Published: October 10th 2024, 4:16:39 pm
Charmed is one of those shows where I love it, but it also drives me to the brink of madness because of its many, many stumblings. But then it wins me back, cuz dammit, I just love these characters so much, and I want good things for them.
Friend of the channel, Maxwell Media Inc., introduced me to Charmed many, many moons ago, and currently we’ve just recently wrapped up season 6, and are taking a break before we delve into the last two seasons. And we’ve also done a video with icon, legend, moment herself Princess Weekes talking about the show at length.
But I figured… why not talk about the show here on the channel? The things I love, the things that make me long for death, and sharing with you how these four wacky witches ruined my life in all the best ways.
Created by Constance Burge, Charmed follows the story of three sisters who discover they come from a long line of witches: Prue, Piper, and Phoebe Halliwell. Yes, their names all starting with P was a family thing. Upon awakening their powers as the prophesized Charmed Ones, the sisters struggle to balance their adult lives of work, dating, nonexistent social lives, dating, sometimes pursuing education, and dating with using their magic to protect the innocent from evil.
The formula’s quite simple. Every episode, some warlock, demon, or other supernatural entity waltzes into San Francisco (and they will remind you every episode we are indeed in San Fran), wreaks havoc, and the Halliwells use the Power of Three to vanquish the hell out of it (quite literally). There are overarching stories as the show goes on, but Charmed is more so about the relationship between the sisters than anything else, usually using the magic and supernatural as proxies for whatever issues they’re dealing with personally.
The first two seasons follow this formula pretty closely, taking the time to endear the audience to the sisters, and experimenting with what kinds of stories we can throw them into. Like, having Piper nearly die, and then when we save her, suffer the consequences by having a small ninja toy spread the plague. Or giving a bunch of monkeys the Charmed Ones’ blood, and thus their magic. That one’s actually a lot sadder than you’d expect.
Charmed is… a deeply strange show. The first season is basically an urban fantasy. It can be quite campy at times, but there’s this undercurrent of darkness running through the show, giving it this slight edge that helps it stand out. Watching the show just gives me this cozy feeling, even with all the crazy shit going on. But that somberness gets thrown out the window with season 2. As the show expands its scope and veers more into outright fantasy, it also becomes campier, more focused on comedy, and more lighthearted.
Really, the heart of the show is the sisters. I’ve come to love all three of them, and they’ve each been my favorite at different points. The family drama of seeing how they were driven apart, but have now come back together, is right up my alley. And truthfully, given most of the stories like this I watch follow teens and young adults, it’s a breath of fresh air having Charmed embrace the fact these women are adults. Like, actual adults in their mid-to-late 20s.
There are problems, of course. Namely the fact that the writers reset the lore every episode. Like, the characters are the clear priority for the show, which I appreciate, but the worldbuilding really feels like an aftermath.
Especially by the later seasons, the show throws so much new shit at the wall for the sake of new conflicts for the Charmed Ones to deal with, and you’re just sitting here wondering how the hell this all fits together. Because it doesn’t. It is aggressively incohesive. That said, it isn’t distractingly bad so long as you’re here for the characters, which I am. And truth be told, I enjoy taking shots at the bad worldbuilding.
And now, let’s talk a bit about our beloved Charmed Ones, starting with…
As the eldest Halliwell sister and designated Group Mom, Prue’s entire life has been looking out for her baby sisters, and having to grow up fast. Their mother, Patty, died when they were young while fighting a demon, and their father Victor… well, it’s not entirely clear whether he left of his own volition, or if their Grams forced him outta the picture. Either way, they were left in the care of Grams, with Prue having to step up as another mom.
Prue is incredibly stern, very serious, and the epitome of no-fucking-nonsense. She had to be, looking after Piper and Phoebe her whole life. She’s the practical one who had to make sure everyone was taken care of from a very young age. She never really got to live for herself, figure out her own dreams, or take things easy. And while she does love her sisters, there’s definitely some resentment towards them because of that… especially towards a certain free spirit.
For work, Prue is a museum curator, at one point unknowingly working for warlocks who’re out to kill the Charmed Ones. Accurate to life under capitalism, I guess. While Prue is amazing at what she does, and definitely has the eye for great taste, her true dream is photography, which she’s able to actually pursue once Piper’s ambition becomes the family’s new source of income. At long last, Prue is able to do her own thing because she doesn’t have to shoulder the burden of caring for everyone else. And I love that for her.
