Charmed S02 E16 – Depression magic

Previously: Prue got kidnapped and she liked it.
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Murphy’s Luck

Stephanie: Prue is at the most 90’s photo-shoot ever (one of the posing dudes is wearing a metallic shirt), showing off her portfolio to an art director (?). He’s impressed with her work even though she probably threw the whole thing together over the weekend. It’s not enough to get her a job, though, because her resume shows she’s an evil job switcher. Prue asks if she can have a shot anyway and the AD agrees to give her the job if she can get a photo of Amy Adams Maggie Murphy, an unlucky Irish woman (Haha! the irony!) who used to do good things until she got unlucky. He wants an artistic photo of Maggie’s inner soul by 5 PM.

Marines: Lucky for Amy Adams, she once did an episode of Charmed, but things got way better for her. 

Steph: She also played Tara’s cousin in the Buffy episode “Family” the same year, so things were looking up quickly!

Cut to Maggie Adams. She’s up on a roof, looking over the ledge. A bald man who looks kind of like a combination of Billy Zane and Patrick Stewart (M: So accurate) appears behind her. Baldie speaks in her voice, saying that she hurts the ones she loves and it has to stop. Maggie cries and agrees that she’s cursed. She stands on the ledge while all the people below her freak out. Lucky for her, Prue drives up just in time. She spots Maggie, and as she’s yelling for her to stop, astral projects next to her. Prue tries to convince her to step down, but Maggie refuses because of all the people hurting she does. Somehow, she manages to trip even though she hasn’t moved.

Mari: Can you just imagine the scene direction. “And then you trip.” “…over what?” “WHAT THE HELL, AMY ADAMS. JUST TRIP.” 

Steph: Prue grabs her, but she slips away anyway. Prue goes back into her body and magics Maggie safely onto a nearby awning. It looks ridiculous. (M: I took a five minute laugh break.) Prue hurries away past Baldie, who goes, “of all the luck.” Make it stop.

Mari: Girl, it just started.

Steph: I AM THE SAHN.

Halliwell Manor after 25 minutes of establishing shots and music (about “lucky” ones!). Piper is trying to figure out how to break it off with Dan without hurting him. Instead of wondering if she loves Leo, her new concern seems to be if Leo is getting restless with being a mortal. Phoebe tells her she’s worrying too much and to just follow her heart. Piper thanks her and drops her pad of breakup ideas to head to the club.

Police Department. Maggie is with the only detective in San Fransisco, Morris. She’s hesitant to enter because there might be guns inside that could go off and hurt people. Morris gently urges her inside and into a seat. He asks her about what happened that morning. Maggie says there were voices in her head until an angel appeared from thin air and saved her. As she’s describing her “angel” Morris makes his obligatory “fuckin’ witches” face. He asks what the angel looked like. (M: He should just keep head shots in his top drawer.)

Manor. Prue comes home and tells Phoebe about how she saved Maggie. Phoebe tells her she was lucky.

Morris calls to tell Prue to stay away from the police department so she won’t be identified as Maggie’s angel.

Mari: Um, why the hell would she go to the police station…?

Steph: “Don’t come here! Wait… you didn’t know she was here? Crap.”

In the background Maggie knocks stuff over. Wow. She’s SO UNLUCKY. Prue hangs up and decides to ignore Morris and go see Maggie anyway. Something tells her Maggie still needs saving. She grabs her camera equipment, you know, just in case. No attempted suicides are going to stop her from getting this job. Phoebe says she’ll come armed with her knowledge from psychology class. But probably really because she has nothing else to add to this episode. (M: Thank goodness for Psych 101!)

P^3. Piper and Leo are doing inventory and Leo is useless because he’s too busy creepily staring at Piper’s sexy legs. Piper accidentally empties a box of swizzle sticks onto his head. She gets on the floor with Leo to clean up and Leo uses this as an opportunity to ask if she’s mad at him. She tells him she’s not. She’s just worried about how upset Dan will be when he finds out Leo is the one she really loves. They grin at each other and then smush faces.

Then Piper stops him since she hasn’t officially broken up with Dan yet and Leo goes back to the floor for swizzle stick counting. I hope they’re not still going to serve those with drinks. (M: They totally are.)

