Category: Reviews

It’s that time again! I hope you all have a drink ready. I am not drinking today, but that’s okay because I’m currently high on cold meds and not sure what’s happening around me anyway. This may explain why I have absolutely no clue what happens in this episode. Maybe it would make more sense to me if my brain wasn’t marinating in a bath of mucus. Or maybe if I was functioning this would be even worse. The choice is yours!

We begin with a flashback to Before. Before their mom died, Before their powers awakened, Before Angela Wu fell into a Mysterious Coma and emerged possessed by a demon that feeds on the blood of virgins. Angela has come to Woke Feminist Mom with a report that Professor Rapey McRaperton has done something naughty to her, and she would like to consequently destroy him. Woke Feminist Mom offers her some “medicinal” herbs in a mug and tells Angela that she has her full support. She warns Angela that Professor McRaperton will undoubtedly frame this as a witch hunt, because, quote, “That’s what scared men do.”

Angela is concerned about reporting anything because apparently Professor McRaperton is a world-famous geneticist whose discoveries have saved lives, which makes her feel as though she’s accusing Santa Claus of sexual harassment. (An odd comparison to make, since as I said before, McRaperton definitely resembled Jack Frost as portrayed by Martin Short, not Santa Claus. He was bony and angular, not jolly and round.) This left me with a lot of questions: McRaperton was shown to be a demon, not be possessed by one the way Maggie’s ex-boyfriend had been. So why would he be interested in doing Science that saves human lives rather than secretly unleashing plagues on the human population?

The flashback ends with Mel and Woke Feminist Mom assuring Angela that if she decides to take on McRaperton, they will be there for her and she won’t ever be alone. Now, in the present day, Angela has evolved into Samara Form and is screeching like a banshee while chained in the sisters’ attic. Mel ruminates that having her under guard 24/7 isn’t what she had in mind when she promised Angela she wouldn’t be alone. But, hey, at least you technically didn’t lie!

The sisters convene in the kitchen (excuse me, you’re not supposed to leave Demon Girl unsupervised? So unless Harry is up there, one of you should not be in this room) about how this babysitting assignment is seriously cramping their style. Mel says, completely straight-faced, “I blame the President.” [Side note: I am so used to this nonsense by now that I didn’t even register her saying this until the second time I watched it.] Maggie reveals that she’s failing her classes, to which Macy responds, “You’re taking classes?” Correct response, Macy. Maggie is offended by this flippancy, however — after all, if she fails she gets placed on academic probation, and if she’s on academic probation, she won’t be allowed to be in Kappa!

Macy decides she’s had enough, so she calls Harry. Oh, okay. So no one’s watching the demon, then. All right. Macy wants to know where the actual hell the Elders (Silence!) are. Harry tells her that they’re busy analyzing a 5000-year-old prophecy, as if this is something they can’t do; 1. After they’ve collected the demon and brought it to Witch Jail, or 2. In the attic while babysitting her themselves.

I don’t believe in the Elders at this point. I don’t believe they’re real. I think Harry made them up and hired Orson Welles to portray them as a red herring.

The doorbell rings, but it’s not the Elders — it’s Niko and her detective partner. They’re here as part of their ongoing investigation into the disappearance of Angela Wu following her emergence from her Mysterious Coma. The sisters scramble to get rid of them before they decide to investigate the attic and find Samangela waiting for them. Unfortunately, they are the worst liars in the goddamn universe, so all they manage to do is make the cops more suspicious. Luckily for the sisters, they are rescued in the nick of time by the absolute most insufferable blonde woman, who is pretending to be an interior designer there to help the sisters renovate their attic. The obvious lie here would be to say that they wanted to convert it to an apartment to take in renters for extra income since, you know, who’s paying their mortgage now that Mom and her tenured faculty position are gone? But of course they pretend that they just want to redecorate it in Minimalist Scandinavian Farmhouse style to use as a chic winter den, and Niko apparently buys this.

Once the cops are gone, the woman reveals that she’s one of the Elders, because of fucking course she is. Of course the Elders are a group of quirky middle-aged women in white sequined pantsuits who watch HGTV on the treadmill and don’t appreciate being called Elders because that implies they’re old. Also, in her spare time, when she’s not being queen of the witches, this woman (Charity — seriously, her name is Charity) isn’t actually an interior designer, but rather 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.

Real dialogue alert: That was the real dialogue.

Mel wants to get right down to business and asks how they go about saving Angela. Charity replies that Angela can’t be saved — she needs to be killed, tonight, during the full moon, using a set of ritual killing sticks sacred daggers that she pulls from her Prada handbag.

Mel and Maggie try to protest this in hushed whispers while Charity inspects the demon in this weird perky way that kind of looks like she’s frolicking around it. I really can’t emphasize enough how much this show is filmed like a cartoon. Harry isn’t interested in their arguments, however, because he’s too busy trying to impress Charity. I don’t know if he’s angling for a slot in the Elders or if he’s just a brownnoser, but this is also just too over the top. He explains to the girls that the Elders are like royalty and must be deferred to. Mel tells him to take his monarchist bullshit and shove it, and for once I actually agree with her.

Charity informs the sisters that there’s no time to waste — another Elder has been killed, the third since the girls’ mother. The sisters protest that Harry didn’t tell them she was an Elder, and Harry says he did during his speech in the first episode. I’m with Harry on this one: I remember him saying that. They say he wasn’t clear enough, but he definitely said that was the second part of the prophecy, remember? Step one: Trump, step two: senior witches killed, step three: apocalypse. However, when Harry tries to remind them of that, Charity mutes him. Now his mouth can move forever, but no voice will come. LOL, isn’t she the best? She knows when those menfolk need to just shut their traps. Don’t all wish we had that power, ladies? Turn that mansplaining right off.

With Harry now duly silenced, Mel argues that if Charity was friends with their mom, she’d know that she would never give up on saving Angela. Why can’t they do an exorcism? Charity explains that in order for an exorcism to work, there has to be a soul still in the body, but the Harbinger is so powerful that surely Angela’s soul must already be dead or evicted from the body or whatever. Macy finds this reasonable and agrees they need to kill Angela. Mel wants to do everything they can to try to save her. And thus the series formula continues. Is it Mel’s turn to be right this week?

Meanwhile, Niko and her detective partner are discussing the girls’ shitty lying during their interview. The partner indicates he thinks they were up to something because they were so jumpy. Niko brushes him off as absurd: “Mel gets nervous around cops — as plenty of people of color do. Plus, she hates guns.”

Real dialogue alert: That was the real dialogue.

Once Niko has finished educating her partner on his white privilege, we find Maggie in class, where the professor is lecturing the students on the very first line of Dante’s Inferno seconds before dismissing them, as you do. Regina George is also in the class, but she doesn’t sit with Maggie. She sits with her boyfriend, Conner or Parker or whatever his name was. Somehow Maggie managed to make it as far as midterms without ever noticing this guy or that he’s dating Regina George, the sorority president she’s been stalking for three months. She gazes longingly at him while the professor reminds them all that their midterm is on Friday and is worth 50% of their class grade. (Holy shit? Does that make the midterm worth more than the final, or is the grade in their class literally only the midterm and the final, in which case how is she flunking?)

