Episode Report Card Demian: B | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Many Happy Returns
By Demian | Season 5 | Episode 13 | Aired on 02.01.2003
Down the hall, Piper bitches loudly enough to rouse the slumbering Dolt. The invisible presence has abandoned Prue Memorial to mess with Piper's baby supplies, cheekily hiding a stack of cloth diapers beneath the crib in the percolating infant's closet. The Dolt sleepily protests that it's two o'clock in the morning. Piper doesn't care, and launches into a tirade about the "pesky ghosts and goblins" who've been plaguing the Manor as of late. The Dolt whines that he's already explained the problem isn't spectral; rather, it's the "residual energy left over from all the demons [the Glamorous Ladies] vanquished" in the house. Residual energy that has been dead quiet for four and a half seasons and is only now emerging to add to the weekly hijinks because the writers can't beat the Cole and Phoebe thing into the ground any more. Or something like that. To be honest with you, I enjoyed this episode far too much to pick at the plot holes and the half-assed contrivances and the yawning gaps in series mythology made evident over the course of the hour. What can I say? I'm a sucker for episodes that play the show's ridiculous premise for laughs. Anyway, the Dolt adds that the ever-useless Elders promised the residual energy would dissipate over time. Piper greets this information with a disbelieving snort and some more relentless bitching about how the residue is "getting worse" and "organizing" and "making it impossible for [her] to keep the baby things in order." "Yeah," mumbles the Dolt, absently scratching his drowsy head. "But it's two o'clock in the morning." Heh. A slothful Dolt is a funny Dolt. Wicked, tinny cackling echoes through the room as the unseen entities slyly stow the percolating infant's supplies beneath the crib once more. "They're trying to drive me crazy!" Piper grumbles as she waddles back into the closet.
Sleepytime Dolt's about to mutter something soothing, but he's rudely interrupted by the sudden, high-pitched yodeling that invades the second floor from the attic. The Feebs, waving around a bundle of smoky incense while banging on some sort of Mongolian wind chime, bellows, "Eimo dama sayto mundo!" as she descends the stairs clad in a hot-pink silken Chinese night jacket with matching shorts. I haven't seen her this appallingly goofy in months. Meanwhile, Piper races into the hallway from her room, clearly ready to smack the taste out of Phoebe's mouth. "What the hell is going on?" Raige growls, entering the scene with her fingers pressed desperately into her ears. The Dolt eventually joins them, slouchy and indifferently half-awake. "What are you doing?" Piper howls. "I'm cleansing the house!" perks the Feebs. "At two o'clock in the morning?" pouts Sleepytime Dolt, and give the writers a hand for following The Rule Of Threes. Phoebe yodels in response, taking her act downstairs as Piper, enraged, stomps after her. Raige and the glum Dolt follow, presumably to prevent Piper from vanquishing Phoebe's shrill ass.