Baldie arrives at the police department. He peaks inside, and I guess he’s like “oh crap, this is a police department!” because he closes the door and magically changes into a cop uniform before entering again. Morris offers Maggie some coffee, which she spills all over him. Baldie laughs at her from across the office. Morris leaves to clean up and Maggie tells him he should just stay away from her.

Prue and Phoebe show up. Prue points out Maggie and tells Phoebe she wants to write a spell to put the luck back into her life. That seems like a recipe for destroying her life even further. Phoebe’s reluctant to use magic until she sees Maggie trip an officer into a jug of water. The water splashes onto some plugs and shorts out all of the computers. Prue says she’ll need Phoebe’s help with spell creation. Phoebe tells her she just needs to come up with a spell from her heart. Wait, I thought creating spells was Phoebe’s new power? Guess that means she’s still the useless one. Anyway, Prue makes up a rhyming spell on the spot and some lucky balls of light fly out of her hands and float into Maggie.

Mari: A+ to Stephanie, F- to the girls for magicking while standing in the middle of the freakin’ police station. They deserve everything they get next for that one.

Steph: Morris comes back and trips, but Maggie catches him, because she’s lucky now, see? Prue and Phoebe leave and Baldie sends a bad luck ball of light into Prue’s back. No one in this packed office notices. If this guy is invisible, why does he need the cop outfit? Whatever, I don’t care.

Prue and Phoebe get into the car and Phoebe’s impressed that Prue’s first spell worked. Prue says it’s her lucky day, except not because she hits another car as she pulls out, knocking Phoebe unconscious. Hahaha. (M: Laugh break!) Baldie strolls past, announcing to no one in particular that it’s Prue’s turn to be cursed. I’m glad all the characters are always talking out loud to themselves so I don’t get too confused by these intricate plots.

P^3. Leo’s freaking out because he can’t resist Piper for a whole week until Dan comes back home to be broken up with. He asks if she can call him. What a douche. Prue arrives with a mildly concussed Phoebe. No biggie. The concussion doesn’t stop her from noticing Piper’s makeout lipstick. Leo gets some aspirin for Phoebe and as Prue grabs for the bottle, she knocks more swizzle sticks onto the floor. Never use the swizzle sticks at P^3. Prue wonders if the spell backfired, but Phoebe says that’s not possible since there’s no personal gain. Is there ever though?

Prue takes a call from the art director and Phoebe fills everyone in on the spell they cast on Maggie. Leo says he’s heard about Maggie’s bad luck on TV. Wow, fictional San Fransisco was really starved for stories that year. Prue gets off the phone and says the AD is threatening to ruin her career if she doesn’t get the photo of Maggie. That’s pretty extreme. You probably don’t want to be working for this guy, Prue. (M: Are you even? It kind of sounded like some free labor, probationary BS…) Prue turns to leave and knocks over a table of wine glasses, which Piper freezes. Phoebe offers to drive Prue and they leave. Piper lets the glasses fall to the floor because why not? Leo wonders if a Darklighter is behind the bad things happening to Maggie. (M: Out of nowhere, because plot.)

Hospital psych ward. Prue and Phoebe talk to a doctor about Maggie’s complete turn around from depressed to happy and helpful. The doctor says it’s not going to last long. The camera pans around, and surprise, it’s Baldie, putting those dark thoughts into Prue’s head. Phoebe uses her useless Psych 101 skills and says lots of people recover from depression, so Dr. Baldie is full of shit. Baldie says that Maggie feels responsible for the bad things that happened and that’s the kind of pain that doesn’t go away. Prue just kind of squints at him. I’m not sure what emotion she’s trying to convey. Figuring out what all the face acting means is like an annoying mini game built into the show. Prue and Phoebe head off to find Maggie and Baldie throws a magic ball of depression into Prue’s camera bag before disappearing.

Mari: That digital camera is questioning its life right now.

Steph: I’m glad you’re confirming that the camera was digital because I spent a good 10 minutes confused by the giant memory card or whatever it was she pulled out of it.

