Charmed 5.07 'Sympathy for the Demon'

Barbas, for me, wasn’t really the best villain deserving of the majority of returns he made during the shows run but the writers meddle with him enough to make it somewhat plausible, starting with this season’s re-emergence. Though seeing the girls face their fears (again) was slightly stretched, there are quite a few strong moments thrown in, and the interesting character development made this episode another hit.

In ‘Sympathy for the Demon’ Barbas, the demon of fear, tricks Paige into taking away Cole’s powers and he seizes the opportunity to take them for himself, and escape captivity and gets revenge on the Charmed Ones for banishing 4 years ago.

While his first appearance saw him as a pretty one dimensional villain, upon his return here he seems to be a lot more layered than he was when we saw him last. He developed a strange sense of humour, something we never saw before now and if he was always able to communicate with the girls like he was here, why not do it earlier? I’m analyzing the magical element of it too much again...Despite some strange character alteration, he works quite well in this episode, and he plays off the girls quite convincingly in the following season.

His return gave us a great chance to see just how much Cole’s powers really were affecting him as a person. It was awful that he had to take them back in the end, seeing how much they actually were affecting him. Cole's character, like Prue’s, is quite a tragic one. It’s almost like forcing an alcoholic to start drinking again after a year of sobriety. Phoebe really doesn’t show Cole any sympathy at all, though that’s hardly a surprise. Now that he was human, he’s back to the Cole she loved, but she treats him no differently than she did when he possessed all-powerful demonic powers; what is your deal Phoebe?!

This episode deals with something that surprisingly was never mentioned before, Paige’s desire to live up to Prue. I always felt for her in that regard. Imagine coming into a family after the death of their sister and having to fill her shoes, especially when she was as strong as she was and having your sisters constantly bring up how amazing he had been for them. I liked that she was able to realise that she was her own person, not someone to simply replace Prue and regardless of her strange decision to quit her job, I love her super-witch kick. Her love for magic after such a short time is something that I always liked about Paige when she first arrived. I quite liked her ‘dove spell’, even if it was utterly pointless, it was more about what it represented than anything else.

Phoebe fears here that she might still be evil. You can’t blame her, given what she had been through during the past year. Barbas tricking her into beating Paige silly is one striking scene, and made fantastic use of his ability to trick his victims. It was brutal, shocking, and in the end quite heartbreaking. Phoebe's realization of what she's done gets me every time. Again, Piper's pregnancy is dealt with wonderfully and woven into the story nicely with her fears having changed as she is slowly becoming more maternal. I loved that fact that she managed to conquer her own fear, and talk Phoebe down; she's such a champ.

Though I do enjoy Barbas when he returns in season six, I’ve always felt that there were one or two villains that could have filled that role better, but they made great use of him here and it showed on-screen.

8.5/10