Charmed S01 E19 – Now with added hands.

Previously: Prue kissed a warlock about to become a priest.
—

Out of Sight

Marines: Park. A birthday party is happening and the P’s are either in attendance or hanging out awkwardly close. Phoebe is pushing Piper about her relationship again because Josh wants to have “the talk.” It’s been three whole dates without sex, so Phoebe thinks “the talk” can only be about one thing. Problem is that apparently sex = being a couple, and Piper isn’t ready for that. Especially since Leo was the last person she slept with and he ran off.

  Birthday Boy and Birthday Mom come over to check on the progress of the cake so, yes, the P’s are invited guests. Birthday Mom thanks Piper for providing the party food and they all sit around having good feelings about food and small children. Prue has to leave because she’s been called to the auction house for an emergency appraisal. I made up the emergency part, but it follows.

Meanwhile, Birthday Boy and Crew are playing some game and one of those losers throws a ball near some trees. Birthday Boy volunteers to go retrieve it. He collects the ball and then hears some meowing so you just know some evil crap is about to happen. Stupid cats. A demon peers out from the thicket and nabs Birthday Boy. Prue sees this all happening and throws up her hands and screams, “no!” Prue looks at her hands all, “I HAVE TELEKINESIS?” and I’m not sure why she’s so confused. Is this supposed to be different than usual? ‘Cause she’s holding people in the air? Let’s go with that. Prue drops her hands and the people. Baby Snatcher Demon grabs Birthday Boy again and runs. Behind Prue, a man watches all of this and doesn’t actually help save the boy being kidnapped. Baby Snatcher Demon opens a hole in the ground and jumps in. It closes up after him and Prue is left to look sadly at a lonely, empty field.

I AM THE SAHN.

Establishing shots, etc. Back at the park, Phoebe exposits that this wasn’t the first kidnapping at this location; it happened 20 years ago too. Prue says she could’ve saved him. Phoebe tells her not to be so hard on herself because it was the first time she channeled her powers through her hands.

Her hands. That explains why she was looking at them crazy. ‘Cause she blinks her powers. She must’ve not been blinking hard enough while she was running over. Phoebe says now she doesn’t have to squint anymore, but whatever. The squinty looks were like 17.9% of the fun in any given episode so I hope we still get to see them.

The girls want to get back to the Book of Shadows to research the Baby Snatcher Demon. First, Prue has to get to her emergency appraisal. The Unhelpful Jogger regards her with a smirk.

Underground. The are more Baby Snatchers. They zap Birthday Boy’s head with blue lights until his eyes go all white. He can’t see.

Halliwell Manor. Piper didn’t find anything useful in the Book of Shadows (of course).

  Phoebe fired up the old Google and found news clippings about the original kidnappings. One boy never returned and the second (Brent Miller) returned blind. He claimed monsters attacked him, but everyone wrote that story off. Phoebe suggests finding Brent.

Buckland. The Unhelpful Jogger lets himself into Prue’s office and introduces himself as a reporter. He saw Prue wave her hands in the park and is going to write a story about her, especially since he checked with his police sources and found that her name keeps popping up in unsolved murder cases. Prue tells him to get out but he sticks around to smarm and knock something off her desk to see if she’ll use her powers. She doesn’t and calls security. Unhelpful Jogger says he’s going to write this story either way, but it’s up to Prue whether or not he makes her seem like Wonder Woman or the devil incarnate. Unhelpful Jogger does a little backwards wave as he leaves that makes me hate him a lot.

Phoebe’s at Brent Miller’s house and there’s a bit of an awkward hey-he’s-a-blind-man introduction. I don’t know why. Brent doesn’t want to talk about his traumatic childhood experience, but Phoebe won’t leave. She tells him two other kids have been kidnapped by monsters, hinting to him that she believes him. He tells her that the Baby Snatcher Demons took him into a storm drain, hit him with blue light and he went blind. He doesn’t know why they did it, but he did hear them say something about auras.

Busy street. The Baby Snatcher duo peaks out through the storm drain. They see a man glowing in yellow light and and when one of them stick up his hand, the light drains from the man and he goes down gasping for air.

