The hiatus is lifted…! Well, for the moment. It seems one of the episodes in the “second phase” of season one was leaked in Turkey. But you won’t catch me complaining! I really missed this show. With Steven Universe’s conclusion, I’ve only had the new episodes of Star Wars: The Clone Wars to look forward to…which have been a bit hit-or-miss in my opinion. But now I finally have something to break up the monotony!

In this episode we finally see Luz call out Eda on her constant procrastination with actually teaching her magic. This is brought about when Luz learns that she must take a placement exam before entering Hexside that will shuffle her into toddler-geared classes if she can’t demonstrate more than one spell. More from fear of how this scenario would reflect on her as a mentor, Eda takes Luz on a field trip to “The Knee”. A mountain situated where its name would suggest, The Knee is a location apparently suffused with “wild magic” upon which the earliest witches in the Boiling Isles drew their power.

To her credit, Eda does make a genuine effort to help Luz unlock the mountain’s magical secrets, even when she isn’t quite privy to them herself. The trouble is, Amity and her siblings, Twinkle-Dee and Twinkle-Dolt, are there to train for the exam as well. Embarrassed by Eda’s Miyagi-like style of training, Luz is desperate to prevent them from finding out she only knows one spell.

To THEIR credit, oddly enough, the twins do seem contrite over their treatment of Amity in their last appearance and make an effort to be encouraging. Luz, on the other hand, seems to have trouble learning from her past mistakes. She decides to filch Amity’s training wand and spellbook to help her learn magic when Eda’s methods don’t prove forthcoming. Naturally, this goes awry when she accidentally singes the hide of the mountain’s resident snow-beast who kidnaps Eda and the twins in its ensuing rampage.

Amity even goes so far as to trap Luz in a magical cage so as not to further muck up her rescue attempt. I’d call this an adequate call-out for her Magpie-like antics, but the past few times it seems she’s gotten out of her misdeeds with no more than a long list of chores or a slap on the wrist. We haven’t really touched on Luz’s development since Witches Before Wizards, where she confronts the dangers of her fantastical delusions. At some point, we need to reflect on how her selfish pursuit of fulfilling her fantasies drives people away, which I imagine will take place in a flare-up between Luz and Eda. By this point, Luz can’t really fire back with “you haven’t taught me magic” after the lengths Eda went to get her enrolled in Hexside and teaching her Wild Magic. So, it should be interesting to see how that altercation takes place, which I hope it does, not to sound like a drama hound.

Trapped in Amity’s cage, Luz gets some time to reflect before discovering the secret behind wild magic. She finally takes in the scenery, noticing in a constellation of stars and a snowflake on her glove that magical runes are omnipresent and ever repeating in the natural world of the Demon Realms.

She uses this to learn the rune for ice, which she uses to both escape her prison and free her friends from theirs. Meanwhile, King enjoys another subplot where his delusions of grandeur backfire when he brings a squad of plush-toys to life so he can play drill-sergeant.

What else is there to say, but that it’s another good episode? I hope we’ll be getting back on schedule soon!

Overall: 8/10