Primrose Empath

Season 3, Episode 6, Aired
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Episode Summary

Prue begins experiencing the powers of an empath, thanks to a demon, but she soon loses control. Meanwhile, Phoebe's relationship with Cole becomes turbulent when he tells her he doesn't want to see her anymore.
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Fan Episode Reviews (23)

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  • Cole joins the party and Prue, super w(b)itch...

    8.0
    "Great"
    By iltarion, Jun 24, 2011 Report Abuse
    This is a marvelous episode until a very unfortunate finish. Cole is maintaining his indirect attack on the Charmed Ones; this time by leading Prue to a demon infected with the power of empathy, which is understandably quite a curse for any demon to be inflicted with.

    Probably my favorite thing about this episode is Cole, Phoebe, Leo and Piper being together and going out for lunch. It is a short scene here, but it portends to the future, when Charmed is at its best.

    The demon, Vinceros, is very well played. The actor, admittedly, makes a better suffering empath than he does an unstoppable demon, but he is just sinister enough to be believable. Meanwhile, a strong case can be made here that Shannen is at her all time best; it is a little easy to say when she has so much to do. I loved it when Piper went off on the Father and told him to buck up. That was the Piper that we will get used to in future seasons. As the hard-working business owner and engaged sister, Piper is very much becoming like the eldest sister that she will eventually be. Did the writers already foresee Shannen's departure by this time? Perhaps.

    The final Matrix inspired fight scene was ridiculous, frankly. When did Prue become Bruce Lee? The idea of having her astral self jump into Vinceros was a great idea, but she should have just done that in the first place. However, Vince was able to survive with everyone's pain at the beginning of the episode, right?

    A second issue I have is the scene where Vinceros kills his second victim in church. If you are going to treat demons like they are real, then I don't know how you can have them freely passing into churches and using their powers. Demons should be avoiding them at all costs.moreless

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  • Matrix rip!

    4.5
    "Poor"
    By Guivus, May 24, 2011 Report Abuse
    Good episode, enjoyed watching it up till the point where Pru vanquishes Vincerus.... anyone else see the fact that it was the biggest 'The Matrix' rip ever! I mean kumon, i would have awarded the episode 9 if it wasn't for this blatent display of unoriginality! I enjoy watching this show, and am working my way through all the episodes, but after this I'm not sure I want to. The storylines are usually original to 'Charmed' and I feel let down by the fact that they actually aired this one thinking it wasn't noticeable! However, saying this, I guess everything can be described as unoriginal these days, because the whole idea of everything being done before, but still, this wasn't changed enough to give any credit to the writers of the show. Therefore well done 'The Matrix' writers, shame on you 'Charmed' writers, you only get half the score for this episode.moreless

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  • Prue's All Sweaty! Aaaaggghhh!

    7.8
    "Good"
    By maxpower03, Apr 19, 2011 Report Abuse
    Shannen Doherty gets to show off her amazing talent in this thrilling episode which shows that Charmed is capable of more mature storylines compared to the first four episodes of this season.

    Primrose Empath sees a demon transferring his empathic abilities to Prue, causing her to go insane with the feelings and emotions of so many people running through her head. Whilst Piper and Leo try to save her, Phoebe discovers that Cole is planning on leaving San Francisco.

    This episode has many shocks throughout, the first being the twist that Vince, apparently this week's innocent, is in fact Vinceres, an evil empathic demon, who is working with Cole to destroy the Charmed Ones. I was fooled by his faade and it made the episode extremely exciting for me. I found that the evolution of Prue's empathic abilities was well handled. It started out being funny as Prue starts laughing at the doctors and then discovering that her abilities are causing her to feel just like a patient injected with laughing gas, who is near by, before turning completely painful and making Prue lock herself up in the basement to get away from all the emotions.

    Harry Groener gave a brilliant performance as Father Thomas and there was some nice reasoning behind why Vinceres has his abilities. I found the fight at the end laughable as it was blatantly obvious that the writers had just watched The Matrix when they were writing it. It could have worked... if the budget was much, much bigger. This episode rests on the shoulders of Shannen and she is remarkable throughout. A really good episode.

