Midnight, Texas 1×09 Review: “Riders on the Storm”

This week’s second episode of Midnight, Texas literally brought the storm and all its demons with it to Midnight on their quest to find a virgin witch and, you guessed it right, it’s Fiji.

“Riders on the Storm” was all about Midnight’s favorite sweater-wearing witch, only she wasn’t always that way. Like most teens, Fiji had gone through a metamorphosis when she arrived at Midnight to live with her aunt after burning down her hospital room. That’s when we learn one of the big secret Fiji had been keeping from the fellow Midnighters – she was locked away at a mental institution because of her unbridled use of magic and was placed in solitary confinement for a month after being caught not taking her meds.

This ended badly for the institution when Fiji snapped, burning down its walls and was asked to leave. Ending up at her aunt’s house at Midnight, a dark eye-lined and pin straight-haired Fiji is introduced to us via a series of flashbacks that show the powerful witch learning how to hone her abilities.

Like most Midnighters though, Fiji’s backstory is laced with tragedy – that happens to be some of the darkest tragedy yet. Fiji falls in love and when her and Jeremy are finally ready to do the deed her passion literally melts his face off. I guess now we know why Fiji has been pushing Bobo away ever since their first kiss, she just doesn’t want to melt yet another man she loves’ face off.

Then there’s the problem of the demon, Kolkenar, who wants Fiji because older, virgin witches are incredibly rare and powerful. He sends the spirit of Jeremy along with a nasty dust storm filled with wraiths to Midnight in order to convince Fiji to go to him willingly.

This sends the Midnighters scrambling out of town after Manfred, the Rev and Joe failed to find the bones of an ancient shaman Katori, who knows the secret to stopping Kolkenar. They end up at the Cartoon Saloon where Fiji comes clean about everything about her being a deadly virgin. She leaves the men in the room (and Olivia) stunned.

Fiji runs away in humiliation when Manfred decides to actually stop being such a realist and actually attempt to do something. This leads Fiji and Manfred to combine their heads (and magic styles) to create a seriously dark spell that requires a blood sacrifice. The Rev volunteers, but is quickly shut down by Mr. Snuggly, who is quite tired of being an old cat.

I had my doubts (network TV isn’t actually going to kill a cat, right?), but I was right; as soon as Fiji casts the spell, Manfred goes blue and drops dead.

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This sets Fiji over the edge and, while no one was looking, she slips out into the moonlit night and follows Jeremy to meet her fate, unknowing that Manfred wakes up moments later with information from the Shaman about how to defeat the demon.

This week’s second episode was solid. Not as good as last week’s rebound, but a great set-up for next week’s finale.

Midnight, Texas stars François Arnaud, Parisa Fitz-Henley, Dylan Bruce, Arielle Kebbel, Jason Lewis, Sarah Ramos, Peter Mensah, and Yul Vazquez.Watch Midnight, Texas on NBC, Mondays at 10/9c. 

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