The third season sees the sisters getting more serious where guys are concerned. There is also an ongoing threat from the evil Triad, about which little is known at first. Prue especially takes the threat seriously.

Piper gets married to Leo, a Whitelighter, and Phoebe hooks up with Cole Turner, a half-demon, half-human. There is a bit of compare and contrast of the two relationships. After all, Piper and Leo met while he was trying to look out for the sisters, Cole and Phoebe met while he was trying to kill them.

The viewer is clued into Cole's being a demon long before the sisters are. This provides a nice little bit of tension, with the viewer waiting for the sisters to see the evil in their midst. Even after the sisters realize the Triad has sent a demon after then, it's a while before they make the connection to Cole. It also provides some instances for funny, ironic scenes. When Piper, Leo, Cole and Phoebe are out on a painful double date, Phoebe tries to kick start the conversation by mentioning sports. Cole confesses that he doesn't follow sports. “He isn't human,” Phoebe says to Piper and Leo, which causes Cole to spit his drink out.

How the two sisters handle the obstacles in their relationships speaks to their different desires. Piper first and foremost wants a home and a “normal” life apart from magic. She engages the Elders in a tug-of-war of sorts where the issue is not so much good and evil but turf. Piper and Leo continue to tussle with the Elders over their forbidden love. After an attempt to marry behind the Elders' backs, Leo is snatched from Piper, who then goes on strike, refusing to protect any more innocents. Nevertheless, she realizes protecting the innocents is even more important to her than having Leo, that allowing one come to harm would cause her no end of grief.

When Leo is restored to her, it's on a probationary status. The Elders want to be sure they can still do their jobs without the love stuff getting in the way before they allow them to marry.

Phoebe wants love and affection. Let's face it—Cole in his human form isn't exactly hard on the eyes, either. She's deeply hurt by what she perceives as Cole pulling away from her. He does this not because he doesn't love her—he does—but because it's his job to eliminate her and sisters and move up in the underworld. This could become cloying melodrama, but instead (in what I've always found to be the best in “Charmed” tradition) it becomes a funny straight-faced absurdity. The viewer sees Cole practicing his breakup line on his way to meet Phoebe: “I don't think we should see each other anymore. Why? Because I have to kill you, that's why.”

There is an embarrassment of riches where Prue-centric episodes are concerned. She is pursued by a crazed stalker. She blows off a forgiving date when demon hunting. She steals a bit of Piper's thunder by getting married first, even if it's to a demon who's just after her powers and the Book of Shadows. She even crashes Piper and Leo's wedding when a biker her astral self has been hanging out with comes to call, complete with bike. When the sisters are each infected with one of the seven deadly sins, Prue's is hardest to overcome, but is also the one instrumental in rescuing everyone else. She also learns and grows a bit, resolving her issues with her father for leaving them, and with death for taking their mother so early. There isn't really forgiveness, so much as acceptance. But at the end of the season, when she and Piper are thrown through the wall twice, it's almost as if the walls of the Halliwell manor can no longer contain Prue.

Not all this works well. Scenes with Phoebe and Prue reverting to children are painful. Prue's stalker trying to eliminate her and assume her identity of sorts, when no groundwork for this has been laid just seems self-indulgent and is not credible. Also, I wish there was a bit more respect for the conservation of mass when it comes to vanquishing demons. With few exceptions, there isn't even dust on the floor where the bad guy(s) have just gone poof.  Just the same, it's nice to see they can recycle some of the demons, with the same actor playing Beltazor, Shax and the Source. 

While there are there a lot of hokey elements, these are often forgivable in face of the silliness and fun.  It is chick stuff, though.



1. The Honeymoon is Over
Original airdate: Oct. 5, 2000

At the end of season 2, Piper talked Leo into taking her up to visit “them.” It's been a month and they are still gone. Phoebe (now blond) and Prue find themselves dealing with a bad guy and petty criminal named Emilio who seems to have a friend on the bench.

Cole Turner, my personal favorite demon, makes his first appearance in this episode, as a district attorney/demon. Phoebe immediately takes a shine to him. (“See something you like, Sis?” Prue asks her after their first meeting.)