    Rating: Bmoreless

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  • A melange of different pop culture icons gone horribly wrong.

    3.3
    "Bad"
    By jcap2002, Apr 19, 2011 Report Abuse
    "Primrose Empath" started out to be a great episode. Prue, thinking she's saving an innocent, in fact saves a demon and gets "infected," so to speak, with an empath's powers. This allows her to feel all the emotions in the city (and the world, to be sure) and essentially drives her insane. However, she is able to use the empath power to vanquish the demon in "Matrix"-style fighting, which I found hackneyed and, well, unoriginal.

    Haven't I seen everything in this episode before? The empath situation seemed really familiar to me. Then I realized - Buffy the Vampire Slayer did an episode similar to this. In the episode "Earshot" from season 3, Buffy gets infected with a demon's blood and is able to hear people's thoughts. It seemed to me that Prue in "Primrose Empath" wasn't feeling the emotions of people; she was hearing their thoughts.

    As demonstrated in season 6 of Charmed, when Phoebe got her empath powers, she couldn't hear thoughts or voices. However, in "Primrose Empath," it seemed that Prue heard voices. So, who was the true empath here - Prue in this episode, or Phoebe in season 6?

    And the Matrix-style fighting did absolutely nothing for me. How many times has that movie been parodied or copied? How many times have those copies been BAD? If the Matrix hadn't already done it, the fighting in this episode would have really impressed me. But, it just seemed like a poor-man's Matrix.

    All in all: Charmed at its worst.moreless

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  • If you had a chance to know what others thought would you take it.

    10
    "Perfect"
    By danman5069, Apr 19, 2011 Report Abuse
    In this ep. Shannen Doherty does the best actting I have ever seen it is so good. Also, Prue does some amazing but kicking I have ever seen on the show. I love the power and i love the storyline it is so great. Just completly amazing ep. this show keeps getting better.

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Trivia, Notes, Quotes and Allusions

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  • Trivia

    ADD TRIVIA
    • This episode features Idol with their song "Shameless". Edit
    • Why, if the power of empathy could be transferred by touch, did Prue, who could not emotionally handle the power, just give it back to the priest when he came into the basement? She could not handle it and he wanted it back! She could have given him his powers back and then just worked with her sisters to write a spell to vanquish Vinceres. It was just their powers he was immune to. It was never said that he could not be vanquished with a Power of Three spell. Prue was not originally in the mindset to vanquish Vinceres anyway, so you'd think she would have jumped to give the priest back his powers. Edit
    • TRIVIA: Prue is the first sister to get the power of empathy. Phoebe gets this new power in a later season. Edit

  • Notes

    ADD NOTES
    • International Episode Titles: Czech Republic: Prokletá empatie (Cursed Empathy) France: A fleur de peau (Overly sensitive) Edit
    • This episode scored 6.1 million viewers. Edit

  • Quotes

    ADD QUOTES
    • Phoebe: So what do we do? Father Thomas: Nothing. There's nothing you can do. It will find us and when it does, we're all dead. Piper: Well, you're just a ray of sunshine, now aren't you? Edit
    • Father Thomas: Your sister is too far gone. She won't live to see the night. Piper: All right, that's it! Leo: Piper… Piper: No. I am sorry, but this man has experienced the entire rainbow of human emotions, and the best he has to give us is self-pity? I don't think so. Look, you used this power to stop this demon. Now my sister has your power. Deal with it, and then help us. Edit
    • Piper: (about Prue's empathic ability) All right, if this is a gift, we are returning it. Edit

  • Allusions

    ADD ALLUSIONS
    • The entire fight scene, almost move for move, between Prue and Vince is alluding to the film The MatrixEdit
    • Phoebe: How does the-demon-formerly-known-as-Vince tie into this?
      This is a reference to the artist formerly known as Prince, who changed his stage name from Prince to a symbol. Edit
    • Phoebe: Great, the Energizer demon.
      She is referring to the battery brand Energizer, which has the slogan "it keeps going and going..." and features a pink bunny that never stops. Edit

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