Loveday Writing

In the opening scenes, we meet Kaela and discover that she is a mechanic, a graffiti artist and is apparently in remission. She quits her job to pursue her passion in art. When Kaela tells her friend, Brynn, about quitting her job, she finds out Brynn put together a surprise party for her to celebrate five years in remission. During the party, Kaela goes inside her school bus-turned-caravan to lie down due to a headache, Brynn tells her to go to a doctor but Kaela tells her that if she’s sick again, she doesn’t want to know. She also tells Brynn that she’s been having dreams about people she doesn’t know and places she’s never been. She shows Brynn her sketchbook, revealing sketches of demons, the Manor, and Mel and Maggie.

We then cut to Mel hooking up with a random woman, and Maggie and Jordan chasing and fighting demons. It’s revealed that Maggie knows about Jordan’s healing power as he heals a wound for her after the fight, and they’re officially dating now. When Maggie hears noises coming from one of the demon’s backpacks, they find a Zamba Zaraa, a small, round, cute magical being that apparently demons like to snack on. The Zamba Zaraa bites Jordan and disappears.

Mel and Maggie return to the Manor where they run into each other, they awkwardly ask each other about their nights. Meanwhile, Harry is sitting in the backyard burning a letter he has written to Macy. Jordan comes out to see him with beers in hand. Jordan tells him (and us) that Mel and Maggie spend all day searching for the other Charmed One and all night trying to distract themselves from their grief over losing Macy, and six months have passed since Macy’s death.

When Harry notices Jordan’s injured finger, Jordan tells him about that Zamba Zaraa biting him, which surprises Harry as, according to him, they’re usually tame and don’t have teeth. Jordan asks if he should look into it but Harry doesn’t care.

The next morning, Josefina is stocking Mel and Maggie’s fridge with food, and tells Mel about the pixie fledging ceremony she’s going to for her friend, Annie. Maggie walks into the kitchen with a lease agreement, telling Mel that their situation isn’t working anymore and she wants to move into an apartment but needs her to sign the lease. Mel reluctantly signs it.

Moments later, Maggie goes into the Command Centre, upset that Mel didn’t fight for her. Wanting to kick some demon arse, she goes to the map and decides to fight a demon in Mexico City, only for the map to force her to go to Philadelphia. Moments after she arrives, she sees magical smoke and gets ready to fight it, only for Mel to emerge. Mel doesn’t know how she got there. When Maggie walks into the street, Kaela almost hits her with her bus.

When Kaela comes out to reprimand them, she realises Mel and Maggie are the women she drew, and Mel sees that Kaela painted a triquetra on her bus. When Maggie touches Kaela on the shoulder as she walks away, lightning strikes.

Mel and Maggie conclude that a magical fate brought them to Kaela. While Kaela is waiting in the bus for them, she tries to leave, only for her to find a black marble. The marble opens a portal, she walks through it and finds herself in the Command Centre. She finds the recreated Book of Shadows, which she drew, as well as sketches of the Command Centre. In disbelief, Kaela puts her sketch book down whilst it’s open on a sketch of a bowl of apples. One of the apples comes to life.

Back on Kaela’s bus, Mel and Maggie find Kaela’s paintings of them. Back at the Manor, Jordan is pouring black sludge out of the demon backpack and a red coin falls out of it. When Josefina finds him in the attic in a bad mood and trying to look up the coin, she insists he goes with her to the pixie fledging ceremony.

Meanwhile, Harry is at SafeSpace and finds Kaela making a drink at the bar. He offers to make her a cup of tea instead (although pours some booze in it). Mel and Maggie return and are surprised to see them talking. Meanwhile, Josefina goes to the Command Centre and is on her way to the pixie fledging ceremony and finds the apple. She takes a bit, grabs her stomach in pain, and collapses. Jordan arrives at the ceremony, where Chloe (previously seen in the season 1 finale. The Source Awakens) introduces herself.  Chloe tells him that until Josefina arrives, he’ll be her plus one.

Back at SafeSpace, Maggie has to use her inception power to calm Kaela down. Kaela explains how the marble came out of her painting and opened the portal. When Mel asks her if she’s a witch, Kaela says no. Harry tells Mel and Maggie to try the Power of Three spell, if she’s the One it should work, but it doesn’t and Harry storms out of the room.

Maggie tries to convince Harry to come back, but Harry tells her that Kaela is a random person that seems unconnected to them, it doesn’t make sense that she would be Macy’s replacement. He also tells her that he’s going to prove Kaela’s not the One.

Kaela, Maggie and Mel go back to the Command Centre. Mel and Maggie try to convince Kaela she is a Charmed One, only to find Josefina, in sketch form, on the floor. When Mel and Maggie try to find a reason for Josefina’s transformation, Kaela finds the apple and explains how it came to life. Mel and Maggie come to the conclusion that Kaela has manifestation powers. Moments later, a dark figure shows up. Meanwhile, Harry talks to Kaela’s boss to find out more about her. He sees something (off-screen) and takes a picture of it.

Meanwhile at the pixie fledging ceremony, Jordan and Chloe witness Annie give a gift by putting it inside a box to receive her wings, only for her to grow bat wings and attack everyone. Back at the Command Centre, the dark figure attacks them. Mel takes them to the Blue Camelia, an exclusive magical bar. Mel suggests they go to the bar’s manager, Roxie, for advice. Roxie tells them that the dark figure is a being from the negative space. Kaela explains that negative space is a term for the unused area around a drawn figure. So, when the apple manifested and Josefina took a bite, she became part of the manifestation, leaving behind unstable negative space. Roxie warns them they need to fix the problem fast as, due to ripping Josefina’s arm off, she’ll bleed out. They go back to the Command Centre.