Prue and Phoebe find Maggie and introduce themselves. Maggie is all, “WOW ANGELS.” She’s super grateful that Prue saved her life, and now she’s happy and alive. Phoebe is essentially like, “REALLY? EVEN THOUGH YOU’RE IN THE PSYCH WARD NOW?” Maggie spots Prue’s equipment and realizes she’s the photographer for her article. She still wants her photo taken because the article may help others. Prue takes a bunch of awkward photos while Phoebe asks Maggie why she wanted to jump. Maggie tells them it was the voice in her head, like she was cursed. Phoebe wonders out loud if maybe she was cursed. That’s a shitty thing to say to someone trying to recover from depression. Level 2 of the “What’s the emotion?” mini game starts as Prue gets serious/scared/confused/sick and hurries off to bring her photos to the magazine.

Manor. Piper and Leo look through the Book of Shadows for information on Darklighters. Leo thinks the book needs an index. What? Flipping at random and hoping the wind will blow the pages to the right spot isn’t efficient enough for you, Leo?

Mari: I hope the show wasn’t trying to be self-aware. I mean an index in this book would shave off half the episode because they wouldn’t spend so much time going, “NOPE. NOTHING IN THE BOOK.” only to later find something in the book. My point is that this show is too bad to be self-aware. It should stop.

Steph: The phone rings and it’s Dan. The conversation is awkward, and Piper isn’t helping by being weird and hardly paying attention to everything he says. After they hang up, Piper tells Leo that she’s for reals going to break up with him when he comes back. But enough about that relationship nonsense because Leo’s found a page on spirit killing Darklighters. The shot of the page happens really fast, so I paused to get a better look. Along with the Darklighter passage, there’s information on ghosts and demons all on the one page. Get better organization, book.

Prue’s at the magazine place and her photos suck. She tells the AD they were fine before, and he’s unreasonably angry about it, calling her a fraud. He tells her he’s going to make sure no one ever hires her again, and that she should leave to go screw up someone else’s life. You know, if the photo was that important, maybe don’t assign the job to someone as a test? (M: Yep.) Outside, Prue eases her hyperventilation with a little self-pep talk. Baldie materializes behind her and tells her she’s a fraud who hurts people. You’re ruining everyone’s life with your ugly photos, you monster! (M: Before Instagram!)

Manor. Phoebe comes home and Piper and Leo run down to tell her that a Darklighter is after Prue. This particular Darklighter compels future Whitelighters to commit suicide. That’s because the only way for an almost Whitelighter to not become a full Whitelighter is by taking their own life. Because suicide makes you lose your soul forever. Cool. Phoebe is like, “BUT THAT’S MURDER!” Um, what were you expecting from a Darklighter. Are you new here? Anyway, the Darklighter needs to get Prue out of the way to lift the luck spell from Maggie.

While Phoebe’s putting Prue’s camera gear away, she knocks over a film roll. When she picks it up, she gets a vision of a bad haired Prue looking over a bridge all sad-like. After the not-break, we find out the the vision was actually something that happened in Prue’s past, and Phoebe’s sure of it because of Prue’s ugly hair. The vision was from a time when Prue got into a car accident that put Phoebe in the hospital. We then get a random information dump about how Grams made Prue take care of little Piper and Phoebe, and she wasn’t able to go to school and become a photojournalist thanks to her witchy future. (M: They are really committing to trying to make Prue’s sudden photography to look less sudden.) Phoebe’s not convinced this means Prue was ever suicidal. Does that even matter? Isn’t the whole point of this Darklighter that he makes perfectly happy people want to kill themselves? Phoebe rationalizes that her vision was just Prue taking a photo while sad. Leo says the Darklighter will use that sad moment to bring Prue down again. Piper wonders how they’ll find a Darklighter, and Leo says they can’t without a Whitelighter.

The phone rings again, and this time it’s Prue. She’s panicking because her day sucks and she can’t start her car. Baldie uses his bad magic to scramble the phone so Phoebe can’t tell her about him. Prue gets out of the car to walk and Baldie follows behind. I was going to criticize how Baldie keeps de-materializing and materializing like 5 feet from where he was just standing, but hell, I’d probably be doing the same thing if I could teleport.

Mari: I’d mostly use that power to go from bed to kitchen to bathroom to bed. 

Steph: Truth. You work that teleportation, Baldie. I get you.

