The Halliwell sisters are reunited in the grand Victorian home of their childhood. Phoebe discovers The Book of Shadows in the attic and, when she reads the spell on the first page, their powers are activated. The sisters must try to keep their powers secret, while Prue's ex-boyfriend, Inspector Andy Trudeau, is investigating a serial killer whose victims are all witches. Piper narrowly escapes death when she discovers that her boyfriend Jeremy, an evil warlock, is the killer. When the sisters try their first spell, Jeremy is vanquished, and they discover the Power of Three.
Piper: And tell them what? That we're witches? That some creep with powers beyond comprehension is trying to kill us?
Phoebe meets a photographer who turns out to be a demon who sucks the youth out of young women in order to remain young. While Phoebe is with him, Piper sees her friend Brittany Renolds, who is now elderly and has a poor memory after being attacked by the photographer. Brittany recognizes the address of the photographer, allowing Prue and Piper to arrive in time to vanquish the demon and reverse the damage it had done.
Piper: That you were in the shower. Bad date?
Prue: No. No, no. Not at all. It was great. You know. Dinner. Movie. Sex.
Piper: Excuse me? On your first date? You sleaze.
Prue: It wasn't exactly our first date, Piper.
Piper: High school doesn't count. That was last decade. Spill it. Ooh, that bad, huh?
Prue: No. Actually, that good. It was... well, we were amazing, but that's not the point. I told myself that things would be different, that we would take it slow. It just shouldn't've happened, that's all.
The sisters' estranged father Victor returns, and is immediately at odds with Prue who cannot forgive him for being an absentee father. He confesses he's trying to save the girls from the risks of having their powers by removing the Book of Shadows from the manor. However, it appears he has teamed up with the new neighbors, who are shapeshifting demons trying to steal the Book of Shadows. The girls get a handyman to perform ongoing maintenance around the old house, marking the debut of Leo (Brian Krause, later a series co-star), as their protective whitelighter and as a love interest for Phoebe and Piper to quarrel over during the first season.
Piper: Wait a sec. Last week we had no Dad and now we have two?
Piper encounters and eventually develops feelings for the amiable ghost of a recently murdered Chinese-American man named Mark Chao (John Cho), who needs her help to be properly buried before an ancient Chinese spirit can harvest his soul, and to settle the score with the Chinese gangster who had killed Mark in order to fake his own death to evade the police. Phoebe takes a job as a hotel psychic to pay for Prue's birthday present, and when foreseeing the death of a hotel guest, she has to try to keep him from being hit by a car.
Phoebe: We’re The Charmed Ones, Prue, not The Doomed Ones.
Prue finds her sleep disturbed by strange dreams in which she's stalked and taunted by a wheelchair-bound man who is actually a sleep researcher (Matt Schulze). He is killing women who he feels scorned him by visiting them in their dreams where he has absolute power. His victims' bodies have injuries consistent with falling off a tall building, yet are found in locked apartments and haven't been moved. Prue figures out the relationship to sleep and calls for the other two to check the Book of Shadows, which fails them for the first time. While she is fatigued and driving home from work in her car he attacks again and successfully causes her to drive into a telephone pole despite the sister's cell phone attempt to keep her awake. In Prue's dream, just as the Sorcerer is wheeling her gurney to the edge of the hospital building roof to throw her off the top, Piper and Phoebe make contact with her which enables her to gain use of her power, and she manages to reverse the situation so he falls to his death.
Phoebe: Don't worry. We had safe sex. A lot of safe sex.
A demonic bride-to-be (Jade D'Mon) that manifests every two hundred years to create a demonic offspring in a wealthy and influential human family suddenly replaces the human bride (Alison Michaels) a week before the wedding by having a magical contractual 'hold' over the grooms' mother (Grace Spencer) as well as by casting a spell over the groom (Elliot Spencer). A priest dedicated to fighting demonic influences, expecting the demon's cyclic manifestation, attempts to intervene with a dagger designed to defeat the demon and her group of allies now managing the estate. The Halliwell sisters gradually discover the strange events about the wedding, as Piper is catering the event. Meanwhile, Prue's work at the auction house is used by Andy, investigating the murder of the priest with the weird ancient dagger now found dead at the estate. The sisters confirm demonic involvement by spying the night before the wedding. They confront Alison and formulate a plan to desperately execute before the ceremony can be completed. Discovered before the vows, a battle ensues and the police, led by Andy and Darryl, arrive as the battle climaxes. Grace helps Alison and the Halliwell sisters, resulting in the defeat of the pack of demons and Jade so that Elliot and Alison are reconciled and united.
