Witch Trial is our first jaunt back into the Charmed Ones lives after the break between the first two seasons. It does things a lot of season premieres do and sets up the season, but it also has a lot of call backs to previous episodes making it a strong one.
Synopsis: When a demon steals the Book of Shadows and begins resurrecting all the demons they have vanquished, the sisters have to find a way to fight them off without it. Prue has difficulty fighting evil again after Andy’s death.
Prue’s reluctance to fight the demon is both believable and heartbreaking. We see just how much losing Andy affected her, and made his loss one that she won’t soon forget. She spends so much time trying to fill the void he left, with nobody ever measuring up. Shannen’s acting is truly superb here really making me believe she was a young woman who had just lost the love of her life. Phoebe’s line “because of who he was” makes his death, not irrelevant, but acceptable.
Bringing back all their old demons was an excellent way to call back to season one, and show us they were not going to stop making the show that people had grown to love. The girls recasting their spell to get their powers back almost felt like a ceremony to renew their vows as witches, and simultaneously people’s interest in the show.
This is the first time a family member is seen as a ghost. Grams’ appearance was quite understandable here, since it was something they had earned, and it wasn’t something that was overused like it was in seasons to come.
‘Witch Trial’ was also the first episode to feature the long running hang out of our favourite witches, P3. While on one hand it may seem like a cheap ploy to gain viewership by featuring an abundance of musical guests, to me it felt like a way for Piper to move forward, and it always felt better that they were hanging out somewhere that was theirs as opposed to somewhere Piper just worked.
We meet Dan and Jenny for the first time here. Jenny’s appearance in this episode is for one simple reason, to allow the girls to meet Dan. After that she’s just a bit of a pain in the ass.
‘Witch Trial’ was a strong opening to the shows sophomore year, and one of the better season premieres.
8.5/10
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