Dead Man Dating
Andy offers Prue a birthday present, except her birthday is next week. The present is a trip to a spa in Callistoga.
Mark, a young Chinese man, is celebrating his birthday. His mother worries about him, and urges him to take a protection amulet with him. He assures her that he can take care of himself. He is accosted by four thugs, one of whom draws a revolver and shoots him. As Mark's ghost rises above his body, one of the thugs puts his ring on Mark's hand. The thugs douse Mark's body with gasoline and set it alight.
Phoebe and Piper plan a surprise party for Prue. Phoebe goes to the Hotel Neptune to take a job as a psychic, in order to pay for a present for Prue. She gets a premonition from the manager and lands the job.
Piper finds Phoebe at the hotel, worried about Phoebe's use of her powers. Mark's ghost shows up and only Piper and Phoebe can see him. Piper leaves and Mark pursues her; she doesn't believe him until a bicyclist rides right through him.
Prue finds Andy at Quake – with his ex-wife. Prue walks away angry and flings a cart into his path.
Mark tells Piper that his body must be found before Yama catches him and takes him to Hell. As soon as they find his body, Yama appears. Piper freezes Yama and she and Mark flee. Yama unfreezes and lowers his lance, but Mark and Piper are gone.
At the hotel, a man named Mr. Correy leaves his wallet behind. Phoebe picks it up and sees the man being hit by a car. She tries to warn him, but he is suspicious.
Prue finds flowers on her desk and Andy waiting in her office. He apologizes for not telling Prue about his ex-wife.
Piper goes to Mark's mother. Mark gives her the Chinese translation of what Piper needs to say to her. Piper is unwilling to tell Mark's mother that he is dead. Mark tries to enter the house, but the amulet repels him.
Mark's body is found, but identified as Tony Wong, a Chinatown crime lord. Phoebe gets a vision and draws two Chinese characters. Mark identifies a Chinatown warehouse. He and Piper go to the warehouse. Piper enters an upstairs room and freezes the three men inside. She places a newspaper in Tony Wong's hands, the headline clearly reading TONY WONG FOUND DEAD. She takes a photo and the men unfreeze. Tony Wong gets Piper's license plate number as she and Mark drive away. Piper slips the photo into Andy's interoffice mail.
Phoebe pursues Mr. Correy, who walks out of the hotel. The car almost hits him, but Phoebe tackles him and pushes him out of the way.
Piper and Mark share a moment before two of Tony Wong's thugs break into the manor and drag Piper off. Mark tells Phoebe and Prue and the three leave in search of Piper. Tony tells Piper that he had faked his death and was planning to flee to Hong Kong. Andy finds Tony's picture, with the newspaper in his hands. Phoebe and Prue enter the upstairs room. Piper freezes a bullet in flight and Prue flings Tony downstairs. Tony runs out and the police surround him. Andy shoots Tony.
Tony's ghost meets Mark's as Yama appears. Mark shoves Tony onto Yama's lance. Yama tries to claim Mark, but the Charmed Ones stand between Mark and Yama and Yama retreats.
At Mark's funeral, the ghost of Mark's father appears and leads him away as they vanish into the afterlife. The sisters return to the manor and are greeted by a surprise party for Prue, with Andy in attendance.
Tropes
- All Myths Are True: Apparently, the Chinese mythology is true in the Charmed universe.
- Amicable Exes: Played for Drama. Andy has lunch with his ex-wife, and Prue finds out he was married this way.
- Artistic License – Religion: Mark's mother is shown wearing black at his funeral. In Chinese tradition, immediate family and close relatives usually wear white, with black being reserved for distant relatives.
- Yama is from Hinduism and doesn't really factor into the religions recognized by China.
- Authentication by Newspaper: Piper snaps a picture of Tony Wong holding the newspaper that announces his death as a proof that his death was fake.
- Birthday Hater: Mark and Prue each express a disinterest in their birthdays, which take place at the start and end of this episode. Before Mark passes on, he advises Prue to enjoy her future birthdays, because she can never know when one will be her last.
- Bittersweet Ending: Mark's murder is avenged and his body laid to rest, saving him from Yama and allowing his spirit to move on, but he and Piper can't be together.
- Call-Back: Piper comforts Mark by moving her hand close to his cheek, telling him to pretend he can feel her. Later, before he moves into the afterlife, he holds his hand up to her cheek to do the same.
- Disappointed by the Motive: Mark is shocked that he was killed just to help Tony Wong fake his death.
- Double Standard: Abuse, Female on Male: After discovering that Andy was having lunch with his ex-wife, Prue uses her powers to move a dessert cart in front of him, making him trip and fall. He could have easily broken his neck but the narrative sides with Prue as the injured party.
- Early-Installment Weirdness:
- Mark is the first ghost to appear on the series. Ghosts later in the series would be represented as transparent and with the ability to teleport to wherever they want to haunt others. Mark is opaque and never demonstrates teleportation (although he would of course have to wait with Piper or her sisters to get there too). It could also be justified by him being bound by different laws, since Yama doesn't appear to take other souls.
- Piper is able to freeze Yama. Later seasons would show ghosts and ghost-like entities to be immune to her powers.
- When Prue comes out of the shower, the bathroom is downstairs in the house, when it would be relocated to upstairs later in the series. The door she comes out of would later lead to a closet.
- Minor example. Prue assumes that Susan Trudeau must be Andy's sister. At this point in the series, Prue and Andy were only established as exes, but "That 70s Episode" would show they had known each other since they were young children, so Prue would surely know if he had a sister called Susan.
- Piper points out that Mark has to be a good ghost since they could see him, proving he is an innocent they are tasked with protecting. Later episodes showed they could see evil ghosts. In fact, they could probably see Tony later in the story. Possibly justified in that this is the first ghost they've dealt with.
- Faking the Dead: Tony Wong fakes his death by passing off Mark's burnt body as his own.
- Good Feels Good: Phoebe feels great after saving Mr Corrie's life, savouring how she loves helping people.
- Hypocrite: Prue is annoyed at Andy for not mentioning that he was married previously, but later notes that she herself is hiding being a witch from him.
- Longing Look: Being unable to touch each other, it's not long before Mark and Piper are casting these at each other.
- Mundanger: Despite Yama being featured in the story, the real villain of the episode is a Chinese Triad and its leader.
- Paper-Thin Disguise: Brought up; the sisters speculate that Mark was chosen to fake Tony's death because the two look just enough alike that the differences wouldn't matter after Mark's body was torched.
- Power Perversion Potential: Mark's ghost ability to walk through walls means he nearly walks in on Prue coming out of the shower.
- Relative Error: Inverted. Prue assumes the woman Andy is at lunch with is a sister or relative, but she's actually his ex-wife.
- Riddle Me This: Phoebe's entire subplot is based on earning enough money to buy Prue a proper birthday present. She hands it over by the end of the episode, but after all that setup, we never actually find out what the gift was.
- Right for the Wrong Reasons: Mark spent most of the afternoon after his death looking for psychics in the hope that they might be able to see him, but Phoebe and Piper can see him because they're witches.
- Star-Crossed Lovers: Mark and Piper fall in love after he's being killed, and he'll eventually have to move on.Piper: Leave it to me to fall for a dead guy.
- Through His Stomach: Inverted. It's Piper who falls in love because of food - in this case, Mark Chao sharing old family recipes with her.
- Together in Death: Mark is greeted by the ghost of his late father when it's time to move on to the afterlife.
- Whole-Plot Reference: Of Ghost (1990), where Piper helps a murder victim she loves take revenge on his murderers and pass on to the afterlife.