Piper overhears Leo rehearsing his proposal to her in the bathroom, which she accepts by the end of the program. Phoebe levitates for the first time.

Band: Barenaked Ladies


2. Magic Hour
Original airdate: Oct. 12, 2000

Kit the cat brings home an enchanted owl who becomes a shapely naked man with first rays of the morning sun. It comes out he's under an enchantment along with his one true love, who is an animal while he's human and human while he's an animal. (“Didn't I see this in a movie?” one of the sisters asks.) His true love's boss, a demon, decided that if he couldn't have her, no one could, until there was a night within a day...

There is an upcoming eclipse, something Leo and Piper think they can work to their advantage as well. If humans can't look up during an eclipse, maybe the Elders can't look down and they can get married (huh?), so that when the sun comes out from behind the moon, they will have a sacred bond not even the Elders can break. Or something like that.


3. Once Upon a Time
Original airdate: Oct. 19, 2000

Coming home late at night, Phoebe nearly runs over a little girl sitting in the middle of the road holding a box. She's not supposed to talk about the fairies. Phoebe gets her home, helps her with her fairy and troll problem. In several embarrassing scenes, Prue and Phoebe revert back to their childhood. Piper, upset with the Elders, who have taken Leo, is on strike and refuses to fight the good fight, at least for a while.


4. All Halliwell's Eve
Original airdate: Oct. 26, 2000

The sister get sucked back in time to 17th century Virginia, tasked with helping protect a woman who is about to give birth from those who would take her baby and raise it to be evil. Cole shows up in breeches and a sad ponytail, but he's definitely falling for Phoebe, complicating his job of taking her out. Later, when the past is as it should be, Cole shows up at Halloween party at P3 in just about the silliest, most awkward angel costume imaginable. Nice touch.

Band: Snake River Conspiracy


5. Sight Unseen
Original airdate: Nov. 2, 2000

Someone has broken into the manor and managed to smash all the mirror in the process. Is it the supernatural come calling again, or something more ordinary? Inspector Darryl Morris suspects the latter, and to rule out a stalker, asks each of the sisters for a list of those who might have a grudge against her—humans, not demons with names like “Abraxas.”

This one led to some rather uncomfortable scenes for me. As there really was nothing to tip off the viewer of to as to the nature of the guilty party's obsession with Prue, it came across as a bit of, well, self-indulgence. It was also a disappointment because the prologue clearly shows the guilty party elsewhere at the time of the crime. Of course, this doesn't mean that the evil Triad, Cole's bosses, don't have some additional plans of their own, providing for some genuinely amusing elements all on their own.

Band: Marvelous 3


6. Primrose Empath
Original airdate: Nov. 9, 2000

Following “signs” that Cole has left her, Prue finds a half-mad demon “cursed” with the ability to feel everyone else's feelings. He passes it on to her, relieving him but she quickly heads toward an overload. In the meantime, Piper and Leo have to work to become a couple in the “real” world by crashing a lunch date with Cole and Phoebe. Prue in her empathic mode confirms that, despite all outward signs, Cole is falling in love with Phoebe.

Band: Idol


7. Power Outage
Original airdate: Nov. 16, 2000

The sisters know a demon named Beltazor has been sent by the evil Triad to kill them. They haven't yet made the connection that his human form is Phoebe's boyfriend, Cole. They know, however, that the vanquishing potion for an upper level demon such Beltazor requires some of his flesh. At the same time, the Triad is getting impatient with Cole, who then hires an anger demon to exploit tensions between the sisters. Between the two of them, they get the sisters so angry that they use their powers on each other an lose their powers. And yet, when he has Phoebe, weepy and vulnerable, he's not able to stab her.

Band: Fastball


8. Sleuthing with the Enemy
Original airdate: Dec. 14, 2000

Notice that you never see Beltazor and Cole in the same room together? Phoebe finally notices that Cole is injured in the same place that Piper hacked off a chunk of Beltazor flesh. The Source (of all Evil) determined the price of the bounty on Beltazor's head, which sends the first of a legion of bounty hunters after Cole.  The sisters hold their noses and decide work with one of these to rid the world of Beltazor. Phoebe has a wrinkle of her own to add. Silly girl.


