With Elders being murdered at an increasing rate, the sisters and Harry desperately try to formulate a plan to stop what’s happening. Meanwhile, Macy’s increasing reliance on her dark side is starting to worry Mel and Maggie.

Last week was a disappointing instalment for Charmed, with far too much going on and very little of it being done well. Can this week’s episode redeem things? Well, no.

I’ve commented several times now that the show does quite a disservice to Macy in my opinion, seeming to constantly pick on the oldest of the sisters whether it was having a bit of a nudge and giggle to the viewer that she was still a virgin, or poking fun at her various and obvious neuroses. The demon-side story hasn’t done much to shake this feeling, and the way in which this episode handles that aspect just makes things worse. When she isn’t basically walking around like an entitled horror, verbally slapping down her sisters and generally being as bitchy as possible to everyone, she’s gushing forth apologies all round. There’s no subtlety here at all, and that’s before we even get to the show rolling out one massive genre cliché around two-thirds into the runtime of the episode.

Yes, now that the girls are facing a potential magical apocalypse, with Fiona and Alistair both apparently seeking the means to bring it about, each for their own reasons, they need a little bit of help. That help comes not from the Elders, who despite being the wisest sages of the world seem to be pretty much helpless against the current threat, but from…a more esoteric source. And it comes in the form of some new McGuffins that will help Mel and Maggie to harness their powers more effectively (as well as a further addition for Mel which makes no sense in context but I guess the writers thought it would look cool) and… nothing whatsoever for Macy because – and I quote – ‘The world is your weapon.’

Leaving aside that it just adds to the cursory way it feels the scripts treat Macy as a character, she’s the one at that point who is genuinely struggling with her power and the very dual nature of what resides inside her. However unsubtly, the show has built this up as a big deal with which she is in constant struggle, and the answer she’s given, as her sisters play with their shiny new toys, feels utterly perfunctory. But never mind, because it seems to work anyway, because who needs to waste time addressing actual issues and feelings when it comes to Macy?

Elsewhere, the episode struggles under the crushing weight of a lot of exposition dialogue which contains all manner of ‘magical’ language and various long speeches about artefacts, legends and prophecy which I have to be honest had my eyes glazing over because none of it was stuff that had come up before so there was no anchor to which I could relate most of it.

There’s also the ongoing Mel/Niko saga which continues to play out exactly as I would have expected it to (and not in a good way) and some truly bad planning, capped off with a trio of the most powerful witches in the world involved in what amounts to a fist fight. Oh, and Fiona’s plan gets laid out by her again for the benefit of another character who hadn’t yet heard it and anyone in the audience who wasn’t paying attention last week, and it still sounds super dumb.

Verdict: Some shows start to ramp up the action and tension as they approach their conclusion. Charmed seems top want to try the same, but would appear to have no real idea of how to do it. If it could at least stop treating one third of its main protagonists so poorly, that might be a start. 3/10

Greg D. Smith