Phoebe and Piper decide to go after Maggie and use her good luck to find Prue. Leo wants to come with, but Piper needs him to stay behind in case Prue comes home. Plus, Baldie might recognize him. Which would… what? How does that matter? We never find out. Leo sulks because he’s a mortal who’s even more useless than Phoebe. (M: Daaaaaamn.)

Meanwhile, Prue’s still walking and Baldie is working his Dark Thoughts mojo. Baldie magics a skateboarder into the direction of a woman with a stroller. -Prue counter-magics the skateboarder away and into an oncoming car. The skater rolls away in time, but his leg is injured. Still better than skating into a baby, I think. Baldie tells her she almost killed him just like she almost killed Phoebe. Prue runs off.

Hospital. Phoebe and Piper ask Maggie for help with finding Prue. Their great plan is to have Maggie point on the map and hopefully her luck will give them a location. I mean, I guess it’s not any worse than their usual plans. Maggie points and they thank her and run off without explaining anything.

Back at the manor, Leo paces all mortal and pointless. The camera lingers on his face for way too long. I think he has an idea, but it’s level 3 of “What’s the emotion?” and I’m not winning. (M: Or maybe, by not knowing, you are winning a bigger game. #deep)

Piper and Phoebe drive in search of Prue while Prue stares out at a bridge to jump from. After the break, Prue’s on the bridge looking over the cars with Baldie urging her on. Now he’s trying to convince her that she’s responsible for getting Andy killed. Remember him? I didn’t. (M: Hand to God, I was looking down at something else and when he said Andy, I looked up all, “ANDY?” I TOTALLY forgot about him. Totally.) Prue cries more and gets closer to the edge.

Manor. Leo is screaming to himself like a big weirdo, trying to think of something he can do to help. He looks up and yells at the ceiling for his powers back. NOW.

He says he doesn’t want to lose Piper, but not at the expense of one of her sisters. The temper tantrum works and his hands start to glow with Whitelightery magic. Aw, shit. Does this mean the “WE CAN NEVER BE TOGETHER” love-plot is going to make a comeback? OR OR OR maybe Leo and Piper won’t get together and Piper will break up with Dan anyway and we’ll get no relationships. Sounds reasonable, right?

Mari: I’ve just been tortured with the acting in this scene and the idea that all he had to do was yell I WANT MY POWERS NOW and it worked. I don’t think anything will ever sound reasonable again.

Steph: The acting was really, really bad, but at least this time I wasn’t confused about what he was trying to get across to the audience?

Phoebe and Piper find Prue and yell for her to come down from the bridge.. They yell about the Darklighter and the Darklighter is like “nope. No Darklighters here. Jump!” Alas, the power of sisterhood is stronger than the power of Darklighter induced depression. Prue turns around and she can finally see Baldie. She magics him away. He gets up and villain gloats that he can’t be stopped just as Leo materializes and jumps on top of him. It’s a good thing Leo got his powers back so he could take this guy out with a tackle! (M: A tinkletinkletackle. It’s magic.) The sisters embrace and Piper throws Leo a “what the fuck?” look. He tinkles away with Baldie. Welcome back, tinkling.

Later, the P’s are back at the manor looking at Prue’s old picture of the suicide bridge. She explains that she took the picture to remind herself of that dark moment, but she wasn’t suicidal. Deep stuff. She tosses the photo of her dark past into the fire and shows off the magazine photo of her bright future. It’s the most basic picture of Amy Adams within a graphic of a freaking clover. Such skills.

Mari: I joked in the comments last episode that Prue would be taking portraits and all of her subjects would be plagued by demons. AND THAT’S EXACTLY WHAT HAPPENED. Worst.

Steph: The door rings and Piper’s ready to break up with Dan even if Leo has his wings back. Good. It’s not Dan though, it’s Leo, ringing the doorbell instead of tinkling in. Leo tells her that becoming a Whitelighter was his idea, but he didn’t really want it. Piper cuts him off and tells him she wants to make it work anyway and they hug to the romantic tune of a woman wailing.

 

Next time on Charmed: Three old ladies try to steal the Charmed powers to become young again in S02 E17 – How to Make a Quilt Out of Americans.