Episode Report Card Owen: D | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Pardon My Past
By Owen | Season 2 | Episode 14 | Aired on 02.16.2000
Attic. The hard Ps flip through the BoS. Piper reasons that if Anton's around in the present, he's probably looking for Phoebe. Then she gets to wondering, "Where's Leo?"
Intermezzo Nursing Home. PMGS sits in a wheelchair by the window. Phoebe bursts into the room without knocking, like she owns the place. She shouts, "HI, IT'S PHOEBE! I'M SORRY TO BOTHER YOU AGAIN, BUT I NEED YOUR HELP WITH SOMETHING! IT'S REALLY IMPORTANT!" Then she kneels by the old lady's wheel chair, and in her loudest and most patronizing tone asks the woman to try to remember the day the "bad witch" died and the "pretty necklace" was torn off her neck. Leo, to his credit, asks PMGS in a warm, normal manner, "Please try. Phoebe's life depends on it." Phoebe chimes in, "DO YOU REMEMBER, [POOR MAN'S GLORIA STUART]?" PMGS, instead of calling for a security guard, starts waxing nostalgic about the "ship of dreams" which was really a "slave ship, bringing her back to America in chains." Er, really her eyes light up and she blathers about being "up on the landing" that day at the speakeasy, and seeing "the whole thing," including the necklace sliding "across the floor to the foyer." But she doesn't know where it went. Phoebe and Leo walk a few paces away from her. Leo thinks any further questioning of the old lady is futile. Phoebe asks him if she could possibly write a spell to send her back to the past, but still retain complete control over her actions there. She wants to find the amulet and hide it somewhere in the house so her future, er present self can find it. Leo says that such a spell would involve "switching life forces" with Evil Phoebe, so Evil Phoebe would inhibit her present body while she was in Pre-Phoebe. He worries about unleashing such an evil witch in the present. Phoebe thinks it's a "big risk" but her "only chance." She starts jotting down notes on a handy pad of paper. Hey, make yourself at home in the old lady's room, guys. Leo adds: "Do you realize that they'll still try to kill you?" Phoebe tells him not to worry, because he's mortal now and it will give him wrinkles. Give him wrinkles? Brian Krause has looked like he was rode hard and hung up wet ever since he first appeared on this show. Phoebe lies down on PMGS's bed like she owns the place. Hallmark sponsors the brief poetry slam: In this time and in this place/ Take the spirit I displace/ Bring it forth while I go back/ To inhibit a soul so black. Music tinkles. Cut to Pre-Phoebe struggling with her cousins. Suddenly she wrests herself free from Piper's hold and kick-boxes Pre-Prue across the room. Then she flips Pre-Piper's stunt double over her shoulder and does a back somersault onto her feet. While watching the leg-splayage and panty-glimpsing this smackdown afforded, I realize that the producers must have come up with the idea for this sweeps month stunt first, then built the episode and a back story around it. Anyway, Pre-Piper wonders where Pre-Phoebe "learned to do that." Pre-Phoebe starts hunting around for the amulet. The Pre-hard Ps stand up. Pre-Phoebe bolts away from them up the stairs. Pre-Prue wonders why she's running and not using her power to fight them. Pre-Piper thinks she's leading them upstairs "into another trap."