I recently re-watched the 2009 witch show Eastwick - I can't believe it's been 15 years! I really loved this show and still do, but it's not available to stream anywhere nor did they release a DVD of it since it only got one shortened season.
SO in order to rewatch, I had to find it illegally uploaded somewhere LOL but there was a reward in doing that, because it was uploaded from someone in another country, which meant I could see the final episode that was never aired in the U.S.! I got to see what they had in store beyond what we saw here. Lots of thoughts!
About 2009's Eastwick:
Eastwick was based off of the John Updike novel, Witches of Eastwick. It'd previously been adapted into a film in the 90's with Cher, Michelle Pfieffer, and Susan Sarandon as the witches, and Jack Nicholson as the main dude. In the 2009 adaptation, the three witches were Rebecca Romijn as Roxie, Jaime Ray Newman as Kat, and Lindsey Price as Joanna, with Paul Gross as Darryl Van Horne.
Darryl moves to the sleepy town of Eastwick, Connecticut, and catches everyone's attention. He's super rich, super mysterious, and super dashing. He becomes quite interested in Roxie, but she's dating Chad at the time, her much younger beau.
The entrance of Darryl seems to bestow powers on the three women. Roxie can see the future, Jo can Jedi mind trick people, and Kat can control the elements. They previously didn't spend much time together, but their abilities now draw them together, almost making a coven.
Darryl keeps inserting himself, wanting to me with Roxie. Eventually Chad dies in an accident, and Roxie ends up with Darryl. Meanwhile another new guy comes to town, Jamie [Jack Huston], and he's here to try and kill Darryl, who he thinks is his father. Roxie helps save Darryl's life.
The way we saw it here in the States, Roxie and Darryl are together, and Kat and Jo are dancing with them, everyone happy. But that extra episode really blew that up! Which I'll get to in a sec, but I wanted to go through the maiden, mother, crone dynamics present with the three witches:
Joanna: The Maiden
Joanna is a reporter at the local paper, and she's kind of shy and quiet initially. She comes out of her shell more with her newfound powers to control people and make them do whatever she wants. There are times where this is quite funny and it backfires on her, like when she uses her powers to get a guy to have sex with her, and it turns out he;s gay and married!
BUT Joanna also isn't super ethical with her usage of her abilities, like in that scenario, it's not right at all to make someone sleep with you against their will (no matter how hot you may be). And that kind of came up repeatedly as she used her abilities in ways she shouldn't have.
I did also love her friendship with Penny (Sara Rue), who also worked at the paper but was a bit more daring. I would've liked to have seen her eventually join the coven!
Kat: The Mother
Kat is a literal mother of five children with her high school sweetheart, Ray (Jon Bernthal, way before zombies came into his life, ha!), Everything is on Kat's shoulders at home as Ray is an irresponsible, slightly abusive drunk. Kat ends up developing the ability to manipulate the elements, and this also gives her the ability to inflict pain on others (like when she almost kills Ray).
Kat has some seriously bottled up rage, and that means she lashes out sometimes using her abilities. She's not very ethical about it either! But I kind of liked that they didn't make the three of them super do-gooders.
Roxie: The Crone
Roxie is the one who is open to the supernatural in the first place, and pretty much accepts her ability to see the future right away. She's a free spirit artist, and everyone kind of looks at her weird anyway. The fact that she's dating someone so much younger (I want to say 15 years?) doesn't help her cause with the town.
But Roxie is a little pushy, although I'd say she's actually the most ethical of the three, which is ironic considering she's supposed to be the wild child.
A little bit about Darryl . . .
So I don't really get that we're all supposed to be so wound up about Darryl. I guess he was sort of attractive but his charm was kind of rude. Is it just because he's rich? I have a hard time believing that quality women fall all over rich men in droves. Pretty sure that doesn't happen.
Some middle-aged dude sweeps into town and now has his own harem - what a satyr? I don't know, it never really sat well with me. I didn't like it with the film either [even though Jack Nicholson does ooze charm].
Okay, so now that extra episode:
In the last episode we saw here, everything was great, but the extra episode we didn't get to see sort of blew that all up. Roxie is a widow, and her dead husband comes back to life. She dumps Darryl to be with her husband again. Darryl is all cry-baby about it with Jo, and the two kiss.
So, what annoyed me so much about previous incarnations of this story was the fact that Darryl hooks up with all three of them. It was just kind of ew to me. None were ever shown as being polyamorous, so it just didn't make sense for them to be THAT enamored with him.
That made me quite hopeful with this series, that they wouldn't do that here. And it seemed that was the case, at least with what we got to see in the States - but that extra episode showed that they actually did intend on having him likely hook up with all three at some point. Lordy, I hope they weren't going to become pregnant too, I hated that so much . . .
So, after seeing the extra episode, I was almost glad it wasn't shown here. I would have been flipping with anger!