Time for episode 16, "Cold Spell". This title indicates that a spell of some kind will be used, but it ends up not being ice related. 4Kids called it "The Nightmare Monster", which says that there will be a monster that deals with nightmares. 4Kids is more accurate, so point there. RAI 7. 4Kids 5.
At Cloudtower the screen is shaking heavily. The wind must be really bad today. A crow like creature flies out of the Trix's room. Icy says they just have to wait for Bloom's power to come to them. They summon the vacuums, prepare some spell, and then an explosion occurs that knocks them down. Icy is happy as a small gargoyle appears and demonstrates the ability to walk through walls. It leaps outside. Icy exposits that it gives nightmares customized for each sleeper. The Trix laugh. They work hard to give each customer individual attention.
The Winx are walking through Alfea at night. Bloom is starting to look forward to the parent-teacher conference. Stella just wants to see her parents together again. Musa says that at least Stella gets to see both of her parents. She hates these days. Let's see, Bloom's adopted, Stella's parents are divorced, and Musa's mom is dead. Over half of the Winx have different parental situations. At least Flora and Tecna have normal parents. Probably. Can't say much about them if hey never appear.
Flora thinks something is wrong. Mother nature is upset. Later, Tecna hears a rustling noise and asks if anyone else heard it. Bloom says Tecna was just imagining things. I'm surprised Musa didn't hear anything. Tecna still seems suspicious. The Winx head to bed, and Stella is really tired,
Alone in her room, Stella sleeps. The nightmare monster enters her room. It walks up right next to her and seems to peek into her mind. In Stella's dream she admiring herself in front of a mirror. Good to see she holds herself in high esteem. To her surprise, the mirror turns into her parents. While they're not named here, this is our first glance of King Radius and Queen Luna. Stella starts to freak as her parents separate. As Stella's nightmare gets worse, the monster seems to absorb energy from her and grows in size into something almost as big as Stella.
As the monster hides, Stella screams out loud, waking up the other Winx. Mirta also wakes up. The Winx ask Stella what happened. Stella isn't sure. Flora thinks she had a nightmare. Stella doesn't remember what it was about, but it did feel like something was watching her. Like a stalker? Tecna again says there's something strange in the air tonight. Musa doesn't care and heads to bed. I know Musa and Stella don't get along very well, but that was still rude. The others head to bed as well. Bloom tells Stella to holler if she needs anything. Stella looks uncomfortable with everyone leaving.
The monster enters Musa's and Stella's room, who are both sound asleep. It silently walks up to Musa. This thing is good at stealth, considering it's walking on Musa's bed without waking her up. It enters Musa's dream.
Musa's dream takes place at a city of some sort. The city seems to be in poor condition. Chinese music is playing over the scene. Musa walks up to a woman who looks a bit sick, presumably her mom. By the time Musa reaches her, her mom is gone. She looks around and doesn't see her mom. For some reason she then calls out for Riven. In the real world, Musa is breathing heavily and sweating hard. She nearly falls off her bed. The monster grows and changes shape again into something bug like. I'll go into the dreams later, but I do want to say this might have given us our first glimpse of Melody.
The monster walks up to Tecna next and enters her dream. Her dream has numbers and math symbols falling from the sky. They then converge into some sort of mummy thing, which then turns into a scroll. Tecna, still in the dream, wakes up in some sort of digital place where everything is a giant grid. This freaks her out. Timmy walks by, and his eyes are on his glasses. Yeah, this dream is easily the weirdest of the lot.
Tecna wakes up, but the monster has already made its escape. Tecna wakes up Musa and asks how she's doing. Musa says she feels empty. Tecna thinks that must have been quite the dream. Bloom, Flora, and Musa come in, having heard a scream. I'm not sure who was supposed to have screamed, since neither Musa or Tecna were seen screaming. It was probably Tecna though. Tecna says she woke up and noticed something was wrong with Musa.
Musa says she was dreaming about her mother when it turned into a nightmare about a place with no music. Musa has better sleep memory than Stella apparently. I note she didn't mention Riven at all. Tecna admits she also had a horrible dream. Stella thinks there's too many strange things going on between Tecna hearing strange noises and all the nightmares. Flora tells everyone to be quiet and thinks about Mirta. Kiko, who's been shivering the whole time, heads out. Flora thinks he's sensing what she's sensing.