Halliwell Manor. Now that they have the keyword “auras,” Piper locates an entry on Grimlocks, powerful demons who kill powerful forces of good by stealing their auras, in the BoS. The Grimlocks have to steal the sight of innocent children. The sight lasts 24 hours, as long as the children are alive. Prue’s home and calls her sisters down. She tells them about the reporter. Piper thinks it might be okay to be outed, but Phoebe doesn’t think so. They don’t have time to really worry about it, though, because of the Grimlocks. Piper is going to get a map of the storm drain system from Josh, Phoebe is going back to Brent’s house for some reason and Prue is in charge of finding the ingredient they need to vanquish the Grimlock.

Police Station. Andy and Morris are going over the details of death of the dude with the shiny aura. He was strangled to death, but no one laid a hand on him. Unhelpful Jogger smarms in and asks Andy about Prue and whether he knows about her special powers. Andy tells him to GTFO and Unhelpful says he’s going to change his story to one about a police cover-up. Probably he should pick a direction and stick with it or else his story is going to be all over the place.

Andy doesn’t tell Morris what Unhelpful’s visit was about, but he does say he’s talking the kidnapping case so Morris will have to handle the other case on his own. There are only two of them in this department, see?

Piper is visiting Josh and tells him she needs the storm drain maps for an underground party she might cater. Josh is thankfully kind of distracted because he wants to talk to Piper. She thinks it’s about sex, and babbles something about taking precautions, but he’s talking about moving. He got a job offer he isn’t too crazy about, so he’s putting the decision in Piper’s hands basically, by asking her if she sees a future with him. She freezes hims because she doesn’t have time for this. She uses her cell phone to call his office, unfreezes time, and runs out of there when he goes to answer the phone.

Phoebe is at Brent’s place again and he doesn’t actually remember anything he didn’t remember five minutes ago. She touches him though and gets a vision of him feeling his way out of the sewers. Thankfully, he passes some sort of placard that lets Phoebe know where he was. Or at least I thought so, but back out of the vision she’s still asking him what he remembers. He tells her about the sound of a large generator and perhaps cable cars. He’s conveniently got a map on hand that will let them locate exactly where this place is. Brent tells Phoebe to be careful because she’s a good person with a shiny aura.

Birthday Boy tries to comfort Kidnapped Boy #2 because his mom has a friend with supernatural abilities. A grimlock tells him to shut up.

Auction house. Prue’s on the phone talking about the kidnapped boy case and Andy walks in and overhears. Prue hangs up with Piper and tells Andy she has to go. He knows that she’s been hiding something, but now Unhelpful Jogger is onto her. She needs to watch her back.

Phoebe finds an entrance to the sewers I guess look appropriately nefarious.

Piper gets home at the same time as Prue who has the Special Ingredient. As they are talking, they see a stroller rolling into the street as a truck barrels toward them. Piper throws up her hands and freezes time. They run out into the street only to discover that the stroller is empty and heinous reporter Unhelpful Jogger pushed it into the street in order to catch Prue using her powers on tape. HE JUST GAVE THAT TRUCK DRIVER A HEART ATTACK. HE PROBABLY POOPED HIS PANTS.

      Prue and Piper run back to the position they were in and time unfreezes. They kind of just awkwardly shuffle into the house, which is kind of weird. They should’ve feigned a reaction to the stroller. Anyway, Unhelpful Jogger checks out his tape and sees a small jump during the tape and Piper’s purse goes from one shoulder to the other. His annoying, “gotcha!” takes us into a not!break.

Phoebe gets home and Unhelpful Jogger is parked outside. Her sisters fill her in on the drama there and they are interrupted by a knock on the door. They open for whatever reason and Unhelpful Jogger taunts them about the videotape he has that he thinks proves one of them stops time. He says his story is already written and now he wants an exclusive interview. Prue pushes im out the door. The new plan is for Prue to finish the potion and keep Unhelpful from following Piper and Phoebe who are going to find the boys.

