Their sisterhood is the only way to save the day, but it’s a tough battle.

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Starring Melonie Diaz, Madeleine Mantock, Sarah Jeffery, Ser’Darius Blain, Ellen Tamaki, Rupert Evans and Nick Hargrove

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This episode deals with the repercussions of Macy’s decision to take on the Source, and naturally her sisters and Whitelighter are concerned about what these powers are going to do to her. Meanwhile, Galvin is confused as he has a definite memory of sacrificing himself in the ritual to defeat the Harbinger virus; a fact that is even more concerning to Maggie and Mel.

Maggie heads off to talk to Parker about how the Source might affect Macy and her powers, and he reveals that the Source feeds off deepest insecurities – in Macy’s case, her fear of abandonment. Meanwhile, Galvin is concerned because two of his patients from the Harbinger virus have died, and Mel confirms to him that he did die and Macy restored him. When Harry informs Macy of this, she casually responds that she will resurrect these patients too, failing to recognise Harry’s warnings about cosmic consequences.

Though Maggie has located the missing Book of Shadows page that Lucy stole that could be helpful for Macy, she appears and is angry that her sisters are scared of her. She intends to fix it, however, and traverses time to meet Marisol before her death. Sure enough, however, she ends up dying as a consequence of the curse. Upon being confronted by the past version of Maggie and Mel, Macy reveals that Mel has always been the problem, and sets about rewriting reality again.

In the new reality, Macy has made Mel the outcast sister. Due to destiny always find its way, however, Harry and Mel find each other reunited when Mel is his driver in Seattle. As they talk, their noses start to bleed like Niko’s did when her memories began to return to her. Harry orbs her to a potion to restore their memories. Oh, sidenote – in this reality, Mel is estranged from her sisters but is a witch who practises her powers knowingly. Forgot that part.

With their memories in tact, they find Maggie, who is a Lucy-esque Kappa and restore her memories too. When they confront Macy, she teleports to the attic in a rage, inadvertently killing Marisol in the process. Tearfully, she realises that she is the problem, and sets up a reality in which she was never born.

Maggie and Mel awaken in a reality without Macy, which appears to be some sort of war zone where evil rules. Marisol aids them with a spell to take them back to when the Power of Three was broken, gives them Macy’s pendant and a spell to use to rid them of the Source.

The sisters travel back to when they returned home with Macy before she resurrected Galvin and win her over through the power of a group hug. They elect to rid Macy of the Source using Marisol’s spell, which contains the Source inside the pendant, which is now split into three. They elect to separate the different segments in disparate locations and have Harry erase their memories of where they are, so that no-one can hold the power of the Source.

Standing over Marisol’s grave, the sisters reflect over how much she sacrificed to bring the three together. All three of them suffer setbacks in their personal lives, as Macy attends Galvin’s funeral, Parker breaks up with Maggie over his need to control his demonic side and Maggie freezes time to say goodbye to Niko one final time. In a delightful hint, it appears that Macy learned something particularly telling about Harry when she was able to read his mind; something that he does not want to be mentioned.

When they arrive home, they are greeted by a multitude of magical creatures who are curious to know what is going to happen in the magical community now that the Elders are all dead. The Charmed Ones usher them inside, before Macy closes the door with her powers.

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Musings

I am slightly confused how in the alternate timelines, everyone seemed to have their powers, when they only gained their powers when they were united in the original timeline. Needlessly picky, but it’s confusing to me.

It’ll be interesting to see how the second season plays out with the Charmed Ones being in charge. I’m so used to it being a narrative point that they are subject to a higher power in the form of the Elders.

I’ll be interested to see whether Parker or Niko are in the next series. It would make sense for both of them to return, but it’s interesting that the door has been potentially closed on the both of them.

I wonder whether Macy still has her demonic side, or whether that is gone for good now that she has rid herself of the Source?

Maybe it’s just wishful thinking, but I like to think that what Macy read in Harry’s mind is attraction to her. They are a strangely believable couple.

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So there we have it: Charmed Season 1 is at its end. A second season has been confirmed, though with a new show-runner, so it will be interesting to see how that affects the show. I think that the programme did well in having a wider narrative while also creating compelling weekly narratives. Where it fell down, I felt, was in making the scale of its story too grand. As much as it’s unfair to compare this Charmed show to the original, there was rarely any sort of apocalypse so much at stake. It was much more focussed upon the ramifications for the sisters and for the lives of the innocent. Where can a programme go after having the literal Apocalypse proposed and one of them heading it up? It’s confusing how they can then top those stakes at a later time. Furthermore, this season was packed with potential storylines that could have run for much longer. Alastair trying to raise the Source and taking it on himself would have been powerful enough, and could have involved the Charmed Ones going to the Underworld to confront him, instead of the goal of the Source to be for it to rain blood and have slightly confusing consequences for mankind. Fiona trying to completely obliterate magic could also have been a great story arc for a season. The conflict with the Elders would have been great to focus upon for longer, as well as the Sisters of the Arcana. However, all of these stories were killed off before their time, leaving the show with surprisingly few plot threads left for development as they enter season 2. How can they top the journey of this year? Only time will tell.