They arrive at the party and some dork - Marshall - greets them as "the sisters Haliwell". I feel like this dork is a voice actor. Maybe for Kermit.
Piper and Phoebe reveal that they only wanted Prue to come to the party because Andy is also invited. Still no word on how they know Marshalldork, though they did apparently know the previous owners.
Prue does sneak off home when Andy is distracted by a guy asking about parking tickets. The dog is in the foyer! Dramatic! Prue runs away.
Ooh, Brian Krause is in this one!
Prue blames Phoebe for leaving the door open, as you do. Phoebe retaliates by locking Prue outside the kitchen and Prue demands that she open it, apparently forgetting that she can psychically manipulate locks.
Apparently Prue figured it out because now she's at work. A mysterious stranger is asking her about a ring which she quickly recognises as a wedding ring, thereby realising that this mysterious stranger is her long-lost father. Drama! She throws him out.
Piper and Phoebe argue that while Prue got a chance to know their dad as a child, they were both too young. Phoebe later sneaks out to find him. He doesn't recognise her, guessing that she's Piper first. Bad dad.
They hug and Phoebe has a vision of handing the Book of Shadows over to him. Drama! She runs away.
Meanwhile back at the ranch, a spooky mailman turns his finger into a key and lets himself into the house to steal the Book of Shadows. Again, why not search for it before now, in the ancestral home of its owners? Possibly because Grams was alive until recently? Perhaps there was only a small window of opportunity.
The mailman succeeds in getting the book to the door but it won't let itself be carried outside.
Mailman is interrupted by Prue coming home so morphs into Andy. Prue tells 'Andy' that she'd rather go to a football game with him than dinner with her dad, which would be sweet if she hadn't just told him how little she thinks of her father.
The sister's find the book downstairs, and have the good sense to realise that this means someone tried to take the book and that their dad's sudden arrival is suspicious. This is a poor episode for snarking. Phoebe has a flashback to the vision which is not a vision in it's own right so I'm not doing the reverse crunches.
...all right, fine.
Prue finally reveals that Andy was mysteriously in the house alone right before they discovered that someone had tried to take the book. For some reason, he is above suspicion as far as Prue is concerned.
Prue decides that they need to hide the book and that she is not going to dinner with her father. Both fair decisions.
Andy stops by with, mysteriously, no memory of seeing Prue that afternoon. She dismisses it as him being awkward. Reminiscing with Andy reminds her of how much she wants to tell her dad off, so she decides to storm away from Andy and into the dinner. Drama!
Prue asks why their dad didn't help out when Grams died, so I guess there was actually a big enough gap for demonic shenanigans which only one demon took advantage of. Piper gets so upset that she freezes everyone and I have to do a 30 second plank.
Piper takes advantage of the freeze to rescue a Flambe, and as he unfreezes their father, Victor, reveals that he knows all about their powers. Drama!
Do you think he's been waiting this whole time for an object or Piper herself to move impossibly fast so he can call them out?
We cut to Piper and Phoebe reading at home, which seems a bit sudden until it turns out they're not Piper and Phoebe, they're more shapeshifters. Mailman guy comes to tell them off for being stupid enough to assume they could trick Prue into thinking they were her real sisters.
Plan B: morph into David Bowie with fangs and kill them!
Bowieshifter wants to pounce on the sisters and eat them right at the door, but her Mailman persuades her not to and the Charmed ones walk in to a house full of birds instead.
A little later, Prue is refusing to join in with Victor's reminiscing. Phoebe is in favour of discussing anything and everything with Victor, including the Book of Shadows.
Bowieshifter is still in favour of just pouncing, but Mailman explains the details of their plan; they want to get the book so they are empowered by it and the sisters are weakened by its loss. Not an awful plot. They also mention that they still have Victor. Drama!
Back at the ranch Prue confronts Victor and he admits that he does want the book, so they don't have to be witches. Phoebe insists that it's part of who they are, which is not what she and Piper are going to be saying in a few seasons (Prue, of course, will not be saying anything).
Victor insists that Grams used a spell to send him away and make him stay away. He appeals to Phoebe's soft side, but Prue psychically throws him across the room. I thought she was aiming for the front door, to throw him out; maybe she missed.
In Victor's hotel room, Mailman and friends are threatening to tear him limb from limb. Victor himself raises an excellent point - why don't they just shapeshift into him and get on with it themselves? He claims that he can still reach Phoebe and only her real father will know exactly what to say to reach her. Clearly bullshit, since he didn't even know which sister she was and left before they could have any sort of relationship. Maybe she's the most like her mother, in personality?
Back at the ranch, Phoebe is finally confessing her premonition about Victor stealing the book, though as I recall she was handing it to him.
Piper finds their father's ring on the floor. I suspect it's cursed, but they're new to this so I'll let it pass. Phoebe kindly offers the word 'fell' when Prue refers to shoving him across the room, which is a nice moment between them.
Victor confronts Phoebe and accidentally gives her another vision. Actually, it's the same one but with a bit more - now Victor shapeshifts into Mailman at the end.
Oh, it turns out Mailman was Marshalldork the whole time. That's me not paying attention. They're the Halliwell's new neighbours! That's what the party was about at the beginning.
Phoebe runs into the house to share this new info with her sisters. Victor follows her, so she runs upstairs to find an expelling charm. When she gets back downstairs, suddenly there are two identical Victors! Drama!
In a bit of a Soloman gambit, one of their Victors says they should kill both of them. Clearly this is their real father, so Prue moves the ring - which is apparently a Protection Ring - over to that one. Bowieshifter makes another appearance as Phoebe begins the charm.
It's really weird that this prewritten spell mentions the sisters three. Did Grams write them a couple of all purpose spells?
I'm counting this as a power of three spell, so that's 10 bicycle crunches and three 30 second wall sits. Bloody hell.
Victor decides he doesn't want the book any more because clearly they can actually protect themselves. Nothing to do with the demons disappearing then?
Three minutes left in the episode and while the sisters are digesting events Brian Krause - Leo - finally shows up. They send him upstairs alone, clearly having learned nothing, while Prue reveals that their dad isn't coming but has left them a video of their childhood selves, and himself with ridiculous 70s sideburns.
I wonder who filmed this? Grams?
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