Charmed: Animal Pragmatism (2.13)

Watching these episodes again, I'm actually starting to feel for Dan. Sure, he's as thrilling as a bowl of oatmeal, but Piper's shabby treatment of him is pretty awful. She's clearly hung up on Leo, and it's completely obnoxious to not just cut Dan loose, instead she's stringing him along and giving him the impression that he actually stands a chance. I always loved the final scene in Animal Pragmatism, with Piper's dream of running into Leo's arms in the middle of P3, but it's a little tainted now by how awful the two of them are being. Ugh. But, still, that scene was pretty wonderful. I'm usually resistant to big, sweepy romantic moments like that, but I admit that this one got me.

The rest of the episode is pretty awful. The hour strung a risky line between horror story and sitcom comedy, first with the uncomfortable-to-watch abuse of the three female students, and then with the dumb 'everybody in P3 gets turned into an animal' closer. Tonally, this episode was all over the place. The show didn't attempt to address sexual politics, the metaphors I assume the writers were going for with the snake and the pig, nor the brutal abuse of women depicted in the episode. The guys acted like thugs towards everybody, but nothing was actually said. It just happened, with no message or moral to back it up.

It should have been an interesting contrast that when the sisters conjure up men, they're able to protect themselves by simply undoing the spell. But, when regular females do it, they end up getting attacked and brutalized. Is the show trying to say something? A lightweight series like Charmed shouldn't introduce ideas like this that they can't follow through on. D

Credits
Guest stars Brian Krause (Leo Wyatt); Christopher Wiehl (Snake); Tim Griffin (Rabbit); Rafer Weigel (Ethan); Steve Monroe (Pig); Lela Lee (Tessa); Kelly McNair (Andrea); Katie Johnston (Brooke); Janice Robinson (Herself)
Writers Chris Levinson, Zack Estrin Director Don Kurt