Episode Report Card 1 USERS: B YOU GRADE IT Li'l Orphan Retard
By Demian | Season 8 | Episode 17 | Aired on 04.15.2006
Anyway, where the hell was I? Oh, yeah. So, Coop jumps up from the bed, still nattering on about Phoebe's supposed Issues, and eventually stretches out his right hand to hover over the Fun Bags as his chunky pink ring glows. Phoebe's immediately encased in a shield of body-hugging glowy mojo, and demands to know what he's just done. He's done nothing, he insists. Rather, Phoebe's "heart" is throwing out "some kind of energy field" "that's preventing [her] from even being open to love," and right about now's where I lapsed into a coma of boredom the first time this episode aired, because I do not care about Phoebe's attitudes towards amore at. ALL. Long story short, Coop grabs Phoebe's hands and activates his supremely gay teleportation mojo to heart the two of them out of there in search of whatever is causing Phoebe's love block. This should start actively sucking...
...now. Coop rematerializes with Phoebe in what turns out to be Vex Pexter's physically impossible garret from the beginning of this awful, endless season. Phoebe and Coop hide behind something metal while we endure the revelation scene from the end of "Rewitched" one more time. I'd gripe mightily about them so lazily recycling material like this, especially given the fact that there are so few episodes left, but let's face it: Flashbacks are a recapper's best friend. Anyway, Vex hits the floor again, and Present Phoebe and Coop murmur about magic and mortals not mixing, or whatever, before Coop offers his hand to her once more, and the two heart off elsewhere in Phoebe's past.
Meanwhile, back at the Manor, The Ultimate Retard returns to find Ssssecretly Evil Chrissszzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. The doorbell rings repeatedly and urgently, waking me up just in time to see Piper opening the front door, through which Crispy Critter plunges, leaning heavily on a young woman who blurts, "We need to see [the Dolt], fast!" "We're his students," she exposits upon Piper's prompting, and Crispy Critter manages to gasp out, "Demons are trying to kill us!" by way of further explanation. Chrissssty instantly recognizes Crispy from Not!warts and hastens to hide herself on the sun porch. As Piper hustles Crispy over to the sofa, Chrissssty quietly freaks herself into the first commercial break.
Back from the break, we pick up right where we left off as Crispy pants and groans and settles himself on the sofa while also receiving a proper name. Hooray! Not. When he insists he's all right, his companion protests, "You're not fine, Ryan -- they nearly killed you!" Piper's all, "Who in the what, now?" so Ryan's companion, "Jen," fills her in on the sitch: The Dolt trapped the Noxon demons in Not!warts "so he could use them for [the kids'] advanced combat class." There's a bit of unnecessary nonsense about the Dolt keeping news of this from his wife before Jen continues, "[The Noxons want] to get even with us -- the whole class. Somehow, they got out, and now they're hunting us down." Ssssecretly Evil Chrissssty, who'd been eavesdropping on all this from her hiding place, decides she's heard enough, and discreetly vanishes into the kitchen as Piper, unnaturally dimwitted in this scene, wonders, "By 'hunting,' you mean…?" "There were five of us in the class," Ryan blinks, "but only Jen and I are left." "Barely," Jen amends, staring him down for a moment before turning back to Piper to ask, "[The Dolt] said if we ever ran into trouble to come here, so where is he?" Piper splutters and stammers and does not reveal that her beloved husband is now a gigantic Dolt-pop currently cooling his heels in The Angel Of Teasley's great big Sub-Zero in the sky, but she does order The Ultimate Maggot Neck and her sister nonexistent atticwards to abuse the Book of Shadows. "You don't understand," Jen exasperates. "They can't be vanquished, at least not permanently." The genetic fiddling performed on the Noxons in the past, as I've already noted, made them unvanquishable, which is why the Dolt imprisoned them at Not!warts, so the students "could keep practicing on them." That certainly seems rather un-Doltlike, now doesn't it? Turning Not!warts into some sort of half-assed, magical Guantanamo Bay? How unexpectedly Republican of him. And how vaguely racist of tonight's primary typewriting crackmonkey. I'm sure I'm positively steaming with outrage at the moment, except for the part where I'm so totally not, because this show is CANCELLED!, and I so do not care anymore. I swear to God, ever since the official announcement came down that this show was finally, at long last, down to its final few episodes, I've had a case of senioritis the likes of which I've not experienced since the spring trimester of my last year at Northwestern when I scheduled myself for only three classes, two of which were Pass/Fail and therefore seldom (if ever) attended by yours truly, and one of which was Acting. How's that for slacking off? For God's sake, just end this shit already. Please?
And yet it drags on. The two imperiled students attempt to flee the Manor once they ascertain that Piper truly has no idea what's going on, but she insists they stay. If the Dolt promised them protection, she vows, protection is what they will receive.