Previously: Cole went undercover and we were supposed to trust him or something.
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Exit Strategy
Marines: Prue wakes Phoebe up in the mausoleum where she was waiting for Cole. Prue tells her to go home because when Cole makes it out, he’ll know where to find her. Phoebe is worried. Cole was supposed to stay undercover for a little longer so he wouldn’t raise suspicions, but it’s been a week now. I can’t believe we have to deal with this plot line for another episode, so I feel Phoebe. It’s too much.
Jessica: They truly are milking the star-cross’d broody lovers bit. And brooding over a somewhat evil guy in a mausoleum? C’mon. Buffy did it better.
Mari: Somewhere hellish, a demon priest is magically scanning Cole. The guy I called Inconvenient last episode, because he kept having lines and I kept having to mention him, is here for another episode. Demon Priest says that Cole is infected… with LOVE. Inconvenient asks how they can save Cole, and Demon Priest says they have to remove his loooove.
I AM THE SAHN.
Manor. Piper is going through old papers because she wants to get Leo a passport for their honeymoon. Leo says they don’t need one, on account of how he can tinkle in and out of places. Piper, for some reason, doesn’t want to tinkle. She wants to fly on a plane, and she wants Leo to have a passport.
Jessica: First off – tinkle. Heh. Second – maybe it’s been a while since Piper has been to an airport? Because no one in their right mind would turn down immediate transportation over recycled air and shared arm rests.
Mari: In this economy? Girl, tinkle away.
Piper finds Leo’s birth certificate in a bunch of Dan’s (damn, remember Dan?) (J: No.) files he had when he was suspicious of Leo. Leo says this won’t work, since he was born in 1924. Piper has white out, black ink and a dream. She changes his birthday to 1974, but then has feelings because that makes him younger than her. It’s all ridiculous, and Leo is reminding her it’s also illegal, when Prue walks into the kitchen. She fills them in on Phoebe sleeping in the mausoleum and Cole’s still missing. Piper is like “wow, he’s probably caught.”
Demon Priest tells Inconvenient to follow his lead. Priest wakes Cole up and says he accidentally tried to kill him, as he didn’t recognize Belthazar in his human suit. Demon Priest (Raynor) asks for forgiveness and extends his hand. Cole shakes and they look into each other’s eyes for a long time. (J: They’re also standing really, really close to each other. Really close.) Cole asks how long he was out, and Raynor says it was long enough to do some investigation into the reports that Cole crossed over to the other side. Raynor says that it doesn’t matter if he strays, as long as he comes back. And to that end, Raynor has another job for him: retrieving a magical amulet from the neck of a witch. Cole tries to make excuses at first, but then shimmers out to go get it done. Alone, Inconvenient asks Raynor if Cole will actually get the amulet. Raynor thinks he will, but not before stopping by to see Phoebe.
MMManor. Cole stops by to see Phoebe. They kiss and then Cole tells her about the assignment stealing a magical amulet. Phoebe says he can’t. The amulet will protect the witch, which means that Cole will have to turn into Belthazar and that will make him evil. Cole is like “oooh…!! Good point.” (J: Cole is really not good at this undercover thing.) He figures that maybe this is a set-up. Phoebe offers to go for back-up, but Cole says he knows what he’s doing. He asks Phoebe to trust him. She has to keep making that potion to get rid of Belthazar and then they will be together. They kiss again, and he shimmers out mid-kiss, which is weird and RUDE. (J: Right??!)
Phoebe runs downstairs and tells Prue that Cole is in trouble, and she needs help. They need to scry for a witch stat.
Cole shimmers into the witch’s house. She’s way too chill about it. Cole asks her to just hand over the amulet, but she won’t. He reaches for it and the power of the amulet throws him into the wall. Calm Witch calmly says he can’t take it. Cole says he can’t but he turns into Belthazar and says he can. Belthazar defeats the amulet’s purple power and grabs it from the witch’s neck. Belthazar gets a little too happy choking the witch momentarily, but then he lets go and tells her to tell no one. Not even her whitelighter.
Jessica: I am not impressed by this amulet. All he did was reach through its little shield. This poor witch deserves an amulet upgrade!
Mari: Piper and Leo are standing in a long passport line. Leo is not happy. He keeps telling Piper they can’t do this because it’s illegal and lying and bad. Piper tells him to stop being so good. She just wants a normal life. As they get closer to the front of the line, Leo gets a tinkle call. He tells Piper he has to go, but she loses her shit. She tells him he can’t leave after they’ve waited in life for 2.5 hours. And as she gestures while speaking, it explodes the wall clock nearby. Everyone screams and ducks, except Piper and Leo. “Uh-oh,” she says sheepishly.
Jessica: I mean, who hasn’t daydreamed of doing something similar at the DMV?
Mari: Raynor visits the witch from earlier and kills her, planning to frame the death on Belthazar.