Prue goes outside and distracts Unhelpful while Piper and Phoebe sneak out and drive away. Prue sends a gardening tool into his tire when his back is turned so that he can’t follow them.

Andy visits Brent Miller and asks if Prue has been by to see him. Brent tells him about Phoebe’s visit.

In the storm drain, Piper declines boy talk in favor of finding kidnapped boys.

Things are looking on track until Piper falls down into some sort of hole. I don’t know. I don’t know storm drain terms. Phoebe calls down to her but Piper is unconscious. She covers the hole with a piece of wood and runs off to get help.

Prue is finishing her potion when she gets a call from a frantic Phoebe explaining that Piper fell into a hole. Prue grabs two already prepare potions (WTF was she making so much for? Doesn’t she know they are under a time crunch), but outside, Unhelpful has done something to her car. He has a camera trained on her face. She tells him that she doesn’t have time because Piper is hurt and lives are at stake. In order to get him to back down, Prue tells the camera that she is a witch with magical powers. Unhelpful Jogger is appeased. I still want to punch him in his stupid face.

Prue and Unhelpful find Phoebe standing next to the nefarious doorway. Prue tells him to stay outside because it’s too dangerous. He pretends to comply, but once the girls head inside, he follows behind them. I hope he gets demon mauled.

Piper is coming to and one of the Grimlocks hears her. He looks down on her and sees that she glows all shiny like the good girl that she is and starts to steal her aura. Phoebe and Prue arrive and the one of them with the useful power sends a pipe flying into the Grimlock.

Andy arrives on the scene.

Unhelpful Jogger tells the camera that he’s reporting live from underground where he’s following three sisters, all of them witches. As he’s walking and talking, her runs into a Grimlock and he screams in a way that sounds like a demon mauling. I feel like I should feel a little bad, but I don’t.

Andy comes across Unhelpful Jogger’s body. The Grimlock attacks him next and doesn’t even flinch at the round of bullets Andy fires. Prue happens on them and sends the Grimlock flying with a flick of her hand. It runs off. Andy and Prue have the big, “so you..?” “yeah.” conversation that’s been building all season. Prue sends Andy up with Piper, who is too weak to help them. Andy’s pretty stunned, but ain’t nobody got time for this right now. Andy leaves obediently after Prue threatens him with her powers.

Prue takes the video tape among the camera wreckage near Unhelpful’s body, which is weirdly smart.

Phoebe and Prue continue along and find the first Grimlock. They splash him with the potion and it melts away. They “joke” about toxic waste and they continue along. Phoebe finds Birthday Boy, but the remaining Grimlock starts choking Prue, so she drops the potion. Phoebe comes running and whacks the Grimlock over the head with her flashlight. Immune to bullets but no one likes a flashlight to the head. The Grimlock starts choking Phoebe so Prue telekinesises the spilled potion from the ground to the Grimlock’s face. He melts too.

The girls go back for Birthday Boy who regains his vision since the demons are vanquished. Birthday Boy is super excited to be able to see and also because he knew Prue would save him with her magic powers. Uh oh!

Police Station. Andy tells Morris a really bogus story about how the boys followed a kitten into the storm drain and Unhelpful Jogger tripped when he went down there to investigate. Morris is all, “no.” and Andy tells him to just go with it for now.

The 3Ps are at the station too and Piper takes this time to wrap up her boy B-plot. See, when she had just fallen into a drain within a drain (or whatever) she couldn’t stop thinking about Leo. So, she’s going to call Josh and tell him to take the job in Beverly Hills. Brent Miller walks into the station and Phoebe calls him over. He can see again! He thanks Phoebe for whatever she did and offers to go talk to the boys about how people will think you are crazy if you tell them you got kidnapped by monsters.

Andy walks over to Prue and she asks him where they go now that he knows her secret. He says that’s a good question, but a bunch of reporters arrive and they both turn away from each other in slow motion.

So, that was a thing. Weirdly, the monsters in the storm drain episode wasn’t the worst we’ve ever seen.

 

Next time on Charmed: A long-dead convict comes to life to take his revenge in S01 E20 – The Power of Two.