Charmed 4.07 'Brain Drain'

‘Brain Drain’ is ties to an idea that has been done to death: It’s all a dream/in your imagination. It goes deeper into Piper’s resistance of magic, something that has been evident in previous episodes.

Synopsis: The Source kidnaps Piper and convincers her that the past three years are all in her head in an attempt to get her to relinquish her and her sisters’ powers.

Like I’ve said, the main idea behind this hour has been done over and over again. That’s not to say this episode is a bad one though. In fact, it’s pretty alright as far as episodes go. Piper has always shows the strongest opposition to being a witch. In season 2’s ‘How To Make A Quilt Out Of Americas’ she was very close to simply walking away from it all. So the Source takes advantage of that. This part of her pops up again and again until the end of the series actually.

‘Brain Drain’ is another episode that really establishes Piper as the greatest sister in the group. Prue leaving really allowed her to grow and gave the producers the chance to see just what a great commodity she is to the show. Piper is harsh on Paige when she moves in. It can take a while to adjust to living in a new place with a group of people who already have an established way of doing things but I can understand Piper’s frustration. She was used to living with people she’d grown up with, and now here’s someone who has a completely different way of running things.

The Source appears for the first time since ‘Charmed Again’ and his attempt is just as menacing. Here he establishes himself as a truly evil character. His plan is undeniable good as far as demonic plans go. Relinquishing their powers is one easy way to kill them by making the powerless. It’s the first time we’ve actually seen this spell since ‘Wicca Envy’ weirdly enough. I can’t believe it’s not been tried before.

There was a lot of fun with the whole ‘Alternate reality’ thing with Phoebe and Paige actually being nuts for example. One personal favourite is Cole’s shock treatment; hilarious!

Like in ‘Hell Hath No Fury’, Phoebe and Paige are together for a significant portion of time. I personally really like their scenes together. Phoebe really works as the older sister helping Paige along the way and seems to be a lot more understanding seeing as how she was in her shoes for so long.

Despite its familiarity, it’s still a fairly fun hour.

8/10

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