Prue: My sisters and I, we have special gifts.
Allison Michaels: Gifts? What kind of gifts?
Prue: Ones you can't return. Let's just say we come from an interesting kind of family tree.
A troubled teenage witch, Aviva (portrayed by Danielle Harris), seeks out the sisters and befriends Phoebe with the hopes of joining the sisters, but is an unwitting pawn of an evil sorceress-priestess, Kali (unrelated to the Hindu goddess Kali), who appears to her through a mirror and has lured Aviva into some of the darker powers of witchcraft with the hope of stealing the sisters' powers and adding the Halliwell magic to her own powers of sorcery. Aviva makes a bad initial impression out of impatience and insensitivity to the sisters' blatant hints to delay Wicca talk and loses her temper as she is being asked to leave. Egged on by Kali, Aviva manages to spend some time with a sympathetic Phoebe, but having "fought" with the older Prue, is overtly hostile to her when encountered as she builds a relationship with Phoebe and then Piper. Mistaking priorities and rushing, Aviva first injures her sheltering guardian and aunt and then injures her new friend Phoebe instead of her intended victim, Prue. Awakened by the mayhem, the sisters investigate, identify the sorceress, and counter her influence on Aviva ultimately saving her.
Piper: Phoebe? Work? No, no, no, she's probably at her gay and lesbian group right about now. So what'll it be?
Acting on Phoebe's premonition of a woman electrocuted magically through the center of her forehead, the sisters race to stop a mysterious demon from striking again. Experiencing anxiety from keeping secrets from Andy, Prue casts a twenty four hour truth spell to find out how Andy will react to her secret, which rebounds on all three sisters, resulting in people all around the three sisters blurting out normally unsaid socially awkward truths — or useful secrets — which they do not remember revealing when the spell expires. Piper benefits the most, learning not only that Leo reciprocates her interest but also finding that her boss has been loading her down with three people's work "because it will get done since he knows she'll do it". Consequently, Piper lays down the law to him at the end of the episode after the spell expires, giving hope she'll be less of a doormat in the future. Prue sadly finds Andy can't handle the knowledge of her powers and the magical parallel reality she has to deal with.
Prue: For those who want the truth revealed,
Opened hearts and secrets unsealed,
From now until it's now again,
After which the memory ends.
Those who are now in this house,
Will hear the truth from other's mouths.
Phoebe's power grows early in this episode and suddenly allows her to see into the past, greatly augmenting her investigative abilities. A power-copying warlock, Matthew Tate, cursed by the sisters' ancestor Melinda Warren in the 1600s in colonial New England, turns out to be one of the sisters' most serious adversaries when he is inadvertently released from his prison (a cursed locket which will open only to a Warren descendant). Prue is manipulated into touching it and opening it for evaluation at the auction house by her demon boss (Rex) and his henchwoman. Tate battles with Prue in her office. Soon after, aided by Rex and his acolyte, Tate manages to steal two of the sisters' three powers. Escaping temporarily, the sisters resurrect Melinda Warren to combat him. Melinda teaches them they can make up spells, cast curses and concoct potions and they build one to re-curse Tate.
Melinda Warren: How do modern women keep their legs warm?
Prue: We drink coffee.
Rex Buckland uses astral projection to control Prue's mind, tricking her into stealing a tiara from the auction house's vault. Prue ends up in jail, and her sisters have to try to break her out. Rex blackmails the three sisters into reading a spell to give up their powers, but Leo, revealing himself to the audience as some kind of supernatural protector of the sisters, returns their powers to them.
Andy: Hey, I thought you didn't know my first name.
Darryl: Prue said it.
Phoebe's ex-boyfriend from New York, Clay, comes to town with a mysterious Egyptian urn and asks if Prue could sell it for him on the auction block. Prue has to deal with a new boss from the bank, Claire Pryce, who knows nothing about the auction business, but says that if Prue doesn't have a successful auction, the bank will close the business. Phoebe convinces Prue to try to sell Clay's urn, but Prue soon finds out that it's not only stolen, it's cursed. With Clay's two partners in crime already dead, the Charmed Ones try to save the hapless thief, but it's only through his own act of selflessness, trying to save Phoebe, that Clay saves himself.
