The sisters still struggle to adjust to their new lives, especially Paige, who still receives calls from her new charge Billie. Piper finds it difficult to ignore innocents in trouble, Phoebe seeks out Dex and Paige wants to become a cop. Still sceptical about the Charmed Ones being dead, Haas works with a female demon, Black Heart, to lure them out by kidnapping teenagers and erasing their memories, but it's Billie who comes after them instead.
The Charmed Ones are still in hiding and the demon Haas suspects that they are alive. He and another demon, Black Heart, are luring teenagers into an Alice-in-Wonderland world, to try to lure the sisters out. The missing teenagers are later found blankly babbling lines related to the fairy tale, which according to several scenes, has been reported on the news. Billie gets word of the disappearances and prepares to go after the demons.
Paige gets pulled over for running a stop sign. The policewoman gets word of one of the missing teenagers found and Paige is spared getting a ticket. After a brief conversation with the policewoman, she decides she wants to become a cop herself.
Black Heart lures a young man, Alastair, into an alley. He steps near a hole and is drawn into it. He finds himself trapped in a dark tunnel and surrounded by Black Heart and Haas. Billie arrives, but the demon has got away.
Paige goes to the police department, but the recruitment officer is skeptical, thinking Paige does not have the stamina to do the job. She flips him over and now he's convinced. However, in her first day at the academy, she hears Billie's "jingle" and leaves.
Billie is fighting with Black Heart and Paige orbs in. Black Heart escapes and Billie blames Paige. They fight, but are evenly matched. Paige knocks off Billie's black wig and Billie leaves. Paige then finds an innocent whom Black Heart had been after. Haas suspects Paige is the one who chased Black Heart away.
Paige scries using Billie's wig. She orbs to Billie's room and talks to her. Paige wants to know what Billie knows about the disappearances. Billie says she is self-taught and tells Paige about the Alice-like names, and about how she scries for demons using a GPS unit and a computer.
The newspaper hires "Julie Bennet" to replace Phoebe, not knowing that she is in fact Phoebe. Phoebe's latest beau, Dex Lawson, had suggested it.
Billie enters the tunnel, but Haas and Black Heart catch her and send her into the Alice-in-Wonderland world. She hears voices and sees bizarre and frightening images all around her. She finds herself in a courtroom and Haas and Black Heart menace her — but then Black Heart catches fire and explodes. Haas now knows the Charmed Ones are alive, but the sisters throw potions and vanquish him.
Billie joins forces with the Charmed Ones, offering to fight some of the demons in return for training.
Paige has changed her mind about being a cop, but has connected with a cop she met in the academy.
Tropes
- Alice Allusion: Teenagers, all of whom are named with some variation of the name "Alice" (Alicia, Alexis, Alistair) are being lured down a manhole by a demon, who either shape-shifted into a white rabbit or was wearing a t-shirt with a white rabbit on it inviting them to a garden party and telling them they are very late. They turn up later with no memory and appear to have gone insane from the Wonderland-inspired illusions they experienced "down the rabbit hole". The demon was actually invoking this; she didn't believe the Charmed Ones were actually dead, and she knew they couldn't resist investigating something so obvious.
- Big Damn Heroes: The sisters take out Black Heart, saving Billie from the Wonderland illusions.
- Continuity Nod: Haas references that the Charmed Ones had been attacked with fairy tales before. He gets the facts a little wrong though; Cinderella only turned Phoebe into a pumpkin, not the other sisters.
- Desperately Looking for a Purpose in Life: While Phoebe and Paige are trying to move forward, Piper stalls out. She tells Leo she's been pulled in so many different directions for the last seven years that she can't even begin to know how to start over or process her guilt over giving up protecting innocents. Leo says all she can do is be patient and take a much deserved transitional period.
- Eek, a Mouse!!: A justified example. Billie screams when she sees a rat as part of the Alice in Wonderland trip. Justified because this rat is gigantic, with glowing red eyes. She'd shown no problem seeing normal sized rats elsewhere.
- Entertainingly Wrong:
- During the climax, Haas is absolutely certain that Billie is one of the Charmed Ones in a glamour disguise. The idea of some random witch stumbling onto his gambit just never occurred to him.
- Conversely, Piper wonders if Billie is actually part of what Haas and Black Heart are doing, that that's how she knows so much about the situation and that she somehow planted all of the signs.
- Foreshadowing: Piper is the one who suspects that Billie might actually be an enemy, and she sarcastically suggests blowing her up. Towards the end of the season, when Billie is revealed to be the Ultimate Power, Piper is the quickest to turn on her.
- He Knows Too Much:
- Haas has to be vanquished simply as a matter of protecting innocents, but Phoebe acknowledges this trope.Haas: I knew you were alive.
Phoebe: Too bad you won't be around long enough to tell anybody. - After Billie reveals she knows they're the Charmed Ones, Piper suggests blowing her up, too.Piper: What? Do you have any better ideas?
- Haas has to be vanquished simply as a matter of protecting innocents, but Phoebe acknowledges this trope.
- Hell-Bent for Leather: Paige tells Billie to "lose the cheap, vinyl outfit."
- Ironic Description Cut: After the sisters hash out what's going on, Phoebe wonders if Billie will figure it out, too, and walk into danger. Paige openly doubts that, saying Billie treats this all as a game. We then see Billie walking around the tunnel.
- Jerkass Has a Point: The cop who tried to dissuade Paige from applying is ultimately proved right; she wasn't suited to being one.
- Leaning on the Fourth Wall: Billie offers to take over demon fighting to give the sisters a break. This references how the character was introduced to give the three leads less stunt work to do.
- Properly Paranoid: Paige suspects Haas and Black Heart are really baiting the sisters, with innocents just stumbling into the danger.
- Resigned to the Call: Piper acknowledges they can't just ignore what's happening, saying knowing innocents are in danger is a lot different than just the hypothetical idea.
- Shout-Out: While moping over her situation with Dex, Phoebe wonders how the girls from Sex and the City would deal with it. She narrates the rest of the episode in the same style as Carrie Bradshaw.
- Smarter Than You Look: Billie is smart enough to have figured out how to scry with a computer and to get to the tunnel. Phoebe is admittedly impressed; Paige just thinks Billie's smarts are getting her in over her head.
- Underestimating Badassery: Haas cops to this before he's vanquished.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: It's never said whether the electricity in P3 was fixed in time for it to open. But, given how Piper hunts demons that night instead, it looks as though it stayed closed for a day.
