Still “Charmed,” After All These Years

A Few Fan Favorite Episodes to Consider

So now, as my children grow up, I get to watch the occasional episode of Charmed with them at lunch time on a secret day off. Nathaniel likes “Chick Flick” (Season 2/Episode 18) when the characters in a horror movie come to life. And maybe that is it in a nutshell: we look at Charmed, or whatever our favorite television show or movie is, and wish that it would come to life, for us at least. Luke likes “The Wendigo” (Season 1/Episode 12), where Piper transforms into a wendigo. Wendigo is a werewolf-like creature that bears the wonderfully telling title in the French broadcast of “Metamorphoses” or “Transformations.”

“Witchstock” (Season 6/Episode 11) is among my favorite episodes. Here we get a glimpse into the Halliwells past during the hippie days of San Francisco. We see how Penny transforms from the idealistic, tie-dye wearing love child into a formidable vanquisher of demons. After all, transformation is what life and magic are all about.

Character Roles and Relationship Themes Abound

Yet while many enjoy the “power girl” mythos, they lose sight of one fact. Each of the Sisters ends up in a conventional relationship with very typical gender roles. Each wants and gets her Alpha Male. Phoebe gets a supernatural being—Cupid, to be exact. Paige marries a parole officer. Piper of course has Leo, who she realizes is Mr. Right all along, as he is the “everyman” of the show.

He is the one who is constantly there. He is reliable, and his goodness becomes something we expect. His crises are our crises (and by that, I mean the male viewers). But he also mirrors the inability of women to see what they have and are ignoring. Piper nearly loses everything simply because she cannot stop worrying – a reality too often seen in relationships. Once Leo becomes Head of the Magic School, we see that everything in their often-rocky marriage comes full circle. This is the main theme across all eight seasons.

In Development: Good Things Take Time

So here we are: two years after I started writing this article I am finishing it. And, in part, because I heard of a planned reboot (although it was eventually shelved). It is tempting to mess with perfection, and Charmed is truly a perfect faery tale. The Sisters’ father becomes a recurring character in later episodes. Appearances from the ghosts of their mother, Patti, and Grandmother, Penny, join him. Despite all the trials and tribulations of the Halliwell Sisters, Leo, even the Sisters’ father, everything has a happy ending.

Fairy tales are loved by the child not because the imagery he finds in them conforms to what goes on within him, but because – despite all the angry, anxious thoughts in his mind to which the fairy tale gives body and specific content – these stories always result in a happy outcome, which the child cannot imagine on his own. –Bruno Bettelheim

Entanglement Dance of an Evolving Humanity

And that is all we want out of life. Everyone wants a “Charmed Life” as it were, magical powers or not. That is all I want for everyone. Like it says in the alchemical text, Splendor Solis, attributed to Salomon Trismosin, the teacher of Paracelsus: may everyone come to a “good end.”

So, thank you Patty, Penny, “Grams,” Prue, Piper, Phoebe, Paige, Leo (and Victor Bennett, too). Thanks for keeping me still charmed after all these years.