Charmed (TV Series) P3 H2O (1999) User Reviews

Keeping history from repeating itself... trying to, anyway

[owlaurence · 8/10 · 6 August 2008]

It is very ironical when you know what lies in store for the characters : Prue hates to be compared to her mother because she feels the resemblance means she will be unhappy in love and die young. Sam has clipped his wings because he failed to protect his loved one. And throughout the episode, everybody keeps trying to prevent history from repeating itself, yet at the end they end up doing exactly the same thing Patty did, and someone dies. Exactly like 20-something years ago.

And history will keep repeating itself. That's what makes this episode so sad in retrospect. Prue will indeed lose everything to magic (and isn't it symbolic that while she's at the camp solving a magical case, someone else is sitting in her chair and doing her job ?). Sam's apparent bliss at the end is but a reprieve. It is also quite painful to watch Leo and Piper tiptoe around each other, and the distance between them shows the intensity of their feelings in a way that Piper's more relaxed attitude around Dan never will. Still, Dan and Leo's annoyed rivalry is fun to watch, especially in the scene where Leo hides behind the door.

I also want to say a word about Phoebe, who clearly missed so much, who barely remembers her mother, who wasn't even old enough to go to camp when Patty died. Does it strike anyone else that everybody keeps saying how Prue looks like Patty, to which Prue answers that she doesn't, Piper does --but nobody ever mentions Phoebe ? I feel very sorry for her that she's left out in such a way.

Finally, this episode is very important to the show as a whole, because it introduces the one element that will allow the Power of Three to survive Prue's death.

The Demon of the Lake

[claudio_carvalho · 7/10 · 10 February 2007]

Prue stops Piper's car nearby the lake where her mother drowned twenty years ago, and she recalls her death. When she sees a man dying in the lake, she is contained by a weird man, who saves her life from a demon in the lake. Prue meets Piper and Phoebe at home, and Leo discloses that the man that saved her is Sam Wilder, a former white lighter in charge of protecting their mother and also that they felt in love for each other. When Patty died, Sam became a mortal. The Halliwell sisters go to the summer camp nearby the lake trying to avoid the children to get close of the water and to destroy the demon.

In this episode, the death of Patty Halliwell and her love for her while lighter are disclosed. Prue resolves her trauma with the death of her mother and is surprised by the attitude of Jack Sheridan at Buckland's auction house. Piper is divided by her love for Leo and Dan. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "P3 H2O"

It Happened One Summer

[seneuser · 9/10 · 11 November 2023]

P3 H20 is one of the best episodes of Season 2, and the episode that gets the most melodrama out of the Piper/Leo/Dan love triangle.

This is parallel storytelling with Prue walking in her mother's footsteps and deathly afraid of repeating her mistakes and suffering her fate. At the same time, Piper and Leo's forbidden love mirrors the affair that Patty had with Sam, her whitelighter. Rather than being a cautionary tale, the more Piper and Leo find out about the affair the closer it brings them together.

Prue's never-ending mommy and daddy issues don't entertain me, and she doesn't look anything like her mother, by the way; that clearly goes to Piper or Phoebe. I get that they are leaning heavy into the parallels between Prue and Patty, but that one strains credibility and would have been best left on the cutting room floor. There are plenty of obvious similarities between Prue and Patty's paths. Why not throw Phoebe a bone by pointing out how much she looks like her mother instead?

Anyway, Piper and Leo being together again carries the episode for me. Piper is mad at Leo still, which is really her just being mad at herself. Like in the beginning of Old Black Magic, the sisters are kind of blowing Leo off again, but changes once Sam dumps the memory dust on them. Prue and Phoebe get back to the camp to protect the children while Piper stays back with Leo due to having poison oak. They decide to read Patty and Sam's love letters together, with predictable results. When Piper needs to join her sisters at the lake, we get our first case of Leo orbing Piper. Just another good reason to have a whitelighter around.

Sam acts crazy early on, but eventually he turns into a pretty good character and a believable whitelighter. The flashbacks to Patty's death are well done and the tension going into the final vanquish is real. This all leads to a great vanquish. The water demon is much better when it isn't seen, much more frightening. Sam's final solution caught me off guard even if slightly predictable. Great ending all around with Piper and Leo saying another heartfelt goodbye. Don't worry that won't last long.

The One With The Water Demon...

[taylorkingston · 10/10 · 28 March 2015]

I really like this episode. I love that we get to find out more about the girls' mother, and about her past. I also love that Leo is in this episode. He's such a great character. Especially when the Dan/Piper relationship comes into question.

In this episode, we find out that the sisters' mother, Patty, died in a lake many, many years ago. When Phoebe was only about three. So, the sisters' where very young. They go up to the lake, as it is about to be re-opened. But then people start drowning in the lake. They discover that it's actually a demon doing it. The girls find a man that happens to have every article ever written on the lake drownings, since Patty died. He also had letters from Patty and a photo of her. What does this mean? Sam, the man, was actually Patty's whitelighter and her "lover". I felt like it need quotations, even though I'm not being sarcastic. Anyway, Prue gets very upset about Sam's inability to save Patty. Sam makes the sisters forget that they came to the lake, as he doesn't want them to get killed either. Leo asks the sisters why they aren't at the lake protecting the kids, and it took a while for the sisters to remember what he was talking about. In the end, Phoebe has a vision of what happened to their mother that day, and Prue defeats the demon. Sadly, not before Sam dies. But he's okay with it because he got to see Patty again.

Overall, I give this episode a 10 out of 10.

Great episode, spoiled by inconsistencies.

[m-47826 · 5/10 · 22 March 2021]

I remember not liking it at first, because I wanted the lake monster look scarier, or be a monster for that matter. Only now I understand it wasn't that important to the story, the characters development is. And in spite of being another Prue centric episode this season, it also gave a clearer view on the characters backstory and the series arc in general, and its recurring theme throughout. History will always repeat itself, and what can you do to prevent it? This is the second time Prue escaped death, which also made me wonder if it wasn't planned all along... The ending don't add up with the rest of the series, but « P3 H20 » is still one of those episodes I enjoy rewatching the most, for showing how good « standalones » used to be in the early years of Charmed. Good soundtrack overall.

Charmed camp

[Realrockerhalloween · 27 September 2016]

Prue returns to camp skylark where she witnessed her mother's murder years ago and becomes afraid the same date who befell her will repeat itself. A man named Sam Wilder tries to keep them away harboring the secret of his affair he had with Patty and he distracted her on the dock the day she drowned. The water demon is very creepy, a force of nature, without form who drowns anyone who meats the lake. Killing the camp owner and a park ranger with brutality or demise as they struggle for help. Patty's affair with Sam seems to parallel her daughter's current relationship trying to overcome her demon duties while keeping it a secret from the elders and without this revelation Paige may have never reconstituted the charmed ones. It seems that history is repeating itself as Leo orbs his believed to the docks, he distracts her from electrocuting him and if not for Sam's intervention taken a tragic turn of Romeo & Juliet but one survives.

Another aspect I enjoyed was getting into the country for a spooky tale in the woods. The city is nice, but who doesn't like to get away where there's trees, rives, cabins and an evil lurking. Its the strongest story to date that I watch over and over for the thrill ride knowing what's coming and if it goes differently.