The Courtship of Wyatt's Father
Leo and Piper host a birthday party for Wyatt. Afterwards, Piper notes the champagne (The Elders aren't allowed to drink), chocolate-covered strawberries and oysters on one of the tables — clearly not meant for the kids. Chris tells Phoebe and Paige that he must be conceived today or he ceases to exist. Phoebe suggests telling Leo and Piper the truth.
A Darklighter, Damien, orbs in and is apparently after Leo or possibly Wyatt. The others come in and the Darklighter shoots at Leo, who orbs out in time. Phoebe pushes Chris out of its way and Paige orbs the arrow back into the Darklighter, who orbs away wounded. The leader of a gang of Darklighters removes the arrow and Damien survives. The leader orders the Darklighters to distract rather than harm the Charmed Ones.
Gideon warns Leo to cut all family ties, as fatherhood has distracted him from his duties as an Elder and put him in danger.
Phoebe starts scrying for the Darklighter and the scrying crystal flutters strangely. Believing that there is more than one Darklighter, Paige and Phoebe go with Piper and Leo after the Darklighters. Phoebe falls off a roof during the fight and goes to the hospital afterwards. After the sisters vanquish several Darklighters, one appears behind Leo and Piper. Piper blasts him — and she and Leo apparently disappear in the explosion.
Leo and Piper find themselves on an empty street with only themselves and Damien. They flee. They go to the hospital, expecting to find Phoebe, but find only an empty building. Leo briefly saw the ghost of a bus driver being treated in the hospital and realizes they're on the ghostly plane. The ghost saw Leo and spoke that name when revived. Paige and Phoebe check the Book of Shadows regarding ghosts.
Chris is starting to fade away. He appears transparent. An angel of death calling himself Clarence appears to him. As Paige and Phoebe use a seance to try to contact Piper and Leo, Chris disappears altogether and finds himself in the ghostly realm, and sees Piper and Leo there. In the next moment he fades back to the real world and tells Paige and Phoebe what Leo and Piper think: that the Darklighters used some kind of portal.
Darklighters attack both the real and the ghostly manor, and Leo is hit. Leo and Piper talk, and then make out and conceive Chris.
Paige and Phoebe go to Gideon and ask him to help them reverse the Darklighter's portal. Gideon says Darklighters don't have the power to make portals, and shows them a page about portals in a large tome.
Leo and Piper return to the point where they enter the ghostly plane. Damien tracks them there, and takes aim at Leo. In that moment, the three find themselves back in the real world. Paige and Phoebe confront Damien, but the leader shoots him from a rooftop. Chris becomes solid again. Leo collapses from the Darklighter poison in his wound, and Paige orbs him and Piper to Gideon.
Leo is meditating atop the Golden Gate Bridge and Gideon orbs to him. Leo says he cannot justify staying on Earth any more.
Clarence tells Chris he's been given a second chance.
Phoebe and Paige tell Piper, "We know what happened between you and Leo last night". They finally tell Piper that Chris is her son, but Piper denies being pregnant at first. But the possibility eventually strikes her. Chris walks in, and Piper gives him a long stare.
The Darklighter leader meets with Gideon, who assures him that Leo is now gone. Gideon says that allowing Wyatt to be born, to allow such a huge concentration of power to manifest in one being, was a mistake; one he intends to correct.
Tropes
- Being Good Sucks: After admitting he can no longer stay on Earth and ignore his duties, Leo expresses frustration to Gideon over how much this hurts and admits he somewhat wishes the Elders hadn't let him marry Piper.
- Big "YES!": Chris, upon snapping back into existence for good.
- Cliffhanger: Piper is left speechless over Chris being her son. Leo leaves to be with the other Elders, completely unaware he is leaving a new son behind and that Gideon is plotting to kill Wyatt.
- Don't Fear the Reaper: Clarence is a friendly figure who befriended Chris in order to try to make this special situation easier on him. When Chris is safe, Clarence wishes him luck and suggests he make the most of his second chance.
- Even Evil Has Loved Ones: The Darklighter leader is genuinely saddened that he has to kill his friend in order to keep the Charmed Ones from finding out what's really going on.
- Face Death with Dignity: Double subverted. Upon learning who Clarence is and that his time is almost up, Chris naturally panics and starts running. When it looks like he's about to fade away for good, though, Chris is reserved and simply tells Phoebe and Paige to take care.
- Ghost City: San Francisco in the ghostly plane. The only people there are Piper, Leo and Damien the Darklighter.
- Godzilla Threshold: Paige is now desperate enough to make sure Chris gets conceived before the deadline that she's willing to use a Love Potion on Piper and Leo if need be, after she and Phoebe refused to stoop to that kind of thing to make them sleep together before.
- The Grim Reaper: Clarence is revealed to be one. His relation to the previously seen Angel of Death is never explained, but he is apparently in charge of special cases (in this case, while the other Angel of Death was handling the souls leaving for the afterlife, this one takes care of those destined for Cessation of Existence).
- Internal Reveal: Piper learns that Chris is her Kid from the Future which the audience, Phoebe and Paige have known for a while.
- Lampshade Hanging: The episode in part addresses how, despite agreeing to make good on being an Elder in order to help them rebuild, Leo has consistently been hanging around since Brian Krause is still part of the main cast. Gideon points out Leo's behavior is very inappropriate for one of his position and puts the recovering group in danger. And for all his talk of distrusting Chris, Leo himself admits to Piper that it was the pain of permanently leaving his family behind that kept him around.
- New Child Left Behind: Leo and Piper's last night together leads to Chris being conceived. Leo leaves without learning this, but Piper feels she can't talk to him about it because of how hard it was for him to move on in the first place.
- Oh, Crap!: Piper when told who Chris is.
- Put on a Bus: Leo departs to be an Elder full-time. It's a short bus trip from our perspective (he only misses the next episode and is back in "Spin City"), but because of the next episode's Time Skip, he'll actually be gone for months.
- Ret-Gone: What almost happens to Chris in this episode.
- Rewatch Bonus: Gideon's argument to Leo that he can't keep hanging around in San Francisco. The stated logic is that Leo can't keep shirking his responsibilities as an Elder or put the group at risk by constantly being on Earth. The ending, though, reveals that Gideon just wanted Leo to be out of the picture before making a move against Wyatt.
- Shout-Out:
- Chris is visited by an angel named Clarence.
- As the time for Piper and Leo to conceive him runs out Chris starts disappearing hand-first like Marty McFly during the climax of Back to the Future.
- Treacherous Advisor: Gideon is revealed to be this, when he convinces Leo to stay Up There, and later on reveals he plans to kill Wyatt.
- Wham Shot: Gideon's appearance in the final scene.
- Xanatos Gambit: Gideon's plan was for Leo to die, but he can settle for him leaving to be with the Elders full-time.
- You Keep Telling Yourself That: In his pain, Leo says he somewhat wishes the Elders had prevented him and Piper from getting married just so that this wouldn't hurt so much. Gideon says that's his grief talking and that he doesn't really believe it.
