In light of a horrifying discovery, Maggie discovers an old face from the past may be involved in recent events. Harry and Macy make some troubling discoveries of their own. Mel reaches out to Kat to try to save her from her own uncertainties.

Abigael is back. Hurray – the one character who actuall-oh wait, you’ve decided to really lean in to that whole ‘Oh she’s got an English accent and is basically a walking stereotype of super horny bisexual sex pest’ vibe? Oh. Ok then, never mind…

Yes folks, if there’s one thing that the Charmed writers’ room can be relied on to do, it’s to take any potentially interesting character and focus on one or two particular traits to the exclusion of all else to make them really quite dull very quickly. In the case of Abigael, it’s the aforementioned sexual stuff, plus the ‘She’s always up to some double/triple/quadruple etc cross’ thing to the point where it’s not even a vague surprise anymore.

That said, elsewhere the show actually does manage to raise my interest. Abigael is a convenient method of introducing the identity of the real Demon overlord and who that is (and what they’re up to) makes for some interesting re-evaluations of the preconceptions the show has fostered in us about it all so far. It also presents Maggie with a new dilemma (or actually quite a few) of her own and sets up some interesting stuff that we can only hope gets followed up on later.

Macy and Harry, meanwhile, focus on what exactly is going on with Jordan’s ring and what Maggie’s vision of imminent violence involving him might mean. That’s a bit of a historical rabbit hole which throws up an awful lot of stuff which, if dealt with correctly, could be very interesting later on (but which if dealt with poorly could be a car-crash – we shall see). There’s also the opportunity here for a bit of back and forth between Macy and Harry as they work – does Macy miss the darker version of Harry? Is Harry carrying a torch of his own for Macy? This is the sort of thing which could inject welcome tension in the show if written well, but unfortunately this is Charmed so it’s all awkward, obvious and doesn’t really get any focus anyway. Ho hum…

And there’s Mel, who feels really bad when she learns Kat’s taking some time away and going to get mental treatment for the voices she’s hearing etc. Mel determines to tell Kat at least a portion of the truth to try to help her, but that really does create complications and also some results she’s not really expecting. This part of the episode gets handled better, but it still can’t help but feel broadly that we are revisiting the same issues the character has already faced before, so it all gets a little bit déjà vu.

Mostly it frustrates because of the way that the show sets itself. Each week new stuff pops up which makes no real sense when you stop to think: a special place this week which forms part of the focus all of a sudden is then revealed to be under the protection of Whitelighters but now vulnerable because they’re all dead – why didn’t Harry think of this before now, especially given the particular significance of the place? The show doesn’t seem to think it’s important, so I won’t either. There’s also increasingly just infodumps of stuff the show demands the audience take on trust – a new creature will be named and then we’ll get a potted bio of what it is, what its purpose is, whose side it’s on etc. It all feels so by the numbers and mechanical, and it pulls me out every time.

Verdict: Better in some areas, much the same in others. It does at least seem now to be heading in the direction of an actual narrative after six episodes of wheel-spinning, but it has a long way to go to reach the heady heights of adequacy yet. 5/10

Greg D. Smith