At first, Prue doesn’t take well to magic, since her main focus is, “Um, Phoebe, I’m busy with the real world. That’s stressful enough. What the fuck do you mean I have even more people I have to protect besides you two?!” But once she fully steps into magic, she becomes a true bad bitch - a bad witch, if you will, but like in the badass way, not the evil way.
Prue’s story is about learning to let go. To stop mothering, to start living for herself, and along the way, learn to have a little fun. As a control freak, she would definitely feel called out and personally victimized by Ctrl by SzA.
And strangely, given her story later on (which we will get to in a bit), a lot of her story has to do with death. All three Charmed Ones deal with grief, since death is kinda par for the course when you fight evil, but Prue specifically finds herself routinely dealing with the concept of mortality during the third season. Which, if that’s not the ultimate form of a fear of being out of control, I don’t know what is.
The Charmed Ones can cast spells, but each has a set of unique powers, with Prue’s being telekinesis, and later astral projection. She’s able to focus on an object and yeet it thusly, usually through comical zoom-ins of Shannen Doherty squinting (which, me when I’m trying to focus, can relate).
It’s definitely the most useful for combat early on, with Prue being the one to throw enemies across the room, or throw pipes and desks at their faces. The practical sister gets the practical power. And the control freak also gets the power to control objects just with her mind? Figures.
As for astral projection, it doesn’t get a lot of time to shine, but it’s quite fun. Prue is able to send her spirit outside of her body, but her spirit is actually able to interact with the physical world. It even gets to the point that when Prue is suppressing her feelings, she’ll accidentally astral project when she sleeps, her other self going utterly wild and even crashing her sister’s wedding to leave with her bad boi boo on a motorcycle. Accurate for when the uptight one finally lets loose, not gonna lie.
If you look up “middle child syndrome” in the dictionary, the definition will read, “Piper Halliwell.” She didn’t have to raise everybody like Prue, but later on, when both Prue and Phoebe moved out following Grams’ death, she was left completely alone in the family home. And I just… I feel for her. Piper doesn’t really seem to know who she is beyond her connections to her family. So when they all leave, she’s just… lost. The house is her only remaining anchor. Her only haven.
Piper is, as Miss Swift would diagnose it, a pathological people pleaser, with a dash of neurosis to boot. She’s constantly worrying about stepping on other people’s toes, and plays mediator as Prue hates every minute of Phoebe moving back in with them. Her entire existence is trying to spread herself too thin, and losing her mind every step of the way. So as you can tell, she was my favorite when I first started the show.
Later on after certain traumatic events, Piper becomes the new matriarch and de facto leader of the Halliwell household. She’d already been stepping up by becoming the new breadwinner, but it’s taken to a whole other level from season 4 onward. Seeing Piper step into her power, taking on the responsibility of leading the way forward, and building herself a shiny new spine out of the burnt remains of everyone she’s exploded. A truly aspirational icon.
Piper starts off the show as a chef, dreaming of one day owning her own restaurant. And she kinda gets that? In the second season, she opens a nightclub called P3… get it? P3? Cuz the Charmed Ones? Three Ps? This feels inappropriate, I’m going to move on now. It feels a bit out of left field, since Piper always felt like she cared more about the cooking than the business stuff, but the network wanted a venue for the girls to hang out while promoting different IRL bands, so… nightclub it is.
The running joke with Piper is that she wants a normal life. Like, a normal normal life. At any. Fucking. Cost. And she never shuts up about it. Even more than Prue, Piper just wants a stable, cozy life with a man, some kids, her sisters, and some imaginary nonmagical friends, and having to save the world from demons every week kinda gets in the way of that.
This is mostly focused, unfortunately, in her romance subplots, because the show doesn’t really know what else to do with her for half of its existence than focus on her love life. Don’t worry, Phoebe will inherit this problem soon enough. Take a shot every time Charmed reminds you it was mostly directed and written by straight men, I guess.
Piper’s main love interest is Leo, a handyman who turns out to actually be a guardian angel. He is a whitelighter: an angel who protects good witches so they can carry out their duties. Which… okay, I guess that fits in the urban fantasy category. But wow, the lore on this shit is busted, and lowkey, the whitelighter bosses - the Elders (or sometimes the Founders) - they suck. Like, they need to be abolished immediately, because who the hell put these asshole angel men in charge?
Moving on from that, Leo and Piper quickly develop feelings for each other, but can’t be together, as it’s forbidden for witches and whitelighters to fall in love. Naturally, they tell the rules to go fuck themselves, and eventually get married and have a couple kids. I have a love-hate relationship with their… relationship. On the one hand, they are cute together, and I love Piper as a mom. But on the other hand… this really becomes Piper’s only focus for a huge part of the show, and it gets exhausting very quickly.
