Recap / Charmed S3E3 Once Upon A Time

Season 03, Episode 03:

Once Upon A Time

Piper goes on strike against the Powers That Be so Prue and Phoebe must work without her to save a little girl protecting a fairy princess from trolls.

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Leo pulls Piper aside at P3. They kiss for the first time in a week and Leo says he has come to say goodbye; "they" have ordered him never to see her again. Leo's voice begins to echo, and then Piper's. He urges her to forget about him. He orbs away. Prue appears and urges Piper to wake up. Suddenly, Piper finds herself in her room, with Prue by her side—it was all a dream. Piper is still distraught over Leo being taken from her, and doesn't think "they" will ever let him come back. Prue consoles her. Prue calls Phoebe, who is driving Prue's car, and tells her about Piper's dream. Phoebe, distracted, almost hits a little girl in the street. The girl, Kate, is holding a small box, protecting it from unseen creatures. Suddenly, one of them scratches her on the arm. Phoebe comforts Kate and finds three claw marks on her arm.

The sisters prepare some hot chocolate and cookies for Kate. Phoebe tries to get Kate's coat from the car but finds all the keys missing. Kate suggests that the fairies hid them, but catches herself—she's not supposed to talk about fairies. Kate's mother and stepfather arrive to take Kate home; she urges them to stay out of the door, because it's an "in-between"—a place where trolls live. Kate sees a troll, a small, grotesque creature, but none of the others do.

Kate's mother and stepfather say that Kate has been troubled since her parents' divorce and has reverted to the "imaginary friend" stage. Phoebe believes Kate, but Piper is not so sure. Prue suggests they sleep on it.

Kate's mother tucks Kate in. Kate wants the light left on, but her mother refuses. As she leaves, unseen figures begin to disturb the room.

Prue and Phoebe find old watercolors of their imaginary friend, a fairy named Lilly, in the attic. Phoebe finds information on fairies and trolls in a children's book. They live in a parallel world separated by places between light and dark, or "tweens." Prue is skeptical at first; Phoebe found Kate in a street, not a tween. However, Phoebe recalls that she found Kate at midnight—when the world becomes one giant tween. The Book of Shadows is silent because it was written by and for adults. Just as Prue and Phoebe are heading out to Kate's place, Cole calls Phoebe and chats her up, and after a while says he sounds like Billy Appleby. Phoebe recognizes the name, the protagonist from Kill It Before It Dies. It turns out Cole is looking at his extensive dossier on Phoebe. Cole wants to meet at the manor, but Phoebe waves him off and asks to meet him at P3. Phoebe shows Piper the old drawings of Lily; she was Piper's imaginary friend as well. Prue tells Piper about Kate, but Piper isn't willing to do anything for "them" anymore and heads out. Phoebe thinks Piper is on strike.

Kate is drawing detailed pictures of Trolls when Prue and Phoebe visit. They ask Kate what she knows of fairies. She is protecting Thistle, a fairy princess, from the trolls, who want to rule the enchanted kingdom. Prue and Phoebe ask to see Thistle. Kate opens the box, but Prue and Phoebe still can't see her. Kate sprinkles Prue and Phoebe with fairy dust so they'll be innocent again. Phoebe and Prue give a silly giggle and now they see Thistle. Kate gives Prue the key to Thistle's box.

The fairy dust is still affecting Prue and Phoebe that night at P3. Piper walks in to find Prue and Phoebe singing old children's songs as the patrons leave in droves. Piper demands to know what's going on. When Prue and Phoebe tell her they saw a fairy, Piper suspects something witchy and freezes the room. Prue and Phoebe tell Piper about the fairy dust. They try to dust Piper, to no avail. Prue and Phoebe try to get Piper to help them, but Piper orders her sisters into the parking lot to wait for a cab. As Prue and Phoebe walk out the door, they dodge several trolls. Prue and Phoebe find the manor an intimidating place with its many doorways. The doorbell rings and Cole is at the door. Puzzled at their behavior, he asks to use the bathroom. They send him to one. He locks the door and shimmers to the attic. Prue talks to Kate over a walkie-talkie and tell her that the dust didn't work on Piper. Kate says that Piper must not believe in fairies. Cole tries to take the Book, but it leaps off its stand and onto the floor.

