Previously: More bad guys and a failed mission.
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Marines: Club music plays as our girls chase Pretty Lady/Lightening Demon– the one who stole the Scythe last episode. They are no match for Lightening Demon, however, and she keeps disappearing. Mel is upset that they are letting her get away, but Macy tells her they need to regroup. They’ll get her… later.
Rebecca: I am lovin this lazy approach to demon hunting. Treating it like a research paper, and I can relate.
Mari: Truly the only way I could even attempt to save the world…
As soon as the girls are out of the frame, Lightening Demon reappears. She says some magic words over the Scythe, which glows, and then uses it to create a crack into hell. We watch a demonic hand reach up and that leads us to a cracked asphalt and hellfire title card.
Mari: Also love it.
Back at the MMManor, Charity the Elder and Harry are looking at the broken pieces of the lodestone. I’m not really sure what they are looking at since Lightening Demon had the Scythe, but the point is that the Scythe was used and there is a new baddie in town. The demon will be weak, so they have a window to attack. Harry and Charity start reminiscing about ye olde demon slaying days, but the girls interrupt. Macy has to get to the lab (she’s been working extra hours lately) and Maggie is going to a summer job recruitment thing. Charity tells them to go ahead. They’ll work with Mel on the demon.
Rebecca: Oh calm down; they’ll figure it out later.
Mari: Recruitment thing. A man is introducing his dating app, cofounded by a woman named Lainey. Anna Maria Perez de Tagle looks hella familiar, but apparently she’s most recognizable from Hannah Montana and Camp Rock, two things I’ve never seen. Maybe she just reminds me of Janel Parrish?
Their whole spiel is about how awesome their algorithm is on this dating app, and the person who signs up the most new people for the app will get an internship in Chicago that summer. Everyone claps, but this feels icky.
Rebecca: Definitely. They’re way too pretty.
Mari: Not what I was thinking, but also true.
Plain Shadow Parker shows up with an offer to give Maggie a ride home. She tells him about her new recruitment job and that awesome internship on the line. Parker says she can come work for his father’s company in Chicago (R: you mean HELL?) instead and they can spend the summer together. Maggie says she’d rather do the dating app thing, because it gives her credit for her class, and because she wants to make it to Chicago on her own.
We cut to Allistair’s disappointment, which I have a feeling is a thing I will type a lot. Parker was supposed to dangle the paid internship in front of Maggie so that she would have to take a mandatory drug test and they would get her plasma. (R: loling at this bad exposition delivery) Hunter is here too, and he stands up for his little brother, wondering if boyish charm is supposed to work the same as mind control. Parker starts coughing and Allistair exposits that he’s getting worse. His demonic side is killing his human side. Okay, so autoimmune wasn’t totally a lie! Allistair is working on a serum to cure him, but angrily. He tells Parker to manipulate Maggie’s mind reading abilities and get the job done.
Rebecca: Allistair is somehow both too over-the-top and not over-the-top enough for me. I can laugh at him sometimes, but not as much as I’d like to. But he’s also not scary at all. Give me more puns, Allistair!
Mari: Do better at being worse!
Lab. Galvin is upset about a phone call he receives, but doesn’t want to talk to Macy about it. She sends him home, though, and offers to finish up without him. Boss Lady comes out and sees that Macy is still working. Boss Lady tells her she already has the job, so she doesn’t have to keep auditioning for it. Macy brightly says that she’s enjoying herself, working late. Boss Lady is like yeaaaah…. but go home anyway. Go have some friends or a date or something. Macy says that she will, but then keeps working.
Two dudes go on a date and name drop AptitudeMatch, the dating app Maggie is working for. It’s gone well and the boys say goodbye to each other. One of them gets into his car and there is a demon in the back seat. Wow, sorry dude.
Rebecca: I just feel like I’m watching Black Mirror at this point.
Mari: MMManor. Charity, Harry and Mel are still working. Mel gets a news alert about the murdered Date Man. It happened where they lost the Scythe. We cut to those three arriving at the crime scene. Mel freezes time and as they put on rubber gloves to protect the crime scene, we also get some exposition about how witches don’t intervene in human-on-human crime. It would be too much work and keep them from doing their supernatural job. In the back seat of Date Man’s car, Mel and Charity find some flakes the glow, supernaturally. Lightening Demon is watching them from afar.
