Charmed 4.10 'A Paige From The Past'

Even Piper and Phoebe’s pasts are very rarely discussed, only popping up in the odd episode (with great results – Coyote Piper). In a pretty dramatic episode we see what life was like for Paige with her adoptive parents and how much their death really affected her.

Synopsis: Paige freezes when trying to save an innocent from a car wreck forcing her to go back in time with Leo to relive her parents’ death, and find out if it was really her fault. The spirits of two criminals possess Phoebe and Cole leaving Piper and Darryl alone to stop them.

It was obvious that en episode about Paige’s adoptive parents’ death would arise at some point, and it turned out quite well if you ask me. I loved the whole trip to the 90’s stuff, Paige starting out as such a rebel. It’s weird that Phoebe and Paige never discussed their similar pasts on screen, seeing as how similar they are with Phoebe going through a very similar phase back in the day. Rose's performance during Paige's confession was truly superb. It's not hard to say that she is up there at Shannen's standard most of the time.

Forcing Paige to have to witness their death over is surprisingly dark and forceful, especially after she tried hard to stop it. To just have it happen all over again is horrible but it allowed her to take the blame away from herself for a short while since she placed so much of it on her behaviour at first. The moment itself reeked of cheesy 90’s drama, but maybe that was the point. It was very intense and Rose was truly at her best here.

Paige’s reunion with her parents was almost as sweet as her reunion with Patty in ‘Charmed Again’. It’s the first time Paige actually get’s something for herself out of being a witch, seeing as how it was all just thrown at her so quickly, changing her whole life. Now this time, it’s all for the better. It’s nice that all the work she did was to make her parents proud, and now she finally gets to see that they know how well she’s been doing.

The ghosts appearing here were a lot of fun, if a little filler. Alyssa and Julian obviously had a lot of fun playing the roles, and it showed on screen. Darryl’s role after the fourth season starts to become a little fuzzy, but this is an example of when his role is actually quite necessary and he fit into this hour remarkably well.

8.5/10

2 comments:

  1. I love the Paige storyline, but the rest of the episode really doesn't do much for me (my memory of this season is surpsingly fuzzy, it's been way too long since I properly watched the show).

    Looking forward to your review of Charmed & Dangerous, though (that's next, or soonish anyway right?). That's such a dark, tense episode.

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  2. Yup, that's episode 13. I have the next couple of seasons written already, I just have to post them up! The next lot of reviews should be up fairly soon =)


    You should give the series another watch, but do what I did when I last re-watched it a couple of years ago. Start with season 4 and finish with the third. That way it starts great and ends great! The fall off in quality is way too evident when it's watched straight through, making it difficult to watch sometimes.

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