Charmed S02 E14 – Because Leo says so

Previously: A love spell gone wrong and a mysteriously evil rabbit.
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Pardon My Past

Stephanie: Halliwell Manor. The P’s have somehow scraped up enough friends to throw a party even though they only ever hang out with each other. Prue congratulates Piper on her successful shindig, but Piper’s too busy fretting over the fact that her dull boyfriends are chatting with each other.

Marines: Piper is on screen for two seconds before she’s talking about Dan and Leo. Make it stop.

Steph: It’s going to go on until the end of the season isn’t it?

Phoebe appears on the stairwell irritated by the noise because she’s studying phobias for her exam. She’s wearing a kimono with chopsticks in her hair. You know, regular pajama-type clothes. They assure her the party is wrapping up and Piper goes back to stalking her lovers.

With that, we get to hear Dan and Leo’s boring conversation. They’re talking about sports, as cardboard male characters often do. Leo nearly ages himself by saying his favorite baseball player growing up was Joe DiMaggio. Dan tries to get more information from him as Piper appears at his side to wrap up the party before Leo can give himself away. Pointless.

Upstairs, Phoebe celebrates the party’s end by freeing her hair of the chopsticks. Downstairs, Piper and Prue usher the strangers friends out.

Back upstairs, Phoebe hears old timey music and chatter. She runs down to yell at her sisters, but the living room is empty. An invisible sexual assault entity suddenly slams her against the wall and touches her everywhere. She slides down in pleasure so magnificent a lamp is knocked over. (M: What the hell.) The other P’s and boyfriends hear the commotion and run in to find Phoebe on the floor all disheveled. She says she doesn’t know what happened, but she sure wants to find out. Everyone stares silently for the dramatic “WHAT’S GOING ON” shot.

I AM THE SAHN.

Everyone gathers around Phoebe and Prue makes “get rid of Dan” eyes. Piper walks him to the door and Dan is all, “hey aren’t you coming too?” at Leo. Leo watches Piper kiss Dan goodbye and I don’t care.

Mari: Obviously, when Piper comes back into the living room she asks Leo what he and Dan were talking about, because that’s what’s important here. Sorry for anyone recently assaulted by an invisible entity. 

Steph: Phoebe explains that she was attacked by a seduction daydream. Leo has never heard of anything like this (yet) because there’s still 35 minutes left in this episode.

College. Prue walks Phoebe to her exam to protect her from another seduction daydream. Phoebe asks how Prue knows it won’t go after her next. She knows because the entity was intimate, so Phoebe is the only body it must be interested in. What? How is she reaching that conclusion? Whatever. Prue says to yell if anything happens, which would be very rude for all the other exam takers.

Phoebe leaves and Prue turns around and looks concerned at some art displays. Serious music plays and I can’t tell if she’s found some kind of clue or her new job.

Mari: I like that “new job” is a possibility right along “clue.” Never know when one is going to happen!

Steph: I’m on the edge of my seat!

P^3. Leo tells Piper he was up all night thinking about a white lighter with a charge whose past life was trying to warn their present life. That’s dumb. Now that he’s not a white lighter, he won’t be able to get more information, and what’s the point of being an informationless ex-white lighter if he doesn’t get to be with Piper? Dan arrives at this moment and plants a territorial kiss on Piper. When Leo leaves, Dan asks how well Piper really knows him and Piper says he doesn’t have to worry because Leo is an angel. Blegh.

Class. Phoebe takes her exam by holding the test booklet in the air instead of using the table. Like everyone else. The Seduction entity is like, “what are you doing, girl?” and chokes her out.

