Charmed Season 2 Episode 3: Be Careful What You Witch For

This Charmed review contains spoilers.

Charmed Season 2, Episode 3

Macy is the only one with powers and she is Over It! More than being the only one who can actually fight a demon head-on, it’s the burden of saving witches — and the disappointment in not always being able to — that she’s tired of carrying mostly by herself. Harry is there to help her, but his powers haven’t been exactly reliable. And, as far as I know, he wouldn’t be that much better in a fight then Maggie or Mel.

Macy hasn’t been getting sleep because she feels like she’s the only one who can respond to a witch in distress. She’s also avoiding Not-Harry, who apparently stays coming for her in Dreamland; and Harry feels bad that her tormentor has his face. *Weeps.* Macy’s right though, she’s the only one with powers. But it’s not on her to save every single witch and maybe her sisters should vocalize that to her before she runs herself ragged.

When Macy and Harry return from yet another mission, she snaps at Mel for not having deciphered the Book of Elders (BOE henceforth). Mel says, “bet, you do it then” (paraphrase) and Macy says — like a Black mom who has asked for help exactly zero times — “fine, I’m already doing everything else around here, why not” (exact quote). But when she goes to to touch the book, it repels her and she’s thrown across the room. Her demon magic doesn’t work in the command center and she can’t touch the BOE.

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On top of everything else the Charmed Ones are dealing with at the moment, the keycards they need to access the command center in Safe Space are being revoked because things have gone missing — from them, they took the stuff — and management is cracking down. Maggie, who just started working there as a host mere days ago has the brilliant plan to apply for assistant manager so she (and her sisters) maintain access to their lair.

Maggie discovers that Jordan (first-aid-kit cutie) is going after the same position. She basically asks him not to apply because she needs this. The entitlement jumped out! He doesn’t go for that at all. Later, when they’re waiting to be interviewed, she gets a peek at his resumé and discovers very quickly how much more qualified he is. Knowing full well that she would not be the better candidate, she brought a little spell to her interview. Needless to say, she got the job.

Later, Maggie sees Jordan putting up an “everything must go” sign at his boxing gym. When she asks why, he says he needed the position to afford rent cause Safe Space isn’t cheap, (whew I can imagine). So now she feels extra guilty — as she should — and is probably workshopping some way to help Jordan since she did steal his job.

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Meanwhile, Mel and Harry decipher a page in the book that refers to a Sentinel and decide they need to drink some magical tea and meditate for five hours while their spirits travel to the astral plane. They ask Katrina (magic shop bae) to meditate with them cause they need an anchor. When they go on their journey, they meet the Sentinel of the BOE who returns their powers to them, easy peasy lemon squeezy.

When they return with their powers, Kat puts the moves on Mel. But then sis gets attacked by worms who begin crawling all over her :shivers: Mel and Harry realize this is the cost for them having their magic back, and conclude it’s a test. After weighing whether the elders would want them to sacrifice one for the many or sacrifice their magic for the one, Mel chooses option three where this is a simulation and we should jump off the roof to escape it. Luckily for she and Harry, she was right. When they pass the test — I feel like it’s more a loophole than a straight pass, cause they don’t answer the quandary — they really get their powers and leave the astral plane.

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Back in the lair, Macy gets caught slipping and Not-Harry puts his hand on her shoulder and asks why she’s been avoiding him. She wakes up abruptly, sees a new distress signal on the switchboard, and jumps through a portal by her sleep-deprived lonesome to play Captain Save-A— Oh, you get it. When she gets there, she finds a lone witch who says she’d been kidnapped, but before she could say more, Macy is captured.

Macy awakes in a magical Faraday cage, where her powers don’t work, along with Abigael, the witch she’d come to save. She then uses good ol’ fashion science to get them out of the cage and when they’re outside and surrounded by demons, she tells Abigael they need to trust each other, blindfolds her, then they escape through a portal. Back at command center, Abigael deduces they’re Charmed Ones cause of the M names.

When Abs goes to touch what she thinks is the Book of Shadows, she gets repelled by it the same way Macy did earlier. Macy wastes no time and pulls out her knife, and is about to give ol’ girl the slice and dice, but Abs says she’s part-demon. They connect over being “too demon-y for witches and too witchy for demons,” nevermind that Macy has only been that for like one (1) year. Also at some point, Abs reaches for a blade she has hidden behind her back, unbeknownst to Macy.

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Then Macy finds a tracker in Abigael and she acts surprised about it, even though it is embedded near her clavicle. (Like even if you’re knocked out while it’s being implanted, you’d feel a goddamn tracker near your clavicle. But I digress.) They realize “the Overlord” would be coming for her and devise a plan to lure him to the command center, where his powers won’t work, so they can vanquish him.

“The Overlord” comes looking for Abigael at Safe Space and they successfully lure him into the lair. Abs points to the BOE and says something like, “look Callum, the Book of Shadows.” Then they overpower him. When he’s about to take the final blow, he says to Abigail, “it’s you, isn’t it” then he dies. Afterwards, everyone else is like, “job well done, Overlord taken out, let’s get drinks.” Macy stays behind to send Abigail off.

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Here’s where I get confused. They open a portal to Wembley for Abigael to leave, then they hug each other goodbye. Abigael reaches for a blade that’s hidden behind her. Over Abigael’s shoulder, Macy sees an alert pop up on the switchboard screen that says “command center breach.” Macy pushes Abigael away and ducks just as Abigael strikes. When Macy is about to give her the slice and dice once more, she stops — again — cause Abigael reveals she has the same green scar that Macy got from The Assassin, also known (by me) as Not-Harry.

Okay, hmmm. *Hands clapped together resting on lips.* First of all, why didn’t Abs just leave? What is the angle here? She could’ve come back another day with the Charmed Ones believing she’s a trusted friend. Secondly, sis had the blade behind her back the whole time, and had grasped at it before, why was it only a “breach” when she was about to attack, that time? Third, but really first… Howmst did Abigaelknow “The Overlord”‘s name and why was she so casual with him, if he supposedly kidnapped her? They were familiar. Finally, why would the Overlord be named Callum? Lol. (If you couldn’t tell by the quotations, I do not believe Callum is the Overlord.)

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I like that Macy finally snapped, but I also hate how gullible she’s being when Abigael is so overtly questionable. I am here for KatMel and Jordie — we’ll work on those ship names — but I’m still not sure if I’m on board for HaCy, and I won’t know until they Go There. I look forward to seeing what fun ways Abs is going to continue to not be killed despite clearly being an adversary and how Harry Kreuger is going to disrupt Macy’s life further.

Also, and this is huge, when Katrina closes up shop at the end of the day and opens her till, it is crawling with worms. She closes it, takes a second, opens it again, and they’re gone. She starts crying. I don’t think she’s aware that Mel and Harry went to the astral plane or what happened there. She didn’t know she was their tether, so she might connect the worms to them. I also don’t know that she would tell Mel about it, because she thinks Mel is a sceptic. I want to see how their relationship progresses but I do not want to see Katrina become the vessel for Mel’s consequences. Queer women of color have been through enough on this show.