I literally don’t know how I got here, but I binged all of The Order in two days and I still don’t know if I liked it. I watched 20 hours of that show and after a lot of thinking, I’ve come to the conclusion that I can’t come to a conclusion. So, yeah, it’s been a time.
Trying to accurately describe the show without sounding like Boo Boo the Fool is not feasible, so bear with me.
Warnings for SPOILERS for BOTH SEASONS. ALL OF THE SPOILERS.
The Order: A Brief Synopsis
Witches. Revenge plot that sort of comes to fruition but, like, it’s debatable. Werewolves. Dumb, boring protagonist makes dumb, boring decisions for all of Season 1.
Jack Morton is gearing up to begin his first year at Belgrave University, home to the Hermetic Order of the Blue Rose. They’re witches. Jack knows about the Order because his grandpa used to work there? Or something? Who cares?
Anyway, he wants to commit patricide against his father for driving his mother to suicide, and the Order’s power will help him do that. However, it turns out there’s a lot more than meets the eye. Hence, the werewolves. While meeting his RA, fellow Order members, and a bunch of other characters that die anyway so it’s okay I didn’t remember their names or faces, Jack gets wrapped up in an increasingly absurd and dangerous world. Only one thing remains clear: Season 1 Jack probably listens to the Top 100 Hits and uses emojis unironically.
Okay, I’m done with the illegible, vapid spasms of words. Just understand, this energy is what the entire show possesses.
Season 1
What WAS THIS? I’m going to unpack it, don’t worry. Season 1 begins with Jack Morton being accepted into Belgrave because Vera, the Temple Magus, saw his pOtEnTiAL. This season leaned heavily on the “Straight Man” and “Chosen One” tropes.
By that, I mean that Jack remains this almost empty, simple character for the purposes of emphasizing the weirdness going on around him. Not only that, he’s inducted into two secret societies by mere chance and is constantly told, “You’re different,” and, “I think I like you,” for doing LITERALLY NOTHING. MANS DOES NOT DESERVE THE SPECIAL TREATMENT. In Season 1, at least.
My boy Jack becomes a werewolf randomly by episode THREE, and while that was the best thing that happened to the show, because THE KNIGHTS OF ST. CHRISTOPHER ARE PERFECT, it was so poorly executed.
Anyway, so, in the first few episodes, the main focus is on the induction process into the Hermetic Order of the Blue Rose. There are some funky fresh tests for the “Neophytes” to go through to prove themselves and get selected to be a full-blown member.
Like you’d expect, Jack is the cHoSeN oNe, gets inducted, and comes to find out that Daddy Dearest is also the Grand Magus, the leader of the entire Order. Cute.
That’s where things start to kick off, so I’m going to get into my thoughts on the characters because this is SO disorganized.
Jack Morton
I’m so sorry, but they did this character so dirty in the first season. His hair? WACK. His charisma? HA. I don’t know if it was the dialogue or just his mannerisms, but Jack is a little pest for the majority of this period. He doesn’t do anything particularly appalling, but he’s so BLAND. And a DOUCHE.
Something I like about this show is how self-aware it is, and they do a lot to rectify his thick-headedness in the second season, but LORD. It became quickly apparent that the other characters were far more developed and likable (i.e. The KNIGHTS.).
I couldn’t really get a feel as to what his character traits were, especially with the fact that this man decided he’d stand idly by while his father tried to murder his ten-year-old half-brother until everyone else stepped in. HUH? NEXT CALLER!
Alyssa Drake
I liked Alyssa the first time around. Kind but desperate to please, a stickler for the rules, and the on-again-VERY-off-again love interest for Jack, she was a pretty solid character with relatable faults.
Even though she wanted to screw Jack’s dad. Lowkey. Like… it was insinuated.
Moving past that, she had a pretty level head to match Jack’s stupidity and was awesome. I rooted for her.
Season 2, however… yeah, we’ll get to that.
THE KNIGHTS OF ST. CHRISTOPHER
The WEREWOLVES. ICONS. So, we get introduced to these guys because they murder three Neophytes and it’s never brought up again as something that was wrong. Okay.
However, we don’t get the reveals of how many werewolves there are until Jack becomes one himself when Silverback (the werewolf- don’t question it) bonds with him and murders his Ethics teacher because that was a necessary plot point. Turns out, Jack’s RA, Randall, is a werewolf, along with the characters of Lilith and Hamish.
After the initial realization that, hey, we SHOULDN’T murder people if we can help it, these guys are the best. Dear LORD, Hamish could GET IT any day of the week.
So, the werewolves’ shtick is that they are the fighters of “bad” magic. But, on the side, they all live in this ‘den’ of sorts and have domestic, found family vibes that I love. Lilith wants to murder everyone, Randall is a big bisexual who says all my homies HATE misogyny, and Hamish is an alcohol aficionado; that’s all you need to know.
What is so interesting about this show is that you can’t really say something is “bad” or something is “good”- the werewolves may fight “bad” magic, but have taken a lot of “good” lives in the process, and the Order may have a corrupt, “bad” government of sorts but has “good” practitioners that just want to learn magic and stuff. That conflict is surprisingly relevant and nicely dealt with throughout both seasons, in my opinion.
