The episode is rather light-hearted. When the sisters keep bickering under a full-on hail of gunfire, you get the idea that the stakes won't be too high. Still, it introduces two novelties : first, Prue starts to astral project, which means she now has a passive power besides her active one. (This is rather unfair to poor Phoebe, who regularly gets cheated in the power department: her strangled squeak at being described as "negligible" doesn't even sound so indignant, as if she partially agreed.) Secondly, Darryl Morris discovers the truth about the sisters. Quite unexpectedly, where Andy's reaction had caused a lot of drama, Darryl does not give them a hard time about it at all. In fact, he sort of blanks out once the word "magic" is out, refusing to know more --an attitude he will be faithful to, despite the Charmed Ones' and Fate's best efforts to involve him in creepy situations.
The other interesting fact about that episode is that it reintroduces Barbas, the demon of Fear whom the sisters vanquished last year... and whom they will vanquish over and over again, until he becomes more a pest than a nemesis. Apparently it's not that easy to get rid of fear. And Billy Drago plays a deliciously sly Barbas.
As for the main plot, it is coherent with Prue's character: when faced with too much stress, her subconscious finds interesting (and mostly troublesome) ways of going elsewhere --and she is also quite attracted to bad boys (Marry Go Round). At least she's having fun, and her clear attraction to Bane Jessup will be the object of another episode. Granted, there are some weaknesses, mostly based on the fact that once again Prue leads the episode while her sisters fill in the blanks (some scenes with the overenthusiastic witch really feel like padding.) Still, I have to smile when I watch Prue and Piper investigate Ms. Hellfire's flat : Piper rushes straight to the kitchen while Prue delves into the wardrobe. I guess Phoebe would have studied the bed!
The other interesting fact about that episode is that it reintroduces Barbas, the demon of Fear whom the sisters vanquished last year... and whom they will vanquish over and over again, until he becomes more a pest than a nemesis. Apparently it's not that easy to get rid of fear. And Billy Drago plays a deliciously sly Barbas.
As for the main plot, it is coherent with Prue's character: when faced with too much stress, her subconscious finds interesting (and mostly troublesome) ways of going elsewhere --and she is also quite attracted to bad boys (Marry Go Round). At least she's having fun, and her clear attraction to Bane Jessup will be the object of another episode. Granted, there are some weaknesses, mostly based on the fact that once again Prue leads the episode while her sisters fill in the blanks (some scenes with the overenthusiastic witch really feel like padding.) Still, I have to smile when I watch Prue and Piper investigate Ms. Hellfire's flat : Piper rushes straight to the kitchen while Prue delves into the wardrobe. I guess Phoebe would have studied the bed!