I usually write my Woke Charmed recaps on Sunday or Monday because those are the days of the week I’m typically free. However, with Mother’s Day this weekend, I found myself having to actually go out of my house and interact with other humans (the horror) both Sunday and Monday this week, which left me with little time or energy to recap an episode. But since I’ve noticed several people in the comments as well as on Discord mentioning that they’re having trouble keeping track of all the characters, I thought this would be a good time to pause and give you all a quick guide to the characters we’ve met so far. Hopefully this will help you all get a handle on who the hell I’m talking about, plus give me a week to let my brain rest before diving back into the insanity.

The Magical Main Characters

Macy Vaughn

Also Known As: The Brainy One
Age: 28
Race: Afro-Latina (not really)
Profession: Genetic engineer at the Generic Science Lab
Power: Telekenesis

The oldest of the three Charmed sisters, Macy has a different father than the other two (not that any of them have a father, really) and is half Black. The other two sisters didn’t know she existed until the first episode. A major theme in her story so far is “why did Mom give me up,” even though she was raised by her birth father and therefore the answer is obviously “Dad didn’t want me being around Mom for some reason” (maybe because she used a bong around her children). Macy is a socially-awkward super-genius who always has a scientific solution to every problem. She is a model minority. Her expertise is “science” that uses kitchen ingredients. She is possibly still a virgin.

Melanie “Mel” Vera

Also Known As: The Bitchy One
Age: 25?
Race: Latina (really)
Profession: Graduate student
Power: Freezing time

Mel is the middle sister, though until the arrival of Macy she believed she was the oldest of two. She’s a lesbian. She’s played by the worst actress of the three but is the top-billed one and seems to be getting the meatiest plot lines. She’s a lesbian. She’s a radical feminist who is getting either her master’s or Ph.D. in women’s studies. She’s a lesbian. She has a hot temper and clashes frequently with her sisters, with their Whitelighter, Harry, with the Elders, with random people on the street, etc. She’s a lesbian. She has a Puerto Rican flag in her bedroom. I don’t remember if I mentioned it already, but she’s a lesbian.

Maggie Vera

Also Known As: The Slutty One
Age: 19?
Race: Latina (not really)
Profession: Alleged college student
Power: Mindreading

Maggie is the youngest sister. She’s a freshman, but possibly has been a freshman for more than one year, since in the first episode someone mentioned she worked in the dining hall last semester. She’s a stereotypical “bimbo” character with a heart of gold. She’s consistently flunking out of her classes and almost getting kicked out of her sorority. The struggle is real. The show routinely points out that she’s a millennial, even though all of the sisters are millennials and Maggie is actually on the line between millennial and Gen Z. She likes to use her cell phone. She’s also all about makeup, hair, clothes, hooking up with as many penises as possible, and hanging around with the popular crowd.

Harry Greenwood

Also Known As: HI I’M BRITISH
Age: Some kind of ghost. Born 1920, died 1957.
Race: HI I’M BRITISH
Profession: Whitelighter, Women’s Studies professor
Power: Mansplaining

Harry (I found his last name on the Charmed Wiki, but I closed out right after confirming his age because I could see spoilers and I want to be surprised by this idiocy) is what’s known as a Whitelighter. He’s some kind of guardian/teacher for witches. What this translates to is basically he bosses the girls around. This is a feminist reboot, right? Harry is a ghost, but he can eat, drink, use the bathroom, hold a job, and be seen by regular humans as well as witches. You may not have noticed, but Harry is British. He also dresses like he stepped straight out of a PBS historical drama, even though supposedly when he died he lost all his memories, so why he still dresses like it’s 1957 still is kind of unclear. He likes to drink tea, Earl Grey, hot, out of his prized Royal Doulton. I don’t remember if I mentioned it already, but he’s British.

