A Witch's Tail, Part 1

"Uh, excuse me. When you said, uh, sea hag, did you mean like old woman hag or evil magic hag?"

- Piper to Mylie

A Witch's Tail, Part 1 is the first part of the season 5 premiere and the 89th overall episode of Charmed.

Summary
Piper, Phoebe and Paige help Mylie, a Mermaid-turned-human, when she shows up looking for their help after a pact she made with an evil Sea Hag begins to go drastically wrong. Meanwhile, Phoebe attempts to divorce Cole, until he shows up claiming he wants her back. Paige attempts to juggle her new position as a full fledged Social Worker as well as being a Charmed One; and Piper must protect her unborn baby, and face her fear of the water demon.

Main Cast

 * Alyssa Milano as Phoebe Halliwell
 * Rose McGowan as Paige Matthews
 * Holly Marie Combs as Piper Halliwell
 * Brian Krause as Leo Wyatt
 * Julian McMahon as Cole Turner
 * Dorian Gregory as Darryl Morris

Guest Stars

 * Jaime Pressly as Mylie
 * Diane Salinger as The Sea Hag
 * Dan Gauthier as Craig Wilson
 * Fred Koehler as Necron's Lackey
 * Charles Walker as Judge
 * Judson Scott as Necron
 * David Reivers as Bob Cowan

Co-Stars

 * Sybil Azur as Assistant
 * Ellen Bradley as Ticket Agent

Book of Shadows
An entry about The Sea Hag is mentioned, though it is not seen. It told that she had power of her natural environment, but did not mention specifically what that meant.


 * Sea Hag
 * The Sea Hag is a malevolent magical being
 * known for tempting Mermaids to give up
 * their immortality for the love of a human.
 * She then collects their immortal essence for
 * barter with powerful demons. She possesses
 * a vast array of powerful magic, drawn from
 * the brine of the Sea.

Sea Hag's Tracking Spell
The Sea Hag cast this spell, combining it with her power of Hydrokinesis, to create a flood above San Francisco. The flood would turn Mylie from her human form into her Mermaid form, as she would temporarily lose her human form on contact with water. After Mylie turned into her Mermaid form, the Sea Hag was able to sense her.


 * Water, rise up from the sea,
 * Find the one who fled from me
 * Follow where the winds are cold,
 * Then fall tenfold like days of old.

To Track the Sea Hag
Paige created a Power of Three spell to track the Sea Hag. After casting it with her sisters, Phoebe turned into a Mermaid. In the ocean, Phoebe was able to track the Sea Hag. She swam to the Sea Hag's lair, where she called for Leo, so he could orb to her with Piper and Paige.


 * Powers of the witches rise,
 * Find the hag who speaks in lies
 * Balance chakra, focus chi
 * Lead us through the cruel, cruel sea.

Powers

 * Orbing: Type of Teleportation used by Paige and Leo.
 * Fading: Type of Teleportation used by a Borneo Demon, Necron's lackey and Cole.
 * Shrinking (through darts): The Borneo Demons could use magical darts to shrink the head of a teddy bear (narrowly missing Paige).
 * Molecular Combustion: Used by Piper to blow up the Borneo Demon.
 * Atmokinesis: The Sea Hag conjured a flood, combining a spell with her power of hydrokinesis.
 * Hydrokinesis: The Sea Hag used this power combined with a spell, to create a flood. She later used it to trap Paige in a water column (and tried it on Piper, but she dodged it). Later, Paige also dodged another attempt. She later succeeded in trapping Leo in a water column.
 * Sensing: The Sea Hag used this power to sense Mylie. Leo later sensed Piper's panic and courage.
 * Water Teleportation: Type of Teleportation used by the Sea Hag.
 * Liquification: Used by the Sea Hag to turn her body into water so Phoebe couldn't hit her with her car and so that Leo couldn't attack her with a sword.
 * Lightning Teleportation: Type of Teleportation used by Necron.
 * Electrokinesis: Used by Necron to kill his lackey.
 * Life Draining: Used by Necron to drain his lackey's life.
 * Transformation: Used by Cole to turn Darryl into a water cooler and to turn him back.
 * Regeneration: Used by Cole to heal the wound on his hand.
 * Acid Secretion: After returning from the Demonic Wasteland, Cole's blood was acidic.
 * Molecular Immobilization: Piper tried to freeze the Sea Hag, but she was immune to her power.
 * Molecular Deceleration: Used by Cole to slow down the criminal and the bullets.
 * Telekinetic orbing: Used by Paige to orb the Auger Shell to her.
 * Conjuration: Used by the Sea Hag to conjure seaweed around Paige.
 * Healing: Leo tried to heal Mylie, but it failed because she was a Mermaid. Later, when Craig told her he loved her, he succeeded in healing her.

Artifacts

 * Auger Shell - A magical shell that sucks and stores the life force of the being that places the Shell on his/her heart.

