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
Previously on Charmed, Raige and Ivan Sergei met cute over a convicted felon, Phoebe had uterine issues no one cared about, The Retarded Bimbo had missing sister issues no one cared about, and the Manor Morons struck a deal with the Homeland Security department's delightful Agent Murphy.
Currently on Charmed, the camera fades up on a debris-littered floor in Not!warts, the sounds of a violent struggle reaching our ears from the library beyond. The camera pans up from the trash in time to catch Raige as she orbs in with Piper, and both ladies scrunch up their faces in confusion as they, too, get an earful of the off-screen grunting and tussling. "Sounds like we found him!" Raige perks as the two warily spin around to tiptoe down the hall. "Yeah, but what's it doing [here]?" Piper wonders. "And it's beating up other demons?" she continues, puzzled. "That's not what Krycheks do." Raige whispers that the fiends in question don't normally attack gnomes and leprechauns, either, but this one did, so Piper's point would be...what, exactly? "Something's not right," Piper replies. "It doesn't make sense." "What doesn't make sense," Raige counters, "is that we are tracking this thing, and what does the government want with this demon, anyway?" "That would be the first thing I'm gonna ask Agent Murphy," Piper begins, but she's interrupted by a dark demonic sort flying backwards through the air into the hallway from the far room. Screaming, the thing smashes into a pillar and explodes into a ball of flame, and let's just pretend a protruding wall sconce plowed through his chest for that vanquish, okay? Unless, of course, we're now meant to believe that demons can be vanquished if you slap them around hard enough. Stupid show.
Raige and Piper goggle at the quickly dissipating cloud of smoke where the demon had been for a moment before they dart their eyes over to the library itself, where a vampire-faced entity has just zipped into view from points unknown to snarl and sneer at our intrepid heroines. The gentleman beneath the seventeen hundred pounds of makeup and padding, by the way, is the rather strapping behind-the-scenes effects technician first shoved in front of the cameras to portray the comic book alter-ego of that nerd from "Witches In Tights," and most recently seen on this show playing the massive and terrifying Floaty Green Head Of James Van Der Beek during the Dolt's descent into madness at the beginning of last season. I can't believe I thought this guy was hot three years ago. In any event, the ladies panic for the briefest of moments before Raige digs into her jacket pocket to produce a potion vial that she hurls into the vamp's chest. The resulting explosion twists him around a bit but leaves him pretty much uninjured, and so he continues lumbering towards the women, forcing Piper to unleash her Mighty Hands of Discontent in his direction. The first and second blasts of mojo have as little effect on the beast as Raige's potion had earlier, so Piper apparently amps things up for the third. A bright, white flash erupts to envelop his torso, and a brief burst of flame spins towards the camera before the demon drops out of the frame, physically intact but unconscious. Piper and Raige cringe away from the falling body for a second before leaning in to examine the demon's face. By the way, demons apparently keep their eyes open when they've been knocked out. Except, of course, when they don't. Just so you know.
"That thing's a Krychek?" Raige guhs, and when the camera cuts over to the guy for a brief close-up on his face, we can see that he's got some sort of barbed-wire tribal tattoo snaking down one side of his neck. "How is that possible?" Piper frowns. "Who cares?" Raige snorts. "Just vanquish it!" Piper duhs that she just tried that, dumbass, and besides, the delightful Agent Murphy wants the beast brought back alive. Raige howls that under no circumstance would she ever even consider orbing anywhere with the unconscious brute, just as a quartet of ethnically diverse and black-clad demonic sorts rounds the corner to enter the hall. Turns out they're also rather diverse sexual-orientation-wise as well, for they're led by Dr. Quinn's professional homosexual Chad Allen. Chad's wearing a wide-collared disco shirt with a cunning little choker beneath his leather vest, by the way. Queen. In any event, Chad, who'd been wincing as he fingered a series of fresh claw marks on his cheek, instantly scowls upon catching sight of the Glamorous Ladies and launches us all into one of the most fun effects sequences they've had on this show for a very long time. And it's so simple, too. Chad conjures a Flaming Ball Of Death in his right palm as the shot cuts quickly to Piper spinning her back towards him while latching onto Raige's arm and screaming, "Go-go-go-GO!" The shot cuts again to take in the gals, now in the blurry extreme foreground of the frame and already blue with the orbing, as Chad wings the FBOD in their direction from the library's doorway at the very far end of the hall. As the gals dissolve and vanish upwards, the FBOD hurtles straight through the orb cloud and into our faces with a roar before the opening credits burst through the ensuing full-screen flare. See? It doesn't take much to entertain me. So why are fun little moments like that one so rare on this awful, evil show? Huh?