Big Sister
Charmed by Charmed
As I have mentioned before, I started watching Charmed from the beginning as it's streaming on Netflix. I've watched six episodes into Season 4, and I wanted to talk about Prue's death at the end of S3.
It's been pretty obvious from the beginning the Charmed was the result of someone who both loved clothes and took a pop psych book on birth order to heart. Three sisters; Prue, the eldest, is the one who takes care of the others, the responsible one. Piper, the middle child, the 'heart of the family' mediates between the oldest and youngest and keeps things going. Phoebe, the youngest is the free spirit who challenges the rules and stretches the boundaries.
I know the reason Prue had to go was contractual and due to disputes of some sort, but I never really care about the actors, it's the characters that matter to me. So did Prue the character need to go, was it set up and consistent with previous story points, and was it done well?
Prue was a prickly, unpleasant over-controlling woman at the beginning and I didn't like her. As we got further along my opinion changed. You got to see exactly how much Prue had been affected by her mother's death, by her father's desertion, by her grandmother's manipulation of her life choices. Her mother's death felt like her fault, like any little kid who witnesses a death they can't help stop. I really didn't like how quickly they resolved Prue's issues with her father; really, really didn't like that. It should have taken much longer, and would have been a corker of a drawn-out sub-plot with friction between the sisters' differing attitudes towards the reconciliation. All those elements were there, just gotten through at a breakneck pace. The grandmother placed restrictions on Prue's plans, and Piper's to some extent; her desire to do so rooted in the knowledge that eventually all three sisters would have to be close for the Power of Three to be awakened. Phoebe escaped for a time, but was drawn back by her grandmother's illness.
There's a lot of missed chances in Charmed, and I understand that choices have to be made as to what stories to pursue and what elements to emphasize.
Prue only needed to die for real life reasons, not story ones. But she had been set up as the obvious choice. The lead up to Prue's death was well done. Her need to protect innocents grew in her final season and her despair when she couldn't help was deep and overwhelming. Her meeting with the Angel of Death was obvious, if appealing, foreshadowing. Her meeting with the darklighter in S2 also seemed to presage death, also the re-living of her mother's death. Maybe it was just knowing what was going to happen but it seemed destined.
The actual death was handled badly. If I hadn't known what was going to happen, the red herring of Piper's AU death would have shaken me. That part of the story was well done and affecting. Although Leo can't act, and his reaction was not half so well done as Prue's. But it felt shortened and anti-climactic when time re-set and it was Prue who had died after all.
I never figured out whether the two remaining sisters knew about the re-set. They should have known, but I would have imagined a great deal more angst from Piper over who should have died, and I didn't see that. There's a bit, but she shows more anger at being left behind. That was realistically portrayed and quite moving.
The beginning of Season 4, as we deal with the aftermath of Prue's death, the temporary loss of the Power of Three, shuffles the birth order deck. It's explicitly stated by Leo at one point, and Piper notes how hard it is to be the big sister once Paige enters the picture. Paige is the flighty one, the one who rejects responsibility. Phoebe is now the mediator, who struggles to keep Piper on keel and incorporate Paige into the family. And Piper is the head of the family, the bread-winner, the instructor.
I'm an eldest sister myself, eldest of three. And responsibility is something I feel and something I flee. With all the fluff and sex-kitten aspects of Charmed, the base of it is family and duty. And really cool clothes.
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