Charmed Season 2 Episode 7 Review: Past is Present

This Charmed review contains spoilers.

Charmed Season 2, Episode 7

When the Charmed Ones discover the remains of a magical Hollow Tree, whose fruit makes you immune to magic, and the dead Dryads it belonged to, they immediately suspect Abigael. Harry orbs them to her — interrupting her sapphic threesome — and she shows them, through a looking glass, Parker being hailed as the Overlord. Maggie, in her feelings per üj, makes Abby take her there, under threat of her exposing her half-witchness. When Parker sees Abigael he chokes her smooth out and she is imprisoned for trying to kill him a mere two days prior.

Parker has apparently taken on the Overlord mantle so he can unite demonkind and lead them toward… less evil behavior? He says he didn’t plunder the tree, and starts to torture demons for answers, until Maggie — ever the empath — convinces him there’s a better way. The Overlord’s henchman and/or personal assistant (who we saw for a few minutes in Episode 2) gives imprisoned Abby a drink laced with truth serum — that Maggie brought to give to Parker, but didn’t because she decided to take him at his word for some reason. I don’t know why she is the way she is. But I digress.

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Abigael realizes she’s dosed and goes off on henchman for being a traitor. Maggie asks Abby about the Dryads and she confesses to everything, and says she won’t stop coming for Parker. When Parker is set to execute her, Maggie — again — intercedes. So Parker instead decides to strip Abby of her demon power. Once she’s back in her cell, henchman comes through and they have a kiki about getting over on Parker, cause it turns out henchman is the one who took the fruit. He’d given some to Abby, so the truth serum nor the power siphoning worked. (Or it did, but maybe because she’s part witch, he couldn’t touch that magic.)

So Abigael is coming for the Overlord title. And Parker… Well, after he and Maggie thank one another for saving each other (let’s not), the hormones get turned up to eleven and their makeout turns into a smash session. Basking in the post-coital afterglow, Parker tells Maggie all the reasons they should be together, then he passes the pocket entirely and asks her to marry him.

Young man! First of all, you peaced out on your girlfriend for no good reason. Then you headed up a cabal of demons who, up until this very day, were trying to kill said girlfriend. And, now, after a few hours of not doing Real Bad Shit, you propose?! Tuh. That said, it would be very interesting to see the fallout.

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Speaking of fallout, Katrina’s shop is closed. She’s been away because she’s been seeing worms and hearing voices, which has convinced her she needs hospitalization. When Mel has a chance to talk to Kat, she tells her she can prove the voices are real and takes her to Vera Manor, where she puts on a home video of Marisol, whose voice Kat recognizes. Mel tells Kat that she’s a medium, which makes things make sense for her.

Kat still decides to leave, albeit not to be hospitalized. She gives Mel the keys to the shop and asks for “someone fitting” to look after it, and Mel agrees. While saying their goodbyes, Kat says, “to what could’ve been,” and… How very got damn dare?! First of all, why would you? B. how could you? 3. Whatchu mean?! Y’all were supposed to be it. It was supposed to be you two. we-were-all-rooting-for-you.gif

But also, where did this trust come from? From the audience’s perspective, Mel has only talked to Kat a couple times. Mel tried to steal from her once. Then she meditated with Mel and Harry and started seeing worms. Then a ghost (a voice, she doesn’t know she’s a medium yet) harasses her all day to get in touch with Mel. By all accounts, there should be at least some wariness where Mel is concerned and not just blind faith. I like them together because they have chemistry but I also want to see trust being built, and not rely on their chemistry alone to tell us there are feelings between them.

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And on the topic of feelings, Harry remains in his. He is proper tortured about being a half-man and, as far as he knows, killing the other part of him, which means he can never be whole. He is also a bit distressed because his Darklighter told him that he would never be enough for Macy, and all evidence is pointing to that being true. When Abigael flirts with Harry, Macy asks if he’s into her, and he says no, “she’s dangerous.” To which Macy responds, “sometimes danger can be exciting.” Girl. Long story short, she caught feelings for the bad half and Harry’s woe is real. I’m’a need Not-Harry to show himself forthwith, because I do not have the bandwidth to deal with Harry’s emotions.

I do, however, have time to get into whatever’s going on with Jordan. Afters Maggie’s vision, the Charmed Ones aren’t sure if he’s a danger to them or not, so they cast a spell to find out. It tells them he’s been cursed by a dying witch. Macy needs some DNA for another spell, so she asks Jordan to spar, and proceeds to punch him directly in his nose. She gets the DNA (and luckily, not them hands). When they do the spell, they see Jordan’s ancestor, Lawrence Mortimer Chase (Witchfinder General) being cursed (to wither 5 by 5). They look at his family tree and all of the men die at 25, which is how old Jordan is now.

The spell shows them his connections to magic, but it doesn’t really answer the question of whether he’s a danger to them. Jordan’s ancestors may have been witches bane, but there is no reason to believe he has learned the ways of witch hunting and would pose any threat to Maggie or her sisters. It also doesn’t really tell them whether he knows that history or is aware of the curse, which might give him incentive to seek witches out.

This show is not going where I thought it would. I don’t know if I gave it too much credit, by assuming there was something more happening, or not enough credit, for the writers not following the expected trajectory.

I definitely called Macy and Harry and, specifically, Macy and Dark Harry (I like this better than Not-Harry, were going with it). I thought Katrina would be more. I think she will come back and maybe have a stronger presence, but I’m disappointed at how she’s been utilized thus far. I didn’t expect Jordan to be important in the way he appears to be becoming, but I’m glad for the added element of him being cursed. I hope it draws him and Maggie closer because Parker is so 2000.

I’ve said before that Abigael doesn’t have the juice or the squeeze to be the Big Bad and I meant it. It’s not that I don’t buy her as a villain, but she’s already been soft too many times for me to feel like the Charmed Ones are ever really truly in danger from her. I don’t believe in her bravado or her mask of ruthlessness, but I’d be oh so thrilled to be proven wrong. I want bad guys to be bad guys and I want the barest of pretense that the Charmed Ones won’t win.