But ultimately, it’s about Piper realizing she can have the stable, family-focused life she wants while also fulfilling her destiny as a Charmed One. And that’s nice. Good for Piper. Shame it took so much nonsense and melodrama to get here, but it’s something I guess.
Piper’s primary power is the ability to freeze time. No, she can’t freeze all of time; it’s localized to whatever room or space she’s currently in. It happens whenever she freaks out early on, usually in a moment of intense fear and stress, but she’s able to get a handle on it with a little time. Her power doesn’t freeze good witches, meaning it gives her and the other girls time to cast spells or make a plan when they’re under attack, or dealing with innocents.
She can even freeze select parts of a person, rendering an enemy incapable of attacking or moving, which is real useful for an interrogation. And later on, her power evolves into… combustion? She can blow shit up with her hands.
They explain this as her power over the speed of molecules, which okay, but it is incredibly funny that the girl who’s afraid of everything is given the power to accidentally cause fiery explosions if she gets scared. Once she gets a handle on this, it is over for the bad guys. I cackle the way she gets fed up and just blows enemies up on a whim, because gurl, the way I would abuse this power the same way.
It starts off with the power to freeze time being a reflection of Piper’s anxiety. Her desire to make time stand still so she has a moment to think. And later on, it evolves into something far fiercer and more active, because she herself is becoming a fiercer, more active character. And I love that for her.
And here we are at the baby of the family. Given how young she was, Phoebe didn’t really know their mother when she died, and has always been a bit disconnected from her older sisters. Prue and Piper were always best buds, with Piper relying on Prue to take care of her, and Prue feeling emotionally supported by Piper. Phoebe was the outlier, getting the full brunt of Prue’s resentments, especially as they got older and drifted further apart.
Phoebe is a free spirit, and a tad of a hippy dippy. She refuses to be tied down to adult responsibilities, and as such, her life is kind of a mess at the start of the show, being forced to move back in with her sisters when she has nowhere else to go, much to Prue’s chagrin. In truth, a big reason why she can be this detached is cuz Prue was always taking care of her, adding to the conflict between them.
But honestly? The friendship that blossoms between Prue and Phoebe really warms my heart, cuz they teach each other so much. Phoebe finally begins to get her shit together, pursuing an education and discovering a love for writing, while Phoebe helps Prue to let her guard down and enjoy life.
Really, Phoebe’s growth owes a lot to her magic. She’d been adrift her whole life, lacking a sense of purpose, but discovered one once she opened the Book of Shadows and awakened her and her sisters’ powers as the Charmed Ones. Phoebe is gung-ho about their destiny from Day 1, always at the ready to help the innocent, and it really helps her lean into taking on new responsibilities.
However, this leaning into magic has a dark side. The Halliwell Manor is kinda resting on a magical nexus, and since Phoebe was born in the house, it means she’s the most vulnerable to darkness and turning evil. This is arguably why when she was younger, she’d often get into trouble with the law, or get with guys who were… kinda trashy criminals. And arguably it also gave her a taste for demon bois. Oh, she’d absolutely be Kovu trash.
As the show goes on, Phoebe kinda loses touch with her sense of self, becoming more and more obsessed with romance, having kids, and letting her writing-advice job take over. There’s a lot to unpack there in terms of the show’s meta, but I won’t get into that. But I will recommend Better with Bob’s Charmed content, as I really love the way he unpacks Phoebe’s arc of losing herself and then going back to her roots by the end of the show.
Phoebe begins the show with the power of premonition. She’s able to see into the future, and occasionally the past, allowing the Charmed Ones to potentially stop an innocent from meeting a tragic end. Because her power is considered passive, she decides to pull a Daphne Blake and learn martial arts to help her sisters in combat. Is it weird and a tad cringe? Yes, but I also love it. Embrace the cringe, you fools.
Later on, Phoebe gains the power of levitation, often using this to kick the shit out of people she dislikes. She also briefly holds the power of empathy, taking on the emotions of others to the point she can no longer function. The writers had no clue what to do with this, and also could no longer do the levitation thing cuz of budget cuts, so both powers were removed. Funnily enough, the in-universe excuse kinda works for just how far Phoebe’s character has fallen by that point, but I can’t even tell if the show agrees with that assessment.
