Why Do I Want to Slap Every Character in The Good Witch (2008)?

In 2008, Hallmark released a movie called The Good Witch.  The movie was about a witch named Cassandra who goes to the small town of Middleton and is almost driven out by a crazy woman named Martha who thought she owned the town.  There was also a romance beginning between Cassandra and the town sheriff, Jake.

The whole movie left me with the strong urge to slap the characters.  Each and every character in the movie deserved to be slapped.  They needed the common sense put back into them.  Thus, I decided that this week’s Sunday “Bad” Movies post would outline many of the reasons that I wanted to slap the characters throughout the movie.

Brandon – You are being bullied by a kid (Kyle) at school.  Your dad (Jake) is the sheriff.  Surely, you should be able to stop Kyle with your dad being the sheriff of your town.

Kyle – So your father doesn’t give you lunch money.  Big deal.  Oh, he’s telling you to steal lunch money from other kids?  Maybe you should go after someone who isn’t the sheriff’s son then.  Or get yourself some help.

Kyle’s father – Forcing your child to steal lunch money, eh?  Need it for your booze addiction, eh?  You realize that lunch money doesn’t nearly come to the amount that it costs for some hooch, right?  Steal some money yourself.  You would get more than your son can.

Teachers – Where were you?  I didn’t see any of you while Kyle was throwing Brandon to the ground right outside the front entrance of the school.  One kid is stealing another kid’s lunch while you do nothing.  You are not doing your job.  And it is apparently a daily occurrence.  This should have been stopped a long time ago.

Brandon – The way you choose to get revenge on Kyle is to ask the witch (Cassandra) to turn him into a frog.  Really?  What happens when people find out he’s missing?  You are the number one suspect.  You have a motive.  Sure, your dad doesn’t know and the teachers seem to not know about the bullying, but your sister does, and there were clearly other kids purposely ignoring what Kyle did to you.  People know what’s going on.

Kids – Why are you ignoring this bullying?  Why isn’t anyone standing up for Brandon?

Cassandra – You can help Brandon be courageous about his situation with Kyle, but you want to leave town because people don’t like you?  You’ve been there all of a week.  Give them time to get to know you.

Martha – Middleton is a town, not a country club.  People can live there if they want to.  It’s not an exclusive, membership only place.  If you don’t let fresh blood in, it will turn into a town filled with inbreeding.  If you only let in the people you deem worthy and ostracize those that you don’t, you are like Hitler with his Aryan obsession.  Come on, woman.

Tom – Who got elected, you or your wife (Martha)?  The people chose you to be the head of your town.  Yet you let your wife run things because it makes her happy.  Look what it is doing to the town and the people in it.  Look what it is doing to your kids (Dillon and Michael).  You need to grow a backbone and stand up to her.

Dillon and Michael – Don’t spray paint someone’s store and smash the windows.  Just don’t do it.  Not all people would be nice enough to drop the charges like Cassandra was.

Martha – Why are you brainwashing your kids into being judgemental assholes?  That’s like telling your kid to steal lunch money for your alcoholism.

Guy with Dog – Why did you make your dog into a child-eating monster?  You know how I know it’s your fault?  Cassandra told the dog it had a bad owner and the dog became good.  Stop making bad dogs.

Brandon – When the dog chased you and your sister (Lori), you opened the gate to Cassandra’s yard and went in.  Then you didn’t close the gate behind you.  Obviously the dog was going to run in after you.  If you are trying to protect your sister that’s a pretty bad way to do it.

Cassandra – You invited some random children into your house.  You have been in town for only a day or two.  You do not know anybody from in the town.  If they saw you take these children inside, they are going to think the worst of you.  Especially the kid’s parents.

Brandon – You should not have let the next thing happen.

Lori – Cassandra put healing herbs on you.  You don’t know what is in that.  You don’t even know Cassandra.  For all you know, she could have been a bad witch who wanted to eat you.  Or she could have been poisoning you.  The herbs could have killed you.

Cassandra – I know you are a witch and magic is about secrets, but if you are going to sell your potions, ointments, and herbs, there should be an ingredient label on them.  People should know what is in the things they buy.

