Trial By Magic

"Trial By Magic"

Trial By Magic is an episode of The WB drama series, Charmed.

Synopsis

While serving on a murder trial jury, Phoebe has a premonition that reveals the defendant is innocent despite the overwhelming evidence against him. As she desperately stalls in the jury room, Piper, Paige and Leo frantically try to discover the real killer in time to free the wrongly accused man. Paige has her hands full trying to help Phoebe while her friend Glen decides to hang out at the Manor and accidentally discovers their secret. Paige accidentally puts a spell on him that makes his body stretchable and the demon behind the murder kidnaps Glen.

Book of Shadows

Enemies

• Rat Demons: Rat demons can shift shape into rats, and can also turn humans into rats. They can travel swiftly, move things with mind and create reddish glow hoop to strangle victims. Higher level Rat Demons can 'shimmer' and ignite lower level Rat Demons. They deal with humans like Andrew Wike who was laundering money for demons.

Spells

• To Stretch the Imagination: Let mind and body soar to heights not reached before. Let limits stretch so you may catch a new truth to explore.
• To Summon The Spirit Of Angela Provizoli: Hear these words, hear our cry, spirit from the other side. Come to us we summon thee. Cross now the great divide. Beloved spirit Angela, we seek your guidance. We ask that you commune with us and move among us.

Trivia

• The episode title is a play on words to the phrases trial by error, trial by fire, and trial by jury.
• This is the first hair change for Alyssa this season. She keeps the length of her hair the same as previous episodes just dyes it brown instead of the caramel/light brown she had before.
• We see Rat Demons twice more in the series in the episodes The Importance of Being Phoebe, in which they appear to sabotage Piper's club, and in Oh My Goddess where a transformed Paige forces a Rat Demon to bow to her.
• We learn in this episode that demons need money to buy clothes, rent apartments and other things just like normal humans and one of their money sources in laundering money.
• This episode marks the return of Paige's friend Glen Belland, who first appeared in the episode A Knight to Remember.
• Back in season 3 "Pre-Witched", the sisters needed six white and purple candles in order to summon the ghost of Ariel, but in this episode Phoebe used 5 white candles, and needed the power of three, which could imply that regular witches are unable to cast this spell because their magic is not charmed.
• When Phoebe fails to summon Angela on her own, one of the jurors, Tanya, says she will get the lights. Several times Tanya went to stand up but then just adjusted herself in the seat, hesitating to turn on the lights.
• At the end of the episode, Piper is wearing a black sweatshirt that says 'San Diego'. Actually, San Diego is the place where Holly was born.
• This is the first time one of the sisters ironically use something they have heard before against another. In this episode Piper tells Paige "What you can handle demons but not rats?" after Leo told her earlier in the episode. The next time we hear this is in Long Lived The Queen with Phoebe reflecting what she heard from Cole to Paige.
• Phoebe needed the power of three to summon Angela although it isn't necessary in other times.
• The basement where Andrew Wyke is killed is obviously the basement at the Halliwell's manor with just a lot of equipment put in.
• During the episode Piper called herself Nancy Drew twice.

International titles

• French: Prémonitions (Premonitions)
• German: Die zwölf Geschworenen (The twelve judges)
• Spanish: Juicio por magia

External links

• TV.com episode guide