Charmed recap: The sisters face the Harbinger of Hell

Charmed Season 1, Episode 3 wastes no time in the demon of the week. The sisters go up against the Harbinger of Hell, while Maggie throws a Halloween party.

While we knew that Angela Wu was now possessed by the Harbinger of Hell, the Vera/Vaughn sisters certainly didn’t. Maybe Maggie should have been the one to visit Angela, who had miraculously awoken from her coma, but it was Mel, who didn’t realize anything was off. And immediately, Charmed Season 1, Episode 3 put the sisters in danger and gave us the demon of the week.

Meanwhile, Maggie decided to find some sort of balance between her magical life and her college life. I don’t blame her for wanting to do this. She’s an 18-year-old college freshman, after all. But what I loved is that she doesn’t forget about her new destiny with her sisters. It’s all about finding balance and not constantly moaning about the lack of normal life. Because whose life really is normal?

Maggie’s personal gain spells

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Sadly, Charmed has continued the idea of “personal gain consequences” when it comes to spells. I wished the creators had righted this wrong from the original series. Spell-casting has never been about “personal gain.” It’s all about casting spells without harm, and Maggie’s spells to decorate the house quickly wouldn’t have caused anyone any harm.

Well, unless you count the multimillionaire business people who own the big stores Maggie would have likely bought decorations from. But one customer wouldn’t have put a huge dent in their profits!

The personal gain doesn’t even make much sense. Macy starts suffering headaches that almost kill her because of the decorations. I didn’t quite understand it all and I hope these personal gain issues are fixed. At least the personal gain consequences in Classic Charmed mostly made sense.

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Salt for protection

Charmed brought in another Supernatural element to the show: salt. Well, I say Supernatural, because it’s used so much in that show. However, there is genuine lore and mythology surrounding salt for protection, so I don’t class it as a rip-off. Just a good use of inspiration.

Wait, salt? When the sisters know the Harbinger of Hell is heading their way, they need to protect their party guests. So, they put a ring of salt around the house to keep the Harbinger out. The sisters did still use a spell to make the salt work.

However, it didn’t work as they wanted. Harry shares that the Harbinger must already be inside the house. It turns out that Mel invited Angela so, sure enough, the Harbinger was unknowingly inside.

Speaking of Mel, she has some bold ideas on how to contain and vanquish the Harbinger of Hell. Of course, they’re risky ideas because what show with a strong, feminist female doesn’t have her making risky ideas? Sometimes they pay off and sometimes they don’t. In this episode, they sort of paid off.

Macy was almost gravely hurt, but in the end, magic and teamwork saved the day. Harry even made it clear that he doesn’t want to quash Mel’s spirit or love for magic. He wants her to nurture that and help it grow. However, he also wants to keep them safe.

As I’ve suspected for a long time, Harry is protective because of a previous charge. A witch named Fiona was lost while under his care and Mel reminds him a lot of her. Sure, this trope can be annoying at times, but in this episode, it worked. We didn’t need to know anything about Fiona because that’s not the point. It’s all about the memories.

What I especially love was that Harry and Mel managed to negotiate and work together. They’ve come to an agreement rather than each other throw tantrums because they’re not getting their own way. And Mel is the one that ends up saving the day. It’s her plan and her headstrong personality that helps to protect the innocents at the party and stop the demon.

No vanquishing this week

I know there are people rolling their eyes, but in the end, Harry has to go to The Elders for some advice. And this is actually something I enjoyed. He didn’t go up for answers about the demon problem but went up to help save the innocent.

It would have been easy to vanquish the Harbinger of Hell, but this is a demon possessing an innocent woman. She needs to be saved, and that’s a lifeline Harry offers by going to The Elders. In the end, the sisters capture the demon and cage her up in the attic.

Okay, so there are a few questionable elements to this but it’s better than the death of an unsuspecting innocent. This part, again, reminds me of early Supernatural where it was about saving the innocent people being possessed by demons and I hope Charmed keeps this up.

Odd bits:

Some other plot points that are worth mentioning but not in great detail are:

• Mel struggles with keeping the secret from Niko. She’s never had to lie about who she is (there was never a huge coming-out moment for her because her mom always knew she was a lesbian) and now she’s struggling with the secret.
• Harry understands why Mel doesn’t want to keep the secret. Once they vanquish the Source, he promises to get The Elders to allow Mel to tell the truth. So, once again, The Elders have stupid rules and Mel’s secret is likely to come out sooner, right?
• Macy kisses Gavin, starting up this relationship.
• It also turns out Macy is a virgin and went to a boarding school in Connecticut where she was one of two people of color.

What did you think about Charmed this week? Did you love the lack of vanquish to save the innocent? Which character is your favorite so far? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

Charmed airs Sundays at 9/8c on The CW.