Charmed’s Christmas Episode “Jingle Hell” Got Back In Our Good Graces with a Last Minute Twist

First off, we should address last week’s cliffhanger– early in this episode Mel “infiltrates” the Sarcana and goes through an odd “initiation” where Jada and the other members chant around her but their misleading lines about being bound by blood end in the anticlimactic magic tattooing of their mark on Mel’s forearm. Then she just gets to leave and go home. No summer camp blood oaths, but she noticed their crows and ties them back to the crows that flew out of the manor when her mother died. INTRIGUE.

Back home things are extremely domestic with a full house on Christmas Eve, as both Parker and Galvin show up to celebrate with “their girls”, except Parker was actually invited and Galvin is crunched- up and awkward as hell. Things go from weird to weirder when Macy sees Galvin’s protection mark glow when he shakes Parker’s hand -and- sees Parker wince when it happens. Points to the eldest sisters for perception! Macy calls Mama Roz who confirms that such a strong reaction means that the person is far too evil to be trusted, but before Macy can report this to Mel she is knocked out by Parker’s brother who then ties her up in the garage and pulls a magical identity theft through shapeshifting.

“Why doesn’t Macy just use her powers to escape?” Anyone with a brain might ask, but there’s a simple explanation. At the intro to the episode we see Parker and his brother storm into a historic church and rob the displayed remains of Saint Dragos. It’s a great intro where they go head-to-head with a powerful WatchGuard holy man, who unfortunately falls to the demonic brothers, and they take both the Amulet of the Archangel and the priest’s powerful magical staff. The reason? They want to use the Amulet of the Archangel to siphon the power of the Charmed Ones for their own demonic purposes [remove threat/use their power to perform demonic gene therapy on Parker because SURPRISE his mother is Macy’s new boss].

So Parker gifts Maggie the fugly amulet for Christmas and she wears it like it’s glamorous and unknowingly lets her conman boyfriend screw her and her sisters over. Major credit to Madeleine Mantock for portraying a dynamic version of her character being impersonated as a shapeshifter. Mel even falls for the confusing body snatcher, as does Galvin, but, after a little back and forth drama, it isn’t long until Harry figures things out when Macy is calling for help while standing in front of him. A decent fight ensues and everyone’s cover is blown. What gets badass is that wasn’t the end, but Mel shuts down the scuffle when her powers aren’t enough and her new tattoo glows, summoning a flock of Sarcana crows that drive the demons away for her.

Maggie sulks and tells Parker off, but he is determined to prove his devotion to her and already destroyed the amulet but they still demanded he leave and take his shadow powers with him. Jokes about Galvin being too sloshed on their coquitos to see the action follow and they’re ready to settle in and enjoy their family Christmas eve [after a visit from Jada where she checks on Mel and tells her the crows had also tried helping their mother the night she died]. But never a dull moment, the demon returns, but before the witches have to counter-attack, Parker shows up to fight his brother wielding the magical staff they’d stolen earlier. However, he isn’t powerful enough to banish his brother, and the Charmed Ones finish chanting the badass spell that opens a rift to Tartarus and sucks him in. The twist that has us excited for the show’s return from hiatus is that Harry is also sucked in and banished to Tartarus.

So that’s where the series leaves off until its return on January 20th with “Keep Calm and Harry On”, and we’re excited to see the fallout of Galvin seeing their powers at work and where the Parker storyline goes from here. Did we mention he may be the prophecized half-demon host for the new Source? Because things are starting to get good again.