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Post by Assassin Witch on May 12, 2019 20:27:56 GMT -5
Charmed | 1.21 - "Red Rain"Original Airdate: May 12, 2019 @ 9PM   xEpisode SummaryGalvin discovers that something bizarre is happening with the patients that are being brought into the hospital. Maggie gets a clue about how to keep The Source from taking over. Meanwhile, both Macy and Galvin do something no one could have predicted. Source |
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codebox
Familiar
Hey I'm a Charmed Veteran have been for a long time. Hope to share some insight and opinions.
Posts: 287 
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Post by codebox on May 12, 2019 21:29:44 GMT -5
I thought the episode was okay. I thought the fight scene between Maggie and Parker was cool, in fact it caught me off guard at first that Parker tricked Maggie into leading him to Charity, it's pretty much the best thing Parker's got to do all season (he played a better villain for a second there over playing a good guy) however outside of that and the virus plot the whole thing felt anti-climatic.
Charity proved to be awful by wanting them to protect her with the same thing Mel could've used to save Niko, then she gets disposed of quickly. It also felt wasted to have Charity "team up" with Alastor, when it proved to serve nothing as her being alive only delayed their entire plan until they decide that she needs to die last minute for everything to be complete. It doesn't help that their place to keep her "safe" was the same place Fiona would've thought to look for her first (which she did) Maggie also seemed to make Parker come to his sense too quickly, considering last appearance. She can also effortlessly use her staff now.
The ending where Macy takes on the source rendered the entire storyline with Parker useless because the entire point of Parker's half demon plot was to build him up as the source's vessel, only to make Macy the source at the last moment it felt like a hasty rewrite. Yes Parker's character isn't interesting and Macy has the superior duality plot, but my point is that Parker's main role for his duality plot was that Alastor and Hunter tried luring him to his demon half, while his human side tried to be good due to his love for Maggie. Yet all of a sudden they're just like "Nope Macy's the source now"...
Alastor all of a sudden just begins to act like a worshiper and all "I'll serve you" when Macy takes on the source, despite never showing to be the kind of person to serve under someone. In fact it was quite the opposite. It felt like they just made him that way simply to get easily disposed of by Macy as the source, considering Alastor was the season's big bad it felt like a lazy sweep away at the last moment. It's almost as bad as the Source's death in Desperate House Witches of OG Charmed. At least the effects and Macy were cool though.
These could just be nitpicks. But I did think the episode was okay outside of that. I did like the "Blood Rain flooding the skies" and the virus plot. Even though I had my problems with the build up to Macy as the source, I do think her being the source is a nice concept.
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Post by Katie Warren on May 14, 2019 2:43:55 GMT -5
I think this was the worst episode in a while. So predictable, and in typical reboot fashion going at a massive fast pace in storytelling. Also, this felt like a season finale, yet we still have another episode next week.
Killing off three characters all in one episode. Alastair got the worst death. Such a waste.
Macy being the new Source, as much as it is a pretty neat twist, is SO not something you'd do at the end of year one. Making one your Charmed Ones this powerful after one season, with no real build-up. Personally, this would have been a better story to do at the end of S2 or S3.
Really, I have enjoyed the standalone episodes more this season than the story-arcs.
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Post by tyler on May 14, 2019 3:08:41 GMT -5
To be honest, this episode disappointed me a lot.
Things I liked:
1) they explained why Hunter was so strong: Alistair had put the Harbinger in him and when the sisters killed Hunter, the Harbinger was freed and started the epidemic;
2) Niko’s plot: she fainted because of Mel who told her the truth of her past, interfering with the rewriting history spell;
3) Galvin's shamanic powers were very useful and I appreciated his sacrifice;
4) Madeleine (Macy)’s acting skills;
5) Macy as the new Source.
Things I hated:
1) the special effects were embarrassing.. when Maggie enters the empathic plan to meet with Parker they used really horrendous light effects.. in the end, the lightning that hits Fiona is unrealistic.. the black flames seemed colored with a felt tip pen ecc...;
2) Harry was completely useless.. he didn't even try to save Charity;
3) Charity’s fate: she wasn’t a bad person.. she was a good person who did terrible thinks thinking she was acting for the greater good.. too bad there was no redemption for her;
4) the bad guys have been defeated too quickly: Charity died in the blink of an eye; Fiona practically committed suicide by evoking the Sacred Flame; Alistair was killed with a look of Macy/Source;
5) no Book of Shadows and no Power of Three.
