This episode is a much stronger introduction to Victor than that awkward season one version. While that episode spent so long setting up an "is Victor secretly evil?" idea, We All Scream for Ice Cream instead depicts Victor's relationship with his daughters as a pretty ordinary family rift, the Halliwells still justifiably bitter over the father that seemingly abandoned them all at a young age. It's something that's a lot more organic and relatable, the sisters experiencing what so many regular folk also experience after parents divorce or separate.I also really liked that we finally had some closure on the angst. Prue is still the most hostile towards her father, but they reach a new found resolution towards the end of the episode, and I loved those two scenes where they both have to save one another, Victor saving Prue from the Nothing, and later Prue saving her dad from one of those demon kids.
The story itself unfolds really well, some subtlety at the top of the show with Prue distracted by a song from her childhood, which then morphs into the idea of a murderous ice cream man (which is cool in itself), which then further turns into the revelation that the ice cream man is in fact a good guy and that the children he's 'abducting' are in reality annoying kid-monsters. The kids are annoying as hell, but the sisters knowingly acknowledge that throughout the last twenty minutes of the episode.
This is another hour which expertly blends character-driven drama with absurdest demon hijinks, and it's ridiculously successful. There's a campiness to a lot of the script, but a vulnerable performance from Shannen Doherty and the abundance of cool ideas make it genuinely memorable. A
Credits
Guest stars James Read (Victor Bennett); Paul Wittenburg (Caleb); Robert Clendenin (The Ice Cream Man); Bobby Edner (Ari)
Writers Chris Levinson, Zack Estrin Director Allan Kroeker
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