An encounter with a mysterious witch throws the sisters into confronting their worst fears in order to try to reclaim the Power of Three.

Having firmly established that for all her faults, Abigael is not responsible for the Power of Three being unavailable to the Charmed Ones last time out, the show returns to the issue by re-examining it from an angle it’s never considered before. No, I’m only joking, it does it by having the three ‘confront their worst fears’ as we revisit for what feels like the millionth time the core theme of them all being terrified of the same thing they’re always terrified of.

Aside from that, we get a super monster as they encounter one of the hybrid things that the Secret Cabal have been making, although its powers don’t seem all that impressive given the context and the way in which it is ultimately defeated doesn’t help this impression of distinct underwhelmingness.

Also, and this is a personal pet peeve with the show, I am losing patience with how often the writers fail to hide obvious and clunky exposition in dialogue between the three main characters. Show, don’t tell may be an oversimplification of writing’s cardinal rule, but having three characters stood around literally telling me what is happening rather than making any attempt to show it through action is getting fiercely tiresome.

The episode is not without its slightly better moments. Poppy Drayton gets to have some real fun in a brief set of scenes involving Abigael, Kate Burton has an equal amount of fun as the mysterious new character the girls discover who has help for them all, but mostly it’s all very silly stuff involving a repetition of themes we’ve already gone over more than a few times in the series’ short life and even a ham-fisted lunge at getting in something about the issue of consent feels less like the confidence the series began with in its pilot and more like ticking an item off a list.

Verdict: When a show’s about three sisters and their magical mojo, taking that way for more than half a season starts to wear. 4/10

Greg D. Smith