Charmed 4.22 'Witch Way Now'

This is the first, and only time Charmed has its big climax in the penultimate episode allowing for a simple, and relatively calm season finale. It was the perfect opportunity for one, considering all that had happened during the year allowing for decent closure.

Synopsis: The Angel of Destiny arrives and offers the sisters the opportunity to give up their powers, and the constant demon battles, forever as a reward for vanquishing the Source. Before they make their decision, they must face the threat of exposure from a supposed FBI agent who is tracking down a witch hunter.

After a dark and heavy season, the idea to do a light and simple finale like this one was a very good move. There would be no way to wrap up a whole year’s worth of this kind of drama and include a big battle like the one we witnessed in the previous episode.

Magic has become such a huge part of their lives now, changing them for better and for worse. Facing them with the idea to get rid of both their powers and the demonic threats the face on a near daily basis is a clever idea to see just how important magic is to them.

Piper and Phoebe’s decision to relinquish their powers comes as no surprise given all that has happened to them this past year. They lost Prue; Phoebe became the Queen of the Underworld; and Piper now faces the prospect of not getting pregnant because of what they’re forced to do. Even so, I really side with Paige. If it weren’t for magic, she would have no family and its part of who they are now.

Cole’s story shouldn’t have continued on, but his appearance here would have provided a lot of closure for him and Phoebe had he simply moved on after seeing her, especially for fans of their relationship. I think the idea of him holding on wouldn’t have annoyed me as much if I wasn’t aware of the hostility he would face next season.

The witch hunter plot was a nice and simple one and for this episode since nothing else was really necessary. As far as season finales this is pretty low key, so a big battle would have ruined the otherwise brilliant atmosphere that Kern had created in probably the best example of how great a writer/director he could be if given the right motivation.

The final scene during this episode is another of my favourite Charmed moments. The scene was overflowing with emotion and it was such a great moment for them not just because of Pipers great news, but for them as sisters too, especially in comparison with bleak ending to the third season. Drama and darkness make for great entertainment, but it’s nice to see the characters you root for experience some bit of happiness to make all their struggles worth it.

In many ways, this episode could act as the perfect ending to the series. They have finally finished mourning the death of their older sister, vanquished their greatest enemy and weakened evil considerably as a result, Paige finally feels accepted and they have a bright future ahead of them with Piper’s baby on the way. Minus Cole’s promise to win Phoebe back, although you could argue that as a decent way to end it, the series would have closed up shop and satisfyingly wrapped up all its stories at the same time. That’s not to say that the next few seasons didn’t have some great episodes, they did, but a lot of what happened dampened the better years. 

Regardless of its series ending possibilities, as a season finale this episode worked nicely, and gave Season 4 solid closure, while also setting up the new stories that would come up during the next season.

8.5/10