A spa trip turns nightmarish in newest Charmed episode

The CW’s Charmed continues its fourth season with its latest episode, titled “Ripples,” which follows Mel and Maggie as they have the worst spa day ever.

After the explosive ending of last week’s episode, which featured Maggie finally losing her cool and taking out her anger on a man who harassed her in the street, episode 4 picks up right where we left off. Maggie is seen being arrested and booked, getting a mugshot taken, and setting a court date.

This episode continues the spectacular storytelling going into Maggie’s arc this season, and features many stand-out moments. Particularly, Maggie calling Kaela to pick her up from the police station shows the relationship she’s beginning to form with the newest Charmed One, while also showing her embarrassment at the situation and how much she didn’t want Mel to see her fresh out of jail.

Though, Maggie finally opens up to Mel later in the episode, after their spa day begins to go south when both sisters decide that they want to try to recapture their relationship and grow closer again. That moment felt pivotal in the progression of their relationship post-Macy and was carried through by the wonderful chemistry between Sarah Jeffery and Melonie Diaz, who have always been able to capture that sisterly magic.

While Maggie’s storyline has been a true highlight, Kaela’s journey in this episode helped to progress her storyline as well as create a new, interesting connection to the larger magical world.

At the Blue Camellia, Kaela sought help from club owner Roxie in fixing a conch shell she broke but is ultimately helped by Dev. Played by Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist vet Kapil Talwalkar, Dev is a Gandharva, a magical being that uses his singing voice to affect his environment. Though a thorn in her side, Dev helps Kaela to get a better handle on her powers and helps her unlock a new ability: Manifesting multiples of the same thing.

When all the characters converge a the end of the episode, with Kaela finally able to orb to the magical spa to help Mel and Maggie, it’s so satisfying to see how well the new Charmed Ones can work together. Kaela helps Maggie with her new duplicate manifesting, while Mel gets insight into the Tallyman, who was terrorizing the spa.

We learn that the Tallyman is a Gremlin, but one that doesn’t seem to have the powers that he should. His happiest memory, accessed through the spa’s aromatherapy, is his hand getting torn to shreds in a wood-chipper.

Tallyman’s bold approach in this episode made him all the more terrifying. He felt confident enough to break into the spa and even put his hands on Maggie in a massage before causing violent chaos. He truly is unlike any other villain the Charmed Ones have ever faced, but at least the Charmed Ones gained a little traction in discovering who he is during the episode; now that they know his species, they can maybe narrow down their search for this elusive villain.

Despite the losses the Tallyman seemed to have suffered this episode, with the Charmed Ones finding out he’s a Gremlin and seeing his face, I’m sure the piece of hair he stole from Maggie will be coming back in a major way, and I’m intrigued to see where and how it shows up again.

At the end of the episode, the Charmed Ones reconvene and have a true sisterly bonding night, which was an incredibly sweet moment. It’s nice to finally see them able to connect and truly come to trust and love each other. Though, even if they won the battle at the spa, there’s a much larger war they have to win.

Kaela reveals that her origins are being questioned across the magical community, having heard some of the conspiracy theories from Dev earlier in the episode.

The Charmed Ones are also facing a different kind of warfare from the Tallyman: Fake news. The Tallyman doctored videos of the Charmed Ones to make them seem callous, uncaring, and self-centered when it comes to magical creatures that aren’t witches. With the entire magical world seemingly turning on the Charmed Ones, it’ll be interesting to see how they manage to gain back the favor of their community.

This storyline also feels like another instance of Charmed incorporating past weak spots into their current storytelling. During seasons 2 and 3, the Charmed Ones were steeped in demon politics, focused almost entirely on protecting witches and vanquishing demons. These choices were critiqued by fans, who wanted to see more of the magical world, in a similar way to the approach from the first season.

By having the magical world turn on the Charmed Ones, claiming they only care about witches, Charmed seems to be reflecting on those past storytelling choices and incorporating them into the rest of the series, making them feel more important and less regrettable mistakes; exactly as they did with the fall-out of Ruby and Mel’s relationship.

Overall, this was another solid episode of Charmed. While not as outstanding as the previous episodes this season, it offered solid insight into the terrifying villain, wonderful scenes between Mel and Maggie, as well as another new development in Kaela’s powers.

Charmed airs Fridays at 8/7c only on The CW, and streams for free the next day on The CW App.