Episode Report Card Demian: D+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Piper Halliwell, Ph.D
By Demian | Season 8 | Episode 9 | Aired on 11.19.2005
Up in the nonexistent attic, the Dolt abuses the Book as the sisters arrive from below. "I haven't found an antidote yet," he frets as he crosses to greet them. "That's okay," Piper shrugs with a hint of a sigh. "I think we have." And with that, she exaggeratedly cracks her neck before she, Phoebe, and Raige vamp out into a trio of professional lady wrestlers in the shredded remains of the Glamorous Morons' clothing. "Holy crap!" the Dolt bleats. Vampiper shrieks, "Language!" and pretty much backhands the Dolt into the commercial break. Pause. Rewind. Play. Pause. Rewind. Play. Pause. Rewind. Slow-forward. Dolt abuse! Hooray! Woot-woot-woot-woot! Hey, I gotta enjoy it while I still can, am I right? …Ooops. Was that a spoiler?
Nonexistent Attic. Aftermath, and good God. I just rewatched the scene that follows as well as the one after it, and the premise is so wretchedly stupid, and the professional lady wrestlers are such awful actresses, and the overdubbing of the dialogue with the regular cast's voices is so miserable, that I'll be skimming through it all lest I lose what little is left of my tiny, shattered mind. The Vamped-Out Unglamorous Ladies Of Halliwell Manor tussle with each other for a brief moment before availing themselves of the ID bracelet to scry for the government's erstwhile lab rat. The crystal slams down upon a set of unspecified coordinates in tandem with a wet mop slapping to the floor at said coordinates, and the camera pans up to take in the former lab rat now going about his nightly janitorial business as the Unglam Glams orb in behind him. A posse of fiends arrives at the same time, led by some random vamped-out dark demonic force, and hand-to-hand combat ensues, with the Unglam Glams eventually prevailing. Vampiper, by the way, vanquishes her equally vampy foil by ripping the guy's heart out with her fingernails, which was sort of cool, but entirely unbelievable, so whatever. Margirly -- remember him? Yeah, neither did I -- squiggles in during all of the excitement to slash a gash in the janitor's arm, in the process obtaining a sample of the guy's blood that Margirly collects on his clawed fingertip and proudly displays for the Unglam Glams' benefit before squiggling away. The painful sequence ends with the Unglam Glams, in a particularly hideous bit of overdubbing, demanding that the now-terrified janitorial lab rat save their lives.
The camera cross-fades over to the Manor's nighttime façade before we hear his response, but we're meant to believe he acquiesced, because the next shot is of the now-cured Retarded Bimbo waking, rather than blowing, up on the couch. DAMMIT. Phoebe, who'd changed out of the tattered shreds that remained of her earlier togs after her vampy version's enhanced musculature pretty much ripped right through them, enters from beyond with a mug of something comforting as The Retard bolts upright and whimpers, "What happened?" "Cliff's Notes version?" Phoebe smirks. "We hulked out, kicked ass, and saved the world." They also passed "the antidote" -- which they apparently developed in the space of five minutes with Piper's advanced degree in molecular biology down in the fully equipped pharmaceutical laboratory they set up in the basement after Piper received said degree in the last week, and I hate this show, and I want to die -- to the ever-useless Elders, who are now distributing it amongst the topside magical community. Oh, and Phoebe refers to The Retard as "one of the family now," which makes me throw up a little in my mouth. Actually, it makes me throw up a lot, so it's quite fortunate that Raige orbs in with Piper at this moment to distract me by rather tidily dispatching with the asinine Heimatshutz-Ministerium subplot by noting that the delightful Agent Murphy has grown tired of dealing with their stupid and mouthy asses, and so will not be contacting them for assistance anytime soon. Or something like that. Raige then fucks off to play footsie with Ivan Sergei, leaving Piper alone with The Retard and the Feebs to realize that, much as The Retard's recovered from her scratch, so too has Phoebe recovered from her Non-Issue Of The Week. Piper gets in a couple of digs at Phoebe's expense before heading back upstairs to finish the endless packing for her ski trip. The Retard and the Feebs bare their teeth and bray at each other. Joy.