Episode Report Card Demian: B- | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Charmed Again, Part The Second
By Demian | Season 4 | Episode 2 | Aired on 10.03.2001
The Can. The Jource enters to find an elderly gentleman kneeling over the unconscious form of Shane. "Can you give me a hand?" he asks. "I think he must have slipped." The beetle eyes roll into place, and The Jource sends the gent screaming on his fiery way down to Hell. Or wherever. I have no idea where the innocent bystanders get sent on this show. Probably to the unemployment office. Anyway, The Source claws his way out of Jake to worm his way back into Shane. The Shource shudders straight to his feet from the floor, in what is clearly the effects team running the film backwards. You can tell by the way his clothing rearranges itself once he's standing. Worst effect thus far this evening.
Back from the break, we get an overhead shot of Rose trundling towards a church. Rather than following her in, the camera pans quickly upwards to a dog-like gargoyle. Inside, Rose slowly makes her way down the main aisle, pausing briefly to eye a mosaic Pieta on the wall. She approaches the elaborate altar, but veers off to the side of the chancel when she spots a penguin futzing with some candles. "Are you Sister Agnes?" she asks. She is indeed, and she has an enormous gap between her front teeth. Penguin GapTooth: "And who might you be?" Rose introduces herself as "Paige Matthews," and wonders if the good penguin can recall the events of August 2, 1977. Penguin GapTooth certainly does, and gets a little emotional about it. "Oh, dear Lord," she gasps.
Cut to that little area where the priests and the altar boys prep for Mass. I can never remember what the official name is, as I've always referred to it as a locker room. Anyway, Penguin GapTooth retrieves a small wooden box from an oak chest as she begins her story. "I was just about your age when they came," which I find hard to believe because the actress looks to be in her early thirties. I know convents like to recruit postulants when they're young, but I think the practice of shipping off nine-year-old girls to become brides of Christ went out a couple of hundred years ago. Penguin GapTooth continues, still awed by what she saw that day, "They came in a swirl of bright, white lights, just like angels." "White lights?" Rose repeats, confused. Penguin GapTooth confirms this. "They" were holding Rose in their arms, and impressed upon the good sister that the infant was "in great danger." We all know who "They" are, right? Good. So, Sam and Finola told the nun that they had to give Rose away for her own protection. The nun didn't get many details, but could tell "by the sorrow in their eyes" that whatever Rose was up against was terrifying. I know, I know. Sam and Finola would have been the ones in the shithouse for fornicating as they did, and The Powers That Be in all likelihood would have left Rose alone. Just go with it. Blather about placing Rose with a good family and keeping the secret until Rose came to ask about it. The penguin starts creeping me out as she tells Rose with the glazed fervor of the crazed righteous, "No matter how precious your adoptive parents are to you, you still come from angels." Wiggins. Seriously. Anyway, Penguin GapTooth eases a baby blanket out of the box. She reveals that Finola and Sam had swaddled Rose in it twenty-four years ago, and asked her to keep it until their daughter returned for it. There's a large P embroidered on it, which for reasons that should be obvious brings to mind Penny Pingleton being positively, permanently punished. Penguin GapTooth notes that Finola requested Rose be given a name that began with P. There's no way a Catholic nun would receive such instruction and name the kid Paige. Paula? Yes. Patricia? Highly likely. Philomena? I'll buy that, especially from a nun as devout as Penguin GapTooth here. Paige? No way in hell, bucky.