Loveday Writing

Harry suggests releasing Jimmy as he would know everything about the Faction. As they don’t have the talisman and the jar is in the Command Centre, Harry leaves to get Celeste’s help. Meanwhile, Julian is watching the surveillance footage of Mel, Maggie and Ray leaving the hydroelectric power plant via the portal. Vivienne tries to convince Julian that Macy is dangerous, revealing that they know about Jimmy and that they’re the ones who put him back in the jar.

When Harry returns with Celeste, she tells the sisters that she made a skeleton key as a failsafe for the jars, but she left it at Castle Breithe. Celeste tells them to find a witch through witchness protection to get them into the Command Centre, and that retired witches communicate with each other using a subreddit posing as fans of a mid-aughts witch show (a subtle meta reference to the original series).

Meanwhile, Julian’s construction crew show him that they are unable to drill through the wall between the Command Centre and the switchboard room as it keeps magically repairing itself. A flashback reveals that Julian and Vivienne went to Castle Breithe and released Jimmy from the jar and Vivienne named herself as his master. It’s also revealed that Julian’s sister, Rosemary, is awake, albeit briefly. Vivienne shows him that the black amber temporarily revives Rosemary from her coma.

While they are at Castle Breithe looking for the skeleton key, Celeste calls Harry out on his relationship with Macy, pointing out it’s forbidden. She also warns him that Julian and the Faction remind her of The Conqueror – a mortal man that tried to steal magic for himself that the very first Charmed Ones had to defeat.

The sisters go to a nightclub where the retired witches are meeting and Mel sees Ruby there. Ruby tells her that she doesn’t want to go back to being a witch, but does give Mel her marble. The sisters use the marble, which opens the portal, but it ends up trapping Macy and Maggie inside the marble itself. Mel realises this when she looks at the marble under a microscope. When Celeste and Harry return, Celeste tells her that they need to use the marble with the witch. Mel convinces Ruby to use the marble with them and they all get into the Command Centre.

Celeste tells Harry and the sisters that if they are going to release Jimmy, they need to contain him. They perform a ritual but Harry has to stay still, but fails to do so, as he sees Macy has collapsed from the impact of Jimmy being released. This leads to Jimmy trying to escape, but Ruby ends up casting a storm spell to knock him down, which enables Harry to magically cuff him.

Towards the end of the episode, Harry tells Macy that he was acting on emotion when he moved as they were releasing Jimmy. Meanwhile Ruby tells Mel that she performed the storm spell because she cares about her, but that she still doesn’t want to be a witch. Ruby tells Mel that she wants to be with her but doesn’t want to be a part of her witch life. Mel counters that her witch life is a major part of who she is, which leaves their relationship uncertain.

The episode ends with Harry asking for Maggie’s help to deal with his feelings for Macy, and Julian agreeing to bring Macy to Vivienne.

Overall this episode didn’t feel like a finale and not in a good way. The Faction story arc didn’t conclude like I thought it would. I honestly felt like the episode would have been better as a penultimate episode but I hope I’m eating my words when I review the start of season 3, where it’s most likely the story arc will conclude. I did appreciate the unexpected reveal of Vivienne’s motivations and Ruby being a witch. On another note, no explanation has been given for Abigael’s absence in the last two episodes or what has happened to her.

In terms of the season as a whole I felt it was a good one. I appreciated having mortals, specifically Jordan and Ray, work with their sisters, as the original series was big on mortals not being exposed to magic. True, mortals aren’t aware of magic in this series but I feel having at least two mortals accept the sisters as witches and help them without being freaked out, is a good distinction for this series to have over its predecessor. I was also happy to see the expansion of the sisters’ powers, which is par for the course as its predecessor also had the sisters’ powers naturally expand early on its run. I also felt that the callbacks to its predecessor series as well as previous season were natural and well balanced.

I’ve enjoyed reviewing this season and I’m looking forward to reviewing the next one.