_ At the end of last season, with Leo’s mentor, Gideon, trying to kill his son and succeeding in killing his future son, although he was born again, if you will...they’re all going to be rocked. Their moral compass is going to be imbalanced, because collectively they can’t not react to the fact that the best of the good, Gideon, tried to do something so horrible to their children," says Kern. "It was an absolute betrayal. And their whole journey and fight has been good over evil. They’re going to be questioning that at the beginning of the season. Leo especially is going to be rocked by it, and it’s going to require a lot of healing for the healer to bring him back into the fold. And that’s going to have to happen before he and Piper have a chance to get back together," he says. "In the first part of the season the Charmed Ones are going to step back from the bigger good-vs-evil battles. They’ve saved the world one too many times as far as they’re concerned, and they haven’t really been rewarded with it. They’ve been reward with it by betrayal. They’re going to try and go back to their roots, dealing with a smaller batch of stories. Helping some innocents. The micro, not the macro. But as the season progresses there will be a looming threat. I call it the new power on the horizon that will force them back into bigger battles. As for Paige, she’s going to try and save the Magic School, which is being shut down. She’ll meet some resistance from the parents and the faculty. "So in her own unorthodox, kind of wacky approach, she will be bringing Magic School to the 21st century." Phoebe is still without her active powers, and is having a rough time dealing with Gideon’s betrayal. "She’s going to decide to take time away from her Ask Phoebe column for a short while to try to figure out what her priorities are. Does she want her powers back? Or doesn’t she? She’ll have a funny twist, though, because there is a surprise in who she ends up inadvertently hiring to be her ghost writer."