After the class, Regina George skips over to Maggie and starts acting uncharacteristically nice. If she was like this all the time, I would see why Maggie is so invested in joining her sorority. She makes chit-chat with her about class and homecoming like a normal human being, and then when Maggie says she can’t help with the Kappa homecoming float due to her need to study for the midterm or risk academic probation, she calls her boyfriend over and asks if he could tutor her, since he’s one of Those Guys who like to sit around reading classic literature and sipping coffee while dressed in all black. Connerparkerdude is all too happy to oblige, IYKWIMAITYD.

Over at the Generic Science Lab, Macy is looking through a microscope at… something… that moves and changes while she looks at it. I have no clue what it is or where she got it or what its relevance to the episode is. When she exclaims, however, Friendzone (who appears to be back in the Friendzone after last week’s potential deflowering) asks her what’s wrong, and she attempts to distract him with a thought experiment: If you had to kill one person in order to prevent an entire town from potentially dying, which would you choose? Ah, the old Life is Strange dilemma. To Macy, the choice is obvious: kill the cunt! However, Friendzone disagrees — she said POTENTIALLY dying, which means there’s a chance they won’t die, in which case she should do everything possible to save both the one person and the town, and Kobayashi Maru this shit! Macy is flabbergasted by his lack of scientific objectivity, but also attracted to his James T. Kirk-as-portrayed-by-Idris Elba (the way it was always meant to be) style of “never say die.”

Back at the house, Mel finds a spell in the Book of Shadows that lets her reveal the soul inside the Harbinger’s host. For a moment, the demon form peels away with a really bad CG effect. The inner Angela Banana inside the nasty old roten peel begs Mel to help her, before the Harbinger takes over again. Mel now knows that Angela’s soul is still trapped inside her body, and though the demon vows that she will never get her back, Mel is the brightest witch of her age, so…

Mel runs downstairs to where Charity is on the phone with one of her investors, admonishing them that her corporation isn’t just about the bottom line, it’s all about fostering a community of wamen supporting wamen. When she gets off the phone, Mel tells her about the spell she just performed which showed that Angela is still alive. Charity acquiesces that while she may have been wrong about the status of Angela’s soul, that doesn’t change the calculus: the ritual killing must proceed as planned.

Calculus…?

Mel tells her calculus (no, really, they said calculus) be damned, what happened to wamen supporting wamen? Charity tells her to fuck off and takes away her voice so that Mel can’t attempt an exorcism. She gives it back when Mel agrees to not perform the exorcism, though, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Mel scrambles to rally her sisters to attempt the exorcism before the Elders can impose the ritual killing. She somehow manages to get Angela into the trunk of her car and goes to pick up Maggie, but before they can collect Macy, they notice Niko’s detective partner is tailing them. Mel decides to freeze time so they can escape, even though this will make it appear as though the car disappeared into thin air to the detective, because neither of them can think of a more suitable solution. Now detective partner is suspicious that Something Fishy is Going On.

Macy gets back to the house where she confers with Charity and Harry about the thing she saw at the lab, which I guess was the Harbinger’s murder spit or something. It apparently is similar in structure to smallpox, only much more dangerous because it kills instantly. Okay. She, Charity and Harry enter the attic with the ritual killing sticks, only to find Angela, Mel and Maggie gone. Maggie has brought them to a secret location, the place where the Kappa homecoming float is being constructed, and the two of them attempt to find an exorcism spell in the Book of Shadows. How they plan on making this work without Macy there to give them the Power of Three, I have no clue. Harry zips in, I guess having used his handy-dandy Witch Seeking powers, and Mel tells him about the revealing spell she performed which showed that Angela is still alive, trapped inside her own body. She also tells him that she blames herself for Angela’s situation because she talked Angela into reporting Professor McRaperton, the stress of which led to her OD’ing which is how she wound up in the Mysterious Coma.

Seriously? It wasn’t a mysterious coma, it was just a regular, drug-induced coma? That she fell into the night before testifying against Professor McRaperton? I thought we were going to get more plot intrigue than this, guys, come on.

Back at the house, Charity is telling Macy that her sisters are overly emotional, but that Macy, being a pure logical Vulcan, is a natural born leader — like her mother. Macy asks if her mother ever told Charity about her. Charity says no, but that many years ago her mother had asked Charity if she could perform a spell on her that would remove all of her pain and grief regarding a particular loss, and Charity believes that was the loss of Macy.

Up to this point, the discussion around Macy has been centered on, “Why would Mom give you up?” But literally no one has as of yet factored into the conversation the part where Macy had a dad — by all accounts her birth dad — who raised her and told her that her mother was dead. This screams “unamicable divorce” to me, but everyone keeps treating it as if Macy was put up for adoption. I don’t know why I’m still expecting this show to make any sense, but okay.

Speaking of not making sense, Macy excuses herself after this and somehow winds up over at the mystery location where Maggie and Mel are with Harry, Angela, and the Kappa homecoming float. She tells them she’s decided she wants to help, and she’s sorry she accused them of being overly emotional. She admits that she’s built up this logical Vulcan façade as a protection measure against… life or something, but I guess since it turns out that their mom had emotions, she can have emotions too. Or whatever.

As the sister join hands, the Book of Shadows opens to a previously hidden spell written specifically for the three of them in their mother’s handwriting. “It’s in Spanish,” Mel says.

“She wrote this spell for us,” Mel says. “But why?”

“So you three would find it,” says Harry.

Wat?

They get the items needed for the spell together, including an empty paint can to contain the Harbinger’s primordial form (it was either that or a crushed beer can). The only thing they need is antibacterial gloves from Macy’s lab in order to keep them from catching the supernatural smallpox. As Macy leaves to go get the gloves, Connerparkerdude shows up with a box of fireworks for the float. Maggie thought it would be a good idea to take Angela there to do the spell why? He tells her she’s smarter than she knows or some other such contrived bullshit designed to get into her pants. They start making out. What a great Kappa sister Maggie is going to make! What a great boyfriend Connerparkerdude is!

When she goes back inside, Angela has just finished breaking out of her chains and is preparing to eat Harry’s face. Maggie quickly summons Charity, who uses some kind of purple lightning whip to re-trap Angela. She attempts to hand the sisters their ritual killing sticks, admonishing them that as soon as the moon is completely risen, the Harbinger will be unstoppable. But the sisters, having plenty of time to waste on theatrics, solemnly shake their heads and refuse to take the daggers. Mel gives her a ham-fisted speech about “You knew our mom, trust her,” and Charity tearfully nods, dropping the daggers to the ground.