Kiko goes to Mirta and signals them closer. Flora spells Mirta, and a small image of human Mirta shows up. Mirta tells them that the creature didn't get to Bloom yet and retreated at the crack of dawn, but it will probably be back tonight. Mirta may not know where it came from, but she's smart enough to smell a Trix attack when she sees one. Mirta's image disappears as the sun rises.
During the day, Bloom asks Stella, Musa, and Tecna what it may want from them. Musa has no idea. Bloom says Mirta saw it grow in size. Tecna deduces that it's angry at them. Even Kiko sensed something apparently. Bloom says they have to be careful. Here's an idea; tell the teachers! I think they'll be willing to help. Bloom thinks there's a Cloudtower connection and that the creature can draw out their deepest fears. Tecna thinks Flora is next. Bloom somehow connects all this to her birth parents.
Bloom starts to cry again. Stella says Musa can cheer her up, since she doesn't feel so good. Stella does know Musa feels about as good as she does right? Bloom points out Stella knows who her parents are. Stella says they don't care much about her. She then mentions that she was brought up like a perfect stranger. The others look horrified, but Stella says she's over it by now. They only seem to notice her when she brings home a bad report card, and now she has to dream about them. This cheers the others up. While we won't see her parents for a few seasons, her parents do care for her. She probably thinks they're selfish for divorcing. Maybe she slightly repaired her relationship with them between seasons?
Stella asks where Flora is. Bloom says she's trying to find a potion to cure Mirta. Stella asks Bloom how she's doing with her prince. Stella has no idea how accurate this is. Bloom says he's just a friend, and she hasn't seen Brandon in awhile. She seems a bit unhappy about that.
The Trix can't wait for the night, when they'll tire out the remaining fairies before going for Bloom. Icy says Bloom is in for an unpleasant experience. They share an evil laugh. The monster is just chilling in their room.
It's night at Alfea. Security is nonexistent. Mirta and the Winx are wake, with the Winx in bed. Kiko is hiding behind Mirta. Mirta starts flashing, and Kiko runs off to Bloom to warn her. Kiko starts heading to the other rooms. The monster, which is massive now, moves over Flora. Flora gets up and tries to entangle it in vines. It escapes by moving through the wall into the main room. The other Winx are up as well. They transform.
The monster can stand on two legs again. Stella calls out her scepter. She blasts it, and it does seem to be affected, but Stella gets flashes of her nightmare. It moves to the hall. Bloom tells everyone to follow it. Flora checks on Mirta, who tells Flora to worry about Bloom.
In the hall, Tecna and Musa are down on the ground already. The monster blasts Bloom, who is able to block the attacks. The blasts give Bloom flashes of her adopted parents and Brandon, which is weakens Bloom enough for the creature to shoot her down. The monster escapes while Stella checks on Bloom. Flora asks what's wrong. Tecna says they're tired out by last nights horrors. So Bloom and Flora are the only ones in shape to fight this then. Bloom wants to follow it. Flora says it went downstairs. Stella teleports everyone outside.
The Trix, watching the battle, decide to give the monster a hand. They teleport out. The monster almost crushes the Winx, but they all get out of the way. It starts shooting at Musa, who acts confident and puts up a disco ball shield. Tecna brings up her lamest attack ever, a triangle that she throws. The monster bats it away with its tail. Musa is shot away. It goes after Tecna next, who can barely defend herself. Bloom is also in the monster's blast range.
Stella and Flora shoot the monster, which takes off into the air. Tecna is down, with Bloom checking on her. Musa finally falls to the ground. What took her so long? Bloom doesn't get what's going on, noting that everyone is exhausted. Hint, the ones hit by the nightmares are the ones not doing very well. There's a connection.
The Trix fly in, and Icy says the Winx could still beat them even if they're all split up. Icy probably doesn't want to risk another explosion. Icy freezes Stella and Flora, but they still float in the air. Maybe Icy follows videogame logic when it comes to freezing airborne stuff. Bloom flies at them, but the Trix get the monster to start draining her. Bloom tries and fails to resist. She's grabbed by the monster's tail. Icy mocks her, saying her friends can't help her now and that she's a prisoner of her own fear.
Someone really should have heard this by now. Are Alfea's walls all soundproofed? Faragonda teleports outside, wondering what is going on. She's even wearing her night clothes. The Trix seem worried now. Bloom is dropped. Faragonda demands to know what happened. Other fairies start to come out. Faragonda breaks the ice on Stella and Flora. She starts blasting the monster, and it's getting hurt. Bloom joins in her attacks as well. Between the two of them, the monster is quickly destroyed. Faragonda flies at the Trix, who are scared now. They teleport away. They know a losing battle when they see one.
