile, Bloom and Sky practice out in the yard as a projection of Burned Ones are thrown up. As Professor Harvey soon tells them, the way to defeat a burned one is to find its Inner Core and destroy it. Or, you know, impale it on a log seems to work too.

With Sky and Bloom teamed up together, it turns out Sky is actually working as a spy for Saul too, who feeds back what Bloom has been doing.

Well, the males have bigger problems to deal with when a soldier feeds back that two Burned Ones were operating together. With Bloom distant and determined to find out what Beatrix knows, the rest of the girls realize something is up.

Thankfully they don’t have to wait too long as Stella happens to have learned some tricks and presents herself to Musa who senses her presence. As they sit and talk together, it turns out what happened to Ricki was a mistake. The Queen twisted it to be a purposeful action though; a ploy to make Stella more feared.

Bloom finally speaks to Beatrix and learns that she killed Callum. However, in order to learn more, Beatrix tells her she needs to free her from the prison she’s in. This plan involves heading down to the Stone Circle with a magical book and a talisman of sorts. This is their only option to free Rosalind and learn the truth.

Anyway, once there Sky shows up and sees her messing around with the book. Bloom pretends like everything is okay and asks about Aster Dell, revealing the truth that she’s seen. Bloom tells him that there’s something being hidden but quite what, remains to be seen. Anyway, Sky and Bloom eventually hook up together but it turns out Bloom’s tricked him with a sedative.

When Bloom heads back to the school she’s blindsided by the other girls who stop her and try to convince Bloom that Dowling only has their best interests at heart. However, they also don’t know about Rosalind and what happened at Aster Dell. Eventually she caves though and Bloom hands over the talisman and walks away.

Back at the dorm, it happens to be Stella who speaks up as the voice of reason, presenting herself to the group and telling them Bloom has a right to know where she’s from.

Bloom heads to see Dowling and learns the truth about what happened in the past. Through a flashback we see that Dowling made a mistake. Rosalind was her mentor at the time and the day of Aster Dell’s destruction saw all the teachers conjuring up magic together. Apparently when faeries are joined together they can conjure up a good amount of magic. Unfortunately when they burned the village to a cinder, Rosalind lied and told them it had been evacuated. But it wasn’t, leaving them with a heavy heart and drowning in guilt.

Bloom eventually breaks Beatrix free from her cell, with the help of Stella and the others of course. While the students set out to find Rosalind, Stella pushes Beatrix into the magic barrier and leaves her as a vegetable on the ground. While the group descend deeper, Aisha heads back to see Farah, warning her what the students are up to.

Back at the school, Bloom uncovers Rosalind in her magical tomb. She telepathically says hello to Bloom and opens her eyes, as the episode comes to a close.

The Episode Review

With more of the past revealed, the truth surrounding what happened to the school is a nice touch and adds a bit more drama to the fold. It also serves to give these teachers a reason for keeping everything a secret and hiding it from the students.

In terms of Alfea though, the world building has been pretty messy and the confusing McGuffins and lack of explanation for key items is a bit frustrating. In fact, the writing itself has been far more concerned with making a teen drama than it has a competent living, breathing fantasy world.

Vampire Diaries, to an extent, got away with this thanks to its simple structure for how vampires operated in society but here it all feels rushed and messy. In fact, the show would have benefited from another 4 episodes or so just to flesh everything out and allow the supporting characters to grow from their perceived archetypal roles.

I’d imagine the finale will leave things wide open for a second season though, as a lowly 50 minutes separates a big war and the end of the season. We shall see.