Manor. The P’s and Leo look through the Book of Shadows for information on past lives. Leo explains that past lives are totally a thing because that’s how souls evolve. Wait… what? He tells Phoebe that her past life is trying to warn her. Piper eventually finds a spell that will take Phoebe to her past life and hey, she can do it all by herself because it’s written in first person. Yeah show, just keep making stuff up and maybe some kind of consistent lore will build itself. (M: It’s math, right? If they try everything once, eventually something has to match up and kind of look like continuity.) Prue points out that there’s no spell for bringing her back, but that’s okay because it just means she’ll be able to come back whenever she wants to. Because Leo says so. I kind of want to start a list of all the dumb rules made up each episode and see how long it gets, but that would take too much effort.

Mari: It also seems like a sure fire way to build up lots of anger and stress. Would not recommend. 

Steph: Anyway, Phoebe is all about doing the spell no matter what because she doesn’t want her past life to ruin her new awesome life. She recites it, passes out, and wakes up in the 1920s. Phoebe enters the Halliwell manor and checks out her 1920s self in the mirror. She looks exactly the same and apparently lives in the same place. Makes sense. Lots of sense.

Phoebe struts around a bit in the best fashion this show will probably ever see. She spots a Dan lookalike playing the piano and eventually runs into Piper. They’re cousins in this life, and they clearly don’t like each other. Phoebe tells Past Piper to make her husband play another song. Piper joins Dan and encourages him to keep playing. She grabs a compact from the piano.

Next, Past Phoebe finds cousin Prue, taking photographs and looking incredibly stupid in a hideous bob-wig.

Mari: Why the hell did she get the janky wig and why didn’t anyone involved in making this episode see that it was kind of crooked? WHY?

Steph: Prue always gets the hideous wigs. It’s like a rule or something.

Prue wants to talk, but Phoebe says they’re done talking and struts away. Piper replaces her and shows Prue the spell hidden in her compact.

To really bring home just how bad Past Phoebe is, she yells at a little kid (Christina) for touching her magic stuff and smashes her glass doll. Good. Those things are creepy.

Phoebe leans against a doorway the way a Bad Girl would and a gross guy comes up behind her. He rams her against the wall like in her seduction daydream and they tongue each other for way too long. Gross Guy leads Phoebe away and gives her a potion to triple her power so she can take on her cousins. She drinks the potion and tests her strength by throwing fire at some innocent bottles of wine. She is bad. As the bottles explode, Phoebe wakes up in the present and confirms that she was indeed very, very bad.

The P’s and Leo head up to the attic to look for a family tree. Phoebe explains that they were all cousins in the past life and they looked exactly the same. Leo says that actually, their souls recognized each other because souls travel together throughout every life. That’s how you get soulmates. Whatever you say, Leo. He looks at Piper significantly for extra emphasis on the soulmates part. Phoebe wonders why she didn’t get to keep the cool powers she used to have and Leo says it’s because she abused her powers in her past life, so they were taken away. Okay, Leo.

Phoebe tells them about her gross boyfriend and that Piper was married to Dan. Leo says he hopes Piper will learn from her past mistakes. What a douche. (M: When he isn’t making random stuff up, he’s being a dolt.) Phoebe finds Past Prue’s old camera and Prue gets really excited about her former life as a photographer. I hope we don’t have to watch Prue become an artist.

Mari: It’s cute that you are even hoping for that when the episode is doing everything it can to telegraph it. Keep the hope alive. 

Steph: If I keep listing all the things I don’t want, they won’t happen, right? RIGHT?

Finally, Phoebe finds the family tree. She quickly spots herself amongst the cousins because her death was the same day as it is in the present. She decides they need to speak to the little girl, Christina, and figure out what happened that day.

They find Christina in a retirement home and she immediately flips out about her broken doll. Leo says this is a good thing because it means she recognizes her soul. I laugh every time Leo needs to come in and explain the stupid plot. This all makes sense, you guys, because Leo says it does. Phoebe promises she won’t hurt Christina and asks if she can remember anything about her past self. Christina gets nostalgic for a moment and starts singing and it’s really weird. This show is so weird and stupid. Then she gets all scared and serious. She says that Phoebe was an evil witch, so she hid upstairs and watched Phoebe lose a necklace and get strangled. The information ends when Christina becomes upset about her creepy doll again.