Faragonda flies down to the recovered Winx and asks for an explanation. Bloom says they don't know except that the monster attacked them. Stella is glad Faragonda showed up. Kiko comes out, and Musa tells him he's a good bunny. Kiko was useful today. Faragonda hopes Griffin will know what happened. I'm guessing Faragonda realized this has gone beyond a simple fairy/witch rivalry.
The Trix are walking back to Cloudtower. It's raining hard, and the Trix's hair and makeup are all ruined. Icy calls the Winx a quintet of airheads and says they haven't heard the last of them. Stormy calls the weather nice. She's probably being sarcastic, but it's hard to be sure. Darcy calls her an idiot.
As the Trix are about to enter Cloudtower, and image of Griffin's head appears before them. She says she's been waiting for them and calls them stupid. I don't think teachers are supposed to call their students stupid. Darcy tells Stormy she told her so. Griffin tells them to shut up and that she has just been scolded by Griselda. This was apparently humiliating. Griffin says the Trix won't do this ever again. Icy starts to say they won't, but Griffin shuts them up again. She says they won't step foot in Cloudtower ever again. Which means they're expelled. About time. Griffin doesn't want to see them again and ends her projection. She's not even letting them get their stuff. The Trix are really pissed now. Icy curses the Winx and says she'll triumph over them. End episode.
This was a more intense episode. There was more anticipation of the not upcoming parent-teacher conference. There was some comparison of Bloom's, Stella's, and Musa's parental situations. Mirta can now speak to the others. Most importantly, the Trix are finally expelled from Cloudtower after going too far for Faragonda and Griffin.
Bloom mostly cares about finding out about the birth parents she doesn't know. She's stressed out over that and how she hasn't talked to Brandon in awhile. She wasn't subjected to a nightmare attack, but the monster briefly attacked her mentally. She's had enough experience to know how to deal with these attacks, though she's still not smart enough to tell Faragonda about it.
Stella's dream was initially about her appreciating her own beauty. She cares a lot about her own appearances. When the nightmare came, it's shown that she's scared of her parents separating for good. It's not clear if they've divorced yet, but she's made it clear that they haven't been paying much attention to her recently. She's more emotionally fragile than she looks, and she was hurt when everyone dismissed her nightmare as nothing important. Still, she managed to hurt the monster a bit, which means she still had plenty of power even after being weakened.
Flora wasn't hit by any nightmares at all, which is sad. It would be nice to see what her issues are. She was more focused on helping Mirta, and she finally made some progress. She did decent against the monster, but not that great.
Musa's mother issues were brought up again. She still misses her after all these years. Her fear is a world without music. Not a whole lot to say there. Despite having several friends, her nightmare seemed to imply she's lonely, and she still wants Riven. Why I don't know. Her dream might have shown Melody, her home planet, which would make it the second home planet we've seen after Domino. Other than that, she was getting snippy at Stella a lot. Stella wasn't even annoying this time, so I'm not sure why.
Tecna's dream was a little harder to decipher. She seems to be worried about being seen as just a thing for math and information, though I'm not really sure. She's got some worries about Timmy as well, but what I'm not sure. Maybe she's worried he doesn't see her like she wants to be seen? Is she worried about becoming too logical at the expense of her emotions? I don't get her dream. Aside from that, she was the first one to suspect something was wrong. She was also less visibly affected by the nightmare, but she couldn't hold herself together when she had to fight the monster.
The Trix had a decent plan this time, though it relied on the Winx not telling anyone else what was happening and everyone in Alfea being deaf. Icy was smart enough to know that as long as they're still up, the Winx can still win, so she remedied that. They also know that Faragonda is out of their league. They're homeless now that they've been expelled. They probably don't like Griffin much now.
Mirta was neat. Nobody would think that the pumpkin could see what was going on and be able to warn everyone. Kiko proved himself useful since the monster probably ignored him. Seeing Faragonda defend her students for once was cool. She also got tired of the Trix's antics. Griffin said she expelled the Trix for embarrassing her, but I suspect that she realized that the Trix really had gone too far and were uncontrollable.
It was a good episode overall focusing on fears and nightmares. With the Trix having lost their home, they're in trouble. There's not a definite thing that needs to happen now. Perhaps Bloom can start to reconcile with Brandon.