Thus ensues the most cornily filmed scene of this entire show (so far). Hipster music begins playing, the girls say the spell, Angela begins thrashing, all complete with weird close-ups and jerky camera and slooooowwwww motiooooooon to try to distract from the fact that the effects on this show are effing TERRIBLE. Maggie lays her hands on Angela and begins psychically telling her to come out and it’s just so freaking corny, guys. “I’m not strong enough!” “No, Angela, that’s not your story!” *gag*

In the midst of this, detective partner shows up, looks through the window, sees lightning and a tornado and a demon coming out of Angela Wu’s mouth and thinks that the correct solution is to burst in with his gun drawn. Charity uses her magic to make his gun disintegrate, and he watches the exorcism, jaw dropped. So I’m thinking, “Okay, the detective guy knows about magic now, this is an interesting twist! Will they wipe his memory? Will he continue to be a thorn in their side all season, gradually uncovering the existence of magic? Will he somehow have something to do with Niko eventually learning about Mel’s powers?”

LMAO no. Because the camera pans to Angela puking out the demon, and when that’s done, they pan back and SUDDENLY THE DETECTIVE IS DEAD. WHAT? There’s a lead pipe across his chest. When did this happen? How did this happen? What killed him? Did the pipe hit him in the head or something? Like in the wind? But when the shitty special effects were going, the wind literally looked like it was just blowing confetti around. There did not appear to be anything dangerous flying around!

Charity says she’ll handle it, and the girls flee. Later Charity meets Mel in the attic and informs her that she disposed of his body in a way that will remove suspicion from the girls. Mel blames herself, but not enough to be sad about it for more than 15 seconds. Charity sends her downstairs, where she bonds with Angela, who has no memory of anything that happened over the last week, but is confident that whatever happened to her (she thinks she just had random blackouts from the time she woke up from her coma until now), she got through it because of these awesome sisters. Also, she seems to have no trouble adjusting to the existence of Macy, who was not there the last time she was conscious.

Episode wrap-up: More hipster music wails, Harry complains about tea because BRITISH, Maggie waggles her eyebrows and insinuates that Harry and Charity have a Thang going on, Charity takes the paint can to the mysterious other Elders (Silence!) and warns that there will be consequences for violating their orders even though she told them it was okay, Connerparkerdude comes over for Maggie’s tutoring session and she sends him away because Their Love Is A Mistake That Must Not Be Repeated Even If It Means She Fails World Lit, the girls all congratulate themselves on being the Best Witches Ever and that Mom Would Be So Proud, Niko comes over weeping that her partner hanged himself after evidence linking him to the Halloween murders emerged and she’s so upset because she thought he was her friend and Mel just stands there like a statue not reacting at all while her poor girlfriend is sobbing her eyeballs out, fuck this stupid show.

The episode ends with Charity in some?? Building?? With fluorescent pink and blue lighting?? I have no clue what this building is supposed to be or why she’s there??? She’s on a cell phone prattling to some other witch about how amazing the Charmed Ones are, they’re basically the best witches ever, while cradling the paint can with the Harbinger in it. Why? WHY NOT?!?!?!?! Some dude gets on the elevator with her and is like, “Would you mind” — glowing eyeballs — “switching paint cans with me?” And her eyeballs glow too and she just hands him the paint can with the Harbinger in it and off he goes.

Fin.

WHAT THE HELL IS HAPPENING ON THIS SHOW? WHO WROTE THIS? THIS READS LIKE THE SORT OF SHIT I WROTE IN MY COMPOSITION BOOK IN SEVENTH GRADE! NOTHING MAKES SENSE! THE WAY PEOPLE REACT IS NOT REALISTIC AT ALL!

If I was more lucid, I would have a better wrap-up for you that more thoroughly dissects the fact that, just as with all SJW media, the characters on this show don’t seem to really make mistakes or face consequences for their actions, and this whole program seems to be a vehicle for feminist wish fulfillment where everyone thinks you’re awesome and even if some things go a little wrong, at the end of the day, you’re basically the best. But I don’t feel well enough for that. So, see you next week, guys!

The episode begins with the three sisters training in some sort of magical VR arena, and completely sucking at it. Maggie keeps stopping to text Regina George instead of paying attention to what she’s doing, which keeps leading to her getting stabbed by sharp projectiles. Fortunately, even though this is a simulation, she appears to really feel pain, which is good, because Jesus Christ, woman. I managed to pledge a sorority without being glued to my phone. It’s not that hard, really.

And it’s not just Maggie who’s being a great big failure. Macy, who had already “mastered” her powers thirty seconds after receiving them in the first episode, due to her advanced intellect and all, has now completely unmastered them. Apparently she is psyching herself out by overthinking everything. When she tries to lob a lead pipe at the simulated demon and fails, Mel decides she’s had enough of her sisters’ incompetence and whips out some kind of spell that makes the demon explode in a bright ray of light.

Before anyone is able to react to what Mel has just done, Harry appears and blows a whistle, ending the simulation. Apparently the spell she used is a Big No-No. When she smugly points out that she managed to kill the demon single-handedly, Harry counters that using that spell could have also killed her sisters. HA! As if Mel gives a shit about that, Harry. Nice try.

Mel retorts, “I’m a witch, Harry” — HA! HARRY POTTER REFERENCE! TOTALLY RELATABLE, RIGHT — and that she’s going to be the best witch in the world, no matter how hard the patriarchy tries to stop her.

Harry then launches into a speech about how the Harbinger of Hell is going to destroy the world, and they roll their eyes and walk away from him because that’s, like, so boring. Mel decides that she’s had enough of words; it’s time for action! She’s going to have to track down the Harbinger herself.

And the Harbinger may be closer than we think! Because, as you’ll remember from the last episode, Mysterious Coma Girl is now out of her coma. And she’s out for blood! And not just any blood — she needs a special kind of blood. Which is why she is lurking outside an MRA’s dorm room right now. There are posters with words like “Men Unite!” printed on them hangning on the wall, and he is busy recording a podcast: “Radical feminists have criminalized masculinity. They call it toxic. Why? Because they want all the power for themselves! And believe me, they have power. Some of these witches have more power than—”

Real dialogue alert: That’s the real dialogue.

Alex Jones, Jr. is cut off here by ravenous fangs to the throat. Because the Harbinger can’t survive on any ol’ kind of blood. It needs virgin blood. And we all know that any person spewing that kind of wrongthink is obviously an incel!

Back at the sisters’ house, Mel is in the attic asking Magical Siri The Book of Shadows how she can find the Harbinger of Hell. She is interrupted, though, by Niko, who I guess Mel forgot was sleeping over that night. The scissoring must have been quite forgettable. Niko says that Mel wasn’t in bed when her alarm went off, so she went looking for her. Mel fobs her off with some gratuitous lesbian liplock. They then go downstairs, where Macy is making eggs for breakfast the magical way, which looks a little something like that scene in Sleeping Beauty where the fairies have to use magic to bake Briar Rose’s birthday cake because they’re too inept to cook like humans. Niko walks in, nearly catching the levitating eggs, but Macy quickly drops them all to the floor, so now she just looks like a clumsy moron.