Meanwhile, Jordan is healing an injury Chloe has sustained and Jordan reveals that he’s not a whitelighter, he’s not sure what he is yet. Jordan offers to get Mel and Maggie to help, but Chloe tells him that she and the other pixies will fix it. When Jordan asks why this might have happened, Chloe explains that the pixie goddess might have been displeased with her offering, but it doesn’t explain the bat wings. When Jordan opens the box to see Chloe’s gift, he finds an identical coin to the one he found in the demon backpack earlier.

Back at the Command Centre, the being from the negative space is getting stronger. Kaela tries to spray paint it to fill the space but that doesn’t work. Kaela accepts that magic is real and that she, Mel and Maggie are witches. When Mel says they’ll figure everything out together, a blue light surrounds them and the Power of Three is reignited. Kaela grabs onto the negative space being and Maggie throws the drawing of Josefina into the negative space, vanquishing it and reviving Josefina.

Mel and Maggie invite Kaela to stay with them to teach her how to control her powers, Kaela asks for time to think about it. Later, Harry tells Mel, Maggie and Jordan what he found out about Kaela. It turns out Kaela is short for Michaela and that her birth certificate states she was adopted at birth, no name was listed for a mother and father, meaning her biological parents could be anyone. Jordan then tells them about the coins he found at the time that the Zamba Zaraa and Annie turned violent. Harry points out that they’re two docile creatures turned violent and Mel points out that it isn’t a coincidence.

Later, Mel finds Maggie sitting in Macy’s room. Maggie tears up the lease agreement and she says she feels Macy’s hand in everything that has happened.

The episode ends with Annie telling Chloe that she was afraid she wasn’t going to get her wings and a man approached her, saying he could help, that if she used his coin as her offering, she’d get what she wanted. Chloe asks Annie for his name, but Annie says she can’t say as he told her terrible things would happen. Chloe gives her a notepad to write down his name and Annie does so, but she dies moments later.

The piece of paper falls on the floor revealing the name, The Tallyman.

Overall I felt that this was a solid season premiere. It addressed Kaela or Michaela being Macy’s replacement, on one hand I hoped that she wasn’t a long-lost sister, like Paige was in the original series, especially as this series has already gone down that road with Macy, but with the reveal that her biological parents could be anyone, it looks like that’s the road that the writers are taking her down (although to me, Marisol doesn’t seem like the kind of mother that would abandon her child at a fire station). On the other hand, even though it would be more interesting to have someone relatively random replacing Macy, logically it doesn’t make any sense. It will be interesting to see how Michaela’s connection to the sisters is revealed as the season progresses. Although I still believe it would have made more sense if Josefina was Macy’s replacement.

In terms of Kaela herself, she seems like an incredibly interesting character. In the first few minutes of the episode, we find out she is a mechanic, an artist and had cancer in her past. I found that her artistry and how crucial her art skills were in this episode provided an interesting contrast to Macy’s STEM qualities and scientific nature. This episode had Kaela deal with magic using her art skills and it will be interesting to see how she incorporates her art with magic, much like Macy incorporated science with magic.

The premiere also gave us a new story arc and threat with The Tallyman. We know so far that he provides coins but what they do and why he provides or leaves them is yet to be discovered, but either he or the coins (or maybe both) turn docile magical creatures violent.

I was also glad to see Harry, I was a little worried that Evans also departed the series due to his casting in Bridgerton, and that Jordan was given whitelighter-like powers to be his replacement, but it seems not, which I’m happy about. I’m hoping that clarification on whether Jordan is a whitelighter or not is given at some point in the season.

I’ve read online that this season will be the series’ shortest one yet as 13 episodes are expected, it will be interesting to see how the writers tackle story arcs and subplots with such a short season. In the meantime, I’m looking forward to reviewing the rest of it.

Stray Observations:

-Kaela’s birth certificate states that she was born on December 11, 1995.

-Kaela’s adopted father was Ghanaian.

-Harry’s letter to Macy reads as follows:

“Dearest Macy,

Another day has passed, another missing you without reprieve. Today it rained and felt perfect for baking, which only made me think of you more. I tried a new recipe, pumpkin muffins. You would have loved them, they came out spectacularly, if I do say so myself.

It’s hard to imagine it’s been six months – harder yet to think of all the time in front of me still to pass with you gone. I haven’t given up, still searching for a way to bring you back. If only I had the brains to…The girls are doing fine, keeping busy that’s for sure. I’m sure wherever you are, you’re thinking of them, as they do you.

Jordan’s been here often, he’s always…He’s been a good friend to us during these darker times. Sitting here at night, I look up at the stars and when…twinkles, I know it’s you.

I’ll write again tomorrow. All my love, Harry.”

(There are some missing sections I couldn’t make out when I paused the video due to blocking and light placement)

Best one liners and interactions:

• “We need to get her back to Seattle, explain this all, like Harry did with us. I’m not saying we tie her to a chair in the attic, just like, a gently forced trip.” “Pretty sure that’s the definition of kidnapping.” (Mel-Maggie on explaining the Charmed Ones and magic to Kaela)
• “Some things excuse drinking before noon, why do you think they invented brunch?” (Kaela to Harry when she’s making a drink for herself at SafeSpace at 11am)