Charmed (TV Series) The Painted World (1999) User Reviews

Trapped in a Painting

[claudio_carvalho · 9/10 · 4 February 2007]

Phoebe bumps Prue's car in a post and casts a spell to become smarter to get a job and pays for the repair. Meanwhile Prue receives an old painting for evaluation and she finds a man trapped inside a painted castle. She sends the painting to the x-ray and finds some expressions in Latin. When she reads the words, she is sucked to the painting and meets Malcolm, who has been living in the castle for seventy years. Piper finds the painting in Prue's office and brings to their house, and she also reads the words being also trapped with Prue and Malcolm. When Phoebe helps them, the Halliwell sisters disclose that the man is actually an evil warlock.

"The Painted World" is a delightful episode of "Charmed". The reckless and naive Phoebe, as usual, has the best lines and situations. The story is well resolved and entertaining. My vote is nine.

Title (Brazil): "No Mundo do Quadro" ("In the World of the Painting")

The One With The Magic Painting...

[taylorkingston · 9/10 · 17 October 2014]

I love this episode. It's so inventive and creative.

In this episode, Prue receives a painting of a castle, that a young woman wants to auction off. She sees a message from someone inside the painting. How can this be? She's a witch. All kinds of stuff like this happen. She finds out, by x-raying the painting, that there's a secret message hidden underneath the paint. It was a Latin message, and she read it. Sadly, anyone who reads it, is actually casting a spell to get sucked inside the painting. So, she sucked inside the painting and meets the castle's only resident, Malcolm. She tries desperately to get a message to Piper and Phoebe. Luckily for Prue, Phoebe has just cast a spell on herself. A smart spell, so that she could get a job. Piper has now been sucked into the painting as well, and they find out the warlock's name. The one who put Malcolm into the painting in the first place. They right her name, Nell, on the window, so that Phoebe could see it. She uses her super smart powers to find out about Nell and finds a spell to free them. She sends the spell on Kit's collar, and sends Kit into the painting. Unfortunately, Malcolm is a demon, and the girl that brought the painting in, a demon as well. So he reads the spell and leaves Prue and Piper trapped. As Malcolm comes out of the painting, Phoebe realizes that he's a demon, and she has a big fight with. The girlfriend comes in, sets the painting on fire and Phoebe reads the spell, and gets them all into the painting. Piper freezes the warlocks/demons; I don't know which they were; and Phoebe reads the spell, and gets her, her sisters, and their kitty, out. The fire destroys the painting and Malcolm and Jane, the girlfriend, are vanquished. You're probably wondering how Phoebe got the spell, when Malcolm had it. She picked his pocket. Pure Phoebe, no smart spell required.

Overall, I give this episode a 9 out of 10.

Painted Black

[seneuser · 7/10 · 8 November 2023]

The Painted World is a Phoebe-centric episode that utilizes the creative idea of getting magically trapped in a painting. In the end this is pretty standard fare for Season 2 with about the only exceptional thing about it being the final vanquish.

Once again we have three threads woven together with Piper getting the least of it and Phoebe getting the most. This makes sense as Prue was mostly the focus of the opener and Morality Bites primarily being from Piper's point of view.

Piper has a possible relationship budding with the next door neighbor. When she needs her club to get up to code, Dan conveniently ends up working construction and can do the work for her. Dan's work comes up a couple times this season, but the man doesn't seem to work a whole lot for being in construction. His primary job seems to be simping for Piper.

Prue receives a painting from a client who wants her to auction it, at any price, which is reminiscent of Feats of Clay in Season 1; that didn't go well either. Prue finds a spell written on the painting, recites it, and predictably ends up trapped in the painting. The painting is a very large manor. Inside the manor is dangerous as it is rigged with traps that like to spray fireballs at anyone who makes themselves a target. A man, Malcolm, has been trapped in there for years. For good reason, as it turns out. Piper inevitably goes looking for Prue and ends up trapped in the painting with her.

Phoebe is looking for a job, and when it appears she's interviewing beyond her qualifications, she decides to cheat and cast a spell to make her smart. THIS despite the lessons supposedly learned when getting burned at the stake just last episode. Huh. Anyway, as usual for Charmed, the smart spell leads to some funny scenes. Ultimately, Phoebe is going to have to release Prue and Piper from the painting and defeat two warlocks at the same time. She pulls this off without any powers, simply by outwitting them and using sleight of hand. Props to Phoebe, this is one of the most impressive vanquishes of the series. That alone is enough to garner the 7 rating.

The painted world

[Realrockerhalloween · 26 September 2016]

The painted world is a slow burner staring off with a man stuck in a painting and trying to free himself. Meanwhile Phoebe is feeling self conscious about her intelligence and castes a smart spell to make herself a genius. For me the episode was boring as the pace is slow nor interesting as the girls spend much of their time trapped and Phoebe fixing the code violations for Piper's club instead of worrying about the warlock on the lose. In fact the warlock have no penance or scare factor and you see the twist of the man and his lover coming a Mike away.

Another aspect I wanted to know more about is an ancestor named Nell who trapped him in the first place. She wrote her entries in Latin, for an off reason as her ancestors may not know a dead language, yet only a few hints are given mostly about dealing with the warlock. I wish like in season one they summoned her from her time to full them in in the gaps or help trap them as their family tree is rich and we never get to see it really.