Mel hastens Niko out the door, lamenting that she doesn’t like keeping secrets from her. But there’s no time for that — she discovered a spell that will lure all demons within a 26-mile radius to them, and all they have to do is sacrifice a goat. Macy is Not Down for that. She has a better idea. A Scientific idea: MORE BAKING SUPPLIES! The black blob, after all, contained sulfuric acid, and everyone knows what happens when you combine sulfuric acid and sugar! At this point I’m convinced that the target demographic for this show is third graders, which is why they’re including so much elementary school “science”.

This turns out to be perfect, because it’s Halloween. The girls decide to hand out candy to everyone they come across on campus and see if anyone has a reaction to it. Macy offers to bake cookies as well so that she can ensure the sugar ratio is precise. Maggie will not be participating in this, though, because she has to go to work. Apparently she has a job, which she is using to pay her exorbitant Kappa fees.

At the café where she works, we see an angry old white man yelling at her for being out of chicken sandwiches. She explains that the delivery truck broke down, but the man is having none of her excuses. Luckily for Maggie, a white knight swoops in to save her. He is a very ugly person that I am pretty positive is Chelsea’s ugly boyfriend from Days of Our Lives circa 2008, but my sister is insistent that this guy is even uglier and also too young. Days of Our Lives boy drives off the offending misogynist with quippy one-liners and Grey’s Anatomy references, leaving Maggie’s genitals tingling. I guess this guy is her love interest now? What was the point of the other guy, then…?

Also at the café are Regina George and the other Plastics, sipping mimosas and discussing the school’s fascist booze ban and how it should be rescinded now that Mysterious Coma Girl is awake. If only they could find an off-campus venue for their Halloween mixer, so that Gretchen can wear her slutty baby costume without inhibition!

Luckily for them, Maggie is all too willing to oblige. She offers her family home up to the Kappas as tribute in order to make them like her again. This will definitely go fine and not have any unintended consequences.

Meanwhile, on campus, Mel is handing out Macy’s cookies to anyone and everyone who passes her by, in regular, vegan, and gluten-free varieties. When a student walks into the classroom talking about Mysterious Coma Girl being out of her coma, Mel freezes time so she can grab his phone, which he had open to her Facebook page, so she can look at it for more information. Harry comes bursting in, telling her that she’s not supposed to be using her powers frivolously. This leaves me with a lot of questions: How big of a radius is her time-freezing? Does she freeze the whole world? When she freezes time, it has no effect on her sisters or on Harry. But what about everyone else? Does the whole planet freeze except for other witches, who then grind their teeth in aggravation when she’s freezing time every other minute?

Harry tells Mel he thought they agreed she wouldn’t use her magic so recklessly. Mel retorts that he mansplained to her that she shouldn’t use her magic, which she chose to ignore because she’s destined to be one of the greatest witches of all time and she needs to take some initiative. He tells her that if she’s not in the exact position she was in when she unfreezes time and someone notices she keeps moving irregularly and figures it out, it could cause a major issue in the magical world. She retorts that he’s being paranoid. Before he can keep arguing, she informs him that Mysterious Coma Girl has awakened from her coma, and she appears to have done so on the night they found the black ooze residue.

Harry: “She could be the Harbinger’s vessel!”

Mel: “Please do not take credit for my ideas, white man.”

Real dialogue alert: That’s the real dialogue.

Mel then informs him that since she has solved the mystery single-handedly, she will handle the demon single-handedly as well. Harry tells her this is a bad idea, she tells him to get fucked, so he places a bracelet on her wrist that will alert him every time she uses her magic so he can ensure that she’s not causing problems.

So… I guess… she doesn’t freeze the whole world? But just a radius of uncertain size. I feel like in the original Charmed there was an episode where Holly Marie Combs freezes the kitchen in her restaurant, but they show that people outside the kitchen aren’t affected. So I guess it’s something like that…?

Mel is enraged that he has slapped her with the equivalent of a patriarchal chastity belt, but as she is unable to do anything about it, there’s nothing to do but train her face back into its typical scowl and unfreeze time.

Over in the Generic Science Lab, Macy is watching Friendzone and some of their other coworkers goofing off in their Halloween costumes — a group DNA helix. The helix is missing cytosine, however, because the person who was supposed to be that called out sick. Friendzone asks Macy why she didn’t dress up, and when she says she was embarrassed, he makes her a cytosine sign, so that she can be part of their group.

SHE COMPLETES HIM! *gag*

He asks her out, she naturally rebuffs him and runs away. Outside, she calls Maggie and tells her what happened, which Maggie “Hilltowne Bicycle” Vera finds absurd. As they chat, Macy is stalked by Mysterious Coma Girl, aka the Virgin Vampire, but is saved by the distraction of a Christian Purity activist who will make a yummy snack, and then by the further distraction of Melanie “Demon Hunter” Vera waylaying her.

Mel and Mysterious Coma Girl/Virgin Vampire (known in her human form as Angela Wu) return to Angela’s dorm to catch up. Mel repeatedly offers her a cookie, baked from their mother’s secret recipe. Finally, Virgin Vampire realizes she’s not going to go away until she eats one. When she doesn’t explode or start coughing up blood, Mel determines that Angela can’t be the Harbinger’s host and leaves. Aha! But! As soon as she’s gone, Angela puts her arm… down her own throat… and pulls out the cookie… whole and unchewed. BUT I JUST SAW HER CHEWING IT! WHAT?

Once the cookie is disposed of, she goes to her mini fridge, where the MRA’s blood is neatly stored in water bottles, along with his head. You know. I guess in case she gets the munchies and wants his eyeballs for a snack.

Outside Angela’s dorm, Mel runs into Niko, who is checking up on the disappearance of MRA. She wants to know why Mel was visiting Angela, because at this point, due to Mel’s weird behavior of late, Niko has become convinced that Mel is running some kind of Nancy Drew investigation into her mom’s death, which had been ruled accidental by the Hilltowne PD. Mel assures her that she is not, and Niko says, “Then why do I get the feeling that you’re hiding something?” Mel freezes time so she can confess the truth to Niko’s frozen form. Harry gets a ping and comes zipping in to chew her out for using her powers frivolously again and reminds her that she’s not allowed to tell Niko she’s a witch, which makes the veins on Mel’s forehead start throbbing to the beat of “Closer” by Tegan and Sara.

Meanwhile, back at the house, Maggie is decorating for the mixer. It looks really cute, especially considering that the decorations were purchased on Halloween itself, when they should have been very difficult to come by. But Maggie is not satisfied. This will never impress Regina George. Because reasons…? It seriously looks cute. You’re not going to get better than this in terms of sorority party decor. Trust me. This is actually pretty impressive for a mixer where everyone’s sole focus is going to be getting as shitfaced as possible as quickly as possible. Nevertheless, Maggie decides the decor needs more oomph, so she starts digging through the Book of Shadows and comes across a glamour spell, which makes the decorations look… the same…? Maybe this is why I never made it anywhere in my sorority, since I can’t tell the difference between fancy decorations and regular decorations. Well, never made it anywhere beyond chapter vice-president and alumnae association president. Hmm.

