© Copyright.  TVGuide.comThe Secret Circle's circle is broken.

Tragedy struck Chance Harbor when Charles (Gale Harold) was forced to drown Nick (Louis Hunter) in order to kill the demon that had possessed him. More unnerving than his untimely demise is that Nick was a character who not only survived the L.J. Smith novels the series is based on, but also eventually found romance with Cassie.

This means two things: No one is safe in the Kevin Williamson and Andrew Miller-executive- produced adaptation of the novels, and it's time for a replacement witch! TVGuide.com caught up with Miller to dissect Nick's death, what it means for the circle, and the introduction of Nick's brother, who may be able to fill the void in the coven.

Why did you guys decide to make such a drastic change from the novels by killling Nick?
Andrew Miller: Because there are only three [books] and because the story of the books is so specific and goes to such a specific place, we were always going to have to make some kind of a departure. We'd already reduced the circle in numbers [Editor's note: The novels feature a coven of 12], which was painful to do. We just felt that to really make the stakes of what these guys are dealing with feel real, to really ground it in an emotional reality, they just couldn't be walking around doing magic like it was no big deal. Unfortunately, there was just no better way to explore this idea of action and consequences than one of their own dying. 

How will Nick's death affect the circle, and especially Melissa (Jessica Parker Kennedy)?
Miller: He starts off as such a douche with her and you hate him to some degree for treating Melissa the way he does, but she keeps coming back to him and he keeps pushing her away.  Then, over the course of these last four episodes, he just turns such a corner and opens himself up to her and lets her come in. In doing so, we felt that it really empowered Melissa and she's stepped out of Faye's shadow for the first time in probably their whole lives.

Melissa's going to have a very, very, very tough time recovering and coping. That kind of loss is just obviously enormous and we want to treat it as emotionally real as we can. The idea of this week, in an episode called "Wake," is just to show our guys coming to terms with it, or trying to come to terms with this. They'll have completely different experiences, and react in completely different ways: some understandable, some appropriate, some totally inappropriate and seemingly wrong. And then also with the parents, because Charles and Dawn (Natasha Henstridge) are as affected as these kids, and they're going to react in shocking ways too.  More... Original Article at TVGuide.com >>

Excert from Natalie Abrams for TV Guide.com