Episode Report Card Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Once Upon A Time
By Demian | Season 3 | Episode 3 | Aired on 10.18.2000
Phoebe, snickering goofily, frees Fairy Kate and Thistle from the wooden cage, and the two mites make for the exit. Phoebe stops them, Prue wonders if Thistle doesn't know how to turn Kate human again, and Piper realizes what's really going on. Prepare yourselves for this week's message: divorce is never the fault of the children caught in the middle. Got that? Good. Piper tells Kate that if she goes to play with the fairies, her mother will be just as sad as Kate herself was when her parents divorced. Piper convinces Kate to return home, and Thistle works a little fairy magic, restoring Kate to her original form. Hugs all around. Yawn.
Manor. The Ps enter, grumbling about their various pulled muscles from the evening's physical exertions. Brought up short by the doorbell, they glance at each other as if to say, "Who the hell is that at this hour?" Prue opens the door to reveal a pile of floral arrangements, glittering with fairy dust. Some stereotypes exist for a reason, I suppose. Prue correctly surmises it's the fairy kingdom just saying thanks, and the sisters gather the arrangements to take them indoors. Piper stops at the entrance hall's mirror to don a garland that looks suspiciously bridal. Relationship chatter. Phoebe and Prue attempt to console Piper, who shushes them, noting that she's finally realizing why "they" don't want witches and White Lighters to fraternize. "Marriage is hard enough," she states as they move to the parlor and arrange themselves on the sofas. "But marriage to a White Lighter," she continues. "He's got to orb out at times of the night, and sometimes he's gone for weeks at a time." I'm sure everyone involved in a relationship with, say, a doctor, a police officer, or a member of the armed services has been there and back again, Piper, so quit bitching. She admits that such a distraction proves detrimental to the work they must do, as evinced by the evening's near-failure to protect Kate and her fairy. She concludes it's for the best that she and Leo not be together.
The three get a little misty, as on cue, Leo orbs in on the stairs. TPTB, eavesdropping little sows that they are, heard Piper's speech, and this was apparently enough for them to reconsider their ban on Piper and Leo's relationship. Same old, same old. If Piper and Leo prove their personal relationship will not endanger their professional one, they get to stay together. Piper and Leo head upstairs for some reunion nookie, leaving Phoebe and Prue to fret belatedly about the mysterious demon they stumbled upon earlier in the attic. Prue tells Phoebe that Piper and Leo deserve one night of "worry-free romance" before they're enlisted to deal with this new threat, and Phoebe croons, "Oooh. Romance."