Magical Beings

 * Sea Hag - The Sea Hag is a malevolent magical being known for tempting Mermaids to give up their immortality for the love of a human. She then collects their immortal essence in order to barter with powerful demons. She possesses a vast array of powerful magic, drawn from the sea.
 * Necron - Necron is a Skeletal Being who hovers between Life and Death. This demon has the power to incinerate any living creature to feed on its life force. These stolen life forces sustain Necron through centuries of unlife, though he requires an unending supply of living essence to keep him from decaying further.
 * Necron's Lackey - Necron's lackey was low-level demon who served Necron. His master vanquished him by draining his life.
 * Mylie - A Mermaid. After her heart became warm, she went to the Sea Hag, who gave her legs. Mylie found love, but after she showed him she was a Mermaid and he ran off, she was sad and the Sea Hag convinced her to place the Auger Shell on her heart. However, the Sea Hag was vanquished and Leo could heal her, after Craig told her he loved her.
 * Mermaids - Immortal creatures that spend eternity at sea.

Mortals

 * Craig Wilson - Mylie's love. At first, he was scared of Mylie after discovering she was a Mermaid, but later, when she was dying, he told her he loved her, causing her to become human.
 * Bob Cowan - Paige's boss. He promoted her to social worker.

Notes and Trivia



 * Darryl has grown a short beard.
 * Leo has cut his hair shorter.
 * Paige now has short, red hair. The writers worked this into the show by having Leo comment that her change of color came from a potion blowing up in her face. In reality Rose McGowan had portrayed Ann-Margret in the miniseries Elvis.
 * This is the sixth episode to have the word 'witch' in the title.
 * 501b.jpga Milano would later go on to work with Jaime Pressly in My Name is Earl. Alyssa Milano also appeared in Poison Ivy 2, while Jamie Pressley appeared in Poison Ivy 3.
 * After reading the script, Holly Marie alerted the crew of Alyssa's fear of the water and they had to work around her fear. Alyssa Milano said herself that she made the mistake of reading the script a day before shooting because she is deathly afraid of the water.
 * Alyssa agreed only to go into the ocean up to her waist; most of the underwater scenes are either of Alyssa's stunt double or scenes they had to film in shallow tanks of water.
 * In the scenes in the cavern, tanks of water were used and Alyssa's stunt double was always a few feet away from her when she was in the water.
 * Alyssa Milano and Dan Gauthier (Craig) previously worked together on the TV series Who's the Boss when he played her boyfriend Pierce.
 * Locandine_WB_(32).jpg like the episode "Charmed Again", this episode features a modified opening credits, where the main cast names appear after the credits.
 * In this episode it's revealed that Phoebe is allergic to shellfish.
 * As of this episode, Holly Marie Combs and Alyssa Milano are producers of the show. Holly asked to be a producer since the start of season 4 as part of her new contract to keep her on the show.
 * A Witch's Tail is a reference to Shakespeare's play "The Winter's Tale", and a reference to the 2001 movie "A Knight's Tale". It also refers to a mermaid's tail.AWT_01.jpg
 * This episode inspired a spin-off named Mermaid, though it was never picked up by a television station.
 * The WB Trailer only shows Phoebe as a Mermaid, it doesn't even mention the Sea Hag.
 * This is the 'second' time Alyssa Milano has played a mermaid. Her picture was used as a reference model for Ariel, the lead of Disney's "The Little Mermaid". The plot of this episode also draws many parallels to the Disney film, namely a mermaid making a deal with an evil sea creature to gain legs, and then falling in love with a human.
 * In this episode, Paige finds out how their mother was killed.

Glitches

 * The Sea Hag says at the start of the episode to Mylie that as an immortal being, only she can place the augur shell over her heart to give up her life. But at the end of the episode Necron magically places the shell onto Phoebe and it nearly sucks the life out of her.
 * Mermaid-Phoebe guesses that the Sea Hag's cavern is 'somewhere off the North Atlantic'. However, the Sea Hag and Mylie were clearly near San Francisco, given that it is where Mylie met Greg, which would face out onto the Pacific Ocean.

International Titles

 * French: Les sirènes de l'amour - 1ère partie (The Mermaids of Love - 1st Part)
 * Czech: Malá mořská čarodějka - 1. část (Little Sea Witch - Part 1)
 * Slovak: Chvost čarodejnice - 1. časť (A Witch's Tail - Part 1)
 * Russian: Khvostataya ved'ma - 1 chast (Tailed Witch - Part 1)
 * Serbian: Vesticin/Vestičji rep - 1. deo (Witch's Tail - Part 1)
 * Spanish (Spain): La Cola de Una Bruja, Parte 1 (A Witch's Tail, Part 1)
 * Spanish (British DVD): La cola de la Bruja (The Tail of the Witch) [joined to part 2]
 * Spanish (Latin America): Una Bruja Sirena, Parte 1 (A Mermaid Witch, Part 1) 
 * Italian: Una Sirena di Nome Phoebe, Parte 1 (A Mermaid Named Phoebe, Part 1) 
 * German: Der Ruf des Meeres, Teil 1 (The Call of the Sea, Part 1)
 * Hungarian: A tenger hívó szava, 1. rész (The Call of the Sea, Part 1)