The Non-Magical Secondary Characters

Niko Hamada

Also Known As: I don’t think I ever gave her a codename
Who the hell is she and why does she matter: She’s Mel’s girlfriend
Age: Looks 23. Wikipedia says her actress is 27.
Race: NOT CHINESE
Profession: Detective

 

Niko comes in two models, With Glasses and Without Glasses. Apparently the glasses were fake and she wore them in an attempt to get people to take her seriously. Ironically, the glasses make her look younger, so it had the opposite effect for me. Niko’s backstory is a little confusing: She used to work for the Lakeview PD in a town about an hour away from Hilltowne, and she was engaged to a woman named Gretchen. However, when she met Mel, she broke up with Gretchen and transferred to Hilltowne to be closer to Mel. What I want to know is how Niko and Mel met. Was Niko on Scissr looking for a side piece? The world may never know. In the last episode, Mel rewrote history so that the two of them never met in order to protect Niko. However, Niko’s actress is confirmed to return in season 2, so obviously that doesn’t go according to plan.

Galvin

Also Known As: Friendzone
Who the hell is he and why does he matter: He’s Macy’s coworker and not-boyfriend
Age: 30?
Race: Black
Profession: Genetic engineer at the Generic Science Lab

Galvin is played by a guy named Ser’Darius. That’s about all I got.

Lucy

Also Known As: Regina George
Who the hell is she and why does she matter: She’s the president of Maggie’s sorority
Age: 21?
Race: White
Profession: Bitch

Lucy is the president of Kappa Tau Kappa. She is a walking stereotype of every bitchy cheerleader and sorority girl from every TV show and movie made over the last 40 years. The only thing she’s missing is a football player boyfriend named Biff. She is so similar to the true star of the movie Mean Girls that I have given up even trying to differentiate them. She even hangs around with carbon copies of the Plastics. Her eyebrows are permanently in the “surprised” position and she is a classically trained master of vocal fry. All of this and I still like her better than the main characters of this show.

Parker

Also Known As: Days of Our Lives Guy, Connerparkerdude
Who the hell is he and why does he matter: He’s Maggie’s…love interest? And Lucy’s (now ex-)boyfriend
Age: 21?
Race: White
Profession: Hipster

I can’t ever remember this guy’s name. From a young age, his dad made him and his siblings read classical works of literature and discuss them over dinner. This made Parker turn out exactly how you would expect.

The Magical Tertiary Characters

Charity Callahan

Also Known As: Silence!
Who the hell is she and why does she matter: She’s the only one of the Elders (Silence!) that we’ve met so far
Age: 40-something?
Race: White
Profession: Capitalist
Power: Shutting people up

She wears white pant suits with sequins on them like some kind of goddamn Elvis impersonator. She also watches HGTV while on the treadmill and is the CEO of an investment company that uses micro-loans to help women in developing nations start their own businesses, thus tackling poverty and inequality through ethical, female-focused capitalism. Maggie exposited that probably she and Harry have or had some kind of romantic connection.

Marisol Vera

Also Known As: Dead Hippie Mom
Who the hell is she and why does she matter: She’s the Charmed Sisters’ mother and was one of the Elders (Silence!)
Age: 40-something?
Race: White Hispanic
Profession: Corpse
Power: Seeing the future

Used to be the head of the Women’s Studies Department before shuffling off this mortal coil. Let her elementary school-age children play with her bong. Hear her, she has three.

Angela Wu

Also Known As: Mysterious Coma Girl, Virgin Vampire, Harbinger of Hell, Demon Girl, Samara
Who the hell is she and why does she matter: Instigated a harassment suit against a professor who turned out to be a demon, which got Marisol killed. Fell into a mysterious, allegedly drug-induced coma. Emerged from coma possessed by the strongest demon in the underworld
Age: 21?
Race: Asian
Power: Feasting upon the blood of virgins

Has had the most code-names on this show so far. For being a minor character, has actually had a pretty big impact on the actual plot. Managed to survive being possessed by the strongest demon in the underworld while Niko’s detective partner died from getting gently bopped on the head by flying debris.

Honorable Mentions

Here are some white guys that are sort of important but I’m having trouble telling them apart so

This guy’s a demon

This guy’s also a demon

This is Niko’s dead partner, government name Trip Bailey

Okay, that’s it! Now I don’t want any more bitching from you people that you can’t keep the characters straight. Don’t expect me to enact your labor again!

And I’ll be back next week with an actual recap, I promise!