Macy and Maggie are in a race against time to identify who the Whispering Evil might be. Mel starts to experience the hormonal side of pregnancy, with some surprising side effects. Harry has a problem.

So you’ve just found out that there’s an impending apocalypse that could doom the world and spell the end of all magical creatures – how best to stop that? For Macy and Maggie it’s case of examining everyone at Safe Space, identifying likely candidates and then using a bit of magical assistance to get to the truth. That’s the bulk of the episode, as they find themselves increasingly baffled as they eliminate one suspect after another, sometimes with unintended consequences. It’s harmless enough stuff, but it get a little dull because it repeats beats we’ve seen before and the ultimate reveal of who the big bad is really is obvious if you’ve been paying any attention at all.

Meanwhile, Mel is having a few mini crises of her own. Is she ready to be a mother? Can she handle all that entails, if it happens? And why do her old powers seem to be intermittently and randomly firing? As she struggles to cope with the weight of responsibility multiplied by the difficulties of the hormones coursing through her, it all risks getting a bit dull and then Abigael turns up.

She’s not alone either, having essentially kidnapped her sister, though it turns out with good intentions. Her sister isn’t all that interested though, convinced that Abi has sent Demons to spy on her. By the time they’ve worked out what’s going on, we’ve had a few lovely scenes which really bear out that a) Abigael really is trying to make amends for her past, b) her affection for Mel is real and c) Poppy Drayton needs to be a permanent fixture in this cast. There’s good stuff here, albeit in the service of more predictable, trope-laden narrative.

As for Harry, he’s having another crisis related to his decision to become mortal but at least this one is interesting. The more he sees of his old mortal life in flashback, the more he realises what an absolute cad he was then, and he worries that when he becomes mortal again he might revert to that type and become unworthy of Macy. It’s a rather sweet little storyline and one that has an interesting (if again slightly clunkily predictable) ending.

All in all then, not the best outing for the Charmed Ones, but far from the worst either. As the episode rolls to a close, we seem to have some pretty big problems for our heroines to overcome – how they get there will be interesting.

Verdict: Breaks no new ground from a narrative perspective but is sprinkled with nice moments that save it from total mundanity. 7/10

Greg D. Smith