Macy returns home with supplies to bake more cookies, but she’s starting to get fed up with having to stuff everyone she comes across with sugar and would like to fall back on Harry’s original plan for the Elders to be the ones to track the Harbinger. (They keep talking about the Elders, but at this point they have never appeared — are they in Hilltowne? Are they far away? Are they on another plane of existence? Are they even real at all? Does it turn out that, like Robin Masters, the Elders will be Harry all along? Regardless, whenever they talk about the Elders, my brain is like, “SILENCE!”) Mel, still pissed off at Harry about the chastity bracelet and the whole “You can never tell Niko you’re a witch” thing, screeches at her that the wamen don’t need a man for help, but Macy calls Harry anyway. Mel and Harry immediately start arguing, and when Macy asks what the deal is, Mel goes:

“Our Whitelighter, the head of the Women’s Studies Department, put a tracker on me to alert him when I use my magic because he’s threatened by the idea of a powerful woman.”

To which Harry responds:

“Now, hold on a minute. That last part is fake news.”

At which point my sister and I — she was watching this one with me for moral support — had to pause the episode so that we could howl like coyotes because are you kidding me? Why does Harry always get the stupidest lines? Answer: because he’s a penis.

In the midst of this witty repartee, Macy’s phone goes off. Friendzone texted her to say he’s looking forward to coming to her party that evening, and thanks for the invite. Macy realizes that Maggie must be up to something, and she flings open the front door to find…

…the house decorated, but not in an overtly supernatural way? I mean, there’s not candelabras hovering in midair or rooms that seem to expand in length as you stand in them. It’s just, you know. Heavily decorated.

Maggie descends down the stairs in a diaphanous purple prom dress, because I guess her Halloween costume is… prom dress? And informs her sisters that this is NOT a sorority thing, even though it looks that way; she was thinking that if they had a huge party that most of the campus attended and required everyone who enters to take a cookie, that it would be easier than chasing around all the undergrads on campus. Everyone, including Harry, grudgingly admits that this is a good idea, and it’s all systems go for the Halloween party.

During the party, Harry catches Maggie using the glamour spell and informs her that magic isn’t supposed to be used for personal gain. If she does it too often, it will throw the universe out of balance with dire consequences. Maggie naturally blows him off, because across the room she spots Macy in her costume.

SHE’S RUTH BADER GINSBURG!

Maggie has an absolute stroke and drags her sister upstairs to change her into something sexier. Macy is adamantly opposed to wearing anything that shows off too much skin. When Maggie demands to know what her problem is, the somber piano music starts playing. It’s time for a Serious Talk about Real Issues.

“When I was in ninth grade, my dad sent me to boarding school in Connecticut,” Macy tells Maggie. “In a class of a hundred kids, only two of us weren’t white. In that type of environment, you have to solidify what type of minority you were before they decided for you. So my friend Tasha became the sexy funny one, and I was always the smart serious one. I played that part for so long that I don’t know how to be anyone else.”

Actual footage of my sister and me here.

After we recover from this, Maggie informs Macy that she’s both serious and sexy, both smart and funny. Then she uses the glamour to turn Macy’s costume into a Greek goddess. After that spiel, I assumed that she was supposed to be Athena, goddess of wisdom. Then she comes downstairs and Friendzone surmises that she is Persephone, goddess of the underworld. I… okay? Friendzone, meanwhile, is dressed as James Bond, as portrayed by Idris Elba — the way it was always meant to be.

No, I’m not kidding around here. THIS IS THE REAL DIALOGUE. If there’s a message they want you to get, they will beat you over the head with a goddamn sledgehammer to ensure that you Get It, okay?

Friendzone asks her out, but before she can answer, Mel drags her away, screaming, “SISTER EMERGENCY!” Niko has been called away from the party to investigate the death of Purity Christian, and offhandedly mentioned to Mel on her way out the door that there had been three deaths on campus in the last twenty-four hours: MRA (I guess they found the rest of his body), Purity Christian, and a nun in the campus ministry. Mel has connected the dots and figured out that the Harbinger must be a Virgin Vampire. (Here is where she also spoon-feeds us the information that the MRA must have been an incel, even explaining what incel stands for, to ensure that YOU GET IT! YOU GOT THAT, RIGHT? GOT IT? OKAY? DID YOU UNDERSTAND? ARE WE CLEAR HERE? I JUST WANT TO MAKE SURE YOU REALLY UNDERSTAND THE JOKE—)

Fearing that there may be virgins present at the party, which is far too overcrowded for them to keep a good eye on, the sisters decide to place a protection ward around the house, which will keep the demon from entering the party. But as they split up to fetch the ingredients for the spell, Angela enters, dressed in a costume that Resembles-But-Is-Legally-Distinct-From Samara from The Ring. It is Too Late.

Harry and Mel scramble to get the exterior of the house prepped for the spell. As they do so, they bicker incessantly about wah wah chastity bracelet, wah wah you don’t understand me. Mel laments that it would be easier if she could tell Niko the truth about her magic, so that they could help each other with this whole Virgin Vampire thing. Harry says he’s sorry if he’s caused trouble between Mel and the woman she’s dating.

Mel is offended by his choice of words. “SHE’S MORE THAN THAT! I DON’T THINK YOU UNDERSTAND!!” She launches into a tirade that seems to start out as accusing Harry of being a homophobe, but then veers aburptly and morphs into, “I never had to be in the closet because my mom was the perfect tolerant hippie, but now by having to lie to my girlfriend, it’s like I’m in the closet.” She seems to be taking this as a sort of personal oppression that she is being forced through specifically because she’s a lesbian, despite the fact that her straight sisters are in the exact same boat.

Before Harry can respond, Maggie and Macy hurry out with the rest of the ingredients for the spell. They cast it… but it has no effect. You know what that means!

The sisters realize that the demon is already inside, and they’re going to have to lure it out. Macy has the perfect bait: how better to lure a Virgin Vampire than with… a virgin?!

Maggie: “OH MY GOD ARE YOU SERIOUS”

Macy leads her sisters into the Mysterious Woods, marking the trees with bloody handprints every few feet. As they go, they discuss this Shocking News that their 28-year-old sister is still a virgin. Mel chimes in that she had sex with a guy once, and that Macy isn’t missing much, conclusively proving once and for all that John Titor really is the writer of this show after all, and furthermore taking the “but does scissoring count” factor out of the discussion, thus rendering moot the necessity to explain Niko’s strap-on and which of them is the bottom in that situation.

Macy is understandably embarrassed, pointing out that part of the reason she doesn’t like to tell people she’s a virgin is because people react like this. Maggie and Mel are quick to defend themselves, with Mel asserting, “The concept of virginity is really just a tool of the patriarchy to control women’s sexuality.”

Real dialogue alert: That was the real dialogue.

They await the demon in a clearing in the woods, where Harry informs them that they will only get one chance at this binding spell and they can’t afford any juvenile mistakes. Everyone looks at Maggie. But then… Samara Angela arrives! At this point the show abandons any and all attempts to make this Resemble-But-Be-Legally-Distinct-From, and goes full-blown Ringu. The jerky walk, the hair over the face, it’s all there.

