Morality Bites

"Morality Bites"

Morality Bites is an episode of The WB drama series, Charmed.

Synopsis

After the Charmed Ones use their powers to secretly punish an ignorant man, Phoebe receives a premonition. In this premonition, set in 2009, she is burned at the stake for being a witch. The three sisters cast a spell to travel to the future to learn why this will happen, but end up in the bodies of their future selves.

In this future, Prue is the successful, but lonely owner of Buckland's Auction House, Piper is divorced from Leo and mother of a young child named Melinda, and Phoebe is in prison for murdering a man named Cal Green with her advanced powers. The man they punished with their powers in the past is then shown to become a witch-hunting DA, responsible for convicting Phoebe.

As Prue and Piper set out to free Phoebe, she tells them that she should pay for her crimes and burn.

All three sisters then wake up on the same morning, just before they punished the same DA. Phoebe then realizes what caused the chain of events as this was the first time they used their powers to punish the guilty instead of protecting the innocent. They then agree never to use their powers for this purpose again.

Book of Shadows

Enemies

Nathaniel Pratt

A mortal who was destined to become a DA and begin future witch hunts.

Spells

To Move Ahead In Time

Write the date you wish to visit on a piece of paper and set it on fire. Then chant:

Hear these words, Hear the rhyme, We send to you this burning sign, Then our future selves we'll find, In another place and time.

Then drop the burning paper into a container.

Return Spell

Take us back to whence we came, To time and place that are the same, Let past be present, That time regain..

To Create A Door

A piece of chalk is needed. Use the chalk to form the shape of a door on a wall and say these words:

When you find your path is blocked. All you have to do is knock.

There were also several new spells seen in the Book of Shadows but they were not used. These spells were:

To Bind

Wrap a string around the vicitms hands and recite:

I take your hands in mine, and with this string I will entwine. Your powers I'll forever bind, from now until the end of time.

To Erase a Memory

Thoughts, Beliefs, Ideas, Truths, Images, All of these you hold onto tightly, What I mention now you will release.

To Discourage a Lover

Your love for me shall be no more, Make your feelings only pure. Look upon another face, Theirs will mine now replace.

To Bend Someone's Will

To Create Money

To Another Place in Time

Episode Stars

• Shannen Doherty as Prue Halliwell
• Holly Marie Combs as Piper Halliwell
• Alyssa Milano as Phoebe Halliwell

                         Template:Paige halliwell

Co-Stars

• Clara Thomas as Melinda
• Lisa Connaughton as Anne
• Jennifer Hale as Neighbor
• Sibila Vargas as Sierra Stone
• Dan Horton as Cal Greene
• Michael Brownlee as Sports Reporter
• Richard Saxton as 2009 Anchor

Featuring

• Claudia Gold as Screaming Woman
• Darron Johnson as Hallway Guard
• Tina Thomas as Asst. #1
• Taili Song as Asst. #2

Trivia

• The title of this episode is a play on words of the movie Reality Bites.
• The future shown in this episode has been erased later in the series as Melinda Halliwell did not become Piper's first born child, Prue was killed two years later, Wyatt and Chris do not exist, Piper and Leo are divorced, Phoebe does not appear to have any children and the girls did not yet know about Paige. This has been explained in the series when it is said that every action made in the present alters the outcome of the future.
• In the episode, Phoebe exhibits the power of levitation and the power of electrokineis. In Season 3, Phoebe did develop the power to levitate at will, and in season six she developed the power of empathy.
• Prue's telekinesis is seen to have grown to strong telekinetic blasts, similar to the power displayed by Shax in the episode All Hell Breaks Loose; ironicially it is this power which will end her life.
• Although most of the things about this future are not the same as the future that we saw in Forever Charmed, one thing that did not change is that Piper will still live in the manor.
• When future Prue and Piper are back home after getting the Book from Buckland's (and not finding the return spell), we see Prue saying some of the pages are turned down at the top. As she is saying that line, she flips a page and we see the return spell they want. The return spell and future spell are also briefly seen in the book in future episodes.
• Also while looking through the book, Prue mentions a couple spells (although we do not see them) that were used in future episodes but not the same future, since Prue was already dead by the time they were used. The first was a spell to induce slumber used in the season 5 episode Sin Francisco. This spell could also be referring to a potion used by Billie Jenkins on the Charmed Ones in the season 8 episode The Jung and the Restless., or even the spell used later that season to return Piper to her coma in Awakened The second spell Prue mentions was a spell to glamour, which was used in season 8 to help the Halliwells fake their own deaths.
• Despite being in the future where their powers have already grown, the girls do not discover several of their new powers, such as astral projection, Molecular Combustion or empathy. This could be because they didn't know they had them yet so they didn't think to try and see if they had any new powers, but they might have had them all along. However, Prue and Piper do experience advanced forms of their current powers, and Phoebe sees her two new powers through a premonition: levitation and Electric generation.
• This is the third time a Halliwell sister gets arrested. The first was in Wicca Envy and the second was in That '70s Episode.
• This is the only episode throughout the entire series that only feature the three lead actresses in the opening credits.
• This is the only episode where the sisters themselves visit the future, except for two brief astral premonitions to the future experienced by Phoebe in The Eyes Have It and Hulkus Pocus.
• Even though it was not in the present day Phoebe dies for the third time (technically)
• Piper also visits the future, albeit unintentionally, in the finale Forever Charmed.
• Prue mentions that there is a glamour spell in the Book of Shadows, this spell doesn't exist anymore after their return to their normal lives, but it implies that it's possible to glamour into another. This is shown in season 8 Still Charmed & Kicking.
• When Leo came back without Phoebe, Piper froze him. Prue then asked "Is he going to stay frozen?" and Piper said that " he will if he knows what's good for him". Technically since Piper's power freezes conciousness, he doesn't know he's frozen and no one except powerful demons can break out of Piper's freezes.

International titles

• French: La chasse aux sorcières (Witch Hunt)
• German: Hexenjagd: Chasing the witches
• Spanish:Viaje Al Futuro (Latin America)
• Spanish: Mordiscos de moralidad (spain)

Back to List of Charmed episodes