Loveday Writing

Meanwhile, Harry and Maggie go to an antique store to find out who bought the other half of the Unity Bowl. The frog-like magical owner of the antique store is reluctant to help to Harry and digs in his heels even further when he sees Maggie and recognises her as a Charmed One, as he is part of The Unseen. Maggie and the shop owner get into a tussle, which abruptly ends when she mimics his powers, making her hand sticky like his, which makes the purchase history list of the Unity Bowl stick to her hand. Harry can’t make out the initials of the last buyer, but discovers that the ink on the list isn’t ink but blood.

Meanwhile, Kaela has cast the provenance spell on her baby blanket multiple times (mostly offscreen, which is disappointing). We see her casting the spell again and watching her biological parents holding her in the back of a ute, and she manages to sketch the licence plate. Mel offers to pass the licence plate number to Choochi to track them down, but Kaela says no as she’s worried that her parents may not want to meet her.

Meanwhile, Mel finds Ruby crying at SafeSpace, which leads to Ruby telling Mel about Earl and her past. Mel then figures out that Earl managed to find Ruby through the GemCasts and he did so as the GemCast’s host incited his listeners to go after the Charmed Ones’ associates, and told them where the Charmed Ones live, essentially doxing them.

Mel uses her new time travelling power to go back in time to get the original Book of Shadows so she and Ruby can make Blindaje dolls, enchanted dolls that can be used only once to protect someone from dying. Mel also got Choochi to track down Kaela’s biological parents, Zephyr and Caroline, so she can make dolls for them as well, Maggie and Kaela go to Georgia to meet them.

When Maggie and Kaela knock on the door, Zephyr answers. Kaela chickens out and makes up a story about their car breaking down and their phones being dead, asking if they can come in and use their phones to call a mechanic. Kaela is awkwardly sitting in front of Zephyr and Caroline and they make small talk, with Zephyr revealing he’s an artist, while Caroline reveals that she is a wildlife ecologist. When Maggie and Kaela leave, Maggie still has a frog hand and leaves frog goo on Zephyr’s hand and a drinking glass. Harry mentioned earlier in the episode that the goo is fatal to humans, so when Zephyr and Caroline collapse, this reveals that they are human and not magical.

Meanwhile, Harry uses the full disclosure spell to reveal the initials on the purchase history list, which are revealed to be “DBV”. When Harry uses the dried blood on the list to go into the Veil, he finds Dexter Vaughn there, Macy and Maggie’s biological father. Dexter explains to Harry that he bought half of the Unity Bowl as it can undo any curse and he thought it could remove the Necromancer’s curse placed on Macy, so he, Marisol, Macy and Maggie could be together. Dexter also tells Harry that there’s a hooded figure in the Veil that will try to steal his lifeforce. Dexter gives Harry some details about the Unity Bowl relating to an ultimate power, but before he can explain more, the hooded figure starts attacking them.

Meanwhile, Earl makes his way to SafeSpace. While Mel & Ruby try and sneak away from him, his clone surprises them. Mel manages to get them to the Blue Camelia, however they get a similar negative welcome to Maggie’s welcome from the shop owner at the beginning of the episode. A brawl between the patrons breaks out about the Charmed Ones, ending when Roxie uses a failsafe button to extinguish all the candles and smoke everyone out. When Mel tells Roxie that she came to the Blue Camelia to hide out from Earl and help Ruby, she lets them stay on the condition that they clean up the mess from the brawl.

Meanwhile, Maggie makes an antidote to the frog goo for Zephyr and Caroline using a mortar and pestle, and other magical ingredients that Kaela has manifested (offscreen, very disappointing). When Maggie complains about the fact that she still has the frog hand, Kaela suggests there may be an emotional reason behind it, since their powers are emotion-based, but Maggie dismisses her. After Maggie gives Zephyr and Caroline the antidote and they come to, Kaela finally tells them that she’s their daughter. While they acknowledge that Kaela would have questions about why they gave her up, she instead asks to get to know them.

Meanwhile, Earl makes his way to the Blue Camelia, and while Roxie and Mel initially think they killed him, they only killed his clones and his powers have advanced. They hide to buy themselves time and they come up with a plan, involving Mel and Roxie mimicking Ruby’s voice to divide and conquer Earl and his clones. Mel and Roxie succeed in killing the clones, whilst the real Earl sneaks up on Ruby and stabs her. As Earl goes on a rant about saving Ruby from the Charmed Ones, Ruby sneaks up on him and stabs him, the Blindaje doll saving her from death.

Towards the end of the episode, Ruby tells Mel that she just wants to be friends and that she should make a move on Roxie as she is clearly into her. Back at the Manor, Maggie records and publishes her own GemCast detailing how the Charmed Ones risk their lives every day for everyone in the magical community, not to believe the lies being broadcast, and encouraging everyone listening to get to know her. Moments after she publishes it, her frog hand disappears.

The episode ends with Harry still in the Veil, his body deteriorating, and Dexter (whose body ended up lying next to Harry’s with no explanation) somehow coming back to life.

As mentioned at the start of my review, I felt this episode was an improvement but still had some flaws present. I felt it was an improvement as the subplots were more compelling, although it’s a little unfortunate that was one of those subplots revolved around a recurring character, Ruby, rather than one of the leads. I’ve got nothing against Ruby at all, and if anything, this character development should have happened in the previous season, but it is a little concerning that the writers felt the need to focus so heavily on a recurring character rather than the leads, especially at this point in the season. However I did appreciate the exploration of the consequences of the GemCasts on the Charmed Ones’ associates.

In regards to Kaela’s subplot, I appreciated that she finally met her biological parents but I was also disappointed that their reasons for giving up Kaela were never revealed. Kaela wanting to know who her biological parents are but not why they gave her up wasn’t realistic, and this choice was a disservice to her character, who has barely been developed beyond surface level. We’ve only got five episodes left of the season and the only things we know about Kaela are that she’s an artist, bisexual, a cancer survivor, and she has a manifestation power that hasn’t been seen for at least the last two episodes (perhaps longer). While these facts about her are interesting, this is only the tip of the iceberg and I’m hoping the writers will dig deeper with her, especially with her importance in the show. The only positive I can take from this subplot in this episode is that it adds another layer to the mystery – if Kaela is not biologically related to Mel and Maggie, and if she’s magical with human parents, how and why was she chosen to be a Charmed One?

I also appreciated another Harry-Maggie pairing, even if it was only brief. I also appreciated that she helped Kaela in this episode, building on from her helping Harry in the previous episode, as her ability to help others was greatly contrasted with her inability or perhaps unwillingness (or maybe a little bit of both) to deal with her own emotional issues, which have been present throughout the season.

Hopefully the remaining episodes continue to improve.

Stray Observations:

-Harry says at the beginning of the episode that the Unity Bowl was last sold a decade ago, but when he reads the purchase history list, the last purchase was made in 2015 (7 years ago).

-Jordan doesn’t appear in this episode.

-Ruby was born on 16 November 1995.

-I wondered whether Mel taking the original Book of the Shadows from the past would cause problems there until Mel mentioned that she’d have to put it back. While that quickly answered that question and prevented a continuity error, it did raise another question as to why she hasn’t taken the opportunity to write down or photocopy some of the spells from the Book while she has it.

Best one liners and interactions:

• “Welcome to the busted hands club!” (Kaela to Maggie on her still healing reattached thumb and Maggie’s frog hand from her mimicking the shop owner’s powers)