BRIEF STORYLINE: Cyrotek is down in the dumps because he feels embarrassed about not being the life and soul of a party, and feels like he is boring to the other Spectral Knights. Arzon tries to cheer him up, and then they go on a little task to remove a fallen tree from an eagle's nest outside New Valarak. They discover the Darkling Lords are using the spires for a spot of target practice and could cause elimination of the bird life there. The Spectral Knights attack them, and they are on the winning side thanks to cyrotek. However, he is captured and thrown into the magical dungeon to wipe off his animal totem. When he least expects it, a smug Cravex is pulled into the magical dungeon by Cyrotek, and they wrestle inside. What happens is, Cyrotek keeps all of his magic, but with the addition of Cravex's Phylot totem and takes his fear power staff as well. Cravex has no magic now, but Cyrotek has DOUBLE the magic, so hence the title "Sorcery squared".
When Cyrotek is back in New Valarak, but other's notice that Cyrotek has changed, who is now more sinister, paranoid and angry. He then steals Witterquick's Lightspeed power staff and escapes the castle in a fury. This results in both the Darkling Lords and Spectral Knights on the chase for Cyrotek. Cyrotek is going through severe split personalities, one moment he is nice, then the next, he's nasty. He almost destroys his hometown of Northalia with Cindarr's power of Destruction, and he goes to Merklynn in a desperate plea for help. His staffs accidentally get re-charged. However, due to thee evil coming to the fore again, he changes his mind and proceeds to Darkstorm's castle.
In Cyrotek's rage, he knocks the Sky Claw vehicle out of operation and summons the power of Destruction yet again. However when a pillar starts to collide to the ground, he quickly turns into his animal totem and saves Galadria from getting mashed by the pillar. The Spectral Knights now have their chance, and manage to place Cyrotek into the magical dungeon and turn him back to normal. They escape from Darkstorm's Castle in great style, smashing through a few walls. Cyrotek feels sorry that he is back to his uninteresting self, but Galadria has a more positive outlook, and loves him the way he always has been.
REVIEW: This episode gives much character development to Cyrotek, making him one of the most developed characters in the short-lived cartoon. An entertaining and original start, where the Spectral Knights are at their very own banquet and dancing function. Cyrotek clumsily gets involved with Witterquick's juggling.
The dialogue Cyrotek uses when summarizing himself negatively, is well, spot-on and thoughtful, saying he is predictable and boring, and "not the person for witty conversation". However, the scene is loaded with bad edits. It gets better when there's some serious conflict for the Spectral Knights, with the Darkling Lords when they threaten to kill the wildlife. Mortdredd looks to have stabbed Arzon(in his eagle form) with his Scythe weapon.
The aftermath of Cyrotek pulling Cravex into the magic dungeon is good, and confusing, when Cyrotek comes out in his bear formis good, and normally he does not have the power to change into bear form after the magical dungeon removes the totem. So it's unpredictable on what will happen next, and that's a good thing. The animators and voice actors do a nice job of when Cyrotek becomes evil and sinister, his voice changes a little, his face is sometimes shadowed in some darkness. Although these scenes are mostly let down by the editing. The whole Northalia town section, Cyrotek's hometown, isn't too great either. At this point, with his bellowing out of control, he's starting to sound like Brian Blessed! The best parts of these scenes are the powers of Destruction and Invincibility coming alive and bringing a stop to the snow avalanche almost engulfing Northalia.
It's unusual to hear Cyrotek shouting out Cindarr's and Witterquick's poem-spells. Does he do them better? Well i'm so used to hearing the originals, they are intertwinned with those specific poem-spells unforgettably. When Cyrotek goes to Merklynn for help, we still see Merklynn being less than helpful, asking too many questions. Big time action coming up, when Cyrotek uses his Power of Might to take out Mortdredd's Sky Claw vehicle, which looks cool. The amount of time they show you Cyrotek in mid-air is overexaggerated, but really a chance to show how nuts he has become, summoing the power staffs in mid-air.
The Darkling Lords as usual, disobey the truce not to harm the frenzied with rage and lunacy Cyrotek. Cyrotek is like a one-man wrecking machine in this episode. The moment Cyrotek fights to struggle to regain senses, and save his darling Galadria is well done. The joyriding of the Dagger Assault, through many, many walls is exciting. Some Darkling Lord-style humour near the end, when Darkstorm(the big wimp) panics that he is drowning, but Mortdredd, in the unusual position of acting more manly than his master, tells him to stand up as the water is actually shallow! It's a sweet ending as Galadria shows to Cyrotek his good points: He's loving, reliable and he's popular with the Spectral Knights. Nice feature of the sky sparkling as the couple hug. It's a shame the editing doesn't hold up in this episode. SORCERY SQUARED GETS A: 2/5 RATING.