After a brief moment of “WTF” from Mel at Angela having eaten the cookie but still being the Harbinger somehow, the sisters quickly begin their binding spell. Buuuut when it gets to be Maggie’s turn, she passes out, on account of all the glamouring spells she’d done throughout the evening. Harry yells for Macy to run, and Virgin Vampire goes tearing after her.

Maggie comes to, and after a brief chiding from Harry, she turns off all the glamours she’d activated throughout the night. She reverts from Prom Queen to Sweatpant Chic. In the woods, Macy has reverted to Ruth Bader Ginsburg, which actually is probably easier to run in than the Greek goddess costume, especially since she can yank the robe off and reveal sweats underneath as well. An adrenaline-filled chase scene ensues, and then… Maggie hits Angela over the head with a log and she and Macy start talking about their goddamn feelings. Which means that Angela comes to right as Mel bursts into the clearing and sees Angela preparing to sink her fangs into Macy from behind while Macy and Maggie prattle like bimbos. Mel immediately launches into the Big No-No spell from the beginning of the episode, which Harry said could kill anyone in the vicinity of the demon, including her sisters.

Which means…

Harry uses his healing powers, which brings Macy back to life. Mel apologizes and… Macy immediately forgives her. NEAR-DEATH EXPERIENCE? NO WORRIES! IT’S ALL GOOD, SIS.

Angela, meanwhile, was knocked unconscious but neither she nor the demon possessing her are dead. Harry says that the Elders (Silence!) will want to weigh in, and instructs the girls to go clear out the house while he binds the unconscious demon. In a moment of uncharacteristic humility, Mel apologizes to Harry and says he was right, she was being reckless with her powers. Harry, being a spineless, flaccid penis in this Woke Feminist Programme™, immediately tells her that there’s no need to apologize, because she was right — she managed to bring down an immensely powerful demon single-handedly, she was the first to suspect Angela Wu to begin with (since, you know, she was the first one of the four to learn that Angela was out of her Mysterious Coma, which wasn’t exactly rocket science, but don’t take credit for her ideas, white man), and basically she’s the brightest witch of her age.

So, you know. No damage to Mel’s ego there.

Harry also reveals that the reason he’s so hard on her is because he has a Tragic Past: The first witch he supervised when he became a Whitelighter was similarly stubborn to Mel. She revealed her powers to someone she believed she could trust, and that person squealed like a dirty rat. The woman was sent to an insane asylum, believed to have schizophrenia, and eventually committed suicide. Mel insists that Niko isn’t like that, and Harry says that after the issue with the Harbinger is resolved, he will petition the Elders (Silence!) for permission to tell Niko the truth. He also removes the chastity bracelet.

Meanwhile, Macy and Maggie are back at the house. Macy immediately throws herself on Friendzone and begs him to deflower her so she doesn’t have to go through a life-threatening experience like that again. Maggie, on the other hand, has to do damage control because the house reverted to its original state and somehow the party-goers were sober enough to notice, by far the most implausible aspect of this episode. Regina George is predictably bitchy about it, but Maggie makes up some excuse about how it was supposed to be Cinderella-themed and everything changed back into a pumpkin at midnight, which is also why she’s now scrubbed out in sweats and has a wart on her chin. Regina George is apparently at least drunk enough to buy that, and Maggie’s Kappa status is preserved for another day.

As they chat, Days of Our Lives boy from the beginning of the episode shows up. (There was another scene with him and Maggie earlier in the party but it’s boring so I didn’t recap it.) Regina George promptly begins rubbing her scent all over him and informs Maggie that this is Parker, her boyfriend.

DUN-DUN-DUNNNNNNNNNN

After Mel finishes hanging her costume up in her closet (gratuitous shot of her bedroom so you can see the giant Puerto Rican flag she has hanging on her wall), the three sisters meet Harry in the attic, where Virgin Vampire/Harbinger/Mysterious Coma Girl/Angela Wu/Whoever the Fuck She Is is chained up, shrieking like a banshee. Harry tells them that the Elders (Silence!) are coming, but that they may be a while, so in the meantime, it will be the girls’ responsibility to guard her.

(Seriously, who the hell are these Elders? Where are they? Harry can just apparate in and out at the drop of a hat. These people were supposed to be close enough that they were able to be searching for the Harbinger’s vessel, right? So where the hell are they? Why is it going to take them a few days to get here? Why do they think it’s acceptable to just leave the most powerful demon of the underworld chained in some 20-something-year-old girls’ attic, especially considering that these girls clearly have no clue what the fuck they’re doing? Remember the 90s, when shows started with relatively low stakes and then built up to the “save the world” shit for the season finale?)

The episode ends with this charming image:

And there you have it! Woke Charmed, episode 3. After somewhat of a respite last week, it was refreshing to return to being spoon-fed social justice. Women’s rights are human rights? Anti-feminists are all incels? Notorious RBG? We’ve got it all! This show is still relevant, goddammit!

I haven’t seen all of next week’s episode yet because it was so stupid it made cerebrospinal fluid start leaking from my sinuses. So you can bet it will be a doozy! See you all then!

Hello, and welcome to episode 2 of Woke Charmed! If your brains weren’t bleeding already, they will be by the end of this!

We start out in the Generic Science Lab where in our last episode, the demon Taydeus met his foul end. (I forgot to mention this in the last recap, but the spell the girls used to destroy Taydeus was a bunch of garbled “Latin” that Number.6 kindly translated for me: “Your fear of Strong Women will be your undoing.” NOPE, NOT JOKING.) A janitor is mopping the floor and notices some sort of black blob on a nearby tray, which appears to be moving. The blob comes to life, attacking the janitor, going into her chest like it’s going to possibly possess her, then changes its mind, jumping out of her chest, and slithering into an air vent.

The episode then cuts to the sisters’ attic, where they are still sitting around the Ouija board that warned them about Harry at the end of the last episode. Harry appears behind them­—apparently whenever they say his name, it summons him. They jabber some excuse and he tells them that he will be on his way, but to please call him if they notice any signs of demonic activity, which includes fog, cold patches, random dog fornication, and presidential tweets. He also notices the Ouija board on the table and tells them they should leave it alone, due to the fact that spirit boards are notoriously vulnerable to demonic manipulation.

After the title card, Macy begins moving her things into the house, where she is apparently going to be living in their dead mom’s room. Maggie tells her that she’s completely welcome and that it’s not weird for her to take over their mom’s room, and then proceeds to forbid her from moving anything in the entire room. One of the objects Macy isn’t allowed to touch is a vividly painted bong, which apparently Maggie made for their mom when she was eight because they had a perfectly normal childhood. Throughout this scene of sisterly hijinks, Macy and Mel show off their powers while Maggie sulks that mindreading is a sucky power.