I'm very sorry because the episode could have been epic and instead I found it quite anticlimatic. I really hope the next episode won’t disappoint me and that next season will be better organized. This year we had too many subplots that were (inevitably) tackled too hastily.
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codebox
Familiar
Hey I'm a Charmed Veteran have been for a long time. Hope to share some insight and opinions.
Posts: 287
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Post by codebox on May 14, 2019 21:42:33 GMT -5
To be honest, this episode disappointed me a lot. Things I liked: 1) they explained why Hunter was so strong: Alistair had put the Harbinger in him and when the sisters killed Hunter, the Harbinger was freed and started the epidemic; 2) Niko’s plot: she fainted because of Mel who told her the truth of her past, interfering with the rewriting history spell; 3) Galvin's shamanic powers were very useful and I appreciated his sacrifice; 4) Madeleine (Macy)’s acting skills; 5) Macy as the new Source. Things I hated: 1) the special effects were embarrassing.. when Maggie enters the empathic plan to meet with Parker they used really horrendous light effects.. in the end, the lightning that hits Fiona is unrealistic.. the black flames seemed colored with a felt tip pen ecc...; 2) Harry was completely useless.. he didn't even try to save Charity; 3) Charity’s fate: she wasn’t a bad person.. she was a good person who did terrible thinks thinking she was acting for the greater good.. too bad there was no redemption for her; 4) the bad guys have been defeated too quickly: Charity died in the blink of an eye; Fiona practically committed suicide by evoking the Sacred Flame; Alistair was killed with a look of Macy/Source; 5) no Book of Shadows and no Power of Three. I'm very sorry because the episode could have been epic and instead I found it quite anticlimatic. I really hope the next episode won’t disappoint me and that next season will be better organized. This year we had too many subplots that were (inevitably) tackled too hastily. They've weenified Harry and the whitelighters too much. Not that they were spectacular in OG Charmed. But at least Leo's healing would always save the girls (abeit a bit too much in some cases) here Harry's healing not only seems to ever be as useful, but he's always getting taken away, used by someone or just can't do anything. Leo was like this too in later seasons of OG Charmed, but not to this degree. I like Harry as a character, but I wish he did more sometimes. In the pilot even he displayed other powers too like Telekinesis, where did that go? Fiona had the worse death of them all. She was noted to be just as powerful as the Charmed Ones and could supposedly match their strength, yet gets her immortality stolen with no effort by Macy through a single voodoo ritual, and then gets disposed of by the lightning while summoning the sacred flame as if she were an afterthought. And on top of that she somehow didn't even seem to recognize what happened of her being stripped of her immortality, then she kills herself unknowingly making one of the most supposed powerful characters come across like a complete idiot. Charity should not have died so easily! Charity dies literally before she has the chance to redeem herself for murdering Marisol. Not to mention it also made Charity and Alastor's team-up pointless considering if she were executed their plan would've gone off either way. So what was the point of recruiting her only just to realize she needs to die for their plan to work? Otherwise it just served to delay their plan for no reason. Alastor was one of the few characters I liked in this show, mainly because he was the main villain and had an impact in several episodes (something that doesn't happen too often in Charmed) and I enjoyed his hammy appearance and over the top antics, yet his death scene came out of nowhere. He just seemed to worship Macy as the source and referred to him as "master" even though every episode before this one Alastor was NEVER shown as the type of person to follow the orders of another, in fact it was quite the opposite. He was the demanding one. Yet all of a sudden that changes simply so Source Macy can just instantly dispose of him last minute? Even if this was to present how powerful Macy was, they could've done it in a way that didn't feel so empty, especially for the main story arc antagonist. How cool would it have been to see a source/Alastor team up? What a waste. Speaking of pointless deaths, Hunter apparently died off-screen. At least that what it felt like going by transitioning from the previous episode to this one, they never made it clear he died. Yet this episode begins confirming he did die. |
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Post by yanpo on Jun 7, 2019 4:45:13 GMT -5
Alastair is a demon that has survived 3000 years of war and conflict with witches and other demons. He understands better than anyone the power that the Source represents and knows that anything less than complete and utter subservience to a Source that he's been antagonizing for an entire season would spell his immediate demise. The only powers that so far seem to be equal to or greater than the Source are Fate, Life and Death and he has no dominion over those forces, but he might've created contingency plans that involved maneuvering these forces in accordance to how they relate to Parker just in case he ever betrayed him, but he likely never expected that Macy would or could even become the Source. That means that Alistair lacked sufficient knowledge of her to properly manipulate or even destroy her if it was ever necessary. So he essentially begged for his life before she could snuff him out, likely in a bid to extend his life long enough to find the means to take her down. Unfortunately for him, Macy wanted him dead regardless and there wasn't a corner of the world he could've gone to escape her.