9. Coyote Piper
Original airdate: Jan.11, 2001
Piper's ten-year high school reunion is cause for a lot of anxiety for her as she recalls herself being a nobody living in the shadow of Prue, who was (of course) class president. In the meantime, Kierken the alchemist has to deal with Terra, a life he created who doesn't want to remain under his control, but roams from body to body, trapping souls and eventually killing those she possesses, one of whom is Piper. On the bright side, Terra gives Piper a new found confidence at the reunion.


10. We All Scream for Ice Cream
Original airdate: Jan. 18, 2001

A nice-looking young man seems to be hitting on Piper at P3. He's polite enough, but impervious to Piper's many increasingly less subtle hints that she's spoken for. Prue has some song stuck in her head that seems connected to a dream. And there are signs that their father is in town again. To make things more complicated, children are disappearing into an ice cream truck playing the song that's stuck in Prue's head. Prue gets to reconcile a bit with their father.


11. Blinded by the Whitelighter
Original airdate: Jan. 25, 2001

After a warlock kills her most powerful charge, Natalie the Whitelighter, an old friend and coworker of Leo's, decides to help introduce some discipline into the Manor, something that doesn't go over well with the sisters, even if it is for their own good. An inspector is looking into Cole's disappearance. Phoebe 'fesses up to Leo that she faked Cole's vanquish. After the Elders' collective hind end is saved by the Charmed Ones and Leo, the Elders agree to lift the probation period and Piper and Leo are officially engaged.

While there is a lot of amusing dialogue in this episode, there is a significant plot hole. Why would Natalie, with all her planning and discipline, overlook an obvious trick by a warlock who is capable of transmogrification?

Band: Box


12. Wrestling with Demons
Original airdate: Feb. 1, 2001

Prue finds that a guy she dated briefly—the captain of the high school football team, no less—is paying off some gambling debts by making his way through a demon academy school. He only needs to kill an innocent to graduate. She decides she's going to save him from a fate worse than death or something like that by offering herself and her sisters in a wrestling match (EEWW) for his soul. It's as cheesy as it sounds. Faced with certain death, Phoebe admits that she didn't vanquish Cole after all.


13. Bride and Gloom
Original airdate: Feb. 8, 2001

While Phoebe is watching her favorite old movie, “Kill it Before it Dies,” Cole appears on the screen to let her know he's back... for good. She belts him the first time she sees him, but Cole still wants their relationship to work. Piper and Leo fuss about their wedding. A warlock impersonates Prue's “boring” date, kisses her with a potion that immobilizes long her enough for him to marry her and turn her evil. Bummer for him that the priestess who married them has a plan of her that make him expendable, turning the Book of Shadows evil and thus all the sisters. The upshot is that the wedding planners won't be coming back.

It's also one of the first times that Cole's demonic powers are used to help the sisters.


14. The Good, the Bad and the Cursed
Original airdate: Feb. 15, 2001

In town for the rehearsal Victor, the girls' dad, hopes to invest in some ghost town property and wants to get their read on any supernatural vibes. Phoebe detects a curse, ghosts running a continuous time loop. Prue and Cole travel to help them break the curse before Phoebe's connection to the past kills her. No one has mentioned to Victor that Leo is a Whitelighter. Since his ex-wife took up with her Whitelighter, Victor is understandably resentful. Again, Cole's demonic abilities prove helpful.


15. Just Harried
Original airdate: Feb. 22, 2001

Piper and Leo's big day and Prue is stressing out. She deals by astrally projecting into a biker bar and necking with a biker. Just her luck, there's a murder, and she's the prime suspect. In attempt to rescue her, her biker buddy crashes Piper and Leo's wedding, through the front door, on his bike.


16. Death Takes a Halliwell
Original airdate: March 15, 2001

After the wedding, Phoebe and Prue spend the day at the beach, the same place Grams brought them after their mother's funeral. Phoebe builds a sand castle. Prue ends up summoning death. They are under surveillance, and Inspector Reese shows up looking for Cole. Prue's death is foreshadowed here (quite literally).


