There's Something About Leo
Leo continues to try and connect with Piper again however she is still suspicious that he's hiding a secret, something Phoebe agrees with. The girls are looking for a demon attack and when they orb away to find it, Leo reverses time by a few minutes in frustration. The Alpha and Beta Avatars warn him that using his new powers drains the Avatar collective and he must wait for the Charmed Ones to find out his status on their own.
The sisters have arrived at the site of the demon attack however nothing has happened. A man eventually turns up to open the warehouse there and is attacked by a demon. Immediately, Piper goes to blast him but its able to shimmer away after ordering unseen figures to attack the sisters. Paige and Phoebe are able to throw dye potions which renders them visible and Piper is able to blast them.
It's revealed that a demon gang in the Underworld are planning to pit the Charmed Ones against a rival gang.
The next morning, Paige is having breakfast with Kyle who is still obsessing over the Avatars. Paige tries to change the subject however when his 'emergency phone' goes off, she leaves the room frustrated.
Darryl has begun talking to the sisters again however he's adamant he wants nothing to do with any magic. He is still unable to find out what happened to Sheridan and is extremely suspicious of Kyle.
At the Manor, Piper is pre-occupied with making dangerous potions whilst Leo insists on talking to her. The scene freezes as the Avatars appear, telling Leo that he needs to keep quiet. Leo insists that he needs to tell Piper his secret. The Avatars allow Leo to try and once they've disappeared, he reveals to Piper that he's an Avatar.
In the Underworld, two demons vanquish two demons from their rival gang before taking their identifying arm bands and leaving to attack the Charmed Ones. As Leo is trying to convince Piper that the Avatars are safe, the two demons shimmer in and attack them. Leo manages to electrocute three of them, but one gets away, leaving an armband behind.
After discovering Leo's identity, Paige and Phoebe decide they should tell Kyle. Furious, Kyle rummages in his closet and finds a small case. Inside, it contains a jar with a potion that is used to kill Avatars. He explains that Avatars were responsible for his parent's death.
Leo and Piper orb out of the manor to take out the remaining demons. However, when they get to the warehouse from the beginning of the episode, another demon manages to kill the innocent man. Leo then realises they had gone after the wrong demon gang.
Meanwhile, Kyle has lost control and shoots Paige with a dart gun to incapacitate her. He then threatens Phoebe with a normal gun. When Leo arrives in the Manor, Kyle demands that he summons the other Avatars. When Leo refuses, he blasts Kyle with lightning. Kyle drops the potion and a dark cloud enters Leo's nose. The Avatars appear and convince Leo to rewind time.
He does so, resetting back to when Piper was making the potions. This time, Leo keeps quiet. He remembers the alternate timeline, meaning the demon attack can be easily taken care of. Leo admits to Piper that he is keeping something from her but he can't tell her any details.
Tropes
- Achilles' Heel: The featured potion is the only thing that can kill Avatars, who have otherwise intimidated even the Elders themselves.
- Ask a Stupid Question...: After Leo reveals he's an Avatar and insists the group isn't a threat, a frustrated Piper tells him to take their sons to Magic School while she tries to process all this.Phoebe: Do you think he's telling the truth?
Piper: It would be a really stupid lie, if he wasn't, don't ya think? - Batman Gambit: With the innocent taken to Magic School and thus safe from everyone, the clan thinks they won't be able to claim the desired territory now, but Malvoc gets an idea to both get the guy and wipe out their rivals, the Sokols. He proposes tricking the sisters into thinking the Sokols are after the innocent by wearing Sokol symbols during an attack on the manor. Malvoc reasons that once the Sokols are eliminated, the sisters will lower their guard and return the innocent to the regular world, where he will be easy pickings. Malvoc is exactly right, and he wins during the original sequence of events. Time being rewound and Leo remembering how things originally occurred are the only reasons the innocent is saved.
- Big "NO!": After the sisters leave, a frustrated Leo shouts this before accidentally rewinding time.
- Bittersweet Ending: Leo is saved and ensures the innocent will be safe, but the experience has taught him he'll still have to keep Piper in the dark about what he's become. Though he has to wait for the desired reunion, he remains optimistic that she will be accepting of the truth. Paige gets closer to Kyle, but he turns out to be much more obsessive in his quest than previously thought.
- Call-Back: In the face of Leo suggesting that the Avatars aren't a threat, Piper recalls how they had a demon possess him for their own purposes.
- Continuity Nod: After detecting Avatar power stopping time itself, Sandra says that no demon since the Source has demonstrated such a level of power.
- Dramatic Drop: Piper was busy preparing a very complicated potion, when Leo opted to reveal he was an Avatar. In her shock, she dropped an ingredient, which led to an explosion big enough to knock her across the attic.
- Dramatic Irony: Through the course of the episode, it's revealed Kyle has a potion capable of killing Avatars, though the sisters' knowledge of this is undone by the reset. During their dinner date, Kyle assures Paige he isn't keeping any secrets from her.
