Even though I feel like this season’s stories could have been stretched over two seasons (splitting after ‘Charmed and Dangerous’), the fact that it produces an episode as brilliant as this one makes it almost forgivable. From the darkness of the whole thing to the tearful and touching ending, it all makes it a standout episode and one of the series' best.
Synopsis: Even though she has joined Cole as the Queen of the Underworld, Phoebe has trouble breaking away from her sisters. Paige struggles to hold things together when Piper begins to fall apart.
'Long Live The Queen' is the emotional ending to the arc that has taken up the majority of the second half of the season, and it's a massive one at that. While the following 'Womb Raider' deals with the magical clean-up, this episode deals with Phoebe and Cole's destroyed relationship, and it's one of the series' best episodes.
All the performances by everyone involved during ‘Long Live The Queen’ are top notch, Alyssa in particular who slips from evil bitch to broken woman flawlessly. Honestly I think this is probably her best moment on the show as a whole, but with the scripts she was given after this it’s not surprising, she was never given something as emotional as this to work with again.
Paige’s role in this episode is almost a hint as to what her addition into the show managed to do; bring the power of three back together. Here she’s the only sister who is stable, with Phoebe turned and Piper off the rails. The fact that she’s a social worker (and part whitelighter) shines through here when she helps bring Piper back on to her feet.
Piper always has the hardest time out of the sisters and no more so than this season. First her big sister dies; then she ends up having to take over as head of the family; on top of that her other sister turns evil. Seeing her fall apart like she does here is totally and completely understandable. She failed both Prue by not taking care of her younger sisters like she could and Phoebe by letting her be taken. From this moment she officially became the best character out of the lot, it would be hard not to root for her.
The fact that Phoebe was able to turn back to good, despite taking on her role as the queen of all evil, shows just how strong the Power of Three is. She can’t abandon her sisters. ‘Long Live The Queen’ deals with one of the biggest challenges of, not just the sisters' lives but, all girls’ lives; your family or your husband. Phoebe making that decision is heart wrenching and Cole’s vanquish is one of Charmed’s finest moments.
His vanquish was obviously tarnished by his return after this, but somehow that never seems to affect the enjoyability of this episode at all. By all rights this should have been the end of Cole. His death here felt like the perfect end for his character, and it would have prevented all the shit that he was put through during Season 5.
The ending of this episode is the perfect sister moment of all of Paige’s time on the show, the following seasons included. Seeing Piper and Paige comfort Phoebe after her devastating loss is so unbelievably touching you would have to be made of stone to not let it get to you and I think it's one of my top 3 Charmed moments.
Sadly, 'Long Live The Queen' is probably the last of the perfect episodes of Charmed and the series never deals with anything quite as dark as it did during this season. It's episodes like this where it becomes evident that 'Charmed' was a lot better than it had to be sometimes. I'd find it strange for anyone not to love this one.
10/10
I completely agree with everything you wrote, but especially the Cole vanquish being ruined by his coming back straight after. I ended up liking some of the work they did with Cole in season five during my re-watch, but they should have still left him dead from Long Live the Queen.
ReplyDeleteAnd that final scene is really beautiful, I agree.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteHis vanquish was obviously tarnished by his return after this, but somehow that never seems to affect the enjoyability of this episode at all. By all rights this should have been the end of Cole. His death here felt like the perfect end for his character, and it would have prevented all the shit that he was put through during Season 5.
ReplyDeleteThere was NOTHING PERFECT about Cole's death in this episode. The Halliwells were too stupid to even think about how he had become the Source in the first place. If they had, the stupid bitches would have realized that he was a victim of possession and perhaps they would have made an effort to help him.
Instead, they resorted to extreme prejudice and killed him without knowing the real truth. I wish they had been vanquished, instead of him.