17. Pre-Witched
Original airdate: March 22, 2001

Newlyweds Leo and Piper, needing their privacy, decide to move out. In the meantime,the sisters have to deal with a human incarnation of a familiar who has betrayed his witch. If they kill him nine times (to rid him of his nine lives), it becomes an immortal warlock. Contrasted with the present is their a glimpse of their lives just before Grams' death. She thought they weren't ready for the Charmed gig, and took action to keep them from coming into their powers.


18. Sin Francisco
Original airdate: April 19, 2001

While trying to protect an innocent from a demon, the sisters find themselves infected with one one the seven deadly sins of legend. This makes for a lot of amusing moments. Leo is infected with sloth, my personal favorite mortal sin. (You can accomplish your own damnation without any effort, but I digress). Instead of orbing up to check with the Elders, he just orbs upstairs to take a nap.

Band:Orgy


19. The Demon Who Came in From the Cold
Original airdate: April 26, 2001

When Phoebe vanquishes a fraternity brother of Cole's, he realizes that old evil brotherhood is up to no good. He'd had plans for Phoebe to strip his powers, but now he has to go undercover and deal with his erstwhile buddies. But just how far under is he really going? Sending Cole into the underworld is, in Piper's words, rather like sending an alcoholic to a kegger.


20. Exit Strategy
Original airdate: May 3, 2001

Knowing that Cole is a mole in the brotherhood, his mentor, Raynor, decides to destroy Phoebe's love for him by making it look like he's responsible for killing a witch. In the meantime, Piper tries to get Leo a passport, almost legally, so they can fly to France almost normally for their honeymoon. It's while they're waiting—and waiting—and waiting—and waiting in line that she discovers a new power. She can now blow things up as well as freeze them. It's helpful, but until she's get a handle on it, rather dicey.


21. Look Who's Barking
Original airdate: May 10, 2001

Mourning the loss of Cole to evil, Phoebe is turned into a screaming banshee (which is what my grandmother used to call my brother and me when we got rambunctious, long ago and far away—but for different reasons.) The sisters have to turn her back to a human before she kills a human, or she'll be a banshee forever. Casting a spell to find her, they suddenly find Prue has become a dog. With her sensitive hearing, she'll hearing Phoebe's wailing before humans do. There are cute moments, but this is mostly silly, comic relief sandwiched between the heavy Cole episodes and the upcoming death of Prue. Plus, Phoebe is now determined to reform Cole.

Leo to Piper after screaming banshee Phoebe has shattered the windows in the attic: “Are you OK?”
Piper: ”Am I OK? Prue is dog and Phoebe is banshee.”


22. All Hell Breaks Loose
Original airdate: May 17, 2001

In an effort to save a prominent doctor, the sisters accidentally find themselves on the local news vanquishing the demon, Shax, the Source's assassin. The fallout from the exposure leads to Piper being fatally shot. Phoebe goes into the underworld to find Cole and and begin his reluctant redemption. In order to protect the sisters, it's proposed that Cole ask the Source (who's more than a little upset with him, understandably) to have Tempus reset time to before the exposure occurred. He agrees to do this only if Phoebe remains in the underworld. After she agrees to this, he plans to kill her, of course, so that Beltazor won't be a problem.

Time is reset, and Piper is unshot, but with Phoebe in the underworld, no one is there read a vanquishing spell once Shax attacks. The doctor is killed this time, and Prue and Piper both appear dead. Leo is also in the underworld with Phoebe, and isn't there to heal them. Quite the little cliffhanger.



Dramatis personae:

Prue Halliwell: Shannen Doherty
Piper Halliwell: Holly Marie Combs
Phoebe Halliwell: Alyssa Milano
Inspector Darryl Morris: Dorian Gregory
Leo Wyatt: Brian Krause
Cole Turner: Julian McMahon
Penny “Grams” Halliwell: Jennifer Rhodes
Patty Halliwell: Finola Hughes
Abbey the bartender:Boti Ann Bliss
Barbas: Billy Drago
The Triad: Amir Aboulela, Shaun Toub, Rick Overton
Sam Wilder: Scott Jaeck
Natalie the Whitelighter:Audrey Wasileswki
Beltazor/Shax/the Source (of all evil): Michael Bailey Smith

Also reviewed:

Season 1
Season 2

Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: Fit for Friday Evening
Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children Age 13 and Older