Mel then starts telling her sisters what she’s learned about spirit boards in the Book of Shadows. The book says that they’re a legitimate means of communicating with the spirit world, but Macy is still inclined to believe what Harry warned them. Being a Scientist, she decrees that they need to find Objective Evidence about the spirit board’s veracity. The Book of Shadows (or, as Maggie dubs it, “Magical Siri lol I’m a millennial I use technologyyyy”) opens to a page about truth serums. Mel thinks the truth serum is unnecessary because, being Mel, she immediately is jumping to the wrong conclusion. (This isn’t a spoiler, right? Like, we all already know how this is going to go.) She’s on Team Mom Is In The Ouija Board, Macy is on Team Harry Is Telling The Truth, which leaves Maggie as tiebreaker. Maggie sides with Macy, sending Mel into a classic fit of rage.

Macy and Maggie begin working on the truth serum while Mel rages. Maggie decrees that until they figure out whether he’s evil or not, Harry’s code name will be Meghan Markle. Get it? Because Harry is British, just like Prince Harry? Get it? Get it? Is this thing on?

Maggie then puts on a pair of gloves in the hopes of blocking her mindreading powers and heads off to a Kappa pledge event, in which they… are… visiting Mysterious Coma Girl (the witness from the first episode who wasn’t able to testify against Professor Rapey McRaperton because of her coma) in the hospital. This seems like an appropriate pledge event for a sorority that Coma Girl wasn’t even a member of. Regina George immediately zeroes in on the gloves and is a predictable bitch about them. And guess what! The gloves don’t even work. She takes Mysterious Coma Girl’s hand and her mind is filled with screaming.

At the Generic Science Lab, Macy is attempting to steal ingredients for the truth serum when she’s interrupted by Friendzone, who works there I guess? He tells her he’s been added to her team by the new person in charge of the project (I have literally no idea what’s going on in this lab), since Professor McRaperton resigned the day after getting reinstated—how weird, right? So weird. He also mentions the janitor who got attacked by the mysterious black blob the night before, which makes the processor in Macy’s brain start clicking and whirring. She grabs an empty test tube and scrapes residue from the black blob off the air vent.

The scene switches and suddenly… Maggie is making out with her ex-boyfriend? What? Did I miss a scene here? She tells him she needs him for stress-relief sex, but they are NOT back together, all right? But she can hear his thoughts, which makes properly getting off difficult, since his thoughts careen wildly from boobs boobs boobs to some other girl’s chin mole to broccoli farts to I love her so much I have to get her back. Is this truly the inner workings of the mind of an American male? The world may never know.

Mel is also planning some stress-relief scissoring with her ex, who I guess isn’t her ex anymore. While they work out the details of their lunch date, the Ouija board starts talking to Mel, who it definitely hasn’t figured out is the easiest mark in the house. It spells out “Melly,” which is PROOF! that it’s their mom’s spirit because that was her nickname for Mel! Duh!

Macy goes to the hospital, conveniently attached to the university (have I mentioned that Hilltowne appears to be a college campus, some houses and a police station? That’s IT in the entire town), to check on the janitor. She finds Harry doing some kind of magic to the janitor, which could be shady or innocuous. He explains that he was wiping the woman’s memory about the demon attack at the lab. Macy decides to not tell him about the black blob or the test tube sample.

Maggie comes home screeching about how sex has been ruined for her forever to find Mel being conned by Miss Cleo at the Ouija board. She knows it’s their mom! She knows!! It has to be!!!

In a moment of weakness, Maggie decides to sit down and have a chat with the board as well. Macy comes in like, “Dude, what the fuck?” but is interrupted by an arm shooting out from the board and grabbing Maggie around the wrists. Macy uses her powers to launch the board across the room, freeing Maggie from the arm, but also breaking the board. Mel goes predictably apeshit.

While Mel searches through the Book of Shadows for a way to repair the board, Macy tells her and Maggie about the janitor attack at the lab. She says she believes Harry was telling the truth and that the spirit board’s activities could be related to the demon. She wants to show Harry the test tube with the black blob sample. Mel argues that she doesn’t trust Harry (presumably because he’s a cis male) and that she trusts that the board is really their mom. Macy says she doesn’t want to do anything until they give Harry the truth serum, which she has prepared and stored in a silver Thermos. Mel accuses her of being a heartless bitch who doesn’t love their mother. Macy retorts that she is a Scientist who is objective enough to analyze data.

Their argument is interrupted by the appearance of Mel’s girlfriend (Niko), who has brought sub sandwiches and some tea in a silver Thermos.

I BET YOU CAN’T GUESS

She introduces herself to Macy, who sets her Thermos down on the table to shake hands with her. When Macy leaves, GUESS WHOSE THERMOS SHE TAKES???

Maggie says she will also be on her way, telling Mel that she’s going to look for a way to fix their mom’s s—ssssssewing machine! Niko is surprised that Mel is interested in taking up sewing, and Mel coolly informs her that she’s come to realize that not all domestic tasks are oppressive.

Real dialogue alert: That was the real dialogue.

Niko is so pleased by this that she gives Mel a gift: an original 1987 pressing of The Cure’s Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me, still sealed in plastic. The reaction Mel has to this is so incredibly fake that it gave me the fits. She instantly recognized what it was (some bitch could give me a sealed ABBA record and it would still take me a minute to figure out what I’m looking at) and was just like, “Aw, you shouldn’t have,” in this fake-ass voice like Britney Spears in “Oops! I Did It Again.” (Once I figured out what I was looking at, you can bet I would be screaming and jumping around clutching my ABBA record to my chest.)

Niko’s pager goes off and she has to return to the station, leaving Mel with her undeserved gift. Mel tells her to bring her handcuffs later (>insert stock “bow-chicka-wow-wow”) and after some more gratuitous lesbian liplocking, Niko leaves with the Thermos.

While waiting for Harry to arrive, Macy is on the phone with Friendzone talking about work stuff. Macy comments that it sounds loud on his end and he says everyone is freaking out because apparently the janitor has died. Macy gasps and Harry walks in holding GODDAMN ROYAL DOULTON (but no hand-painted periwinkles) BECAUSE HE’S BRITISH IN CASE YOU FORGOT! THEY ARE GOING TO HAVE A CUPPA! Harry brought china and Macy brought tea in a plastic Thermos.

Meanwhile, at the Hilltowne police station, Detective Niko begins making an ass out of herself during an interrogation. BET YOU DIDN’T SEE THAT ONE COMING! Such lovable hijinks on this show.

At the college, Macy waits for the truth serum to take effect on Harry. She’s going to be waiting for a while.

At the house, Mel and Maggie are trying to fix the Ouija board. Maggie feels bad that they fought with Macy. Mel doesn’t give a flying fuck.

Mel’s phone rings. It’s Niko, and she’s yelling everything that comes into her mind at the top of her lungs. Mel realizes she must have gotten the truth serum and runs to the station to collect her before she can do any more damage. On their way out the door, Niko yells at a man for sexually harassing his partner (who’s also a man, I guess she figures that gay guys, being cis males, can be sexual harassers too) and at another cop for microaggressing her by assuming she’s Chinese when she’s JAPANESE GODDAMIT!

Niko then informs Mel that she slept with her ex-fiancee while they were broken up. WHILE THEY WERE BROKEN UP. Mel blows a goddamn gasket and tells her that she doesn’t want that Cure album if it was just a guilt present, and she and Niko break up… again.

