Episode Report Card Demian: B | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Many Happy Returns
By Demian | Season 5 | Episode 13 | Aired on 02.01.2003
An odd, super-speed transition follows, wherein the camera shoots backwards through low-hanging clouds above the city before cross-fading to Doc Diddy flaring into The Witch Doctors' Voodoo-Licious Magic Mojo Lounge And Grill. It's a cave. An artfully-lit cave full of photogenic Haitian elders, but a cave nonetheless. Another actor whose name I should know presides over the subsequent confab, during which Doc Diddy insists that the Glamorous Ladies must be destroyed. Why? "They're easily distracted by the pettiness of their lives," Doc Diddy explains, and truer words have rarely been spoken on this show. "Sooner or later, evil will overtake them," he continues, "and along with them, their powers." Head Doc Whose Name I Should Know ponders this for a moment, then concedes, "We must eliminate them -- after this word from our sponsor, The Olive Garden! When you're here, you're family!"
Or something like that.
Back from the break, Piper and the Dolt begin to straighten up the parlor. The Dolt mopes that Piper should have forced Raige to remain in the Manor to help. No, Dolt. Piper should have had Raige recite her all-purpose "Object Of Objection" spell before she left. The prohibition on personal gain shouldn't apply to this situation, after all. It certainly didn't when Raige unleashed the spell on the Casa last season. Whatever. Piper reminds the Dolt that Raige has a bigger mess to deal with, and goes on to whine about the impossibility of incorporating a child into the riotous disarray that is their lives. Shouldn't you have considered that before you got knocked up, missy? Oy. These people. The Dolt still harbors misgivings as far as Doc Diddy is concerned, and mentions Raige's missing car keys. Piper pffts that Raige loses her goddamned keys every goddamned day, and besides, summoning the Doc was worth it just to rid themselves of "the things that go bump in the night." Phoebe clomps through the front door, remarks on the ruinous state of the parlor, then heads off to change her clothes. When Piper wonders why, Phoebe replies that she's going "to a photo shoot to compromise my integrity." Poison Ivy II demolished your integrity years ago, hag, but that's neither here nor there, as the Dolt's noticed the missing photo. "Maybe it fell out," Piper offers. "It was glued in!" he pouts. He then argues that Doc Diddy's up to no good with the purloined Manor possessions. When the Feebs bellows from upstairs about her misplaced toothbrush, Piper pauses for a brief, wide-eyed beat, then deadpans, "I'll go make the summoning potion." The Dolt orbs off to consult with the ever-useless Elders as tense strings thrum on the soundtrack and the camera sweeps in on the shattered and empty picture frame before...
...cross-fading to the stolen photograph itself down in The Voodoo-Licious Magic Mojo Lounge And Grill. The camera then pulls back in a quick pan from the photo to a voodoo doll to Doc Diddy himself, tossing some herbs and such into a bubbling pot. Doc Diddy informs Head Doc he intends to "turn [the Glamorous Ladies'] character flaws into obsessions that will consume them -- destroy them." He fastens Raige's car keys to one of the burlap voodoo dolls and tosses it all into the pot.