Prue and Phoebe find the witch’s house (is this a store?). Prue finds scorch marks pretty quickly. She says for what it’s worth, she doesn’t think it was Cole. Phoebe shares what she knows about Raynor and the possibility of him setting Cole up. They wonder why, though.
Leo tinkles in to dump some information from the Elders: the amulet was super powerful so a super powerful demon must’ve stolen it. It’s actually one half of a two-parter, and if someone joins the parts, they will be basically invincible. (J: So why did this poor witch only get one semi-useless half??) But it only works for good people, so the Brotherhood is probably getting it to destroy it. The other half is being protected by another witch. They have to find her. Prue asks after Piper and Leo says she’s at home recovering after an incident at the passport agency. Phoebe and Piper give him looks.
Cole hands the amulet to Raynor, and he asks how the witch murdering went. Cole says he wouldn’t kill a low-level witch and risk alerting the Charmed Ones. Raynor says too bad, but he went back and killed the witch anyway. Raynor says he wants Belthazar to go get the second amulet and kill the witch. None of Cole’s excuses work, so he has to shimmer away and get to it.
Prue and Phoebe get back to the Manor, ready to scry for the next witch. Leo says it won’t work because the amulet protects against scrying. That’s why they found the first witch too late. (J: This amulet is bullshit.) They hear an explosion from the kitchen. When they go check it, they find Piper covered in watermelon. Turns out that whenever she tries to freeze time, things explode. Leo hurries off to go ask TPTB(c) what’s up with that.
Jessica: I would say again that Cole is bad at this undercover stuff but, I’m not surprised actually, based on his character. He’s got broody looks, not so much the brains…
Mari: A coven of witches wraps up their campfire meeting. Cole is watching them from the bushes. Inconvenient shows up for more lines about how amazing and murderous Belthazar used to be and now he’s all soft and weak. The last witch left at the campfire hears some rustling from the woods. She looks and sees Cole change into Belthazar. She’s also relatively chill and pretty confident in the amulet, even though Belthazar starts penetrating it’s purple force field power. The 3P’s show up, though. They stand there and yell for a bit (“Cole don’t!” “Piper freeze him!” “What if I blow him up?!”) until Prue steps in and flings Belthazar into some rocks with her telekinesis. Inconvenient comes out for some back-up. Piper tries to freeze his fireball, but ends up exploding things near Inconvenient. Belthazar gets up and sends a fireball at Phoebe and Campfire Witch, but the amulet protects them. Prue keeps flinging them around with her telekinesis, it’s great, until they give up and shimmer away. Phoebe looks sad like, “oh no, my boyfriend is a demon.” Have I mentioned how happy I am we are doing this again some more?
Jessica: And by “the amulet protects them” you mean – they don’t get blown up, but they do get flung against a nearby rock. Who in their right minds would keep this amulet?? I say give it to the demons already. It’s not worth it Cole!
Mari: Half an amulet, half protection.
The girls and Campfire Witch get back to the Manor, yelling for Leo, because Piper keeps flaming instead of freezing and Phoebe is hurt. As they go, they explain things quickly to Campfire Witch. Leo is their Whitelighter brother-in-law, Belthazar is the demon, Phoebe’s boyfriend. Campfire Witch is genuinely just happy to have met them and not died. She offers to make a salve for Phoebe’s arm.
Prue brings up the whole “your boyfriend fired a fireball at you” thing, but Phoebe knows that Cole knew that they amulet would protect her. (J: Grumble.) She saw pain in his eyes, not evil, so he’s totally still fighting it. In the kitchen, the girls are all impressed by Campfire Witch’s potion making prowess. Phoebe asks if she knows what Billings root is, because it’s the last ingredient in their potion to get rid of Belthazar. Campfire Witch says sure. It’s what people used to call ginger. Phoebe says she’s going to the mausoleum because she looked deeply enough into Cole’s eyes, or whatever, to know that’s where he’ll be. She just knows it.
Jessica: It is truly the best place for tortured brooding.
Mari: Cole is back in generic hell, trying to explain what happened with the Charmed Ones. Finally, he says they should drop the pretenses because Raynor doesn’t care about the amulet, just about torturing me with 87 speeches about how cool Belthazar used to be. (J: Was that the sound of a writer’s room collectively shrugging and agreeing, ‘fuck it’?) Cole says he’s in love now and he isn’t going to kill for Raynor anymore. Raynor is like “not even for THIS” and he makes a crystal sort of ball appear. YOUR FATHER’S SOUL. Cole tries to tackle Raynor, but Inconvenient holds him back. He can shimmer, though, so this is stupid. Anyway, the Source had Papa Cole’s soul, and had originally promised to give it back if Cole completed his mission of killing the witch. Cole says nothing and shimmers out. Raynor is happy because he thinks Cole is gonna go kill.
