Harry is in Tartarus,
the prison where the demons lock up their own worst. A place where you are
tortured over and over with your worst memories so you can feel guilty and…
...wait, what? This
is a prison for demons that tortures said demons by making them feel guilty?
Despite Alistair McEvilName making it clear that demons don’t feel? I mean,
showing demons all the bad stuff they did should be more of a greatest hits
reel than actual torture? This makes no sense, Charmed.
So Harry is being
tortured with memories of when he was alive before he became a Whitelighter
which included such terribad awful deeds as bank robbery. What’s interesting is
I did see a fan theory that the Whitelighters were actually bad people used to
do penance in the afterlife by serving - which is somewhat backed up by his
memories here
And also by the
Charmed Ones turning to Charity and the elders and having them say “yeah, fuck
it”. Partly it’s because they don’t know how but it’s also clear, despite
Charity’s personal opinions, Whitelighters just don’t register very highly on
their priority meter.
Of course the Charmed
Ones aren’t having this and have a tantrum but Charity is determined they stay on
topic - Mel to investigate the Sarcana and Macy to discover why Parker’s evil
demon dad wants to run her lab in the first place.
While Maggie is in her room grieving heavily over Parker, a boy she’s known for a few days, being a demon and it just HURST SO MUCH. Mel offers comfort by comparing Maggie’s short term crush to her long term relationship with Niko - who, it has to be noted, Mel mourned approximately a tenth as intensely and for far less time. So, yeah… look Charmed I get that your writers had no clue what they were doing when they started this season and tried to force in a clumsy retcon within like 4 episodes to remove Niko so Mel could hook up with the dark and dangerous Sarcana lady, but the way this has been handled is not just incompetent but also carries some really bad impressions. The same-sex relationship, which should have been longer term, more intense and more important than either Macy/Galvin or Maggie/Parker (both relationships are very very new) instead comes off as massively more dismissive than either.
So Maggie, the
Empath, is in a full funk so decides to use magic so she doesn’t feel anything
and my eyes are rolling so hard I have friction burns. I’m going to do my best
to ignore Maggie and her drama
Macy now has to deal
with Galvin who knows all about magic and, since they have no Whitelighter they
can’t do the whole memory erase thing. But it’s fine because Galvin is totally
cool with the whole witch thing and finds Macy’s magic fun and fascinating.
Which I kind of like - I like the idea of people being intrigued and interested
and even seeing the coolness factor of magic rather than, as is the usual
trope, freaking out and hiding under the bed. What I’m less thrilled by is him
putting this down to his grandmother being a Yoruba worshipper - because Yoruba
is an actual religion and it seems more than a little exoticising; especially
by linking magic directly to the predominantly Black people’s religion rather
than putting it alongside.
She recruits him into
investigating the company they work for, providing support, quick cover for why
they’re there and generally being a great partner in crime and getting super
close. So Macy drops the bombshell that she’s a virgin and Galvin is completely
speechless and stunned about this way more than he was about her being a witch
and my these people take virginity SUPER SERIOUSLY?! This causes a brief blip
and them having to have a talk and Macy explaining that just because she’s a
virgin now doesn’t mean she wants to be a virgin forever (which… ok? Do people
need this explaining?) and Galvin somehow NOT seeing that line as a
not-remotely-subtle-come-on hint.
They do discover that
the evil company has been up to shenanigans trying to turn human DNA demon -
though i don’t think this is nefarious so much as an attempt to heal Parker.
They also find the company has run all the Charmed One’s DNA - and the results
are weird. While Macy is the half-sister, the results point to Macy and Maggie
being full sibling while Mel is the one with a different father
DUMDUMDUM have we
ruled out someone mislabelling bottles? Have we considered that? No? Ok, we’re
not going there? Ok. Back to the DUMDUMDUM!
Mel goes to the
Sarcana and finds that the person they’ve freed from Tartarus isn’t doing so
well because of all the evil torture - and she kind of needs a lot of hellfire
to make her well… Mel doesn’t think the need for hellfire is an issue AT ALL
for some reason. Instead she asks them about how to free someone from Tartarus
and is told where there’s a guardian and a door
Wait… a guardian and
a door? All the drama of the holy staff and pieces of the keys and all that
last half of the season and there’s just a guardian and a door they can go to
to deal/haggle kill? Really?
So it’s to haggle -
and they decide that since the Harbinger is a really bad demon the guardian of
Tartarus will totally exchange him for Harry. Which… what is tartarus for? Is
it where the demons imprison rogues or their most powerful? I mean the
Harbinger is powerful but he seems to be toeing the evil party line. Do they
just lock up the most powerful demons? Someone needs to explain this in a way
that makes sense?
Charity is obviously
not thrilled about giving up the Harbinger but in the name of Harry she gives
them the pain can. Unfortunately for them, this is the same paintcan that
Alistair McEvilName mesmerised her over to swap for an empty one and Dante is
super unimpressed with them trying to give them an empty paint can. He attacks
and Macy quickly comes up with a plan to defeat him (he’s freezeable) and then
use mind reading powers to figure out how to get someone out of Tartarus… which
doesn’t work because Maggie has sabotaged her own empathy powers with her
pouting tantrum and gets lobbed into Tartarus for it. Of course - who would
have thought and empathy switching off emotions would mess with her powers?