But in a way, it does check out. Phoebe starts out as the heart of the Halliwells; the most compassionate and down to Earth, so she gets the power that prompts them to step in and save the day. As the show goes on, and her ego gets bigger, she gets more and more abilities, only to have them ripped away. I’ll go ahead and categorize that under accidental storytelling, along with all the Prue death stuff. Which, uh… on that note…
Season 3 shakes it up a little bit by amping up the stakes, and trying to introduce an overarching story. This time, the gals are up against the Source of All Evil. Ya know, the Devil, but we’re not gonna call him that because Satan’s lawyers will sue us if we do, and all our budget’s going to pitting our leading ladies against each other.
One of the Source’s minions, Belthazor, is actually a half-human-half-demon hybrid who goes by the name Cole, and his whole job is to seduce Phoebe in order to destroy the Charmed Ones. But what do ya know, he actually does fall in love with her for realsies, turning against the Source to help the Charmed Ones. Phoebe said, “I can fix him - no really, I can. Until I get bored of him and decide to victim blame him, of course.”
The season 3 finale is one of my personal favorites, and is a real doozy. While facing off with a demon, the Charmed Ones are exposed to the world, and it goes about as well as you’d expect. Piper winds up dying, and in order to undo this future, Prue inadvertently takes her place. Magic remains hidden to the world, but the Power of Three is no more.
Now, there’s a lot of drama to unpack between the actresses and even the production crew as to why this went down. Like, we’re talking a decades-long feud between actresses Alissa Milano and the late Shannen Doherty, but personally, I don’t feel comfortable going into any of this here publicly. I feel like it’s not really any of my business. But however it happened, Prue’s death forever changed the show, splitting it into the Pre and Post-Prue Eras.
This is where Paige, the fourth sister, comes in. See, the Charmed Ones have to be three. The Power of Two just will not do. And truth be told, they did a pretty good job not only introducing Paige and making it feel organic, but also balancing this with the powerful grief the girls have for Prue. Prue’s death hangs over the rest of the show.
Really, season 4 is all about grief and change. Dealing with a tragic, untimely loss, and exploring what that does to the people left behind, and even the new people who enter your life who never knew the person they’re ostensibly replacing. And for that, I adore season 4. I’m not sure I’d say it’s my favorite season, but it’s definitely one of my favorites. And Paige is a big reason for that, too.
So, Paige is the long-lost half-sister of the Charmed Ones. See, after Victor and Patty split, Patty kinda sorta… had an affair with her whitelighter, Sam. They had a child in secret, but had to give the baby up, as relationships between witches and whitelighters were forbidden by the Elders. Paige’s very existence could’ve been jeopardized if the Elders found out.
And so, Patty and Sam gave Paige up to a local church, and later on, she was adopted by a normal human family. They had their own complicated, messy relationship that brings me to goddamn tears, but in the present, Paige is an orphan who feels drawn to the Charmed Ones following Prue’s death.
If I had to summarize Paige’s personality, I’d describe her as… preppy. She’s very carefree, and a huge romantic, much like Phoebe, but she still very much cares about her responsibilities and how she’s perceived. She’s introduced as a social worker trying to help kids and families in need, and though she gives this up to focus on helping magical creatures instead, it says a lot for how Paige is looking to give back to people the way the church looked out for her.
But damn, she can be real petty. I mean, she steals the Book of Shadows in order to cast spells to mess with the guy in the office who keeps harassing her and bullying her coworkers. But she also uses spells to help out said coworkers. She’s very much giving, “Vigilante justice, I shall take matters into my own hands.” She gives Piper several heart attacks, and I’m sure she’d also be pissing Prue off.
But because Paige is new to the world of magic, she hasn’t had enough time to become jaded or burnt out like Phoebe and Piper, who’ve lost so much over the years fulfilling their destiny. I haven’t gotten to the last two seasons yet, but I’ve heard many whispers of how when Piper and Phoebe wanna throw in the towel, it’s Paige who reminds them, “Uh, we got innocents to save, you fools.” I love her attitude when she goes full gung-ho on witch stuff. And not gonna lie, she’s my current favorite for this reason. We stan Paige Matthews.
Because of her parentage, Paige is half witch, and half whitelighter. She’s basically a nephilim, or half angel. Whitelighters are able to teleport, or as they call it orb, and so can Paige, and they also hold the power of healing.
And because she’s filling Prue’s slot, her orbing also adapts itself to resemble Prue’s telekinesis. She can call for something and bring it to her hand, and even chuck it at the enemy. At first, I thought this was kinda goofy, but damn this power has come in clutch. I’m still not over, “Safe door!” Now if only she tried, “Kidney!” or “Lungs!”
Now before we move on, I’d like to talk about some of the supporting cast, cuz we’ve got a few other stars who deserve some shine… cuz lord knows the show thinks some of them shouldn’t.