He turns into a grotesque, muscular demon and reaches for the book again, but it slides away from him. Prue and Phoebe think they hear a troll and enter the attic. They find demon-Cole still in the attic, but he shimmers away. The trolls attack, steal the key from Phoebe, and trip her and Prue down the stairs. The rough landing turns Prue and Phoebe back to normal again, and they hustle Cole out the door.

Prue checks the Book to put together a spell while Phoebe tries to reason with Piper. Trolls have invaded P3, and one of them trips Piper while she's carrying glasses. Phoebe tells Piper about the trolls. Piper relents and decides to help, but can't find her keys—the trolls hid them. She tries to get the spare out of the register, but a troll slams it on her hand. Disgusted, Piper asks her bartender, Abbey, to close up for her. Piper steps outside and trolls trip her up. In frustration, Piper looks up and rants at "them," demanding that they give Leo back.

Midnight approaches and finally Piper comes to the manor. The three read a spell to allow them to see fairies and trolls. They go to Kate's house. Midnight strikes and the trolls attack in Kate's room. The sisters enter and are also beset by trolls; the spell didn't work the trolls grab Thistle's box, drag Kate under the bed and turn her into a fairy. They open Thistle's box and take Kate and Thistle.

Piper blames herself for the failure of the spell. Phoebe tries to get a vision from the box. Piper talks out her feelings and the spell begins to work; they see a fairy in the window. The fairy leads the sisters into the woods, and then flies away when it sees a cave. The cave is "Troll Central"; Kate and Thistle are in a suspended cage and the trolls light a fire under them. The trolls spot them and attack. Phoebe levitates and Prue swats Phoebe toward the cage, rescuing Kate and Thistle. Prue and Piper leap the flames as Piper freezes them, and so they lure the trolls into the flames. Kate at first wants to stay a fairy, but Piper talks her into becoming human again.

At the manor, the doorbell rings. No one is at the door, but the porch is covered with wreaths and garlands—apparently the fairies' way of thanking them.

Piper reflects that marriage to a Whitelighter may be hard, that he may be gone for weeks at a time. She could not have lived with losing Kate, however, and is willing to give up Leo if it gets in the way of her Charmed duties. Leo orbs in and tells Piper that "they" have reconsidered; they are going to give Leo and Piper a chance as long as innocents aren't jeopardized.

Phoebe calls Cole, meaning to leave a message, and finds him at his desk at 2 AM. They talk a bit, and then he sends his shadow to report to the Triad.