The P’s leave and Phoebe is convinced that they only have until midnight to save her. (M: Her reasoning is actually, “by midnight or the full moon IT’S WHATEVER.”) Leo says Phoebe will have to go back to the past and get some answers. No. I don’t want to go back there.

Manor. Leo makes up a new rule, warning Phoebe that she has to come back before her past self dies or she won’t wake up. She recites the spell, falls asleep, and wakes up where she left off. After destroying the wine, Bad Phoebe has second thoughts about destroying her cousins. Gross Guy says she has to because they’re good witches and that’s why he got her a Good Witch Protection Necklace. Also, he wants their powers so they can be powerful together. They gross kiss some more. Before any destroying can happen, Gross Guy has to lure Past Piper away from Past Dan by posing as her former lover. He waves his hand across his face and transforms into Leo. The twists keep coming.

Mari: OMG THE EFFECTS ARE SO BAD. For some reason Fake Leo’s head is like 2 sizes too big right now.

Steph: Fake Leo and Phoebe go inside together.

Inside, Fake Leo comes up behind Piper and drags her away for some fun cheatery fun times, but Piper isn’t up for that and she’s freaked out by his weird behavior. He transforms back into Gross Guy and covers her mouth. Did he really have to be Leo to do this? (M: No.) Phoebe makes her move on Prue, but Piper breaks free of Gross Guy and distracts them by falling on the floor. Magical mayhem ensues.

Since magic doesn’t seem to be working, Prue does this weird thing where she flies through the air at Phoebe, feet first. I watched this approximately 54 times and still don’t understand what I saw happen. Piper finally breaks free of Gross Guy with a kick to the groin and a grandfather clock to the head. She rushes over to Prue and Phoebe who are on the floor have a pathetic fight where they’re just sort of holding hands and moving their arms around. Prue gets the necklace off of Phoebe and Piper strangles her with a curtain rope. They say they know Gross Guy is a warlock and they can’t let them join forces in any lifetime. They recite a vanquishing spell.

Phoebe wakes up pissed that her sister-cousins killed her and pissed that past her tried to kill them first. She storms off to her room and her sisters follow behind her, telling her that it wasn’t really her. But the thing is it doesn’t matter because part of her was seduced by the evil and power. (M: Is this foreshadowing?) She tells them that Gross Guy was a warlock who could glamour himself and turned into Piper’s past lover, Leo. Unsurprisingly, Leo already knew all of this because he saw his past when he became a white lighter. He didn’t tell Piper because he didn’t want it to affect the choices she made in her present life. And also probably because, “hey we were lovers in a past life,” is a weird way to pick up women. Phoebe brings the attention back to her more serious situation of dying by midnight. They need to go back to Christina and find out where the amulet is. Prue thinks their time would be better spent looking in the Book of Shadows for information on Gross Guy. Phoebe agrees and sends them off. When they’re gone, she asks Leo to go with her to the retirement home. If she dies, she doesn’t want her sisters to see.

Prue and Piper consult the Book. Piper points out that Gross Guy will be looking for Phoebe. It seems like a very silly idea to wait until the day of your girlfriend’s death to look for her. Anyway, this scene is only here so Piper can notice that Leo isn’t with them.

Retirement home. Phoebe and Leo barge into Christina’s room and Phoebe immediately starts talking loudly at her in that way that assholes do to older people. She asks if she can remember anything about the day she died and the necklace she was wearing. Christina can only remember the necklace falling on the floor. Phoebe gets an idea. She wants to write a spell to send herself back to the past, but with full control, that way she can hide the necklace. Lucky for her, Leo knows everything and he says she can do that, but only if she swaps places with Bad Phoebe, which would place Bad Phoebe in the present. Phoebe grabs and nearby notebook to write her spell. Okay, first she enters this woman’s room without permission, yells in her face, demanding answers about things from 70+ years ago, and now she’s wasting pages in her notebook. I’ve never had much of a problem with Phoebe, but now she’s going too far. You don’t just mess with someone’s stationary. Spell done, Phoebe gets into Christina’s bed (REALLY?) (M: IT’S SO WEIRD. The elderly lady this room belongs to is right there.), closes her eyes, and says the words. So why did she have to write them down? You know what, I don’t care.