First is Andy, a detective and childhood friend of the Charmed Ones. The girls kinda wind up as suspects of the police given how many of their supernatural encounters… ya know, involve missing people or weird happenings. And so, Andy and his partner Darrel have their eye on the girls, but eventually as they learn the truth, wind up covering their asses.
Andy specifically has a bit of a romance with Prue, though Prue is hesitant on pursuing one given… ya know, the magic stuff. She even uses a truth spell to see how he’d react, and Andy’s reaction is, “Um, I love you and all, but I don’t think I could deal with that long-term and have a family with that.” Which… fair. It sucks and makes me sad, but if it’s not what he wants, that’s okay.
Still, Andy is loyal to these girls and loves them all like family, and truthfully, I think he’d eventually come around to having a relationship with Prue. But sadly, he sacrifices himself in the season 1 finale to save them. Taps into Prue’s whole issue with grief in the season 2 premiere, and leads to one of my favorite moments where Piper and Phoebe console her.
Darryl is deeply underrated and underappreciated by the show, and even by the girls. This man sticks his neck out to protect them for most of the show’s run, even after Andy’s death, but usually feels like an afterthought. Like the girls go, “Oh yeah, Darryl exists. We should invite him and his wife we didn’t bother meeting for 5 seasons over for dinner!”
Ultimately, Darryl winds up nearly dying. Like, we’re talking lethal injection kinda death induced by supernatural nonsense, and though it gets reversed, he remembers the trauma inflicted upon him, while his wife doesn’t. And so he decides to stop covering for the girls, and is even genuinely scared of them. It’s so utterly heartbreaking, and as much as it hurts, I’m on Darryl’s side. The girls did take him for granted and aren’t taking his concerns seriously, instead focusing solely on what they can get from him. And Darryl deserves better, quite frankly.
Again, Leo is Piper’s love interest, but doesn’t have much going on for himself until season 6 with the whole “becoming parents” thing. Oh, and becoming an Elder. At first, I wasn’t a fan of it, but I kinda enjoy the whole amicable divorce thing, since now Leo has his own calling and his own purpose… even if that purpose is working alongside the dumb angels I hate. Also, Leo’s plot with his son coming back from the future (don’t ask)? At first, hated it, but by the end of season 6, it RUINED ME.
Cole… oh cole. Damn, they did this boi dirty. Yes, Cole starts off as an antagonist, but does try to do the right thing and help the Charmed Ones, even becoming an ally in season 4. The whole point here is that anyone can change and do the right thing. But the show… doesn’t really agree.
Charmed has this issue where in depicting the whole “good versus evil” thing, it treats both not as parts of all people we choose between, but as something you inherently are. So if you’re a demon, or part demon, even if you’re doing good and helping people, you’re still evil, and the Charmed Ones will treat you as such. The girls are like, “It’s not our powers that make us good, it’s how we use them,” then in the same episode tell Cole that it’s his powers that make him evil, no matter how he uses them.
And what’s even stranger is that when this shift happens, it’s after Cole is possessed by the Source. He’s tricked into it, loses his autonomy, and when the Source takes him over, he literally refers to Cole in the third person because, spoilers, he’s not Cole anymore! Yet the girls act like it is, and like it’s all Cole’s fault he wound up this way. And for all the time Cole is himself again in season 5, the girls act like the possession just never happened. Like Cole himself manipulated and turned on them.
It makes utterly no sense, and feels like an active rejection of nuance and redemption in order to reach the “Cole Bad” endpoint. To which I ask… did his actor do something to make y’all hate him? Seriously, this show so often feels like everyone on the set just kinda hated each other and let it bleed into the script.
Anyhow, um, I love Grams. She’s a badass, she’s funny, and for her flaws, I still adore her. Still feel icky about the whole, “Ew Piper how dare you have a son” thing, though, especially cuz… I’m not gonna lie, the whole “men can’t and shouldn’t be witches” thing feels adjacent to homophobia for me. Cuz like, witchcraft is kinda inherently lined with the feminine, so a male witch by proxy feels queer, at least to me, so… Grams hates gays, I guess.
Charmed has plenty of problems. The inconsistent, broken lore, the hypocrisy in how it treats characters like Cole, and… Phoebe’s nonsense in later seasons by extension. And yeah, there’s also the whole male gaze thing, which for that, I’ll have a video linked that explores that better, cuz I just do not have the energy y’all.
But for all of that, I still love the show. I love these characters and how their relationships grow and change as the show goes on. And even when the show is messy, there’s still something to love… even if it’s buried very, very deep. At the end of the day, I’m here for the sisters, and for Piper blowing things up.