The Beauty 1.5 "Beautiful Billionaires"

Jordan is not dealing well with her transformation (the new actor looks spot on to the comics, almost disturbingly so).

Meanwhile, a bunch of elderly billionaires sign up to pay a lot to receive the Beauty, albeit not in the fun way.

I do love the way they vary the episode lengths. They've finally realized that you don't need to do X 1 hour episodes.

Things get darkly violent, of course. Jordan is hiding from her own people and one of the billionaires is killing anyone who knows who he is...so he can start over.

There's also an island crack that is obviously a reference to Epstein. Shudder.

It's only getting darker. Can they find a cure before Jordan's head explodes? Can anyone who has been Beauty'd go back? The answer to that seems likely to be no...

Wizards of Waverly Place 1.17 "Report Card"

The young wizards get their report cards...and Alex, of course, fails. She panics, and shenanigans ensue.

Which involve multiple people being turned into adorable guinea pigs. In the case of Temu Dumbledore, this is an improvement.

(In the case of their parents, not so much).

Alex comes dangerously close to losing her powers. It seems like stripping a wizard of their powers doesn't require a volcano, who knew?

(Maybe the volcano is used to absorb powers as opposed to just putting them in a jar and giving them back later?)

Either way, it makes no sense, but...guinea pigs!

Wizards of Waverly Place 1.18 "Credit Check"

Alex gets a fashion internship. It goes interestingly, with the help of Harper. She even gets credit for some stuff.

Meanwhile, poor Justin gets completely taken advantage of by a pretty girl who tricks him into babysitting while she goes out with her boyfriend.

(Said girl is Alex's temporary replacement. She deserves to be fired for that. So mean. Of course, she was out of Justin's league, but...but...yeah)

Wizards of Waverly Place 1.19 "Alex's Spring Fling"

Really, one word sums up this show: Shenanigans.

Riley is breaking up with Alex because she's too jealous. She goes for the trope of making him jealous right back, but because she doesn't want to hurt an actual guy, she animates a storefront manikin.

Which proceeds to fall head over heels in love with her.

And she tries to distract him by animating one of Justin's valuable action figures.

It doesn't end well, none of it does. That girl needs to develop some level of empathy before she turns into a psychopath.

Maybe Justin should keep the powers...

Wizards of Waverly Place 1.20 "Quinceanera"

Here is where I have extra sympathy for Alex. I also had a parent who wanted me to do the things she didn't have an opportunity to do, and told me I should be constantly grateful to be forced to practice music for two hours a day...when I didn't want to. I actually had talent. It was wasted because I quit the second I was out of her home. 14 hours a week is a lot to be forced to do something you don't enjoy (and aren't being paid).

And there's the layer of...put it this way, if I was a Latina and had had to go through that, I would have run screaming even faster and louder than Alex did.

Pink fluffy dress? High heels? Aieeeee!

I actually felt so sympathetic it wasn't funny even though it should have been.