‘Charmed’ Was Never Quite the Same After Prue Halliwell’s Exit

Charmed changed how I watched, interacted with, and thought about television. It was one of the first shows I ever binge-watched, one of the first shows I ever read fanfics for, and one of the first shows I owned in full on DVD. The news of Shannen Doherty’s untimely death has hit me hard.

While this dramatic turn-of-the-century series may not have been a truly feminist masterpiece, it was unapologetically about women and for women, as the three “Charmed” sisters tried to balance their professional and personal lives with their magical duties. I wanted to be them when I grew up. I wanted to be as free-spirited as Phoebe, as loving as Piper, and as steadfast and strong as Prue—Doherty’s Prue, especially, was a big part of the show’s initial success, and she has remained one of my all-time favorite characters.

Nowadays, the original Charmed is one of my comfort shows. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve rewatched this series. It’s so easy to sink back into the Charmed Ones’ mad, magical world, even when I know what ultimately happens to Prue Halliwell at the end of season 3. I don’t want to speculate about why Shannen Doherty left Charmed so soon after the show began. Whatever happened behind the scenes is, quite frankly, none of my business. All I know is that I was heartened by the fact that Doherty, along with her former co-stars, was excited by the idea of doing a Charmed reunion down the line, and I would have devoured whatever they came up with.

Remembering Prue Halliwell

I know Doherty was famous for plenty of other roles—90210 and Heathers, especially—but to me, she will always be Prue Halliwell, the eldest Charmed sister. Prue was loyal, protective to a fault, stubborn, and strong, but she was also afraid to be vulnerable, traumatized by what happened to their mother, scarred by her relationship with her father, and cautious about her and her sisters’ roles as witches. She was the most powerful Charmed One in their family, yet ultimately scared to live up to her potential, too. As a result, most of the show’s most emotionally compelling storylines were intertwined with Prue’s fate as a witch; nowhere is this more apparent than in Prue’s final storyline and the character’s death.

Doherty’s performance was subtle yet captivating, and though I won’t say the show never fully recovered after she left, it was never quite the same, either.

Prue’s passing left a void in the Halliwell family and the series, though it also proved that the Charmed world was not one without danger. If one of the primary Halliwell sisters could die, anything could happen next. Prue’s death raised the stakes emotionally, more than the off-screen deaths of their mother or their grandmother ever could, and yet that doesn’t negate how hard it hits the viewer or the characters in the show. The Charmed season 4 premiere is an interesting study of grief and change—it didn’t just confront Piper and Phoebe’s devastation, it also confronted how the show, and the audience, would handle such a monumental shift.

Famously, of course, Rose McGowan stepped in as the new, third Charmed sister in season 4. “The Power of Three” couldn’t very well work with just two witches, and, as a result, Piper and Phoebe discovered that they had a younger half-sister, one whose name coincidentally also began with a P—Paige. Where Prue was cautious and unwavering, Paige was naive, optimistic, and curious. McGowan’s arrival changed everything.

Suddenly, Piper became the caretaker, Phoebe became the mediator, and Paige was the young, inexperienced witch who had a lot to learn about magic and her own history. The winds had shifted. The Halliwell clan had essentially become a new family in Prue’s absence, and plenty of shiny new characters were introduced—some successfully, others not so successfully—until the show ultimately lost its way in its final stretch (although I unashamedly love Charmed season 6 and the completely messy storyline with Piper and Leo’s son, Chris. I will defend it vehemently).

We’ll never know how the show would have fared had Doherty stayed on longer. It’s hard to deny, though, that Charmed changed after Prue’s death. I still love the show despite all its faults, but Shannen Doherty’s Prue was, without a doubt, one of the core pillars that held it together. Even after her exit, her character’s legacy still lived on.