'Fate: The Winx Saga' Episode 2: Who set the Burned One Free? Why one fairy wants to unearth 16-year-old secrets
Spoilers for 'Fate: The Winx Saga' Season 1 Episode 2 'No Strangers Here'
The second episode of 'Fate: The Winx Saga' is titled 'No Strangers Here', and while it takes a deep dive into the wrath of the Burned One, we also find out that Ben Harvey, Saul Silva (Robert James-Collier), and Farah Dowling (Eve Best) have much more than the return of a Burned One to worry about.
Apparently years ago, when the trio was in school, things were very different from what Alfea knows now — they had not only seen the Burned Ones but had also killed them. Dowling mentions The Black Woods Massacre and their excursion at Maravet Falls as she and Silva make their way to the Zanbaq dosed Burned One, that Dowling had chained at a barn past Alfea's magic barrier. Dowling wants to scan the Burned One's memory to see what they were getting themselves into.
The first episode saw the Burned One take Stella's gateway ring during its chase down with Bloom, and she wants it back, but her and her fellow fairies have no idea what's about to hit them.
On their first day of class, Dowling helps the first years to channel their powers at the circle of stone. There we see air fairy Beatrix (Sadie Soverall), mind fairy Musa (Elisha Applebaum), water fairy Aisha (Precious Mustapha), and earth fairy Terra Harvey (Eliot Salt) channel their powers with no struggle. Bloom (Abigail Cowen), on the other hand, a fire fairy, could barely channel sparks.
After the frustrating lesson, Bloom confronts Dowling about the fact that she's a Changeling — a fairy baby that was switched with a human one at birth. Turns out that Dowling didn't tell Bloom the full story when she found her in the First World because she doesn't know who Bloom's real parents are. She advises Bloom to instead "focus, learn and grow" and "eventually the answer will come."
Now onto the ring. Turns out that Stella is a princess; she is the Queen's daughter and the now lost ring was one of the crown jewels of Solaria. So, with the help of Sky (Danny Griffin), they get a map of Alfea and Terra helps with the making of the oil that protects them from the Burned Ones using the Zanbaq flower. They also narrow down to the correct location of the Burned One, which is the barn. But, they are running against time because Silva and Dowling decide to use the Queen's army to safely transport the Burned One to the Solarian Prison.
The Burned One strikes again
When Silva makes his way to the barn with the Queen's army, he sees a person walking in the forest with a hood one and hears the growl of a Burned One. Meanwhile, Stella recruits Bloom when she hears they have a time limit and Aisha, Musa, and Terra also join. When they get past Alfea's barrier, and to the barn, Stella, Aisha and Bloom find the Burned One missing.
Outside the barn, Musa, an empath, starts to feel pain, only for her and Terra to find the charred bodies of soldiers and a heavy cut-up Silva. Terra and Musa give Silva the Zanbaq oil to help with the spreading infection and decide to take him back to school when Aisha realizes that Bloom isn't anywhere to be seen. Bloom, who later says she wandered because she felt a connection to that "thing", goes into the forest and ends up face to face with a Burned One. This time though, she is able to channel her powers with fire, and with Aisha's (who had found her as Stella went back to Alfea for help) water cannon, they were able to kill Burned One and get Stella's ring back.
Why wasn't the Burned One chained?
When Silva makes it back to school, he reveals to Harvey and Dowling that when he and the soldiers had gotten there, the Burned One was already free. He also told Dowling that he had seen someone who freed the Burned One on purpose. During the crazy hustle, it was Beatrix who alarmed Dowling about Silva's attack, and when she had left the office, Beatrix had used her powers to push aside a bookcase that had something hidden behind it. When she did that she was stopped by Dowling's assistant who tells her that the headmistress has a trap on that door. He also congratulated her on the excellent distraction with the Burned One — she was the one that had let it free.
Here's when things get interesting though. Beatrix makes fun of the fact that she can obviously assume that the assistant doesn't know how to get past that trap, he replied that's why "he sent you." Now, we don't know who this "he" is, but apparently, according to Beatrix, he is impatient. She says that Dowling, Silva, and Harvey have managed to keep the entire "dirty laundry" under the school for 16 years and it was "time for us to air it out."
Earlier on in the episode, when she had first broken into Dowling's office with the help of Riven (Freddie Thorp), she had told him that she was looking for "secrets" and that the history of Alfea was a lot "darker" that the faculty wants its students to believe.
After what we can call a hectic second day for Bloom, the end of the episode sees her in a sudden trance during a casual talk with Aisha. What will happen next?
'Fate: The Winx Saga' is now available to stream on Netflix.