Jessica: WHY DIDN’T RAYNOR JUST BRIBE HIM WITH THIS IN THE FIRST PLACE FJKFJDLKSK! Sorry, sorry. It’s just – this plot line. It goes onnnnn.
Mari: Mausoleum. Phoebe says that Cole is going to have to try to kill her harder than that to scare her away, or whatever. Cole says it’s too late for him and he starts shaking and struggling to hold his human form. Seems fake to me, but Phoebe buys it and off they go back to the Manor.
Prue, Piper and Campfire Witch are still working on the potion. Leo tinkles in with good news: Piper’s powers aren’t defective, they are advancing. Her freezing thing works by slowing down molecules and now she can speed them up. Piper thinks this is a bad time for this all to happen.
Jessica: Girl – you leveled up. Be excited!
Mari: Phoebe and Cole arrive. The potion is almost ready, but it needs to cool down and turn blood red. Prue and Piper head downstairs to get some ice, but on the way, Inconvenient attacks. Prue gets some telekinesis and Very Useful Kicks in. She yells at Piper to try freezing, but Piper only manages to explode an cupboard that then lands on Prue and knocks her out. Piper yells for Phoebe’s help, but then Inconvenient just throws a energy ball at Phoebe. Piper has to try again, and this time she manages to explode Inconvenient. Phoebe runs back upstairs to Cole, and Piper is left to try and wake Prue up.
Potion is ready, but just then Raynor shimmers into the attic. He hits Leo with an energy ball and he kind of hilariously becomes light tinkles, but then gathers back together and is unconscious. Campfire Witch prepares to use the amulet, but she gets hit with an energy ball and it causes the amulet to fall off her neck. Just go with it. (J: Sighhhhh *re-fills glass with wine*) Phoebe makes it to the attic, but the door is locked. She bangs and calls for Cole. Raynor taunts Cole into killing the witch. (J: *gulps down wine*) Prue uses her telekinesis to try and open the door, and for some reason, they get it open a little, but not all the way. Just enough for Phoebe to see Cole turn into Belthazar and kill Campfire Witch. And she can’t see Raynor? Something like that, because after Campfire Witch is dead, Phoebe pushes into the attic and is Very Disappointed. (J: *tilts head all the way back to finish wine*) Cole forces himself back into human skin and says he was made to kill the witch and he didn’t want to and he needs help. Phoebe doesn’t believe him anymore. She grabs the potion and tells Cole to save himself, slamming the potion on the ground. Cole sadly shimmers away. (J: *slams down empty glass* Woo!)
It’s fine if Phoebe doesn’t want to date Cole anymore, but getting rid of an uber powerful demon is like… their whole jam. He could’ve still had that potion is all I’m saying.
The next morning, Piper and Prue are cleaning up the mess in their house. Piper apologizes again for knocking Prue out, but Prue’s trying to see the bright side. Piper has a new power and she got one bad guy. Piper says that is cool, but losing 3 good guys in the process wasn’t great. Prue is happy to hear that Piper thinks Cole was one of the good guys. Piper says she does. And she understand now what it’s like to have something inside of you that you can’t control that could hurt the ones you love.
Jessica: She is way more understanding right now than she was last night while Cole was begging for help. It’s weird.
Mari: Phoebe joins them with 3 candles and matches. Prue says she has a lot to deal with, but Phoebe says not really. She lost the love of her life to evil. Piper says that Cole was really trying. Phoebe replies that it wasn’t enough. She wasn’t enough. Anyway, the candles are for a blessing for the 3 people they lost. Prue lights one for the Calm Witch, Piper lights one for Campfire Witch, and Phoebe lights one for Cole and hopes he finds peace.
/
<c/enter>Cole shimmers to generic hell and gets his father’s soul back. And then he stabs Raynor for killing Phoebe’s love for him. Raynor is like YAAS, YAAS KILL ME DEMON. He tells Belthazor that he’s truly evil now and then goes up in flames. Cole falls to his knees.
I finished this episode by allowing myself to Google how long Cole is on this show. There was good news and bad news for me…
Jessica: *reaches for corkscrew*
Next time on Charmed: Piper tries to control her power in S03 E21 – Look Who’s Barking.
I'm a 30-something south Floridan who loves the beach but cannot swim. Such is my life, full of small contradictions and little trivialities. My main life goals are never to take life too seriously, but to do everything I attempt seriously well. After that, my life goals devolve into things like not wearing pants and eating all of the Zebra Cakes in the world. THE WORLD.
I'm a chronic book nerd and love storytelling in all forms. I'm particularly excited by the rise of the television show as an art form with long, cinematically beautiful plots and complex character arcs (I also watch cartoons). My travels in the past handful of years have led me through three continents and most recently landed me among the majestic mountains of Colorado. Some day I will compile all my travel journals/blogs into one place. Some day. Until then, you can find me with craft beer in hand, ready at any moment to deeply and passionately discuss survival tactics for the zombie apocalypse.
