A mysterious pitch pipe found on holiday turns out to be a lot more than music teacher Mr Morales bargained for, leading the girls into a fresh batch of bother. But with the revelation of their true parentage driving a wedge between them, can they unite and use the Power of Three to defeat this latest threat?

So, last time Macy found out that Maggie is her real sister, as her father is also Maggie’s rather than Ray, the man she grew up believing to be her father. This time, Macy decides it would be super exciting to share this information with the other two sisters, and it… doesn’t go as well as she might have hoped. Once again the tropes are hard at work here – Macy is the hard-nosed scientist who doesn’t really understand human feelings all that well, Maggie is the over emotional teenager and Mel is the easily hurt brooder. This means that a wedge ends up being driven between the three which becomes relevant to the Monster of the Week plot later.

That monster of the week is an entity that’s been trapped for quite some time in a mysterious set of pitch pipes that Maggie’s music teacher just happens to find in an antique instrument shop in Greece on vacation and blow, releasing said entity to possess him and then go back home to enact an evil plan. Conveniently this occurs just as Maggie is about to join the a capella group he runs in an attempt to cheer herself up. It’s difficult to know why this show seems so intent on hobbling itself with its own ridiculous setups.

Mel meanwhile is getting closer to Jada, and starts opening up to her more about her initial motives for joining the Sarcana and how she feels now. Jada is perhaps the most interesting character in the show to date, as it’s never quite clear what she stands for, or just exactly whether she is good or bad. However, a little mission she takes Mel on convinces Mel enough that she’s OK, although an encounter with Niko (who doesn’t recognise her but is in town on business related to her current activities) shakes her up a little.

And Macy is just… Macy. Week after week I feel a little sorrier for the character as the plot mercilessly uses her as a kind of nerd cliché to wander around not quite understanding human interaction, flailing after the uptake like an enthusiastic dog chasing traffic, never quite sure what to do if it catches it. What’s slightly more interesting is that Galvin is still very much on side and down with all the supernatural stuff, although Harry is not happy about a human knowing the truth.

As to Harry himself, he’s not at his best, his powers still not fully returned and his every waking moment consumed with thoughts of the son he now knows is out there somewhere, alive. He may be about to make a momentous decision, which might stick a little more if some of the sentiment attached to it felt in any way earned. After so little time associating with them, it’s difficult to understand why Harry sees the girls as the ‘family he never had’ other than for the purposes of the plot. Like most of Charmed, as a viewer it seems you’re just expected to go with it.

Verdict: Becoming almost a parody of itself but still not showing any signs of self-awareness. 4/10