Rebecca: Please don’t hurt me, Lightning Demon. I just wanna be your friend.
Mari: And back to the MMManor. Now, Macy is telling Maggie about what Boss Lady said about not working too hard. But Macy thinks she has to work hard to one day become a boss lady of her own. Maggie doesn’t agree. She encourages Maggie to let down her hair, but also gets chided for touching Macy’s hair. (R: Fair,) Maggie wants Macy to download the dating app. Macy says that Asian men and black women are the least likely to get swiped on and matched. And when she is matched, it’s by a bunch of dudes fetishizing her and saying how cute their babies will be. Add a “nice lips” and it me. Maggie wins her case in the end.
Mari: Mel is taking out the trash behind The Haunt when the Lightening Demon shows up. Mel demands to know what she released from Tartarus. Lightening Demon introduces herself as Jada and lol totally not a Demon, which I probably should’ve registered. She’s a rogue witch, part of something called The Sarcana– a group that doesn’t follow the Elders. Mel can’t believe that Jada is a witch, but technically she’s half witch, half Whitelighter, which is why she can teleport. The Elders are not fans of the halfsies thing. Mel asks if this is why Jada killed her mom, but Jada scoffs. Marisol was allied with the Sarcana, who help all of human kind and not just those in supernatural danger. As proof of what she’s saying, Jada directs Mel to a specific page in the Book of Shadows– a spell she helped Marisol write. She also returns Marisol’s piece of the Scythe. She just needed to borrow it, anyway, to release a witch. Turns out, the Elders are not above putting witches who break the rules in hell prisons. Jada lightenings out.
Rebecca: Ok just reeeeaaaal quick. Lemme take a deep breath. Contain my emoti– I AM SO EXCITED FOR THIS ADDITION THANK YOU CHARMED GODDESSES GIVIN ME ALLLLLL THIS DRAMA
Mari: MMManor. Mel is telling on Jada to Charity, who confirms that they are indeed a thing– The Sisters of Arcana. Charity says that they defeated them all though. Apparently not. Charity says they didn’t put a witch into Tartarus, though. That’s just Jada trying to manipulate Mel. (R: sure) Charity asks for the shard of the Scythe, but Mel destroyed it. Charity warns her that if the Sarcana are coming back, they will be looking to add power to their ranks and who better than a Charmed One? Mel looks distraught.
Outside, Charity sits on the back porch and drinks. Harry joins her and comforts her, saying that all of this brings back memories for him, too. He thinks about an unnamed “her” all the time. Charity leans in and almost kisses him, but then stops herself and says they can’t go there again. She has to go talk to the Elders. She opens a portal and leaves.
Rebecca: Wow, they are somehow more boring than Parker.
Mari: Okay, this made me think about the age spread here if they are insinuating Harry and Charity dated and I’m convinced that Harry and Macy are going to be a thing. Madeleine Mantock is 29, same as her character Macy. Rupert Evan is 42!!! Wow, I would not have guess that. Harry is supposed to be old, but physically 37. Virginia Williams is 41. Interesting.
Rebecca: HMMMMM. Not sure how I feel about all this. I do not find the implication of Harry/Charity at all interesting, though. Mostly because I don’t find Charity all that interesting, and I like Harry less when she’s around.
Mari: Lab. Macy asks Galvin for some reports and he snits that he already emailed them and maybe she should check her inbox. Macy tells him that there is no version of their relationship where he gets to talk to her like that. DAMN RIGHT. (R: I love her sm.) Galvin apologizes. He’s being rude af because Summer broke up with him and Boss Lady cut the budget for his genetics research. He again apologizes for taking it out on Macy and tells her she’s been doing a great job. Macy thanks him and tells him that his passion is the best thing about him. He looks after her wistfully.
