YMMV / Charmed S3E22 All Hell Breaks Loose

• Alternate Character Interpretation: The Source knows that one of the sisters will die, motivating Phoebe to agree to stay down below. Either he's using the Oracle's powers (who is introduced in the next episode), or he had a more direct hand in it. Piper's death is caused by Alice somehow getting up on top of a van, with a crowd of people and police not noticing her aiming a sniper rifle. Did the Source set that up?
• Fan Fic Fuel: As the next episode has a Time Skip to after Prue has died, there have been many attempts to fill the gaps of what actually happened. All that's canon is that Leo helped Phoebe escape from the Underworld before demons could get her and - distressed at seeing Piper near death again - healed her immediately rather than both at the same time like he had done the first time it happened. There have even been fan-edits, using clips from other episodes, at providing a resolution for Prue.
• Fridge Horror: How easily Alice took Piper out with the rifle? That likely gave the SWAT team at the end the idea that the witches could be killed just like normal humans. So if time hadn't been reset, Alice could single-handedly have facilitated the deaths of the Charmed Ones!
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • Piper and Prue reluctantly let Phoebe go to the Underworld...which turns out to be the last time Phoebe is ever together with both her sisters. Prue even saying she knows Phoebe can take care of herself, considering Phoebe will outlive her.
  • And the tragic scene of Prue having to watch Piper die in the hospital will be flipped around in the next season. Piper is the one who survives, and carries the guilt because of it. Piper's berating of Leo is almost a mirror of how Prue treats him when he discovers Piper is dead - No Sympathy and just cold orders to fix it.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • While Charmed followed the lead of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, here the Wham Shot of Piper bleeding from a bullet wound would be followed by a similar shot in Buffy for Tara's death.
  • The sisters get an interview request for Sports Illustrated, Darryl quipping that it's probably the swimsuit edition. Two seasons later, Phoebe (the only sister not present for this scene) is the one who does a sexy magazine photoshoot.
• Inferred Holocaust: During Prue's rampage, she uses her powers to get all the protestors out of the driveway. Although we see Elana and her camera crew landing on the lawn, one man crashes against a windshield and another falls off a car roof. It's all but guaranteed that Prue killed a bunch of people.
• Memetic Mutation: Prue's line "they think we're the demons now" was a very popular quote in signatures on message boards.
• Narm: Prue's line about everything turning into "a frickin circus" is meant to be serious, but rendered funny because of the Gosh Darn It to Heck!.
• One-Scene Wonder: Shax appears in this and the Season 4 premiere, but goes down as one of the most memorable antagonists of the show for being the only one to permanently kill a Charmed One.
• Realism-Induced Horror: Part of what makes Piper's death on the operating table so harrowing is how starkly realistic it is. There's lots of blood, and Prue is covered in it too, even cradling Piper's own bloody hands in hers. The fact that Prue is going for Inelegant Blubbering as her sister trembles can make it feel like you're watching an actual person die.
• Signature Scene:
  • The Wham Shot of Piper being revealed to have a bullet wound is particularly famous.
  • The other famous moment is Prue - desperate to drive Piper to the hospital - uses her powers to throw people out of the way. The only time in the series that Prue uses her powers on innocents.