The unexpected exit of Shannen Doherty after Charmed Season 3 left the show with a much bigger void to fill than just a third sister. Losing the eldest sister had to shake the remaining girls, including their long-lost younger sister Paige, to make her death raw and permanent, considering the girls had managed to escape death’s door before.
It could have easily been glossed over when the next season premiered, following the initial impact of Prue’s death. After all, her final moments were being thrown through a wall in the Halliwell manor by Shax with Piper (Holly Marie Combs) right by her side.
Charmed could’ve taken the approach that Two and a Half Men later did, where Charlie Sheen’s exit was written in with a quick joke and Ashton Kutcher took over without a single glance back at what had been lost. Would it have been realistic? No, but it would have saved the writers quite a bit of trouble. Instead, the Charmed writers took on the challenge.
Writing off Prue, arguably the most important character of the trio, could’ve easily destroyed the show. Piper and Phoebe (Alyssa Milano) were losing their older sister, the person that had been there to take care of them throughout their entire lives after the premature death of their mother and the unexpected leave of their father. Plus, there was an entirely new sister being worked into the show as the girls discovered their long-lost sister Paige (Rose McGowan).
Piper, realistically, had the toughest time coping with Prue’s loss. She had to step up as the oldest sister, the new head of the Halliwell household. She had to find a way to deal with her grief over losing the single person that had been with her at every step... all while trying to find a way to let Paige into her life. Either of those tasks on their own would’ve been difficult to bear.
Throughout the first half of Charmed Season 4, we actively watched Piper go through the many stages of grief. From denial on “Charmed Again: Part 1” as she desperately tried to bring Prue back (even as a ghost) to anger on “Hell Hath No Fury” as Piper broke down at Prue’s gravestone, screaming at Prue for leaving her all alone in the world and thinking she could handle what was to come without her.
While Piper has the toughest time accepting her loss, we also watch Phoebe grieve for the sister that she often fought with (as sisters do). Phoebe handles her grief in a completely different way. There’s one moment in Charmed Season 4 where Phoebe is breaking down about the fact that she was never able to tell Prue that it was actually her boyfriend’s cat, not Piper’s, that peed on and ruined one of Prue’s favorite jackets.
Phoebe also steps up to be the sister to hold things together as Piper’s tears keep falling and Paige reluctantly becomes part of the family. She tables her grief, but we see her slowly chip away at it throughout the rest of Charmed as the very real possibility of dying young or losing another sister sets in.
Even Paige mourns for the sister she never got the chance to meet. For quite a while, we see Paige comparing herself to Prue, and trying to live up to the super witch legacy that Prue left. Though we never really see Paige learn much about Prue on-screen, it’s clear that she takes the time to do so, even trying to complete spells that Prue started and never got the chance to finish. Given that Paige experienced the loss of her adoptive parents, she comes into the show very understanding of Piper and Phoebe’s feelings, and they really all help each other deal with what they’re feeling. Paige’s grief over Prue, while slim, is never made out to seem unreasonable or anything just because they never had the chance to meet either. Would any other show put that much thought into it?
As Piper and Phoebe slowly accepted their grief, and Paige became a regular in the Halliwell household, the focus on their loss slowly dwindled. But it never died. The girls reference Prue many times throughout future seasons, fondly recalling their departed sister. For instance, in “Cat House,” circumstances lead to Paige and Phoebe traveling through time and Paige is able to see Prue’s back as she rides away on the motorcycle after destroying Piper’s wedding, and they comment on how Paige has always wanted to meet Prue.
Another instance is in the Season 7 finale, “Something Wicca This Way Goes.” The girls use an astral projection spell (one of Prue’s established powers) to help save their lives as they are hunted by the demon Zankou, to which Piper says, “Thank you, Prue” after they narrowly escape death. Or, in the series’ 100th episode, “Centennial Charmed,” when Paige travels to another reality where she died before they could reconstitute the Charmed Ones after Prue’s death, and we see how the loss of Prue totally wrecked the girls and Paige is the only thing that helped them keep things together.
Prue’s memory was kept alive, even well after her death. Even with the cards they were dealt, like not being able to use any of Shannen’s scenes for flashbacks, photos, or anything, they really captured what it’s like to lose a sibling, especially the oldest sibling, and to deal with the grief that comes with any loss.
It’s even more surprising that so much care was put into Prue’s death and how that impacted the girls considering the circumstances behind Doherty’s exit. Rumors have flown about the real reason Doherty exited, but there’s never been any official statement. Some say it’s because she was a nightmare behind-the-scenes, others say it was due to a feud with Alyssa Milano and the network chose to keep one of them. There are even rumors that Doherty and the creator, Constance M. Burge, left the show because they wanted the stories to get darker, while the network (The WB at the time) did not.
Whatever the case, it’s clear that her exit was not on good terms, which makes how the character’s exit was handled even more surprising. They could’ve burned Doherty, the character, and just kept on running without even the slightest look back.
However, everything the writers did made it truly feel like we were watching a real family that had suffered an unrecoverable loss, and that is incredibly rare to see on TV. Those in charge of these shows usually try never to remind you of those who are no longer around, despite remembering your lost loved ones being such a normal, human thing to do. In the end, it really comes down to the little moments, like the cat pee with Prue’s jacket or the girls sitting in their kitchen and acknowledging how Prue was always the first one up and the last one down, that separate the show’s depiction of loss from how other shows have handled it. Having a funeral, dealing with the loss for a couple episodes, that’s not difficult to do. What’s difficult is showing the continued impact of the loss and how life slowly but surely goes back to some kind of normalcy. Losing someone changes everything, and surprisingly that’s something we see on Charmed. It’s not business as usual after the initial impact is over with.
All eight seasons of Charmed are streaming on Peacock TV.