- Even Evil Has Standards: Malvoc's clan is itching to kill the remaining innocent, as doing so will complete a pentagram and guarantee that all the mortals who dwell within that territory will be theirs alone to prey upon. This is attributed to a very ancient set of rules that even hated rivals abide by (albeit to their own frustration).
- Heartbroken Badass: Piper when the potion leaves Leo dying on the floor.
- Hero of Another Story: According to Kyle, the Avatars tried to take power 5,000 years ago, but they were repelled by people wielding special potions capable of killing them.
- Hypocrite: During their argument in The Teaser about her being distant towards him, Piper balks at Leo's indignation that she won't answer his questions.Piper: Oh, I have to answer your questions, but you don't have to answer mine?
- I Just Want to Be Normal: Leo's argument is that Piper can be trusted with the big secret because of her long-established desire for a normal life. Despite her apprenhension at first, Leo ends up being right.
- In the Back: How Malvoc and Vassen ambush two of their rivals before claiming their symbols.
- Karmic Death: During the clan's attack at the manor, Malvoc popped in at a hiding spot and dropped off the rival clan's symbol as part of his ruse, but he also looked openly unsympathetic to Vassen being about to be killed by Leo. After time is reversed, Leo makes sure to be ready for the demons before they teleport in. When Malvoc pops in to slyly check on the progress, Leo immediately kills him.
- Keeping Secrets Sucks: Leo struggles with keeping his Avatar secret from his family, not the least of which is because Piper (a big reason why he agreed to all this) knows he's hiding something and keeps harping on it.
- Mama Bear: Part of the reason that Piper starts siding with Leo about the Avatars and remaking the world. The thought of her children having to go through the same demon battles when they grow up makes her receptive to helping change things now.
- Motive Rant: When confronting Leo about the Avatars, Kyle talks about the never-ending nightmare he's found himself in ever since his parents died.
- Mutual Kill: Leo uses Shock and Awe to blast Kyle, who in turn drops the potion that mortally wounds him. It takes the Avatars rewinding time to keep both of them from dying.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Kyle's obsession with killing the Avatars gets him killed. Fortunately for him, Leo reverses time and so Kyle's death never happens.
- No Honor Among Thieves: Malvoc is perfectly content to sacrifice members of his own gang as part of his overall plan.
- Oh, Crap!:
- Leo the first time he rewinds time.
- After the reset, Leo knows the manor attack is coming, so he has Piper wait with potions in the right spot. When the demons teleport in, a close-up shows Vassen reacting this way before getting killed. Malvoc also has this reaction, after teleporting in moments later and seeing that Leo is waiting for him.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Up to now, Kyle has been rather laidback and snarky in all situations. The second he has the chance to get near one of the beings he blames for his parents death, he becomes increasingly obsessive and unhinged. He gets to the point of knocking out Paige with a tranq dart and holding Phoebe at gunpoint before threatening Leo directly.
- Power Incontinence: Downplayed. Leo generally has control over his new Avatar powers, but in a fit of anger, he accidentally taps into the collective's power and rewinds time. He was so surprised by this that he thought the other Avatars had done it.
- Pre-Mortem One-Liner: After Malvoc finds his clan members are already dead and that Leo is waiting for him.Leo: Hey. [ZAP!]
- Properly Paranoid:
- Piper finds Leo's recent reversion back to his old self suspicious and thinks he's hiding something.
- Darryl alerted Phoebe to his suspicion that Kyle made Sheridan disappear. Being unable to turn up any leads about Sheridan's whereabouts makes him even more certain of it.
- Rewriting Reality: Leo can now do this and uses this power several times. At first he unintentionally resets his conversation with Piper and at the end of the episode he does it to save himself from the Avatar-killing potion.
- Synchronization: Avatars are a collective and draw their power from the same massive source. Kyle says that one being killed weakens the entire group.
- Too Good to Be True: Ever since becoming an Avatar, Leo has been acting like his old self in every regard. Phoebe and Paige don't see the problem, but Piper feels this is the case, and she's been dreading the inevitable bad news that will explain it. She is initially really not happy to learn that Leo is an Avatar.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Paige tells Kyle that Leo is an Avatar, as she and Phoebe both thought his knowledge of the threat could somehow help return Leo to normal. Kyle instead breaks out a secret potion capable of killing Avatars, and he and Leo are ultimately left mortally wounded as a result of their confrontation. If not for time being rewound, both would've died for real.
- Unwitting Pawn: After his clan's rivals are taken out and the innocent is returned as planned, Malvoc quickly kills the person in front of Leo and Piper.Malvoc: Thanks for helping.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: Kyle's determination to stop the Avatars leads to him tranquilizing Paige, holding Phoebe at gunpoint and nearly killing Leo with the potion.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: Averted after Malvoc is killed. While the Sokols are never shown being vanquished, Leo explicitly mentions that they have to be dealt with immediately before the innocent can be taken out of Magic School.
- Workaholic: Paige saw breakfast as a date opportunity with a guy she really likes. Kyle keeps talking about the Avatar threat and is more excited by a new tip than anything else.
