Headscratchers / Charmed (2018)

• It's implied that Mel's power more closely resembles stopping time (instead of Piper's molecular power), especially since Harry suggests that she meet her thesis deadline by freezing time to write it. However, we've seen many instances already of demons being immune to her power — particularly the strongest ones. If that's the case, what's happening to demons who are immune to her power when she stops time? Do they get their pick of frozen innocents across the globe?
  • Not to mention, witches and whitelighters also seem immune to the power. Are they just chilling and waiting for time to start moving again every time Mel uses her power? Harry mentions the power is "common among control freaks," so if there are other witches with the power to stop time on a global level, this could get pretty ridiculous.
  • Harry's suggestion is probably a joke. The power is most likely limited to a small area.
  • It's possible that it's usually confined to Mel's immediate area, but she could (with effort) freeze time around a much larger area, say the whole university. Of course, that much effort would probably leave her without enough concentration to write her thesis, so yeah, probably just not one of his more well-thought-out ideas.

• The witches are pretty trigger-happy when it comes to vanquishing demons (much like the original), and the Elders seem to approve. So what's the point of a prison like Tartarus? Who gets imprisoned and who gets killed?
  • I'm assuming like in the original, demons don't permanently go away when they're vanquished.
  • Alternatively, much like in the original, many demons actually required the Power of Three to vanquish, so banishing them was the most practical solution without the Charmed Ones around.

• Why didn't the Charmed Ones use the same time-traveling spell they used to go back to the 80s to find out who killed their mother?
  • Because that spell was designed to find out the reason why a ghost died and cannot move on - Marisol never became a ghost, so it wouldn't have worked.
  • Got it — I forgot the specifics of that spell. It still seems odd that they wouldn't consider a spell to reveal their mother's fate after already using one to witness past events.

• When Harry told Mel about Fiona he said she revealed that she was a witch but to the wrong person and was declared insane and got locked up and put under pills and later committed suicide but the thing is Fiona had Powers that she could actually demonstrate so it wouldn’t have made sense that the person didn’t believe her. It would have made sense if her powers were passive but her powers were active.
  • Considering Fiona was actually thrown in Tartarus, it is more than likely this was simply a lie the Elders made to cover up Fiona's disapparance, and Harry never questioned it (or they altered his memory to make him believe it). He was incredibly loyal to the Elders at this time, and very much unwilling to believe they were wrong. Plus, it wasn't stated she was locked up for being insane - she was insitutionalised, and later grew to believe she was insane.

• Why does Macy assume the black amber will reactivate her telekinesis? Both of her sisters manifested completely different powers, so it's odd she doesn't consider she probably will as well.
  • While I can't answer why Macy assumed it would reactivate her telekinesis rather than give her an entirely new power (it is a weird occurance, since she herself has said that evidence and data are recurring and repeatable in her first episode), the most recent episode has shown that, when she did regain her witch powers, it was telekinesis that she gained, and not a different power. Which is a bit of a cop-out, but still.

• Are all witches necessarily female? It certainly seems that way given that every witch or even half-witch we've encountered so far is female. Is there an exact explanation why only females can be witches? Some magical gene that requires two X chromosomes to function?
  • It might just simply be a case that male witches are actually referred to as wizards, or warlocks, to better differentiate them from females. Alternatively, we've just not encountered a male witch. There is no 'correct' response at this point in time - unless it's explicitly stated that only females can be witches, we should not assume so.
  • As a branch-off to that question, it's stated in series that relationships between witches and mortals rarely work out. Children produced by a relationship between witches and demons as well as witches and Whitelighters are shunned and disapproved of. How exactly does the witch population grow?
    • Maybe some witches simply have a relation with mortals so they can get pregnant and allow the witch population to thrive. Or they do try to make their relationship with mortals work, but just can only delay the inevitable. There are a multitude of ways that the witch population continues without needing long-term relationships with their mortal partners. Of course, this all is under the assumption that there are no male witches - it is possible that there are male witches, and we just haven't seen them.
  • Assuming there are male witches, it raises the question as to why we haven't seen a single one. Is there gender segregation in the witch/wizard world? That would seem to oppose the message of gender equality that most witches seem to be in favor of.
  • The show has again and again shown itself to be performatively feminist only, so maybe, differently from the original, this show wants to make the witches about 'female power' thus not having any man able to use magic and falling ironically into sexism.
• When Waverly refuses to help Abby get the Blade of Clarity from their mother's summer home, Macy says "the future depends on it" and Waverly says "my daughter's future depends on me staying uninvolved." Why didn't Macy, a Charmed one with a huge reputation of power and authority in the magical community (to the point that the Perfecti even acknowledge it) not push back just a little and say "but I've been to the future and no one will be safe, including you and your daughter, if we don't get that blade and use it to stop the Whispering Evil?" Why not offer the Charmed One's protection from her mother if she helped them? Why just take no for an answer when the fate of the entire world is at stake and an Apocalypse on the brink?