I don’t really have much else to say about the first season because I LOVED SEASON 2 SO MUCH MORE.
Season 2
Season 2 kicks off with the Knights not knowing their pasts or the fact that they are supernatural creatures as a side hustle. This is due to the fact that they had their memories wiped and replaced by the Order to keep them in check or something.
It’s wonderful. Jack is blonde and lives for cheer squad. Lilith has a little back-and-forth thing going on with the witch assigned to her. Randall… is the same. We love to see it. Hamish can still get it. It’s basically everything I would want in an AU fanfic and this was CANON.
Alyssa is still reeling from the whole her hero (aka her ex-boyfriend’s horrible, estranged father) was predictably HORRIBLE thing. On top of that, she takes away Jack’s memories right AFTER THEY SAY I LOVE YOU and has to deal with her conflicting loyalties to the boy she loves and the organization that gave her a home. Also, her magic is decidedly Not Working.
So, right off the bat, the story is vastly more complicated. The werewolves are now directly tied to the Order and Jack is no longer the only person tying together the separate plot-lines. This makes for not only a more interesting watch, but a more enjoyable one, as the dynamics between characters and their surroundings are already familiar to the viewer. Basically, what I’m getting at is the writers were able to check off, “yes”, to every box and give us every insane, hilarious, and heart-wrenching scenario they could.
Jack Morton
Besides the badly-needed haircut and my general sympathy for someone who doesn’t know who they are, Jack STEPPED UP. KING OF CONSENT. He’s selfless and in a very Community-esque Jeff Winger arc, the writers let Jack embrace being a himbo! Himbos with rights! He’s just as absurd and wacky as his counterparts and he becomes a way more interesting and endearing character.
He’s on the same page as the Knights this time around, which increases their bond and actually made me care about his character through how he cared about his friends. Now that the revenge thing is over and done with, Jack’s decisions stop being based on how to keep his identity a secret and more about what’s right for the people he loves. As a result, he becomes more of a strategist and doesn’t take any nonsense from ANYONE.
Season 2 Jack Morton WILL walk out of a meeting before being dismissed. He WILL wait for verbal consent before going further with Alyssa. He WILL curse out anyone that tries his patience. YES.
Alyssa Drake
My girl was all over the board this season. She was going through it, that’s for sure.
To sum it up, Alyssa ends up turning on the Order and teaming up with this werewolf lady who wanted something I didn’t really pay attention to. I’m SORRY, but I totally skipped through her parts because they were boring.
I just… didn’t like her by the end. I get that it’s awesome that she was able to come into her own and think freely, but she didn’t listen to anyone. She was not only hypocritical about her stance on accessible magic through taking away Vera’s ability to do spells, but she also really thought that no one had tried to do what she was trying to do before. I still don’t know what that was.
Once again, the conversations were long and didn’t have the Knights. My short attention span was struggling.
I respect the grind, but it just wasn’t for me.
So, major spoiler-alert, but she gets her jugular SHREDDED by one of the werewolves and DIES.
If we’re being completely transparent here, I wasn’t really bothered. Sis really tried it and did not succeed. Anyway, Jack’ll just bring her back to life or whatever and lose his humanity in the process. There’s this thing called the Vade Maecum that is basically a deal with the devil that grants you unlimited power. Daddy Dearest wanted to harness it in Season 1 and mentioned that it could bring back the dead. Necromancy tings! Subsequently, Jack will probably become a villain of sorts and Alyssa will have a guilt complex and it’ll be a time.
The Knights
Still iconic. There’s not much to say here.
There’s this whole love triangle with Randall, Lilith, and the witch assigned to her, Nicole. I didn’t really like Randall and Lilith together because they’re a FAMILY. It gave me very much Umbrella-Academy-not-technically-incest-but-still-no-thanks kind of energy.
But then Lilith gets sent to Hell and the love triangle becomes obsolete for a little bit. It’s fine, guys, she comes back, even though now she’s got some Impostor Syndrome and Stockholm Syndrome issues to deal with. Yay! Angst!
Hamish and Vera as a couple was weird. I don’t know why- there’s nothing technically wrong with it. It just… no ❤️️.
And then, because she becomes a Knight at the end of the season, Gabrielle will be included here, too. I liked her a lot more this season and the writers really fleshed her out.
If you weren’t aware, she was a Neophyte along with Jack in the first season, though Gabrielle literally tortured a handful of students and turned her friend into a desk trinket. So.
Again, there were no real repercussions for this, like, say, a missing person’s report from the kid’s family, but I didn’t expect there to be.
Midnight (one of the werewolves- once again, just go with it) chooses her as its champion and then she went and murdered Alyssa. Randall and her had this weird thing going on, which I honestly liked better than him and Lilith, so that’s going to shape up to be a mess in the next season.
We’ve got Randall siding with Gabrielle and Jack siding with Alyssa, and everyone else will be caught in the middle and have to pick sides. ~Conflict.~
Conclusion
I finished the show and finally got to move on with my life. The Order was a trashfire in an entertaining kind of way? I don’t know? I’m still undecided?
Then again, there were some good performances and I care about a lot of the characters, so it wasn’t a total waste of time.
Watch it if you dare. Or not. YOLO, I guess.
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