didn’t feel slow at all.

there were actually a couple spots I wished lingered a little longer (to sink in), but they were also trying to fit quite a lot into this first episode.

competently directed

There were lots of little touches I really enjoyed! e.g. Ms. Faust being framed in the bottle, the cloud (literally) coming over her face, Anna dissolving into younger Meg. One (subtler) parallel between Anna and Meg I noticed was: Meg is supposedly going to die from a curse, and her teacher (“the greatest witch”) cannot save her; while Anna’s mom died from an illness, and her dad is apparently a doctor/pharmacist.

It wouldn’t surprise me if it was revealed as all being a trick by the old witch as a character building exercise.

Even if we play along with Ms. Faust here, I feel like there’s two layers (kinda) to the whole ordeal—one is she needs to literally collect tears (joy) in order to live the rest of her life, and the other is that she needs that joy to really live, in the carpe diem sense. … I hope that made sense…