Phoebe wakes up in Bad Phoebe’s body, this time, as herself. Unfortunately, she’s still being strangled by Piper, but good thing she has her kicking skills. She kicks herself free and runs away.

In the present, Leo is watching over Phoebe’s body when Christina gets up and pulls the necklace from her dresser. She waves her hand in front of her face and transforms into Gross Guy. Shocking. Gross Guy punch-slaps Leo’s stunt double through a door and into the bathroom where the real Christina is tied up. Gross Guy starts singing all creepy, places the necklace onto Bad Phoebe, and wakes her up with a kiss.

Ye Olde Manor. Real Phoebe frantically tries to explain her way out of getting murdered. It doesn’t work so she recites her spell. It does nothing. Past Prue and Piper are not convinced by her crazy talk and Prue blows ice magic at her.

Present. Prue and Piper have joined Leo at the retirement home. Piper asks if Christina is okay and Leo is like, “YEAH, I’M FINE.” NO ONE ASKED YOU, LEO. Christina is fine though, and she definitely doesn’t remember anything because she just wants some jello. The P’s and Leo come up with a plan. They’ll get the necklace off and then put it back on when real Phoebe comes back.

Past Life. Phoebe’s running around saying her spell and runs straight into Gross Guy’s gross mouth. She jump kicks him away and the Past P’s come up behind her for more strangling. There has to be a better way to handle the cousin you hate than to straight up murder them.

Mari: Murder them forever. I don’t only hate you enough to murder you in this life, but in every life. 

Steph: Present. The P’s and Leo arrive at the manor where Gross Guy and Bad Phoebe are waiting. Prue waves her hand for some magical action, but the amulet protects her. Leo says the amulet is protecting both of them… because they’re holding hands? I don’t know. But thanks for all the hard work you’ve been doing trying to make these 42 minutes make any sense, Leo. Piper freezes Bad Phoebe’s incoming fire magic and we transition between Real Phoebe reciting her spell during her strangle struggle and the fight in the present.

For whatever reason, Gross Guy releases Bad Phoebe’s hand (M: Maybe Phoebe has really sweaty hands! It’s really the only explanation…), giving Piper the opportunity to confuse them by popping up out of nowhere. Phoebe throws her fire and Prue magics it at Gross Guy. Gross Guy burns to death while making a hilarious shocked face for a really long time. While Phoebe is distracted with sadness, Piper knocks her out. They remove the amulet and Real Phoebe transitions back into her body. They slap the amulet back on and it glows. Phoebe is safe now. Cool, I guess.

Phoebe is probably traumatized from being strangled by her sisters, but who cares about that? What we really need is closure on Piper and Leo’s past life. Leo says their past lives mean they’re destined to be together. Leo, there is nothing sexy about relentlessly harassing Piper into wanting to be with you. Of course, the door bell rings and Piper’s other soulmate Dan is there. Leo leaves.

Dan tells Piper that he looked into Leo’s past and he has none. The only person with his name died during WWII. Piper agrees to watch her back instead of breaking up with him after realizing that her boyfriend doing background checks on her friends is a red flag. (M: Because soulmates!)

Upstairs, Phoebe is writing a warning in the Book of Shadows about Gross Guy just in case he strikes at future her. She’s worried that she’ll be bad again in her next life. Prue comforts her by saying that everyone’s a little bad and that’s how we make the choice to be good. But it’s totally fun and okay to be bad too.

That’s certainly not true about this show.

 

Next time on Charmed: Someone in jail is attacked by demons in S02 E15 – Give Me a Sign.