Episode Report Card Owen: D | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Chick Flick
By Owen | Season 2 | Episode 18 | Aired on 04.19.2000
Foyer. Prue jiggles towards the ringing cell phone. It's Finlay Beck. She makes excuses not to meet him while Piper helps her on with her coat. Prue realizes that Finlay's calling from just outside her front door. The hard Ps and Leo try to be quiet and pretend no one's home. Finlay: "It's a little late, don't you think? I can see you moving." Heh. Prue lets him in. He stomps past her, demanding to see her darkroom. Piper queries, "Finlay?" Prue, exasperated: "My hero." Piper and Leo leave without her. Prue, flummoxed, stands in the foyer with her hands on her hips. Finlay: "Don't mind me. I'm just wandering through your house." Hee! Finlay and Blackie keep trying to best each other as the Paul Lynde of this episode. To my pleasure.
Cineplex. The theater's crowded. On-screen, a blonde in heels and a mini-dress is running in fear from a hatchet-wielding madman. As he bludgeons her to death, Blackie appears at his side, offering to take him "to a place where the movie never ends" and he "can kill for real." The audience makes confused murmurs. Blackie sends some "hush" dust off-screen so he can talk with Hatchet Man. If Blackie frees HM, HM has to kill the Halliwells sisters in exchange. HM agrees, and steps off-screen with his axe and walks toward the exit. Then Blackie casts a spell on the audience to make them go all soccer fan on each other. Blackie watches gleefully.
Halliwell Manor. Attic. Phoebe blathers to Billy about her favorite parts of Kill It Before It Dies while she finishes covering up his face with base makeup. She's almost done except for a spot on his forehead that's really too bluish-grey to match his B&W appearance earlier. Whatever! She stops prattling when she realizes that Billy's "lived" the movie already. Billy tells her that he "likes to hear what she thinks." Phoebe male-bashes back: "Don't say that, because every girl will know you're not for real." He smiles. Phoebe thanks him for making her "feel like a kid again." Um, again? Phoebe meta-states: "Even with that ridiculous dialogue and that predictable story, it's just, you make your character seem really real." (Which seems to be another reflexive statement about the actresses in relation to this show.) Billy confesses that he "is the lines." He doesn't exist beyond the movie plot. Phoebe tells him he does now. Billy tells Phoebe that he thinks she's "swell." She thanks him, and beams. Then Billy expresses his excitement, because now he has "options in this world" like Pheebs. Phoebe agrees, "You're in my world now." Then, unfortunately, she baby-voices, "Wha duh oo wanna doo?" Billy takes Phoebe's glasses off her face and they kiss. Pheebs wastes no time in sticking her tongue down chaste Billy's throat. They pull away for some reaction shots. Billy's mouth has lost its make-up and is now blue again. (Didn't the WB have some of the grey tin-man makeup that was used on Stephen Collins during the season premiere of Seventh Heaven left over? Because it would have been perfect on Billy instead of this blue crap.) The phone rings. Phoebe answers it. It's Detective "Truth or" Darryl Morris. He thanks Pheebs for calling earlier with a "heads-up" and expositions about a big riot at the cineplex resulting in injuries and one casualty. Then Phoebe calls Piper to let her know "we found our demon."
Basement. Darkroom. Prue offers the prints she's developing to Finlay to take home and peruse at his convenience. Finlay snarls: "Maybe you'd like to be quiet while I see if I can save these things." Prue gapes. Just then, Phoebe calls for her: "I really need to demon-strate something for you." Heh. Pheebs sticks her head in the darkroom and adds that Prue's help is needed "to fix the thing." Heh again. Prue says she'll be there. Finlay continues to make more prissy demands about the development of a particular print. Prue is taken aback by his rudeness. Finlay: "Want me to hold your hand this time?" Prue, pushed to her limit, flicks on the lights and the warm-up mechanism on her bitch. Finlay harshes some more: "I figured out what's wrong with your photos, Miss Halliwell. Absolutely no depth." Prue lets him have it: "Would that be the technique or the subject?" Finlay: "Excuse me?" Prue: "I wish I could." She elaborates how much she's admired his work, but "the brilliance of your eye is completely destroyed by the ignorance of your mouth." Um, 'ignorant mouth'? The hell? Anyway, Prue's rage is expressed adequately enough for Finlay to glare at her. Then a piece of film that Prue left under a light suddenly flames up. Finlay: "That's the thing about art, Miss Halliwell. Leave a subject under the light too long, they burn." He snits up the basement stairs in a huff. Prue grabs her digital cam and calls out to him. Finlay pauses and gives her a three-quarter profile stink-eye. Prue snaps one last photo and thanks him. Shucks! Prue's hopes at getting a provocative candid of the guy have been completely dashed! How will this possibly play out?