Little Monsters
Phoebe is at dinner with Jason. Paige orbs in and asks for Phoebe's help. They orb to Piper, who is hiding in an alley from a manticore. Paige orbs a power line onto the manticore, electrocuting it. They then find its baby lying nearby. The baby has a long serpent's tongue.
Wyatt is taken with his new friend, to Piper's displeasure. Piper tries to separate them, but Wyatt just orbs to the other baby's playpen or the baby shimmers into Wyatt's. Piper suspects the baby is evil, Paige knows he's still a kid, he can be swayed between good or evil, and Phoebe can sense neither good nor evil in him. Chris is unhappy and wants the baby vanquished, but Piper, despite her misgivings, is unwilling to do it.
Phoebe has told Jason that she loves him. The next day, she finds Jason in a meeting and that he's flying to Italy. She thinks he's avoiding her. Darryl calls Paige regarding a hostage situation. The SWAT team moves in. Paige casts a spell to render Darryl bulletproof. He walks toward the gunman, who fires three shots, but the bullets bounce off Darryl's chest. Darryl comes out with the gunman in handcuffs and trashes a police car trying to put the gunman in the back seat.
Chris orbs to Leo and tells him about the demon baby, who seems as fascinated with Wyatt as Wyatt is with him.Phoebe again tries to separate Wyatt and the demon baby, but the baby gives a manticore cry. Shortly after, a beast shimmers into the attic. The beast attacks the sisters and Wyatt raises his defensive bubble. He grabs Piper and shimmers away.
The beast tells Piper that he wants the baby. Piper slips free of the rope binding her wrists and blasts him. The beast demands the baby again, and threatens to kill Piper if she does not help him get the baby.
The baby screams again and a manticore shimmers in. Phoebe throws a potion and vanquishes it. Two more shimmer in, but the beast shimmers in behind them. He kills the manticores and shimmers away with the baby. Leo and Chris agree to return the baby to the manticores, but the baby is missing.
The beast is injured; Piper is tending his wound. He tells her that he's not a demon; he's the baby's human father. He had used potions to assume a manticore-like form so he could find the baby. Paige and Phoebe, unaware of this development, go to the manticores. They then orb to Piper and the father and the manticores shimmer in after them. They throw potions, but Piper blasts them. The sisters orb away, but Piper tells them about the father. The father, nearly dead, morphs back into his human form. The sisters call for Leo and he heals the father.
The sisters grab potions and go back to the manticores, who now have the baby. Piper plays peek-a-boo with the baby, encouraging him to shimmer to the sisters. They throw their potions and vanquish the manticores. They return the baby to his father, who happens to be known as Derek. Jason cancels his flight to Italy so he can be with Phoebe.
Tropes:
- Blessed with Suck: As useful as being superhuman is for Darryl when it comes to resolving a hostage situation, he soon starts accidentally breaking everything he touches.
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Broken Aesop: The episode focuses on the sisters finding a baby manticore, an Always Chaotic Evil race, and debating what to do about it. Chris insists it has to be vanquished, Piper and Phoebe aren't comfortable vanquishing an infant, and Paige is firmly in the "Nurture trumps Nature" camp. In the end, Paige is proven to be right when the baby manticore's very human father promises to raise him right to ensure that he grows up to be a good person. This moral breaks instantly when one considers the Cole situation (half-human/half-demon who constantly fought his evil nature only for circumstances to conspire against him, leading to the sisters "rightfully" condemning him as irredeemable), not to mention all the other cases of "Evil" creatures having no choice in their alignment. But even within this one, self-contained episode, the moral can't stand up. The baby manticore is only proven "harmless" when it turns out his father is human, and this inherited humanity is what allows him the chance to be rehabilitated; if he'd had two manticore parents, he probably would have been vanquished alongside the pack. Then there's the fact that it's Paige citing "Nurture over Nature," specifically because she was adopted. Paige, whose arc is about embracing her magical destiny. Paige, who immediately after stating this position runs off to cast a spell on Darryl. Paige, whose greatest wish is for a world wherein she doesn't have to hide her magic. Paige, who embraced her birthright as a Charmed One to the point that her non-biological family only warrants a few mentions after her early episodes. If Paige was right, and it was Nurture that always wins out over Nature, she should have a lot more trouble with the craft. At the very least, she wouldn't run to magic as a solution to her problems, instead focusing on more mundane means, like she grew up with. - Call a Pegasus a "Hippogriff": The episode features a species of demon called Manticores. They're more like orcs than anything, while mythical manticores are scorpion-tailed lions with human heads.
- Children Are Innocent: Wyatt just wants to play with the baby. The baby seems to be a genuinely sweet kid, too. Even more to the point. Phoebe can't sense evil or good from the baby.
- "Could Have Avoided This!" Plot: Once Derek realized the girls were witches, and most likely good witches since they were trying to protect the baby, he could have just told them the truth and a lot of misunderstanding could have been avoided.
- Enemy Mine: Phoebe and Paige consider teaming up with the manticores to save Piper. Unbeknownst to them, she doesn't need to be saved from the beast, however.
- Enfant Terrible: Chris argues that the baby is this and should be killed.
- The "I Love You" Stigma: Phoebe's Empath power causes her to say "I love you too" to Jason before he's actually said "I love you" out loud.
- Monster Is a Mommy: The Manticore the sisters vanquish in the Cold Open turns out to be a mother to a young baby. The baby's father also turned himself into a demon to try and rescue him from the Manticores.
- Nature vs. Nurture: Paige makes a case for nurture, saying that the baby should be given a chance and not be condemned because of his birth. She brings up the fact that she herself was adopted, too.
- Papa Wolf: Derek, who turned himself into the beast to save his son.
- Shout-Out: Derek's storyline features a lot of allusions to Beauty and the Beast. He's a human who magically turned into a horrifying "Beast" (which the sisters call him before they learn his name), his home is trashed and Piper finds a photograph of his human form that he destroyed at some point. After he gets injured Piper tends to his wound the way Belle does and insists on going back to him after her sisters try to rescue her. The allusion is downplayed as Piper never shows any romantic interest in him, only relating to him as a fellow parent.
- This Was His True Form: Derek only returns to human form when he's on the brink of death, although he's Not Quite Dead and Leo can still heal him.
- What Measure Is a Non-Human?: Subverted. The sisters were hunting what they thought was a demon going after an innocent baby. Turned out the 'demon' was actually the baby's father, who had learned magic and transformed himself so as to have the power to protect his son from his mother and her kind. Not only did the sisters give the fellow a chance to explain the truth (despite him being willing to kidnap and endanger them), they stopped the real demons, saved his life (after his brush with death restored him to his human self), and got his son back for him. All of this despite the Elders telling them that 'the baby is a demon and can never be raised to be anything else', which they point out is untrue since as he's half-human, he has the capacity for good as well and his future is his to decide.
- Wouldn't Hurt a Child: Piper believes the demon baby should be vanquished, but she can't bring herself to do it.