Prue: The Guardian punishes the greedy, so maybe if Clay does something selfless, it'll even the score.
Piper: Good luck...
Prue gets Phoebe a job at Buckland's and Phoebe gets a vision of the past when she touches a gold bracelet. The sisters conspire to keep the bracelet from being bought at auction, and Phoebe uses it to reunite a mother with her daughter who was kidnapped years before. When Piper's car breaks down, she is attacked by a vicious werewolf-like beast that they later find out is called a Wendigo. The Wendigo is created when someone's heart is broken, and it continues to survive by eating other people's hearts. Piper is saved by a man, Billy, whose fiance was killed by a Wendigo, but she starts to turn into a Wendigo since she was scratched by the one that attacked her. The Wendigo turns out to be FBI agent Ashley Fallon, who had apparently been tracking the beast.
Phoebe: (talking on the phone with Piper) Piper, you're stranded and you're all alone, and the only thing you have to protect yourself with is a wooden spoon that's broken.
Phoebe and Piper wonder why Prue never says the words, "I love you." Barbas (played by Billy Drago), the demon of fear, spends Friday the 13th scaring witches literally to death. Andy and Darryl wonder why Prue seems connected to the string of murders. Barbas tries to drown Prue in the shower, since Prue's greatest fear is drowning, but she is saved by Andy. Barbas realizes that Phoebe's greatest fear is losing a sister, so he tries to drown Prue again with Phoebe watching. This time, Prue feels the presence of her mother and manages to release her fear and vanquish Barbas. Prue tells her sisters that she loves them, and admits that the last time she said that was to her mother.
Barbas: Ah, such an original fear.
Prue helps a young witch who has been kidnapped, and renews her own faith in having children. Meanwhile, Phoebe finds out that Leo is really a guardian angel for good witches, and this causes Leo to break up with Piper.
Phoebe: Ok, ok, you don't have to beat it out of me. Leo is a whitelighter. They're sort of guardian angels for witches. And they're not supposed to get involved with witches, but Leo couldn't help it. He fell in love with you, and that broke all the rules and got him in all sorts of trouble. And even though he'll love you forever, you will probably never see him again.
Phoebe's fear of the "woogyman" who lives in the basement of their manor is an ongoing source of amusement for her two sisters. That is, until a violent earthquake unleashes a long-dormant shadow demon that takes over Phoebe's body, turning her against her siblings. Penny "Grams" Halliwell appears for the first time in this episode portrayed by Jennifer Rhodes.
Phoebe: I am light,
I am one too strong to fight,
Return to dark where shadows dwell,
You can not have this Halliwell.
Go away and leave my sight,
And take with you this endless night.
When Phoebe has a premonition of Prue being stabbed to death, it coincides with a warrior coming to town in order to kill the eldest sibling witch as he did to the sisters' great-great-great-aunt. Prue casts a spell to triple her powers but ends up making two clones of herself.
Phoebe: Yes, and I will find myself sassy and delightful.
A powerful warlock shows up claiming that he made a pact with the sisters' mother in which he spared her life in exchange for the girls' powers. Fleeing him, the three sisters go back in time to the 1970s when their mother was still alive and they try to prevent the pact.
Grams: What was the name of my husband?
Prue: Which husband?
Led by Prue, the Charmed Ones attempt to help a young man named Brendan (Michael Weatherly) who wants to become a priest in order to avoid fulfilling his predicted destiny as one warlock brother of the evil equivalent of the Charmed Ones, the Royal Rowe Coven. In order to coerce Brenden to give into his darker side, his warlock brothers begin attacking people who are close to Brendan, who at first turns down help from Prue. When Andy's priest becomes one of the victims, he becomes angry with Prue for continuing to keep secrets and swears he will get her if Father Austin fails to recover.
Phoebe: If you were going to lose a guy, it might as will be to the Big Guy.