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Tropes

• Ankle Drag: Kate when a troll is dragging her under her bed.
• Arbitrary Skepticism: Piper - a witch - refuses to believe that fairies are real. Justified, though, because not only has she never seen such creatures before, but it's also part of her overall Heroic BSoD and willingness to just give up.
• Armor-Piercing Response:
  • To get his hooks in Phoebe, Cole likens himself to Billy Appleby (the main character from her favorite movie, Kill It Before It Dies). She immediately takes notice just like he expected.
  • While talking to Phoebe on the phone, Piper remains uninterested in hearing any of this troll business, until:
    Phoebe: Believe it or don't, but they are sneaky and mean, and they are trying to hurt a seven-year-old girl.
• Bad Liar: After their tumble down the stairs to the attic, Prue and Phoebe are no longer acting like kids. Cole notes the sudden difference in behavior and admits he thought they were drunk, so Prue says stairs have a sobering effect. Phoebe privately points out what a lousy lie that is, but Prue retorts she couldn't very well tell the truth.
• Batman Gambit: Cole's intention was to ask Phoebe out for a date, wait for her to go to the given location, and then shimmer into the attic to make a play for the Book of Shadows. All this troll business causes some complications, but he still manages to sneak into the attic. He then gets thrown a curveball by the Book of Shadows refusing to be touched by evil.
• Bittersweet Ending: The innocents are safe and Piper and Leo are back together (if on probation), but Prue and Phoebe are concerned about the new demon they saw. Phoebe's phone call to Cole also reassures him that he's one step closer to his goal.
• Blackmail: The whole reason that the trolls are after Thistle is because she's the princess of the enchanted realm. Holding her hostage is how they intended to get her parents to surrender and turn over the realm to them.
• Bond One-Liner: Courtesy of Prue, after the trolls are burned to death.
  Prue: Now, that is just the way I like my trolls: medium-well.
• Bread, Eggs, Breaded Eggs: Shortly after meeting Cole (and having him witness her under the influence of fairy dust, which makes her act like a young child), Phoebe calls him and says she hopes he doesn't think she's "a drunk, or a lunatic, or a drunken lunatic."
• Chekhov's Gun: When Prue and Phoebe visited her, Kate was working on a drawing of goblins in a cave. Ahead of the big confrontation, Phoebe notes the cave they're heading to looks a lot like the one from that drawing.
• Children Are Innocent: The reason why Kate and children in general can see fairies and trolls, whereas adults can't. Based on the sisters' own possible experience with Lily, people eventually stop believing as they get older. The fairy dust from Thistle is said to be a way to make adults innocent again (as happens with Prue and Phoebe), but it only works if the adult is willing to believe (so it doesn't work on Piper). After being back to normal, Prue has to cobble together a few spells to work as a functional workaround.
• Cliffhanger Copout: Subverted. The episode opens with Piper at P3 and happy with Leo, as if the last episode never happened. Then he says he's leaving and can never see her again, revealing this to be a dream.
• Continuity Nod:
  • Cole's file on Phoebe mentions that her favorite movie is "Kill It Before It Dies". He pretends it's one of his favorites to bond with her.
  • Piper finds the Valentine that Leo gave her back in Season 2.
  • In the season premiere Phoebe said "I've got to get a cell phone". Now she has one.
• Dramatic Irony: We're treated to seeing Cole's demonic form for the first time. Phoebe later refers to this demon as unattractive before thinking of Cole.
• Fairy in a Bottle: Kate keeps Thistle safely in her jewellery box.
• False Reassurance: With his own scheme foiled and the sisters having business to attend to, Cole has no choice but to willingly leave the manor. As Phoebe apologizes for this botched night, Cole assures her he'll try again later.
• Friend to All Children: All three sisters. Phoebe is the most insistent on helping and believing Kate. Prue isn't so sure she believes in fairies and trolls, but she's committed to helping a worried kid that could be in danger. Piper is the most resistant to not believing in any of this talk, but Phoebe stressing a child is in danger rouses her into action.
• The Gadfly:
  • Fairies are always kind to children, but they can be mischievous towards adults, such as hiding car keys.
  • The trolls view the sisters as threats to their agenda, so they do have a reason to attack them even after claiming the box's key. That doesn't mean they don't enjoy the abuse that they subject Piper to at P3. One even openly laughs at her when she's knocked down in the parking lot.
• Game Face: Cole shapeshifts into the demonic Belthazor for the first time.
• Geeky Turn-On: Invoked. Cole tries to romance Phoebe by pretending his favourite movie is Kill It Before It Dies like her.
• Genre Shift: This is the first real fantasy-themed episode of the series. More and more would appear before becoming incredibly prominent in Season 5.
