SPOILER ALERT: This story contains spoilers for “Coven Academy,” now streaming on Disney+. Nestled amid a tree-lined New Orleans exterior is a boarding school host to witches and warlocks alike in Freeform and Disney+’s new young-adult drama. Instead, with the help of her new classmates Sasha (Jordan Leftwich) and Tegan (Ora Duplass), she discovers she is a witch.
Grappling with her identity, Briar attempts to uncover the truth about the unresolved death of her mother, Mary (Cecilia Grace Deacon). The newly formed coven realizes the answers might be closer than expected when they learn the academy’s headmaster, Miss Graves (Tiffani Thiessen), was friends with Mary. Then another old friend of Mary’s, the shape-shifting warlock William (Devon Sawa), is revealed to have been impersonating a teacher.
In reality, he’s the father of a budding warlock named Jake (Malachi Barton). Years ago, William had plotted to pollute the the ley lines — the source of all witches and warlocks’ magical powers — which was foiled by a Mary, Graves and their coven sister Tamora (Keegan Connor Tracy). But now he’s back, and he killed Mary and Tamora to get his evil plan going again.
The girls, Graves and Jake are able to stop William and save the magical world, but Briar is left with several unanswered questions. She’s caught between her connection with Jake, with whom she shares an almost-kiss, and Ollie (Louis Thresher), a newly turned vampire who saves her life. And then there’s the inexplicable rush she felt when linking hands with Graves to cast a spell.
The season closes on a stormy conversation between Graves and Mary’s ghost that reveals truth: Graves, not Mary, is Briar’s biological mother. Weissman talked to Variety about the secrets of Coven Academy, Briar’s parents and her take on the unresolved Jake-Briar-Ollie love triangle. We keep saying this, but chosen family is genuinely the heart of this show.
These girls come into each other’s lives carrying their own past secrets and emotions and problems. Their relationships aren’t perfect, but whose are? They have to rebuild this trust.
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