Nancy Perkins – You bought a love potion from Cassandra.  Enough said.

Martha – You fell in Cassandra’s store and when she tried to help you up, you pressed charges for assault.  She tries to be a good person and you try to jail her.  No wonder your children are juvenile delinquents.

Jake – I know that Martha is the mayor’s wife, but when she cries wolf about assault that happened much earlier in the day, you don’t have to immediately go to Cassandra’s house and tell her the charges.  You weren’t going to arrest Cassandra.  You were off duty.  It could have waited until morning.

Martha – Stop being so pushy.  So you are the head of the “citizen’s council” or some crap.  That’s like saying that I am in charge of the lasagna, so the whole pot luck dinner should run how I want it to.  Get off your high horse.  You aren’t the mayor.  You are the mayor’s wife.

Jake – You can’t make Cassandra into your wife based on your first impression of her.  I know you said that you can’t be choosing sides, but you are clearly the Romeo to her Juliet.  You are a love-struck fool who will only ever side with her.  As much as she hadn’t done anything wrong, you didn’t know that at first.  You just assumed, and it made everyone into an ass.

Cassandra – You have known Jake for a couple of days and you are baking his family some cookies.  That’s nice, but you barely know him.  How can he trust you enough to eat them?

Derek – You ate a cookie?

Jake – You let your family eat them?  You don’t know what’s in them!  And your daughter just brushed her teeth!

George – This is a small town.  I can tell because there are only two police officers.  There is very little crime because Martha is only letting the people she likes stay in the town.  Jake can’t be getting home too late.  Maybe six in the evening.  So why are you sending the kids to bed when before he comes home?  You are their grandfather.  You should be letting them stay up and eat candy like a cool grandfather.

Lori – Your grandfather told you not to eat the cookie because you had brushed your teeth already.  Then you looked to your dad with your puppy dog eyes and got him to allow you to have a cookie.  You are a manipulative little girl.

And finally…

Martha – You’re trying to manipulate your entire town into being exactly what you want it to be.  Guess what?  You can’t do that.  A town is a town, not a fantasy land.  Stop harassing people to sign your petition that exiles a member of your town.  Stop screaming about police brutality when Jake asks you nicely to move away from the entrance to Cassandra’s shop.  Stop trying to get everyone to think that nice little Cassandra is some sort of evil woman that will be the downfall of your town.  She is not the problem with Middleton.  You are the problem with Middleton.  As all the dude-bros would say, check yourself before you wreck yourself.  Or your town.  Doing this will only hurt the town you love.  Stop acting this way.

In the end, the whole town of Middleton needed a giant slap.  They were all acting like lunatics set free to march around the world.  Maybe that’s a twist in one of the many sequels that there are to this Hallmark movie.  If it’s not, then the slaps are well deserved.  The people seem to have lost their minds but they aren’t seen as crazy.  Except, strangely, the homeless man, Walter.

This post is in no way my pro-physical abuse stance.  I am not for physical abuse to others.  I am simply pointing out the fact that the characters act like idiots throughout The Good Witch.  They do dumb things, they are annoying, or the writing is so bad that it leaves problems within the actions of the characters.  Any of these hypotheses can be attributed to the things that I have outlined above and they all help to show how irritating the town of Middleton actually is.  Yet, people keep going back to it and movies keep getting made.  The Good Witch is a Hallmark Channel hit.  I don’t get it.  I found that it got on my nerves.  I guess that’s how the possibly poisonous cookie crumbles.

After watching The Good Witch, I had some notes:

• Another movie I covered from the Hallmark Channel was a movie called A Crush on You.
• Another movie I've covered that involved a witch was Hansel and Gretel Get Baked.
• Have you seen The Good Witch?  Did you find it as annoying as I did?  Did you watch the whole movie?  Were you forced to watch the whole movie?  Did you feel obligated to watch the movie because you had to write a blog post about it?  Share your thoughts in the comments.
• If you have suggestions for movies to be watched for the Sunday “Bad” Movies, suggest them in the comments or to my Twitter account.