This week, Mel and Harry return to rescuing witches from demons, which leads to Harry developing a mysterious illness after he’s injured during a fight. Macy enjoys time in Aspen with Julian. They take their relationship to the next level, then she meets the aunt who raised him. When Harry gets sick, Macy and Abby have competing ideas on how to save him.
Maggie and Jordan travel to New Orleans to pursue the buyers who purchased the chakram and black amber from Ray. They visit a magic survivors support group, where another man approaches them with an invitation to an exclusive party.
Recap
We begin with the aftermath of a terrible car crash on a dark and stormy night. Young Julian Shea’s parents are dead and he’s trapped alone in the backseat, crying for help. Cut to the present day, where he tells Macy that there’s been an empty place inside him ever since. He and Macy commiserate over the amount of bad luck and family trauma they’ve each had.
They decide that whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. Julian mentions the transformative power of trauma, which makes me suspicious again about what secrets he’s hiding, because you know there’s something. His Aunt Vivienne took him in after his parents died and showed him how to channel his anger into creative energy. When it’s time to say goodnight, Macy draws Julian into her room instead.
That whole conversation was a red flag. Also, maybe Julian is a incubus, among his other talents.
Harry and Mel return to the Command Center in a rush after a tough fight with a Malignant. Abby has kept most of the demons under control, but there are still a few rogues attacking witches. Harry has a couple of deep, gaping wounds on his arm from the Malignant’s claws. Mel tries to heal them, but black spots pop up on Harry’s other arm and then he passes out.
Maggie and Jordan are in New Orleans investigating Ray’s mysterious buyers. They attend a meeting of MESS (Magical Experience Survivors Support), since Ray’s contact Choochie traced the buyers’ license plate to this address. Jordan holds the chakram and tells the group that he survived the curse of a ghost witch. Now his family and friends have stopped speaking to him.
Maggie observes the meeting and tries to spot anyone with the same tattooo as the buyers. At the end of the meeting, she and Jordan are approached by Bruce, who has the tattoo and is interested in the chakram. He invites them to a party held by his group of magical true believers and takes their photos to use as ID at the door. He warns them not to bring anyone else.
When Harry wakes up, Mel searches her books for a treatment, but realizes that his plague-like symptoms must be from a demon-based infection. She wants to call Macy in for help, but Harry insists that she call Abby instead.
In the morning, Macy wakes up before Julian and makes breakfast. Julian’s Aunt Viv shows up just as she’s finishing and is mostly friendly. Julian comes out as they’re introducing themselves. He and Viv tell Macy about one of their companies, which makes the Airmid, a superfast DNA sequencing machine. Macy is impressed, since genetics is her specialty.
Mel texts about Harry, so Macy rushes back to the Command Center. Abby is already there. Harry’s conditioned has worsened. Abby says that some Malignants carry a parasite. She has all of the ingredients for the antidote at her apartment. The treatment is safe if Harry has the parasite. If he’s sick due to something else, the treatment will kill him. But Abby is sure he’s got the parasite. She’d never endanger Harry.
Macy doesn’t believe Abby’s diagnosis. She wants to run tests to rule out other causes before allowing Abby to treat Harry. Abby argues that the parasite acts quickly and could kill Harry in as little as 24 hours. Mel takes Macy’s side, so they postpone the treatment.
Maggie and Jordan get some food and discuss the mission. Maggie tries to impress the danger of the situation on Jordan. He’s determined to help, since he needs to balance the scales of justice to finish breaking the witch’s curse.
Macy examines Harry’s blood under a microscope and finds that it’s inflamed, but she doesn’t have the equipment she needs for a detailed analysis. She remembers the Airmid and calls Julian to ask to borrow it.
The party is loud, crowded and has continuous flashing lights. Bruce quickly finds Maggie and Jordan and escorts them back to Nadia, Ray’s buyer. She’s ready to buy the chakram, but Maggie says they want to know more about the group before they sell. Nadia asks if they want to participate. Maggie agrees that they do, then Bruce offers them glowing green candies. Nadia says that the candy will open their minds. Maggie refuses, but Jordan tries one. Nadia tells Maggie that the believers will decide whether they want to do business with her and Jordan.
Abby tenderly nurses Harry as he continues to worsen, but he calls for Macy.
Macy is upstairs meeting Aunt Viv to pick up the Airmid DNA sequencer. Aunt Viv has another agenda, though. She can’t decide what Macy’s after, but she’s sure Macy’s after something and is bad for Julian somehow. She refuses to give Macy the machine unless Macy breaks up with him. Since Harry’s life is at stake, Macy agrees and makes the call. Viv leaves the machine with her for 24 hours.
Bruce takes Maggie and Jordan back out to the party, where the other revelers are downing the glowing green candy like it’s… candy. Maggie complains to Jordan that he shouldn’t have eaten it, because it looks like the Darklighter’s poison, which was almost fatal to Macy. Jordan was just trying to keep them from being kicked out.