She promptly freaks
out so Harry offers trite lines about love and yawwwwwn saccharine blah
The others freak out
and Charity remembers the mesmerisation, oopsie. So they need to get the real
paint can from Alistair EvilName - so to angsty Parker (he and his human mother
have already conspired to tell Alistair that Hunter totally ran off with the magic
amulet from last season. Which is a weak cover story but does make more sense
than most of the writing here so run with it guys) and recruiting him to get
the Harbinger for them. And since he’s in love (and likely still dying) he goes
for that and now they have the real paint can
But Alistair McEvil
also mesmerises his ex-wife to tell him all what really happened - including
Hunter being dropped in Tartarus so he heads to Dante’s as well. Apparently
he’s Dante’s boss. So presumably always has access to Tartarus so why he
was involved in hunting down the magic items to open Tartarus in the first
place? Charmed you
are not even 1 season old, you cannot be breaking your own cannon this badly
The Charmed ones have
traded the old paint can and got Harry and Maggie back just in time for
Alistair to arrive and give a rather comical speech about how big and bad he is
because he has a dark ominous title which sounds cribbed from an 80s cartoon.
And how pathetic they all are especially Maggie who has a passive power so is
like the weakest most useless witch ever
No, she’s the weakest
most useless witch ever because her power is mind reading and she managed to
have a close physical relationship with a secretive plotting half demon and
completely miss that.
This annoys Maggie so
she gathers everyone together to invoke the power of love
Oh gods preserve me
from this cliche. I am soooo tired of it. I will PAY a writer to have a
character invoke the power of love and then be brutally defeated by an enemy
with, say, the power of a very big axe.
The power of love
means she can pull out a blue shiny shield thing. Made of love. This makes
Alistair run away. And apparent skip town. Because of the blue bubble of love.
It didn’t look that scary. This may be why Harry is quick to describe how
incredible it is for Maggie to design a new spell
Though it’s less
design and more just farted out. Yay Deus Ex convenient tool.
That means everyone
can gather around and praise her for this rather than calling her a damn fool
for locking out her powers.
And Charity comes
back to be hissed at angrily by everyone because she’s a heartless elder - they
demand she go take tea to Harry to comfort him if she truly cares. If she truly
cared for him she would serve him tea made with hot water. Because that is
stone cold - and it’s a violent offence against British people. But they kiss
so he’s clearly a very very kind soul. She also reveals she broke the rules to
look into his memories - and found out he was actually a super good guy despite
the whole bank robbing.
Honestly, I think the
idea that whitelighters were redeeming bad guys would be more interesting than
the whole “we reward super good people with eternal servitude and amnesia”
which is a bit weird..
While Mel who took
the opportunity to steal some hellfire while wandering around, gave that to the
Sarcana… again without questioning it at all. But they kiss so yay? This is not
going to end well
Ok so the show
clearly wants me to think the elders are terribad awful and maybe the Sarcana
are the good guys. But… hmmm… instead I’m kind of getting a sense that the
elders are mature and the Sarcana - and Mel for that matter - are rather…
childish? This has been an issue ever since this plot line was introduced -
with the over simplistic idea that witches should use magic to foil mortal
crimes. I see this here - yes the elders look “heartless” but by all accounts
the elders are involved in a long running difficult war against evil - one
which, Charity has already made clear - means allocating resources (she was
firm about this when it came to using magic to stop mortal crime). Yes it’s
heartless to decide Whitelighter Harry isn’t worth rescuing but given they have
no idea how to do this, isn’t this practical? Same goes with the Harbinger - is
it practical to risk losing this dangerous captured demon - or risk them being
unleashed to save the life of the human woman it was possessing for that
matter.
I think it comes down
to how many storylines have been rushed on Charmed. There’s been little
to establish the elders except statements of their coldness but the show has
done so little to address the wider conflict that it looks shallow. Similarly
we can say the same of the Whitelighter’s origin (and any mysteries attached)
and Maggie’s overwhelming and extremely hasty attachment with Parker - or Mel’s
surprisingly quick trust of the Sarcana. Our rushing through the plot lines
leaves them feeling simplistic, under-developed or even silly. Like this
episode we have sudden digs about Maggie having a passive power - like, ok I
can see this being a thing (it was with Phoebe in Original Charmed) but this
has come out of nowhere and seems to have been resolved literally 10 seconds
after it was invoked. Look at Alistair Caine (ye gods that name), we’re told
he’s such a big bad demon but we’ve never been shown this great power so when
he starts proclaiming he is the ridiculously titled Dark Master it feels like a
pantomime (should I shout “oh no you’re not!”) or Monty Python (he’s not the
Dark Master! He’s a very naughty boy!”)
And Tartarus makes
not one lick of sense.
