RECKLESS ABANDON

PLOT

At the Manor, Piper is preparing a baby shower because both her sisters forgot to.  Prue tells her that she's hoping that Bucklands will send her and Jack Sheridan to New York.  The pair then discuss Dan, and Piper tells her sister that she's not ready to commit herself yet.

At the police station, Phoebe is offering to help Morris by using her power of premonition.  He's not too keen, telling her that his stock is already less than blue-chip.  A couple of couples are trying and failing to silence an abandoned baby and Phoebe offers her help and manages to silence him.  Picking him up, she gets a premonition of a man taking the baby, while a ghost fires a bolt at the pair.

Back at the Manor, Phoebe tells Piper that she's not sure if her premonition was in the past or the future, but if it was in the past that would explain why the baby was abandoned.  Morris has given them 24 hours to look after the baby before Social Services will start asking questions.  Phoebe proves to be a natural looking after the baby, unlike Piper who, trying to entertain him with a bear she knitted for the baby shower, only manages to get him to throw up over it.

Prue returns home and notes that the baby's parents are obviously rich.  She and Phoebe leave the baby with Piper as they both have things to do.

Prue promised to pick up supplies for the baby and has loaded up a trolley load when she runs into Jack.  She promises him there'll be no more interruptions once she's dropped the stuff off with Piper as they need to finish their presentation.

Piper is saved by Dan, who proves a lot more adept with Matthew than she is.  She tells him she likes seeing him this way.  Prue returns with the supplies and complains about the cost - $312.46!  Prue and Piper refuse Dan's offer of help changing the baby's diaper but he has to anyway.

Phoebe's description of the man with the baby helps produce a composite picture which is then faxed to Prue, who recognises him as Gilbert van Lewen.  When she says that Gilbert's father and brother have both died recently, Phoebe guesses that it's not just the baby that the ghost is after.

At the van Lewen estate, Gilbert's wife Alexandra wants to know where her son is.  She doesn't believe in the ghost story, thinking that her husband is crazy and under too much strain.  Gilbert's mother Martha tells her to go but then the ghost materialises.  Gilbert refuses to hand over his son and the ghost throws him over the bannister, killing him.

Prue and Phoebe arrive at the estate and find the police already there.  Morris tells them to let him do the talking.  Martha tells him that Matthew is with his aunt, but while she's talking to him, Prue and Phoebe sneak upstairs.  In the nursery, they are able to confirm Matthew's identity before they're found by Alexandra.  Prue claims that they're grief counsellors sent by the police and Phoebe says they can help her - they can't bring back her husband, but maybe they can bring back someone else.

Back at the Manor, Prue is trying to salvage Jack's presentation while Phoebe researches.  She discovers that ghosts always haunt for specific, personal person.  Piper forces her to swap places and look after Matthew, who promptly throws up over Prue's presentation.

Later, after Prue uses her powers to entertain and bathe Matthew, they discover that the van Lewens' chauffeur Elias Lundy disappeared just before Martha's husband died.

The girls fall asleep in the kitchen and Piper wakes up to see Dan looking after Matthew and she wonders if he's too good to be true.

Prue takes Matthew to Bucklands while Piper and Phoebe go to the van Lewens' estate.  Jack tells her that since she hadn't finished the presentation, he's done it, but the VP tells her that she's out of the running for the New York trip because of the family emergencies she's always having.

At the estate, Piper and Phoebe try to talk to Martha but Lundy appears and throws a jolt of electricity at them.  Piper freezes the room, but finds that her power doesn't extend to ghosts.  Lundy pursues the pair and Alexandra and Martha out of the house, but finds that he's unable to leave.  Unfortunately, Martha is trapped in there with him.

The three go to P3 because Piper and Phoebe aren't certain that Lundy can't leave the house.  Alexandra tells them that Lundy was obsessed with Martha, carving their initials in a tree, but when he attacked Martha, her father-in-law killed him, burying his body beneath the tree.

Sheridan catches Prue in the lift and tells her that he's got two tickets.  But even though children under two fly free, Prue tells him she can't go.

Back at the Manor, Phoebe prepares the potion to use against Lundy while Piper reassures her over her baby skills (or lack of them).  Phoebe sends Piper to get the shovels since they need to spread the potion over Lundy's bones or destroy the object of his curse - Martha.

After handing Matthew over to Morris, the sisters head for the van Lewen estate, where Lundy is attacking Martha, who doesn't know the baby is and wouldn't tell him even if she did.

Piper rushes inside to protect Martha leaving her sisters to destroy Lundy's body.  Prue raises the body uses her body and the pair proceed to break its bones, which affects Lundy's ghost.  Realising what's happening, he uses his power to move the body somewhere else, forcing Prue and Phoebe to run for it.

Inside the house, Martha tells the sisters to leave, but Piper declares this is not an option.  Martha forces Phoebe to tell her the other method of destroying Lundy and then reveals that she's not an innocent, she was the one who shot Lundy because she didn't love him.  After telling him this, she throws herself over the bannister.

Martha's ghost floats upstairs, where she tells Lundy to go to Hell, and he is consumed by flames.

The sisters return Matthew to Alexandra, who promises to let them babysit once in a while.  Later at P3, they discuss how many children Phoebe will have, before she tells them that she needs to get her life together first. 

CAST

Stephanie Beacham is best known for her role as Sable in Dynasty and its spin-off The Colbys.  Her TV work stretches back to the sixties, including guest spots on many ATV/ITC series.  Amongst her numerous film roles are the dire Hammer film Dracula A.D. 1972 (as Jessica Van Helsing) and The Wolves of Willoughby Chase.

J. Kenneth Campbell played Liam's father in Angel: The Prodigal.

CONTINUITY

Prue hasn't slept with Jack and used to drop Phoebe when she was a baby.

Piper can knit and can't freeze ghosts.

None of the sisters are very good with babies.

Morris is a father and doesn't like sausage.

THE BOOK OF SHADOWS

Patty's helpful addition reveals that "sometimes a baby just has to cry."

THE POWER OF THREE

Prue uses her powers to reach the top shelves when shopping for baby supplies, levitates the objects in her bag in order to entertain Matthew, bathe Matthew and raise Lundy's bones out of the ground.

Piper freezes Matthew midflow (Prue diverts it out of the way), freezes him when he cries (her comment implies this is their preferred method of keeping him quiet) and freezes the van Lewen house to save them from Lundy's bolts.

Phoebe sees Gilbert stealing Matthew away from Lundy.  She also fakes a premonition when holding the knife at the police station as part of her attempt to convince Morris to let her help him solve his cases.

NOTES

Ghosts haunt for a specific personal reason and can be killed by a potion poured over their bones or by destroying the object of the curse.

Would Morris really be allowed to handover an abandoned baby as he does?

COMMENTS

Charmed does Three Men and a Baby (you only wonder why they didn't call the episode something like Three Witches and a Baby).

Prue's job at Bucklands comes in usual for something other than attracting demonic bosses and cursed objects when she recognises Gilbert's photo.  It's good to see that her constant family emergencies has been noticed, but yet again Jack Sheridan doesn't really do a lot.

Elsewhere, there's rather too many scenes of the girls looking after Matthew for my liking.  We know that Charmed doesn't go in for a massive amount of mythology, but even so this episode has to much diaper changing and not enough action.

The fact that the sisters are charged to protect the innocent but don't seem to be able to save Martha is negated by her revelation that she was the one who killed Lundy.  The moral dilemma of whether the girls would be preferred to sacrifice an individual to save themselves and a baby is therefore avoided.  But since Martha is a murderer, do we really care that she commits suicide?

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EPISODE RATING
5/10