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THE
PLOT
Prue
and Phoebe return home after a shopping trip to find a half-dressed Piper
with Leo. Later, a ghost-like Rex appears and tells Prue that the tiara
in her briefcase is actually her datebook, while she puts away thinking
no more of it.
Prevented
from watching Prue undress by the hissing Kit, Rex demonstrates his new
power of astral projection on Hannah, who complies with his instructions.
The
following morning. Prue and Phoebe arrive at Buckland's, to learn that
a tiara is missing. Morris and Trudeau are (unsurprisingly) investigating
and Hannah "helpfully" tells them that Prue was the last person
to see it.
Rex
asks Phoebe to a Verve concert, much to Hannah's annoyance, but he tells
her this helps their plan to frame Prue and to force the sisters to relinquish
their powers.
Morris
tells Trudeau that he thinks Prue could be guilty, especially since one
of the security videotapes is missing. After the concert, Prue tells Rex
that the police think the theft was an inside job.
The
following morning, Morris and Trudeau have a warrant to search the Manor
for the tiara. Rex's projection sends subliminal messages to the two detectives,
forcing Piper to keep freezing the room so that they can move it. Eventually
Phoebe hides it and the two detectives are reluctantly forced to end their
search.
After
they've gone, Prue says that someone is setting her up and Phoebe suggests
that Leo could be a warlock. Prue suspects someone at Bucklands - especially
since Hannah told her she wanted to destroy her.
In
the attic, Leo opens chests and drawers using telekinesis before being
found by Piper. He makes an excuse for being there, but after he's gone,
Piper finds the tiara which Phoebe had hidden there.
Phoebe
has been invited to a dinner party by Rex. On her arrival, his projection
tells her that she will see "a spectacular apartment". His project
suggests to her that she's having a premonition of Prue being chased by
a warlock. Once she's gone, Rex dials 911 and claims that he's at Buckland's
and that someone's trying to kill her.
Prue
is the last person in the building and logs onto Hannah's PC, finding
no records for either Hannah or Rex. Rex's projection suggests that a
warlock's after her and then that there's a scream from the warehouse
and that she should grab the artifact just inside the door.
Jaime
the security guard is checking out the warehouse when Hannah fells him,
dropping the missing security tape by the body. Arriving on the scene,
Prue finds Jaime dead, and picks up the statue Hannah used to hit him,
only to be seen by Phoebe.
Morris
and Trudeau view the tape, which shows Prue stealing the tiara. Prue and
Phoebe believe someone manipulated Prue into taking the tiara and also
Phoebe into witnessing Prue with the murder weapon.
Prue
is arrested for murder. Piper and Phoebe return to Rex's apartment, hoping
he'll help get her out on bail but it's completely empty. Phoebe finds
her lipstick, which she dropped there earlier and the two realise that
Rex must be a warlock.
Andy
starts to doubt Prue's guilt, telling Morris that it's all too easy -
the clues have fallen into their laps. Morris tells his partner that he
stopped dating Prue because she appeared to be mixed up with all their
cases.
Piper
and Phoebe break Prue out of the her cell, but are photographed outside
by Rex. He's seen what they can do when confronted so has opted to blackmail
them into giving him their powers.
Reluctantly,
they cast the relinquishment spell at the Manor, and the spells in the
Book of Shadows are transferred into a lantern supplied by Rex.
Andy's
checks on Hannah and Rex reveals that neither looks the same as their
records, and that they were both murdered on 20 August 1998. He calls
Morris, telling him that he's worked it out.
At
Buckland's, Prue hands Rex the lantern, and then a black panther - which
is actually Hannah - emerges from his office and stalks them.
In
the attic at the Manor, Leo sees that the pages in the Book of Shadows
are now blank, but magically rewrites it.
The
panther leaps for the sisters but Piper accidentally freezes it. Realising
that their powers have been returned, Prue moves Rex into the panther's
path and it kills him before reverting back to Hannah, who is consumed
by fire, protesting that it was Rex who failed, not her.
Andy
and Morris visit Prue in jail. She's off the hook - Rex and Hannah have
vanished, and they found the tiara in his office, along with the photo
taken outside the station.
The
sisters are looking through the Book of Shadows when Leo enters the attic
to pick up his toolbox which he left there the previous night. He's leaving,
but promises Piper he will be back. Once he's gone, Phoebe wonders whether
Leo had anything to do with them getting their powers back. As Prue burns
the page containing the relinquishment spell, Leo dissolves into sparkles
as he walks out of the Manor.
NOTES
Leo
is revealed to be something more than the average handyman, with some
sort of telekinesis, the ability to rewrite the Book of Shadows and the
sparkling thing.
The
relinquishment spell is: "From whence they came, return them now/Vanish
the words, vanish our powers". All three sisters saw this one after
the other.
Kit
can sense Rex's astral projection.
Rather
unbelievably, Rex is "good friends" with The Verve. Phoebe describes
Bitter Sweet Symphony as "the best song ever". How does
he know what's in the Book of Shadows?
The
"real" Rex is supposed to be 24 but the guy in the photo looks
a lot older!
THE
POWER OF THREE
Prue
pulls her shoes towards her when trying out her new wardrobe. After being
locked up, she throws the guy in the next cell against the wall. She also
moves Rex into the path of the frozen panther (in reality, Hannah).
Piper
freezes the hallway when Prue and Phoebe return home to catch her and
Leo. The next morning tells them that she kept freezing him the previous
night, but that she didn't mean it the first time, she was just nervous.
She also freezes Prue's bedroom three times when they're looking for the
stolen tiara, freezes the guard in order to break out Prue and freezes
Hannah (who has taken the form of a panther).
Following
Rex's suggestion, Phoebe has a premonition of Prue being chased by a warlock
(actually Hannah in the form of a panther).
COMMENTS
The
Rex and Hannah storyline finally gets resolved and we also discover something
new about Leo. In fact, we possibly discover too much about Leo as it
might have been better to have just hinted at something more, omitting
the whole rewriting of the Book of Shadows (or at least keeping it a mystery)
and the sparkling bit at the end.
Rex
and Hannah haven't been particularly interesting adversaries and they're
not particularly interesting here either. Some nice bits, such as Rex
resorting to blackmail rather than something rather more direct, but neither
was anywhere near as interesting as some of the bad guys we've seen on,
say, Buffy.
It's
also a shame that, despite having a few ongoing subplots, Charmed
only really bothers with the current episode. There's very little evidence
of something happening in one episode that appears insignificant but which
is picked up in a later episode. Instead, things are mostly done and dusted
in each episode, which means that while the series is usually enjoyable,
it's often a little shallow as well. BACK
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