Episode Report Card Demian: B | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT You Lost Me
By Demian | Season 4 | Episode 12 | Aired on 01.30.2002
Cole trots down the stairs clad in his best old A.D.A. gear. As Raige needles him to get his ass in gear, Phoebe blathers something about how proud she is of him and how their lives now are "so Bewitched." Cole wags his finger at her by way of correction. Unfortunately, it's not the same finger I'm wagging at the TV screen at the moment. Phoebe should "feel free to use all the magic" she wants while he's gone. Phoebe natters something further about whatever her man wants, her man gets. Raige and Cole exit. Phoebe admires her engagement ring, then wonders what to fix Cole for dinner. The Flatulent Horns Of Hilarious Hijinks carry her airily into the kitchen.
THE BLACK HOLE OF SOCIAL SERVICES. Raige ushers Cole into his considerably cramped quarters. He bitches a bit about the lack of space before "Cynthia Corren," the director of the legal aid department and his new boss, barrels in for a quick introduction. Raige quietly excuses herself. Cynthia wishes she had more time to get acquainted, but she has to start Cole on his first assignment immediately. Pushing a stack of folders into his hands, she gives him the rundown on his first case. "Slumlord Alan Yates" cut off the heat in his tenants' building two weeks ago. He's scheduled for a noon "fact-finding" interview, so Cole has two hours to get up to speed. "You better be fast," she tells him, "and you better be good." She thanks Cole and exits. The sadists in charge of this program force Julian McMahon to attempt a funny about being "only human." You can tell he hated the line when he read the script, argued fruitlessly with the producers about it, and then conspired with the director to shoot ten equally lousy takes of it out of spite, from which they chose the edit appearing in this episode. We get an overhead shot of Cole stretching out his arms in his new office. He can just about touch both walls.
Meanwhile, Tywer sits alone and forlorn out in the reception area. Damn, his bowl cut is irritating. Raige, wearing a red micro-mini so high and so tight that her preadolescent clients are certain to receive a surprise lesson in female anatomy, breezes past him with a quick hello. She walks over to her boss to ask him who the kid is. Bob the Bossman tells her Tywer was found sleeping in an alley. He readily gave them his name, but they can't get any other information out of him. Raige theorizes that a product-placed hand-held video game will "loosen him up," and heads to the mailroom to fetch one from Billy the Clear. Bossman Bob sits next to Tywer and tries to tease some more information out of him. Tywer keeps his widdle mouth shut, save for noting that he was not physically abused. Bossman Bob keeps pressing, however, and eventually Tywer's fingertips meet his temples as The Zither Of Rage wings onto the soundtrack. A wastepaper basket bursts into flame just as Raige returns from the mailroom. As many on the forums pointed out, Raige rather stupidly screams, "Fire!" like, Raige. Honey. Think for a second here. Your orbing telekinesis is triggered when you call out something by name while in a heightened emotional state. You're lucky that blaze in the trashcan didn't leap directly onto that scrap of red denim you're calling a skirt. Tywer, realizing he scwewed up again, bolts from THE BLACK HOLE amid the confusion. Raige grabs her jacket and runs after him.