After being clonked
on the head by one of the Sisters of Arcana, she wakes up to find Jada saying
that it’s totally a mistake and she’d totally like her in their club, what’s a
little concussion between friends. Also here are our spooky crows which were
present when your mother died, honestly they were on her side, pinkie-swear
Mel goes to Harry and
Maggie to say that, hey, these people may have killed my mother. Maggie and
Harry thinks it’s super dangerous and they really should back off but Mel’s all
for it because being a witch is all about danger. I mean they’ve spent as much
time on danger as they have the dubious relationships
Speaking of, clearly we need to spend far less time on this secret witch society because we have romances to deal with.
Yay.
So Galvin was hit by
car last episode. Turns out he’s find and his leg is broken. He’s going home to
family and Macy is angsting because she thinks it’s the magic mark of his
grandmother. Because his grandmother used magic to protect her son from evil by
having him hit by cars and be hospitalised. Because this is how protective
magic works. Of course it does. I mean ye gods granny’s going to epic lengths
to stop her son getting laid
So when Galvin visits
and trips Macy spends an unnecessary amount of time avoiding him while Harry
has to make small talk and give him cocito (also christmas cake is awesome,
Maggie is just wrong). This is all such a really useful part of the episode.
Really.
We catch up with
Parker and his evil family. Parker and Hunter go rob an entombed saint in a
cathedral in Bucharest. They steal the shiny necklace and are nearly killed by
a priest who has a nifty stick of dropping you into a burning basement. Or
possibly hell. Or tartarus. Instead Hunter kills him and steals the nifty
stick.
This necklace will
drain the powers of the Charmed ones if he gets Maggie to wear it then it will
drain all the powers of sisters and make him fully demon and alive. This is
pushed by his human mother - Jessica Vaughn, Macy’s new boss. Yes she hates the
demons in the family but she wants her son to live even if it means draining
the Charmed ones and making her son a demon
While Alistair
McEvil, his dad has a more sinister plan. Apparently there’s a prophecy that
says the Source of All Evil will be born into the body of a human born demon
(or something similar) so basically he thinks if he turns his son all demon he
will become the Source and their family will be super powerful especially with
all those dubious morals and emotions silenced
Hunter the
emotionless demon continues to feel affection and protectiveness towards his
little brother. This is not a contradiction. Apparently.
So Parker also shows
up to the Charmed Ones happy Christmas evening to give Maggie her gift and
cough messily everywhere. He gives Maggie the necklace and she says, really
Parker? Jewellery? We’ve known each other for a hot minute, isn’t it a bit soon
for jewellery how wonderful it is.
Oh. She’s also
looking forward to her dad visiting for the holiday. She has lots of positive
memories and affection of him while Mel thinks he’s like the Worst and
abandoned them and unreliable and Maggie is just too loving and caring and
trusts too much and is going to get her heart broken. Yup check that subtle
foreshadowing
My personal favourite
thing about this episode is how Maggie repeatedly mentions her mind reading as
the whole show tries to hand wave how utterly impossible it would be for Parker
to actually conceal his identity. Like if they mention it often enough then
somehow it will justify this plot chasm.
Anyway, Mel notices
that the necklace Maggie has quickly changes colour (Maggie: clearly it’s a
really elaborate… mood ring? I mean… really?) and Macy also sees Parker flinch
away from touching Galvin with his magic mark glowing as he does. Together the
sisters realise something is up, with Macy also contacting Mama Roz to ask “hey
if a ward against evil glows and makes someone flinch, is that a bad thing”
because they actually had to consult someone about that. Credit to Roz for not
mocking them cruelly.
Hunter notices
they’re on to him and his little brother and quickly knocks out and ties up
Macy and then uses his shapeshifting to imitate her. But is now barred from the
house by this magical mark which is… surprisingly powerful? Blocks all demons
from the House? Maybe we should check Galvin’s grandma for Charmed One-ness?
Mel is confused but
Hunter!Macy explains that Mama Roz said the mark was “malfunctioning” so they
have to magically remove it.
Mel believes her.
She believes this.
She believes the mark is malfunctioning. She accepts this. She even knows
shapeshifters exist. I mean, it was a shapeshifter that nearly killed Niko. The
concept of a shapeshifter should not be alien to her - in fact how come no-one
has considered taking steps to protect themselves against a shapeshifter
impersonating one of them.
And why is Hunter, a shapeshifter, so utterly incapable of imitating anyone? I mean, if your go-to-special ability is being able to look like anyone wouldn’t you try to develop some complimentary talents?! Enroll in acting school!
Mel tries to take her
concern to Maggie who refuses to hear and is utterly insulted that Mel thinks
she’s just too naive and innocent and trusting to not be able to tell she’s
dating a demon even when she can read minds.
To no-one’s surprise
Parker has a Moral Moment and decides he can’t possibly steal their powers and
takes the necklace off her. Maggie has just learned her dad has cancelled his
visit and she’s all vulnerable and sad now because Mel was right and she just
trusts every bad person and she’s never going to trust anyone again. So of
course Parker now has The Sad and can’t hurt her any more because Luv.