A shaman appears on stage at one end of the party, throat singing and pounding his staff on the floor. All of the revelers except Maggie turn into passive zombies. Even Jordan is mesmerized and walks toward the stage rather than leaving when Maggie wants to.
The shaman reveals a coffin with a dead body inside. He puts some drops of black amber in the corpse’s mouth, while saying an incantation, then uses his staff to draw life force from members of the crowd into the body. Maggie realizes the shaman is attempting a resurrection.
Mel and Abby snipe at each other as they wait for Macy. Harry’s illness continues to worsen. His eyes glow yellow, then he attacks Mel with a knife. Abby uses her magic to knock him unconscious. They take Harry to Abby’s apartment while she prepares the antidote so that it will be ready when Macy confirms the diagnosis.
It turns out to be a complicated potion that uses a method Mel wasn’t aware of. Abby offers to let Mel borrow her dead mother’s potion book. Mel acknowledges that they have more in common than she usually thinks about. Macy calls to tell them she’s ready to use the DNA sequencer.
Maggie realizes that the green poison is serving as a conduit to allow the Shaman to transfer life force from the revelers to the corpse. Just as she figures it out, Jordan collapses.
It’s a bad day for the boyfriends.
Macy starts the DNA test on Harry’ blood. It can’t check for the specific parasite, but it can look for tetrodotoxin, a rare neurotoxin that’s a demonic marker which Macy found in Parker’s blood when she worked on it last year.
Maggie texts Macy and Mel for help with the whole zombie party situation. They don’t want to leave, but Harry tells them to go. He trusts Abby. Macy makes Abby promise she’ll wait for the DNA test results. Of course Abby cancels the test the second Macy is gone, and preps the antidote.
Maggie can’t get Jordan to wake up. She leaves him with Macy and Mel to do CPR, while she fights the shaman to break the connection he’s created with the party goers’ life forces. Maggie knocks the shaman out and breaks his staff in half. The party goers wake up. Jordan is still deadish, so Macy and Mel use Maggie’s baton to shock him awake.
Abby injects Harry with the antidote. He shakes violently, then recovers. Mel admits that Abby was right about the parasite. Abby says that she didn’t need a machine to tell her the truth. “Sometimes you have to leap before you look. Otherwise it’s too late.”
Harry tells Abby that he doesn’t know how to thank her. She says, “Yes, you do.” he makes a face at her. Mel and Macy don’t bother to thank her.
Up on the witches rooftop patio in Seatle, Maggie and Jordan agree that they’re even in the life saving department. Jordan tells Maggie that he’s never had a partner like her and he wanted to impress her. She replies that he didn’t have to try hard. He’s pretty formidable. They stare into each other’s eyes, but don’t kiss.
Julian holds a business meeting at Safespace and says that social capital is as important as market value. Then he sees Macy and interrupts the meeting to go confront her, since Viv made her break up with him over voicemail.
Macy thanks him for the Airmid and says she returned it to Vivienne. She apologizes for the voicemail. As soon as Julian hears that Viv was involved, he figures out what happened. This isn’t the first time she’s interfered in his relationships.
Macy says that she doesn’t want to come between him and his family. Julian doesn’t want to let his family ruin his relationships, so he suggests that she let him take care of Viv, and they keep their relationship between the two of them.
They kiss. Harry is watching and walks away sadly.
Nadia calls her superior and tells them that though there was trouble at the party, the process was still successful. The subject is alive, mostly. Now they can move on to the next phase. They have photos of the troublemakers.
Nearby, Bruce stands next to a car that the now live corpse from the night before sits in. The revenant’s movements are jerky and he has a strange look on his face.
Commentary
I’m really not sure whether Abby is playing the Charmed Ones and Harry in order to gain their trust, then hurt them or if she actually wants to be closer to all of them. She is part witch after all, so she could sincerely be drawn to other witches and a whitelighter. But she’s also so damaged that she’ll probably never let herself trust anyone. It’s fun watching her mess with them, except for when they get into endless bickering.
But did she set Harry up to get sick so that she could cure him?
I wish they’d let Mel lighten up sometimes and stop being so sanctimonious. She’s done some questionable stuff herself, like removing Nikko’s memory, so she has no right to judge others.
It was good to see the show remember that the Charmed Ones are supposed to be protecting other witches and send Mel and Harry out on a mission.
What happened to Jordan’s girlfriend? Are we supposed to assume that they broke up based on that minor argument a while back and the story he told to MESS?
Aunt Viv for sure killed Julian’s parents. She’s ridiculously possessive of him. She must have spotted some potential in him as a child that she wanted to own for herself, or she had some other falling out with his parents.
Prediction: Nadia called Vivienne at the end of the episode. They have photos of Mel and Maggie, but not Macy, so Viv doesn’t know yet that Macy is one of the Charmed ones.
There’s an outside chance it was Julian, if he’s trying to bring his parents back or use black amber to grow superfoods for the apocalypse. The guy in the car could be his father, but it would make more sense for him to be a random experiment. Julian would want to be there for his parents’ return.
Images courtesy of The CW.
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