When Prue tries to stop a kidnapping in the park, a reporter sees her using her powers. Phoebe and Piper attempt to learn more about the demons who stole the child, which turn out to be grimlocks, demons which sense people's auras and steal children's eyesight. At the same time, they must try to stop the reporter from exposing Prue. The sisters are not exposed, but Andy does find out about their powers.
Piper: Well, I thought Leo and I were a couple and then we...coupled and he took off.
Piper's work leads her to go off to Hawaii, breaking apart the power of three. The evil spirit of a serial killer (Jeff Kober) escapes from Alcatraz Island seeking revenge on his judge and jury, and Andy asks Prue for help with a series of bizarre murder cases. Phoebe and Prue must figure out how to vanquish this evil spirit and stop him from killing again without Piper's help. Andy checks out a murder weapon and Phoebe, cultivating the ability to call on her power at will, forces a premonition, allowing the three to interrupt the killer as he's attacking an elderly juror. Andy quarrels with Darryl Morris, who has been questioned by SFPD Internal Affairs about all the strange, unsolved cases on which the partners have worked. Prue and Phoebe are attacked by the spirit in their kitchen, but Prue takes a potion that kills her so she can fight the spirit on the astral plane. Andy shows up in time to resuscitate Prue with CPR when Phoebe is knocked unconsciousness early in the fight.
Prue: I hate cemeteries at night.
Phoebe: I hate cemeteries at day.
Phoebe: What was that?
Prue: Probably a zombie or a vampire.
Phoebe: Where's Buffy when you need her?
This episode, crediting Brian Krause as the first listed guest star, marks Leo's entry into the future cast as a major recurring character. Prue and Phoebe are planning a beach weekend away from the manor, while Piper mopes about in the next room, despondent over her dating life. A wounded Leo appears the manor, asking the Halliwell sisters to protect an innocent woman returning to San Francisco under his guidance. Daisy is being stalked by a Darklighter who hunts and kills present and future Whitelighters with poisoned arrows. In Daisy's case, the Darklighter Alec (played by Michael Trucco) broke the rules (in a way similar to Leo and Piper) by falling in love with her. Prue uses telekinesis to remove the arrow while Piper bandages Leo and criticizes him for not revealing his supernatural nature. Andy is recruited by Prue to find Daisy. Leo reveals that the Darklighters' poison is deadly, and Piper, now aware of his peril, finds a power switching spell in the Book of Shadows so she can use Leo's healing power on him. However, the spell also switches Prue's and Phoebe's powers. Piper does not know how to trigger Leo's powers and he is believed dead, but her tears trigger the power of undying love and he is revived. A weak Leo manages the stairs to meet with Daisy but that is interrupted by a new attack during which Alec manages to kidnap and orb out with Daisy. Phoebe and Prue track Alec to a deserted wood where he is about to murder her and Prue switches powers with Alec and uses his own powers against him, switching them back (regaining Phoebe's power) at the last moment before he dies.
Leo:Being with her broke the rules. Not being with her breaks my heart.
The beginning of this epochal episode has Phoebe experiencing a powerful and deadly premonition of death at Halliwell manor which includes Inspector Rodriguez unmasked in a demon attack on the sisters resulting in the killing of Prue's childhood friend and sometimes love interest, Andy Trudeau. Vowing to prevent Andy's death, Prue heads off to police headquarters to warn Andy that Rodriguez is a double-agent, a demon working undercover for evil's causes. As the demon makes plans for his attempt to kill the Charmed Ones, he receives a visit from Tempus, a demon who can turn back time that was sent by the source to help Inspector Rodriguez should he fail. Tempus will rewind time each time Rodriguez fails to kill the Charmed Ones until the warlock succeeds in killing all the sisters. Andy Trudeau is waiting in his car, after being told by Prue to stay away because it was dangerous. He sees Rodriguez entering the house and goes in to protect Prue. Andy bursts in before Rodriguez can harm the sisters and attempts to shoot him, but Rodriguez fires an energy ball at Andy, killing him. Piper freezes Rodriguez and she and Phoebe are shocked to find Andy dead. Prue receives a vision from the spirit of the now deceased Andy, which helps her to move on. The sisters vanquish Rodriguez and attend Andy's funeral.
Rodriguez: Prue Halliwell...is a witch.
Andy: A witch, huh? You wait here, I'll go warn the Wizard of Oz.
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