Charmed 2.02 'Morality Bites'

Morality Bites is, was and always will be one of the most memorable TV episodes ever. Its marks the girls second trip through time, this time it’s to the future. The episode is just as good (if not even better) than the previous one of its nature. It dealt with some heavy issues and featured some fabulous performances from all the cast.

Synopsis: Prue, Piper and Phoebe travel to the future after Phoebe has a premonition of her death to find out why. When they arrive, they do so in their future selves’ bodies. Piper finds out she has a child, Prue has become a very successful career woman and Phoebe has been sentenced to death for killing a man.

What makes this episode so great is how it deals with the biggest lesson that the three sisters had to learn. It’s also had one of the most powerful lines Charmed ever gave us “Our job is to protect the innocent, not punish the guilty”. Even the smaller acts of vengeance can lead to bigger ones. It’s amazing how much of this ideal was lost after the early seasons.

In the future we also got to see how Prue and Piper’s lives turned out if they followed the path they were on. Prue became cold and work obsessed, and Piper had a daughter with Leo, but soon found out that they were divorced, all because of their ‘rain checks’ that they started with at the beginning of this episode. That they’re lives would end up like this is surprisingly believable, minus Prue’s terrible dye job. I always liked that episodes like this one use cute little things like that to help the bigger story.

One scene I adore is when Piper watched her daughter realizing that binding her powers may take away a big part of her childhood and Prue understanding that she has nobody to say goodbye to speaks volumes about the work-a-holic she is.

All three girls’ performances in this episode were stellar, and I don’t think they were ever bested. Seeing Prue and Piper watch their sister die for her crime was such a powerful moment, especially considering that there was nothing they could do about it.

‘Morality Bites’ still remains one of the most memorable episodes of Charmed, even for some non-fans. There really isn’t anything I would change about it. It’s absolutely perfect.

10/10