I'm glad the Elders are no longer a thing. I would have preferred some of them survived to serve as teachers and mentors, but I'm perfectly fine with all of them dying, including and especially Charity. Fiona at one point seemed to imply that Charity's "greater good charade" is little more than a sense of self-righteousness built upon her envy of Fiona's destiny as the Keeper of the Flame and I'm inclined to believe she might be right. Her sense of greater good never came off as genuine to me, and no, being capable of love and acting selflessly towards that love doesn't make you a genuinely good person. Especially if you go around murdering innocent people on a mere hunch that the Charmed Ones would be too dangerous with Macy on board. That ignores the reality that it would be even more dangerous to not have the Charmed Ones at all. Fiona deserved a redemption arc far more than Charity ever did since Fiona at least had the excuse of being trapped by a destiny that she did not chose nor want. Then said feeling of being trapped and her desire to take back control of her life was punished by the Elders with eternity (cut short to 10 years) in Tartarus. Which of course drove her mad. Seriously, that prison is criminal. Especially for humans and their fragile psyches. I wonder if this was supposed to be an allegory of the effects of the criminalization of abortion.
I'm sad about the Sarcanas though. Although I don't know if they were ultimately more or less trustworthy than the Elders, a coven of rogue vigilante witches sounded like a fun story with great potential. Hell, I wouldn't even be mad if they did a softreboot of Charmed 2018 with the Sarcanas - alive and well - at the center of the story, and the Charmed Ones existing, but in the background or perhaps just a spinoff with West Coast Sarcanas.
Galvin: I liked the guy, but he was too flip floppy for my taste, but in the end he was cool and died too soon.
Parker: Cole Turner was fun and interesting when he played the hero and anti-hero, and could still play an interesting villain. Parker is only fun when he's a villain. I think this is mostly the actor's fault, but he was just boring and very monotone whenever he tried to play the good guy with a tortured soul.
Whitelighters: I'm still getting used to this new iteration. I preferred the essentially Immortal Angelic thing they had going in the original Charmed, because it inspired a sense of peace and wisdom whenever a non-Elder was around. Leo was the best example of this. I really miss those orbs, but I can get behind what we have now. Harry has been great throughout. He may not possess the pacifying presence of Leo, but he brings a mother hen approach to the sisters that I think works great. Tess was awesome before her undeserved untimely death which mirrored her Classical Charmed counterpart's death. I liked that she was stricter and a bit harsher than Harry, but was still very friendly, patient and helpful towards the sisters.
As for the sisters, I'm still trying to decide how I feel about them. I'm aware that not seeing the original trio/quartet is strange, but despite my nostalgia goggles, I really love all of the new sisters as individuals. I'm just struggling with the dynamic between them, and part of the problem is one of the major plot points which is that Macy didn't grow up with them. I know that in the original Paige also didn't grow up with Phoebe and Piper, but Paige came in while the other two were already practiced witches, and since Paige was the youngest, she didn't really disturb sibling hierarchy all that much. Macy, the outsider in this iteration of the show, is the eldest, and she's the only one with a stable job that seems to be pay a pretty generous wage (the slacker was being paid 40k a year and Macy was one of the top members of the team). That means that she not only took up the role of the eldest, usurping Mel in that respect, she's also become the sole caretaker of the sisters because of her job...assuming she doesn't have a crippling student loan debt. So on top of Macy disturbing the existing sisterly dynamic, the sisters also have to deal with the emotional loss of their mother's death as well as acclimating to their new reality of being witches. It's very difficult to create the proper sisterly bonds under those conditions, so anytime I see them bonding too intimately, it feels forced to me and I think it also feels forced to the actresses so they are having a hard time selling it.
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