Macy is in the attic, using a microscope to examine the demon bits Mel found at the crime scene. She’s also filling Maggie in on Galvin being single. Maggie tells her to climb that tree, but Macy thinks that’s all in the past. Plus, he has that protection ward against her darkness, or whatever. Maggie grabs Macy’s phone and looks at her dating app. She’s got a match and a nerdy, science message from a guy, but Macy says she’s not going to respond. Maggie tells her that’s fine, but she does have to start letting people see how wonderful she is.
Rebecca: I’m loving the mixing of science and magic. It’s something entirely new to the reboot, and it’s very silly and fun.
Mari: Maggie leaves for a date with Plain Shadow Parker, and Mel joins Macy, asking what she’s found out about the demon bits. Macy says it’s an exoskeleton. They are looking for a bug demon. I hate it.
Rebecca: I’m flashing to ‘bug’ episodes of supernatural shows, and there’s a shocking amount, and they’re always terrible.
Mari: Date. Parker and Maggie eat and flirt until he starts coughing and has to excuse himself. In the bathroom, the waitress starts flirting with him, but turns out it’s just his shape shifter brother Hunter (R: ew?), here to bust his chops for having feelings for Maggie. Hunter says that no matter what their 3,000 year old douche of a father says, Parker is a demon to his core. Parker heads back out to his date and uses fake thoughts (?) to get Maggie to ask him what’s going on for real. Parker says he needs plasma and Maggie volunteers to get tested. Someone should tell these girls to be careful with their blood, or something.
Rebecca: We get my favorite line so far from Hunter that I would like on a t-shirt. “Feelings are for people.” Dying. Also I hated Parker for being boring, but now I hate this manipulation. I wonder how many seasons we’ll have to tolerate this damp dish towel.
Mari: If we base our calculations on how long we had to deal with Cole, *cries*
We watch another happy couple after their Aptitude date. I can’t tell if it’s the same guy. It’s too much to ask me to remember the Generic Charmed Men who end up being demons, even within the same episode. Anyway, this guy leans in for a goodnight kills and then bug legs shoot out of his mouth and they go INTO THE POOR GIRLS MOUTH and we get lots of demon sound effects and chittering.
Mari: Attic. Harry is upset that last episode we had bees and now a bug demon. I’m with Harry. (R: Same.) Mel is still distracted and obviously thinking about this whole Sarcana thing. Harry shares with her that Charity’s younger sister Fiona got mixed up with the Sarcana. They encouraged her to flaunt her powers and then left her out to dry when she got caught and committed. Fiona died by suicide. Mel asks if that’s why Harry and Charity broke up. He looks shocked that she knows, but she’s like “boy, everyone knows.” He says that they let their feelings distract them and they couldn’t get past the guilt.
Rebecca: I’m thinking that Harry and the Sarcana are lying. If you asked episode 2 Rebecca if she would ever type the words “leave my baby Mel alone” she would not have believed you, but leave my baby Mel alone, you goblins.
Mari: Truly, it’s been quite the journey already.
Maggie rushes in, saying she needs to get over her fear of needles stat. She notices that she interrupted something, but Mel says it’s nothing and head back to the Book of Shadows. There, she finds the demon they are looking for: a Cicada demon.
Rebecca: Does the cicada demon play beautiful music in the summer time?
Mari: If not, why even be a cicada demon?
Maggie asks where Macy is, and Mel says she’s on a date. We cut there. It’s the guy who swiped on her on Aptitude. He seems sweet and recalls details from her profile and brings up the fact that he (an Asian man) is statistically less desirable. Macy seems impressed and they cheers.
In the attic, Mel says that Cicada Demons come out every 17 years to mate. Harry has some university archives up. Some students went missing at this time, 17 years ago. The connect all the dots and realize the Cicadas are taking humans to mate with, though Harry says they would need to find a perfect match. Maggie connects the final dots– the Cicadas are finding matches on Aptitude. And then they all realize Macy is in danger.
Macy and Probably A Cicada walk out of the bar. She asks if he wants to do this again sometime and he leans in for a kiss. And then we hear chittering and see Macy’s eyes open in panic.
After a cut to black, Macy wakes up covered in webbing. Her phone rings but she can’t reach it.
Rebecca: Noooooo he was a cicada?! I’m so disappointed. Didn’t see that coming at all. Also, was she taken by a cicada or Shelob?