To which Hunter
decides to tell him about the secret plan to possess him with the Source AND be
completely emotionally dead at the same time.
Um…
Yay?
This doesn’t sound
like a great sell.
But he’s exposed at
this point because Macy wakes up and calls Harry - and Harry realises Macy is
stood in front of him AND calling for help elsewhere and Great Scott!
Shapeshifters exist! I totally forgot but am hungover on coquito so totally
forgiven
There follows much
fighting and shapeshifting which would be cunning if Hunter was capable of
imitating anyone. Parker joins in showing off his shadowy demon darkness and
revealing what he is to everyone. And for some reason Mel decides to call on
the Sisters crows rather than them using the power of three. This drives Hunter
off
Exposed, Parker
kidnaps Maggie to try and explain that while he is a half demon who has
previously attacked them and wanted to steal their powers, he’s totally in love
with her
She, naturally, says
“hell no” and leaves. Parker has the sad. The charmed ones get together for
comfort and support and Mel even saying that Parker may actually love Maggie
because he can’t help how he was born
Maggie vows not to
blindly trust again. Which… is not a bad thing?
But Hunter returns
because crows are not actually going to be able to kill a demon. Great time for
the Power of Three
Except Parker is
there with the stick of Tartarus he took from the Romanian priest. And rather
than have the Charmed Ones use their magic, he starts to use it to send his
brother to Tartarus and when he collapses, coughing, the sisters take over
using the staff (but hey, kudos for learning the words to use it in a foreign
language so quickly!) to continue rather than use their magic
But Harry, clinging
to the sofa near the hole, is dangerously close. So close Hunter manages to
grab him by the leg and pull him through the hole as well, watching him plummet
into Tartarus to be locked away
Oh, if only Harry had
the power to teleport
If only there was
someone there who could stop time when they saw the disaster approach
If only there was
someone there who could telekinetically wrench Hunter’s hand from Harry’s leg.
I guess I’m supposed to be shocked but I can’t get past how preventable this is
Oh and Galvin saw the
whole thing. If you’d stopped time that would have solved that
And thus concludes
the mid-season finale
There’s an aspect of
this first half season of Charmed I am kind of torn on - rehashing old
plot lines. Removing a lover’s memory so they can move on and be safe has
shades of the infamous Neighbour Dan/Piper storyline. Parker is a pretty
obvious Cole analogue. Even dead Trip has echoes of past plot lines. We’ve also
moved reallly quickly into the “elders are the enemy” idea that old Charmed
slowly touched on. On the plus side I kind of like that we’re running through
these because it kind of stops them being used again… it would be hard to have
a 3 season long, “my lover is a secret half-demon” plot line if you introduce
it, reveal it and virtually conclude it in the first episode. I can appreciate
the writers clearly stating they’re not going to just retread the old steps
again. At the same time I also recognise I’m doing some amazing spin here and,
equally, it could indicate that the writers are desperately clawing past
storylines for inspiration. It also has to be said that Charmed
originally made these work by devoting sufficient time to them (albeit
occasionally doing them to death - how many times could Cole come back from the
dead?!) devoting a couple of episodes doesn’t work so well.
I think there’s a
general lack of development - I mentioned this on the first episode and it
improved a little but new Charmed never gave itself much chance to pause
and explore the characters, their lives, their powers. Like here this episode
Mel talks about how, as witches, they often face danger… ok… but… do they? I
mean they discovered they were witches, introduced the big bad and didn’t have
a whole lot of evil demony stuff? This show needed a whole lot more
monster-of-the-week episodes so we could see this and so we could develop the
characters and some storylines
This also applies to
the romances - Macy and Galvin are not Big enough to make their rocky road
worth investing in. I’m not rooting for them, I want them to fuck or fuck off
but this ridiculous on-again-off-again-oh-look-another-barrier needs to end.
Maggie and Parker are too new for me to think that there’s so much tragedy in
his betraying her (they’ve known each other for a hot minute) and Mel and Niko
was just offensive and homophobic as fuck - dropping your gays on
the bus is not much better than killing them
Everything needed
development to make it more than meh
And while I give
credit for the diverse racial casting and the ongoing female-led and controlled
story, even if two of those characters’ storyline rather heavily focused on
men, and appreciate little gems like not demonising Lucy or Macy’s discussion
of being a Black woman in predominantly white surroundings; the whole spinning
of Charmed as more social justice aware didn’t quite work. It’s like the
writers read the cliffnotes but didn’t understand most of the concepts they
were referring to. So they’d refer to #Metoo or the Closet or call virginity a
social construct and then really mishandle them. It was clumsy, contradictory
and shallow all too often. Compounded by the sister whose romance was NOT
focused on being the lesbian whose romance was just erased entirely like the
writers realised that low-key-possibly-flirting is really how LGBTQ
“relationships” should be shown and by removing Niko they could make Mel being
a lesbian a much less prominent part of her character
Ultimately I think I
can say there is a lot of good but it isn’t developed and the developers tried…
but not very hard
