The sisters must find out who the Harbinger has possessed and stop it before it becomes too powerful. Unfortunately training isn’t going too well with all three distracted by their own issues. But when the bodies start piling up, they need to act fast.

So at the end of last episode we learned that Angela Wu had been possessed by the Harbinger, but of course the sisters only know that the Harbinger is around and must try to determine who it is so that they can neutralise it. This might be easier if each of them wasn’t somewhat distracted by other things.

For Mel, it’s the awful (and to her unfamiliar) feeling of hiding her true nature as a witch from Niko. The way in which this gets compared to the way in which her mother brought up her up with regards to her sexuality is, depending on your point of view, a very clever way of extending a metaphor or a little clumsy and forced. Either way, it’s a way of making one of the many points the show likes to make, and I have to admire its commitment if not its execution.

Maggie meanwhile is still struggling to juggle her new commitment to being a witch and saving the world with her other new commitment to her sorority. When she sees an opportunity to get in the good books of the Kappa sisters, she goes a little too far with her use of magic for personal gain, a decision that comes back to haunt her later on.

And then there’s Macy, distracted by the attentions of her male colleague and unable to comfortably deal with them. Clearly she likes him, but something is holding her back. Of the three, Macy gets the rawest deal here – the reason for her awkwardness and the way in which Mel (the supposedly super empathetic one) strike a very bum note for a show that’s determined to be loud and proud with its progressive politics. Just when you think it can’t get any more tone deaf, it piles on another factor and makes it worse. I’m not mad, Charmed, I’m just disappointed.

How this all plays out helps distract from the fact that the actual plot is again rather pedestrian. We already know who the Harbinger is, and therefore there is little excitement in us watching the girls blunder around to find her. That means we focus on the sources of their distractions, and how those distractions affect them.

We also get a little bit of exposition between Harry and Mel towards the end which goes a long way to explain a few things about their Whitelighter, and may even see a beginning of a thawing in relations between them.

It’s a bloody episode too, with a body count which is going to start getting to Buffy levels of ridiculousness if the show doesn’t start pacing itself a little. Nothing too massively graphic, but there is one moment involving a fridge which I had the notion the writers enjoyed a little too much with their obvious political leanings. You can almost hear them patting themselves on the back as it happens, and that’s fine until you really sit down and start to think about it.

Verdict: Still intent on proving just how woke its characters and writing team are, the show is enjoyable but is starting to hit a few off notes in its choices. Hopefully this is a one-off rather than a feature. 7/10

Greg D. Smith