(BTW, I am astounded at all that Niko has managed to accomplish in her life. She looks like she’s 23 years old and she’s already a police detective and has been engaged, broken up with that fiancee, and been dating someone else long-term. Talk about an overachiever.)

Back at the house, Maggie has fixed the Ouija board and Regina George starts cuntily texting her. Maggie starts crying and says she wishes her mom could help her. The Ouija board comes to life and spells out Release me.

When Mel gets home, they follow the Ouija board’s instructions and perform a spell that breaks all the mirrors in the house. Their mom’s figure emerges from the board. They embrace, and she asks where Macy is. They say she’s with Harry, and their “mom” tells them that the reason she warned them not to trust Harry is because he’s the one who killed her, and he’s planning to kill them to take their powers.

At the campus, Macy, expecting the truth serum to have taken effect by now, asks Harry if he killed the janitor. Harry evades the question and asks her what she and her sisters are up to. Her phone starts going off with rapid-fire texts from Mel and Maggie telling her to come home now, don’t trust Harry, etc. Harry menacingly grabs her and they apparate to the sisters’ attic.

Harry sees the Ouija board on the table and asks what the girls did. He turns and sees their “mom” standing there. He tries to attack her, but Mel, who learned her social skills from Mags Visaggio, hits him over the head with a heavy object, knocking him cold.

Their “mom” has a moment with Macy while Harry lies unconscious on the floor. She tells them that the sisters have to retrieve the Prism of Souls, which Harry has hidden somewhere, which is the only thing that can protect them from him. They deduce that it’s hidden inside the antique mirror in their mom’s old office. The sisters hug their “mom” before they leave, and Maggie notices that she can’t read her “mom’s” thoughts.

The mirror has Latin inscribed on the rim. Mel pulls out her phone to translate it, but Macy, without a moment’s hesitation, tells them it means “The only way out is together.” When Maggie and Mel look at her in surprise, she says, “What? I’m a Scientist.” LMAO okay, we must live on Gilligan’s Island where the Professor is an expert in literally everything.

The three pass through the mirror into another dimension  filled with thousands of mirrors. They have to find the right one to get the prism and get out. As I’m sure you can deduce, they do this by using the Power of Three. Maggie is hesitant because she’s starting to have her doubts that their “mom” is really their mom, but Mel screeches at her that MAJORITY RULES, PUT YOUR HAND ON THE GODDAMN PRISM. When Maggie still hesitates, Mel grabs her hand and physically drags it to the prism. But this is definitely a healthy sisterly relationship, unlike those goddamn sorori—

Once they have the prism, she drags her back to the house as well, and they come through the front door to find Harry fighting with their “mom.”

It then turns into a classic “who do we trust” situation, with Harry urging the girls to realize that this is not their mother, and their “mom” correcting him, that they are WAMEN, not girls, and that they need to trust her. She reminds Maggie about the eight-year-old bong story, and Harry says that impostor demons are able to read minds, which is how she’s been able to answer all their questions and so accurately pretend to be their mom. Maggie is convinced now that this is not their mother. Macy, who had come around to thinking she was, comes back around and agrees with Maggie. Mel screeches at them that they are crazy, but the impostor demon slips up and says that Mel was always her favorite, which FINALLY convinces the bitch that this isn’t their mom, because their mom didn’t play favorites. Mel takes the knife that’s been supernaturally hovering between Harry and the demon and plunges it into the demon’s heart.

This doesn’t kill the demon, though—it can only be killed by seeing its reflection in a mirror, which conveniently broke when they released the demon. But that’s okay! Maggie and her cell phone come to the rescue! Maggie takes a selfie of the demon, which destroys it. Oh, those uncanny millennials!

In the aftermath, the girls and Harry talk it all over. Harry, realizing that this episode has been unforgivably low on wokeness, tells the girls, “You’re not the first to fall for an impostor demon. I’m pretty sure that’s how Brexit happened.”

HAHAHA! SO FUNNY! WHAT GREAT LINES! WHAT GREAT DIALOGUE! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

The girls give Harry back the prism, which has the power to take away their magic. Harry is surprised that Mel trusts him, but don’t worry—Mel tells him that even though she trusts him, she still hates him. Good old Mel, that predictably cunty Latina lesbian. We’ve never seen one of those before.

Macy gives Harry the test tube with the black blob residue, which Harry believes is what killed the janitor. Harry tells Maggie that the way to control her powers is to improve her own self-confidence, which will make her own internal voice louder to her than the voices of the others she encounters. The girls agree to no longer make decisions by majority rules, but to only do things if the decision is unanimous.

Maggie gives her sisters some unsolicited romantic advice, and then heads off to the campus where her ex-boyfriend is bussing a table. She breaks up with him… AGAIN.

Macy goes to Friendzone and apologizes to him for something. I’m not sure what she’s apologizing to him for? Since the last time she talked to him was when he told her about the janitor being dead, and it didn’t seem like they were fighting. Possibly for accidentally making a bottle fly across the bar with her rage magic in the first episode?

Mel calls Niko and…well, she doesn’t need to patch things up with her because Niko doesn’t remember anything that happened while she was under the influence of the truth serum, including telling her about sleeping with her ex-fiancee. Niko just remembers having a fever or something and saying weird things while delirious. So everything’s all good there, easy peasy!

Finally, Macy comes back to the house and finds that her sisters have cleared out the shrine to their dead mother in the master bedroom, allowing the room to become totally her own.

As Maggie takes possession of her beautiful pastel bong, Harry comes zipping in to inform them that the Whitelighter Lab (I guess they have one of those) has analyzed the black goo sample and recognized it as belonging to the Harbinger of Hell, Part 3 of the prophecy from the Book of Shadows (remember—Part 1: Drumpf, Part 2: Dead Mom, Part 3: Hell).

THE APOCALYPSE IS NIGH! The Harbinger is hunting for a human vessel. It tried the janitor but decided she wasn’t good enough. It’s found a better vessel…

Mysterious Coma Girl.

And that’s it for episode 2 of Woke Charmed! I know this one wasn’t as woke as the first one, but don’t worry: I’ve seen more episodes of this show. There is more woke goodness to come. Just you all wait for the next one, I’m already snickering in anticipation…

Anyway, overall thoughts: Honestly, if the show was like this all the time, I would probably genuinely enjoy it rather than ironically enjoying it. It was extremely predictable, but it was also fun and low on the politics (apart from that goddamn Brexit line). In some ways this show reminds me more of Sabrina: The Teenage Witch (the 90s one, not this abomination) than the original Charmed. While it’s not a sitcom, it’s basically one step above one. It’s campy, it’s cheesy, it honestly doesn’t seem to take itself very seriously (which is why, when it does go full-on feminist, it feels weird and almost like they’re making fun of feminism rather than promoting it). It’s like if Sabrina had an overarching plot about saving the world.

But if all the episodes of the show were like this, I wouldn’t be recapping it for you! Don’t worry, we’ll be back to the woke goodness next week. See you then!