Mari: Armed with a fumigation spell, Maggie, Mel and Harry head to Aptitude headquarters, figuring that’s where they’ll find the queen Cicada, namely one Anna Maria Perez de Tagle. There, Mel freezes the workers, Maggie listens to their thoughts, and they head to the basement where there are indeed humans all wrapped in webs with eggs coming out of their mouths. The girls find Macy and free her. They are attacked by a Cicada, but Maggie kicks him in the balls and then Mel impales him with a random pipe.
Rebecca: And excuse me while I point out that the victims had BUG EGGS GROWING OUT OF THEIR DAMN MOUTHS.
Mari: Yes, I said that, but I see why you would want to repeat it.
Queen Anna Maria descends on them, but the girls quickly recite the fumigation spell. The Queen starts overheating, so that she’ll take everyone down with her, so Macy just uses her telekinesis to drop a slab of concrete on her. For real. All of that happened really quickly.
Rebecca: Yeah umm. I uhhh. I dunno, my dudes. Sure. that works. Why not?
Mari: MMManor. Maggie feels really bad about what happened, and it’s helped her decide she’s not going away for the summer. She wants to spend time with her sisters. Macy is genuinely happy about this, and it’s sweet. She says they should still take a trip together so Maggie can get out of Hilltowne. Maggie wants Macy to stop using work as a excuse to cocoon herself, though. (R: too soon.) Macy admits that she’s been so focused on whether a guy would want her, that she hasn’t thought about what she wants. Her sisters ask what she wants, and she admits that she still wants Galvin. They cheer her on and Maggie once again encourages her to climb that tree.
Haunt. Mel is once again taking out the trash when she sees a man mugging a woman. She lifts her arm to freeze time, but thinks better of it, instead calling out for the mugger to leave the lady alone. Jada shows up and electrocutes the mugger.
Rebecca: I’m normally not into hate-love, but I’m already writing their Coffee Shop AU fanfiction in my head.
Mari: At the MMManor, Mel is going through Harry’s office to find the compass he summons Charity with. She shows up and says they were just going to summon her, inviting her back through the portal. She meets the Elder Council, except their faces are all blank, like just skin. It’s to protect their identity. And none of them say anything. So I don’t know why it was necessary to bring Mel here if she was just going to talk to Chariy. (R: They wanted to give me nightmares.) Anyway, the point is that the Elders think that the Sarcana are behind the Elder killings, including Marisol. They want Mel to join them, undercover.
Maggie visits Parker, bringing sugar because she read that low blood sugar is common after a plasma transfusion. Maggie says that the needles weren’t too bad, and Mel came with her for support. And she also donated plasma. Parker tries to downplay how happy he is to hear that these witches are all willy nilly about their blood. Maggie and Parker hug.
Rebecca: She is too good for all of this, and I want to kill Parker very, very slowly.
Mari: Haunt. Macy orders a shot and uses the liquid courage to call Galvin and ask for another shot between them. She invites him to the Haunt, and he says he’ll finish up at the lab and come on over. After they hang up, he basically fist pumps. (R: precious af)
Mel finds a tattoo parlor with the marking she saw on Jada’s hand. She says the magic words and a door appears. She walks through and gets promptly nailed by a woman with a 2×4. Jada is like WTF, but the woman says that Mel almost saw Fiona.
Rebecca: Oh shiiiiitt! Can’t believe Charity was lying! Color me shocked.
Mari: Macy is still waiting at the Haunt. Galvin is walking there and sending off a text to tell her he’s on his way when he gets hit by a car. We see that his protective mark is glowing. And yes, that means his shirt is up again, but at least this time it’s due to impact with car.
Rebecca: I am so sad.
Mari: It’s ’cause feelings are for people.
Next time on Charmed: Mel needs Harry’s help in S01 S09 – Jingle Hell.
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 am a book, movie, and TV fanatic over the age of 30. I love baking, video games, and D&D. Legally I must tell you I am a disaster. I've written like 6 novels but haven't had the real courage to query agents yet, and also I don't know how to make decisions (DISASTER). So please send me wine for Courage. Maybe a heart too. Oh and also a brain.
