Maggie exercises her demons in newest Charmed episode

Charmed returned this week with a new episode titled “Unlucky Charmed,” filled with heart-racing tension, more villainous deeds from the Tallyman, and major revelations for the Charmed Ones.

After Kaela decided to stay with the Charmed Ones at the end of last week’s episode, things seemed to be looking up for our favorite witches. This episode proved that everything within the Vera household is not alright.

For starters, Kaela is forced to walk on eggshells around the Charmed family, putting her foot in her mouth within the first five minutes of the episode. She brings up Mel’s past relationship with Ruby, Maggie’s demon-hunting addiction, and breaks some unspoken agreement to not use Macy’s bowl during dinner.

It’s hard enough to find out you’re a witch and move in with your new witchy family, let alone if that witchy family is suffering from a million problems of their own. Kaela brings a lightness to her scenes, especially with Harry later in the episode, that would be sorely missed.

The inclusion of a minor arc in this episode about her not being able to be Macy’s replacement and learn and train exactly like Macy was incredibly well done and made the bond between Harry and Kaela much stronger.

Also in this episode, we finally learned what happened between Mel and Ruby, which has been a non-topic in the previous two episodes. All that had been established before was that their relationship ended sometime within the six-month time-jump and that Mel’s new status as “Kiss and Tell Mel,” was making her quite the hot commodity around the Blue Camellia club.

Mel’s day drinking leads to revelations that look suspiciously like time powers, transporting her back to the memory of her break-up with Ruby. We learn that Mel actually proposed to Ruby, but she turned her down. Later in the episode, Mel and Ruby finally talk, and Ruby tells her exactly why she turned her down.

In a way, this felt like the show retroactively fixed a lot of the complaints made by fans about the way Ruby and Mel’s relationship was written on the show. Ruby tells Mel that she felt lonely in their relationship, that she would always come second to saving the world, or even Mel herself.

By allowing Ruby to voice the same frustrations as fans, equating her loneliness and second-best placement to her lack of screen-time and narrative importance, the show acknowledged its past mistakes while giving those same mistakes relevant narrative weight. It was extremely well handled and made up for a lot of the times during seasons 2 and 3 when Ruby and Mel’s relationship did feel like it was on the back burner.

The highlight of this latest Charmed episode was Maggie’s arc, which has been building since the premiere.

Jordan confronts her multiple times throughout the episode about her recent preference for violence over feelings, but Maggie continually brushes him off. Jordan finally breaks and tells Maggie that she isn’t acting like “the Maggie [he] fell in love with,” prompting her to leave Vera manor to clear her head.

On the street, she’s harassed by a guy making inappropriate comments about her body, which causes her to finally snap. The episode ends with Maggie punching this stranger to a pulp.

This display of unhinged anger and emotion from Maggie was a feat from Sarah Jeffery, who brings a mixture of sorrow and anger to every scene Maggie has this season. It’s such a powerful storyline to see the Charmed One skilled, both magically and educationally, in feelings and emotions not be able to process her own about the immense trauma she’s suffered.

Seeing her go down such a dark path is an awesome journey for her character. It is one that I’m excited to see her come out the other side of, better and happier.

Some other highlights of the episode included more information on the Tallyman, as well as the mysterious club owner Roxie.

The Tallyman’s ruthlessness puts him above any villain the Charmed Ones have ever fought, with eyes and ears everywhere. The Charmed Ones’ hopelessness as they just had to stand and watch as two innocent people exploded right in front of them was harrowing in a way the show hasn’t achieved before.

Roxie’s interactions with Harry in this episode were interesting as well, especially the ending, which left Harry blipped to somewhere unknown. His interactions with her were very reminiscent of his early interactions with Abigael, which makes me wonder about her intentions and morality.

Overall, Charmed continues to deliver with their fourth season. The episodes remain fun, but also have a heightened tension and emotion to them that serves the series well. With still more surprises on the way, a new Whitelighter included, the series will surely continue to shine as more episodes continue to air.

Charmed airs Fridays at 8/7c only on The CW, or stream the next day on The CW App.