Parker and his brother engage in the next part of the plan to steal the Charmed Ones’ power and ‘cure’ Parker of his half-demon side. But can Parker follow through or will his love for Maggie get in the way?

If last week’s episode was ‘the Exposition episode’ then this is the Christmas Special, and it’s full of festive cheer and especially a variant of Egg Nog called Cochito.

Galvin got hit by a car last week, and although he isn’t too badly hurt, Macy has of course convinced herself that it was due to the mark and that she must therefore continue staying as far away from him as possible, which proves to be more difficult than she may have imagined.

Parker and brother Hunter acquire a special amulet on a little outing that gives the fully demonic older sibling a chance to show exactly how nasty a piece of work he is (in case we were in any doubt), the plan being that Parker will gift said amulet to Maggie for Christmas and it will drain the powers of her and her sisters which will help somehow in the plan to strip him of his human side and make him a full demon – the plot is a little sketchy on exact mechanics here but then it’s a show about witches, demons and other mythical creatures so we’ll give it a pass on that one I guess.

Mel is also still working her way into the ranks of the Sisters Arcana, convinced that they had something to do with the death of the sisters’ mother because of the crows she saw them use. However, there’s still that seed of doubt there for her and it helps that Jada is such an enigmatic figure. From the viewer’s perspective, she could be either good or bad at any given moment and that, combined elsewhere with the similar duality in Parker means that we are getting some juicy narrative arcs to sink our teeth into beside the normal monster of the week stuff.

For an episode that largely takes place at the Vera residence, it packs in a fair amount of action, and there’s some good character stuff too, especially when Hunter starts using his shape-shifting powers which gives some cast members the opportunity to have some fun with stuff they usually wouldn’t get near.

Points get deducted for the continuing poor treatment of Macy as a character, particularly in one part where (mocking) mention is made of her not having yet lost her virginity (admittedly by someone we don’t like but that’s sort of beside the point). Once again it feels like the show is feminism by network committee, designed to score ‘woke points’ without really grasping what it’s doing and therefore making some fundamental mistakes.

Still, on balance it’s a fun episode and a nice enough way for the show to sign off for the holiday season.

Verdict: Fun, with some decent arcs starting to show themselves but still occasionally letting itself down when sloppy writing betrays some of the show’s avowed principles. Hopefully the better bits will continue to outshine the others when it returns. 7/10

Greg D. Smith