• Growing Up Sucks: All children can see the fairies and trolls. Growing up means eventually losing that innocence and thus never being able to see them again. Prue sounds a little regretful that she outgrew her supposed imaginary friend, Lily.
• Heroic BSoD: Piper spends pretty much the entire episode like this.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: At the cave, the trolls intended to drop Thistle and Kate in fire. After the sisters intervene, Prue has Piper freeze the fire and then runs through it. When the trolls chase after them, Prue tells Piper to unfreeze the fire at just the right moment.
• Hollywood Tone-Deaf: At the club, the childlike Prue and Phoebe get a hold of the microphone and sing random songs. It goes very poorly. By the time Piper arrives, several annoyed patrons are leaving with their hands firmly over their ears.
• Hope Spot: Since they have the key to the box containing Thistle, Prue and Phoebe figure Kate is at least safe for now. She tells them over a walkie-talkie that the trolls are in the shadows in her room, clearly waiting for midnight to strike.
• Hufflepuff House: The book Phoebe reads mentions fairies, elves and trolls. Elves do not appear in this episode, despite coming from the 'tween place'. An elf does appear in Season 5 as a nanny for Wyatt.
• I Choose to Stay: Almost. Kate at first wants to remain a fairy, but the girls convince her to return to human and be with her family.
• Imaginary Friend: Kate's parents think the fairies and trolls she talks about are just imaginary friends, but they're actually very real. Apparently all three Halliwells had an "imaginary friend" fairy called "Lily" as kids. Piper assumes it was just something one of them made up and the other two went along with, but it's strongly implied that Lily was very real. It's noted how Prue's drawing of Lily and a troll looks similar to Kate's own drawings of the creatures.
• Improbable Infant Survival: The trolls are out to hurt and possibly kill Kate for hiding Thistle. But they failed.
• Invisible to Adults: The fairies and trolls can't be seen by adults. Kate literally pointing directly at a troll hanging just shy of the manor's front doorway is met with complete confusion by the present adults, even the three full-grown witches. It takes Thistle's fairy dust for Prue and Phoebe to even see her and the trolls, but this makes them act like children and hampers their abilities. After it wears off, Prue thinks to cobble together some spells so that the sisters can see these creatures without having their effectiveness reduced.
• Irony: Once the cobbled together spell finally starts working, it's Piper (the one most resistant to all this fairy talk) that is the first of the sisters to see a fairy.
• Jerkass Gods Have a Point: Piper realizes that the Elders' rule about witches and Whitelighters is meant to ensure both can do their jobs effectively.
• Lampshade Hanging:
  • Prue questions why the Book of Shadows has no entry on fairies or trolls, despite having an assortment of material on all kinds of other creatures. Phoebe muses that a book written by adults wouldn't have anything on creatures that can only be seen by children.
  • After the trolls get the key and knock them down the stairs, Prue and Phoebe are no longer acting like kids. Phoebe questions this sudden shift, but Prue suggests the trauma of the attack reverted them to normal.
• Language Barrier: Kate had to piece together the details of the enchanted realm because fairies don't talk the way humans do. When the sisters later encounter another fairy, he can only lead them in the right direction to the cave rather than simply tell them where to go. When Kate is turned into a fairy, she never speaks directly to the sisters, either.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: Though the episode is primarily about fairies and trolls, Prue and Phoebe witness Belthazor at work in the attic. After he departs, Prue immediately knows what he was intending, but Phoebe is still confused.
  Phoebe: Okay, well, where does he fit into this story?
• Little "No": Kate, after a troll hits her with dust that turns her into a fairy.
• Manchild: The fairy dust that Thistle uses on Prue and Phoebe has them acting like children. Thankfully for them, everyone just assumes they're drunk.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Piper feels her lack of faith in anything is responsible for the spell not working and Kate being taken. It all works out in the end, but it still leaves her pretty shaken.
• The Needs of the Many: In the aftermath of the whole thing, Piper reflects on how the rules are what they are because a witch having a relationship with a Whitelighter could lead to distractions and that innocents like Kate are the ones who would suffer for that.
  Piper: I don't think I could live with that. And if that means I have to give up Leo, then I guess that's a sacrifice I'm willing to make.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: After getting spooked by Belthazor in the attic, Phoebe accidentally steps into the doorway just long enough for a troll to steal the box's key.
• Nightmare Fuel Coloring Book:
  • When Prue and Phoebe were visiting, Kate was working on a drawing of goblins in a cave. She then talks about rescuing Thistle from a cave, suggesting this is what the drawing is about.
  • Prue's old drawing of Lily includes a nasty little creature in the background. Phoebe suggests it was a troll and that they saw one when they were kids.
• Noodle Incident: Kate stumbled upon the cave where the trolls were detaining Thistle, and she freed her. She spent the time since protecting Thistle and having to fend off trolls at every turn.
• "Not So Different" Remark: Piper gets Kate to return to being human by saying she can relate to her anguish and uncertainty over a loved one leaving, as well as how her mother will be just as sad as she was the day her father moved out.
• Oh, Crap!:
  • Expecting to find a troll in the attic, Prue and Phoebe get a big surprise when they see Belthazor instead.
    Phoebe: Prue, that was a very, very big troll.
  • Kate when midnight strikes and multiple trolls suddenly emerge in her room.
• Only Sane Woman: Prue maintains a cautious and sensible approach in response to Phoebe's excited fairy talk and Piper's Heroic BSoD. Even when acting like a child, Prue has a better sense of awareness over what they're supposed to be doing than Phoebe does.
• Out-of-Character Moment: Lampshaded by Phoebe when she and Piper are at odds, and Prue has to mediate between them. It's usually Piper herself who has to mediate between Prue and Phoebe.
  "Look. You went and turned Prue into the middle child."
• Our Fairies Are Different:
  • Winged Humanoid but not capable of human speech.
  • Mostly benevolent, but can be known to hide keys and other objects.
  • Can only be seen by children, or at least those innocent enough to believe. After this episode the sisters are able to see fairies, and there's an entry in the Book of Shadows on them - so presumably the sisters wrote a spell to allow them to see fairies for good.
  • Have some magic of their own but not much.
  • It's possible for a human to be turned into one.
• Our Monsters Are Different: The trolls shown here are more like evil, miniature gnomes with Super-Speed.
• Parent with New Paramour: Kate resents how her mother married someone else after the divorce. The stepfather comes off as a nice and loving guy concerned about his new stepdaughter, but she bitterly insists that's not her real father.
• Pet the Dog: The Elders allow Leo to return to the manor, after Piper has her realization about why the rules were put in place and how the greater good requires sacrifice.
• Rage Against the Heavens: Out in P3's parking lot, Piper condemns the Elders for the various misfortunes she's suffered lately.
• Super-Speed: The trolls have this ability, putting the sisters on defense even when in their right minds. Piper barely manages to freeze even one of them in the cave.
• That Was Not a Dream: Yes and no for the opening P3 dream. Piper is asleep and dreaming, but the final scene reveals that really was Leo talking to her. The Elders had forbidden him from ever seeing Piper again, so he entered her dreams to give her a proper goodbye.
• This Is Gonna Suck: Fending off trolls at the manor, Phoebe remarks there are a lot of doorways in this house.
• Toilet Humour: The childish Prue and Phoebe giggle when Cole says he needs to use their bathroom.
• Took a Level in Badass: The Book of Shadows. The last time a demon tried to take it out of the house, it was fooled by its shapeshifting abilities. Now the book is powerful enough to prevent evil from touching it at all.
• When the Clock Strikes Twelve: The enchanted realm that fairies and trolls dwell in is separated from ours by a thin veil that only lifts in "in-between places" like doorways, windows, and shadows. The midnight hour is the biggest one of all. As Kate says, she can usually avoid the others while protecting Thistle, but there's nothing she can do about that one. There's no place to hide, which means a very long amount of time to be on guard and face attacks.
• Would Hurt a Child: The trolls fully intend to burn Thistle alive, if their demands aren't met. They also repeatedly attack Kate for interfering in their business. After getting Thistle, the trolls turn Kate into a fairy and kidnap her, too, to burn her as payback for all the trouble she caused them.
• Wrong Genre Savvy: Kate took her parents' divorce very hard. As a result, her mother sees all this talk of fantastical creatures as the child's way of coping with a highly stressful situation. Her use of the term "regressed" suggests she sees this as a simple family drama that can be fixed with therapy rather than a fairy tale installment of a supernatural series.
• You Are Not Alone: During the first visit to Kate's house, Prue and Phoebe show her the old drawing of Lily and a troll.
  Kate: My mom says I'm making them up, but I'm not.
  Prue: We believe you.
• You Have to Believe Me!: Kate repeatedly insists that there are fairies and especially goblins about, and she's not shy about being loud about it. Unfortunately, due to Invisible to Adults, it looks like she's pointing at thin air, so no one outside of Phoebe and Prue takes her seriously.