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2005-02-28 Entry: "De-Cypher-ing Charmed"

"From Fear To Eternity" sees the first appearance of Barbas, the demon of fear. He kills witches with whatever they fear most. It's also Friday the 13th, so Piper's superstitions are getting the best of her.

Prue is afraid of drowning, after her mother drowned in a lake. Phoebe thinks she's scared of elevators but is really afraid of losing a sister. And Piper? Well, we don't find that out because Barbas is only going off the signatures from the occult shop mailing list.

Anyway, Prue's mother comes to her while she's sitting on the bottom of the pool and tells her to let love in to her heart... amazingly this message allows Prue to swim out of the pool and defeat Barbas.

"Secrets And Guys" sees a boy named Max kidnapped because he's a budding young witch and can override security systems with his mind. Prue gets a message on the spirit board telling her to help him.

Piper's dealing with a pushy new head chef, who wants to throw out all her knives, and who is annoying all the staff.

Leo comes back, and Phoebe finds him floating in the living room fixing the chandelier. He has to tell her everything about being a Whitelighter, and how he screwed up by falling in love with a witch. He also tells her his orders come from a bunch of elder whitelighters called The Founders. The Founders? When did they lose that name? I'm guessing this is the only reference to them under that term...

Prue goes to help Max, finding where he's being held but getting captured herself... and then Max is wired with explosive...

Prue saves the day, but not before Max's father is shot... Leo turns up and heals him.

Phoebe accidentally lets slip the entirety of Leo's secret, but they think she's making it up as it sounds so ridiculous.

"Is There A Woogy In The House?" sees an earthquake release the woogy man from the Halliwell basement, just when Prue is hosting a dinner party for Bucklands.

Here we get evil Phoebe... a taste of things to come with the whole Cole debacle... and our first appearance of Grams.

After a two hour break to watch Ice Angel on TV (potential olympic ice hockey player taken from his life before time by bungling angel is brought back in the body of a female ice skater), we come back to "Which Prue Is It Anyway?" We open with a boxing match, and a demon with a sword - well, we presume he's a demon, but I guess he could be a warlock... and his sword's made of glass, and drains something out of the dead guy.

Okay, he's a Lord Of War, and their ancestor Briannon defeated him by taking his sword away. Now he's got to kill Prue to get them back. Oh, and he can't be harmed unless his sword is taken away from him first.

The incantation they find in the Book of Shadows to multiply Prue's power (so she can get the sword away) has a slight side effect - there's now three Prue Halliwells.

Phoebe decides to colour code them so they know which one was the original - black, pink and blue. Of course, when the pink one dies and Andy is called to the morgue to identify the body, he ends up with more questions than answers...

The bad guy, Gabriel, may be immune to weapons, but he's not immune to his own sword...

"That 70s Episode" sees a bad guy turn up who had apparently made a pact with their mother to give up their powers to him - and he's got a ring that she blessed that made him immune to them.

The sisters run away, try a spell out of the Book to undo the pact, and end up back in time. Cue amusing mix-ups, sentimental family reunions, more evil warlocky badness, and an attempt to use the event for personal gain (how much are IBM shares selling for anyway?!).

"When Bad Warlocks Turn Good" sees Eyes Only as an ex-warlock wanting to join the priesthood, but his warlock brothers want him back, and for that they've got to get him to do bad things.

Okay, they've got to get him to kill an innocent so they can form some evil coven of three warlocks who have lots of power and are pretty much unstoppable - like the evil version of the Charmed Ones.

Prue gets to believe in his general goodness, and Andy gets lots more questions when a woman is nearly sacrificed and the Charmed Ones turn up to save her.

I then decided to take a break from the Charmed episodes - with four remaining I should get it done tomorrow... Instead I decided to watch the movie "Cypher."

Jeremy Northam plays an employee of Digicorp who has to go undercover and visit a whole bunch of conferences around the country. While doing this, he meets Rita, who tells him he's being brainwashed to believe he's actually the person he's playing. Once he's brainwashed, he can get a job at rival firm Sunways. But they're looking for a double agent, which is why they hired Rita to interrupt the brainwashing so they could turn him.

The film's a little convoluted, but stylish as hell. The ending is pretty predictable, but it's still a great tale, and is a fun modern take on a cold war spy thriller.

"Out Of Sight" sees a boy grabbed by a demon in the park. Prue tries to stop it, but her powers go haywire and all she succeeds in doing is make the boy and the demon float in the air. Unfortunately, she's got a witness to this.

Oh, okay, she channeled her powers through her hands for the first time, which was why she was freaked out. And the demons blind people. The witness was a reporter and he's putting pressure on Prue to get a story.

Phoebe finds that there was a boy abducted thirty years ago who survived - he's now blind, but she thinks he can help.

The reporter goes to question Andy, who, after hearing the account of Prue levitating things, assigns himself to the case.

Piper's boyfriend, Josh, is leaving because he's got a job in another city. He's leaving the decision in Piper's hands as to whether he should leave or not. She eventually decides to let him go.

The reporter dies at the hands of the Grimlocks - just before Andy turns up and finds out that Prue and sisters are witches. We'll see how well that little revelations turns out for him in the next three episodes...

They save the boys, and by killing the Grimlocks, restore everyone's sight - including the blind guy from 30 years ago.