Episode Report Card Demian: C+ | 10 USERS: B+ YOU GRADE IT Forever CANCELLED!
By Demian | Season 8 | Episode 22 | Aired on 05.20.2006
Phoebe's the first to go, and she eagerly whips out a Sharpie to deface the priceless family heirloom with the following scrawl: "So much has happened over the last eight years -- so much has been gained and lost -- still, in some ways, I feel as if my life is just beginning." And here's where they make the break from the present into the distant future, as present-day Phoebe stops narrating long enough for us to witness her marriage to Stoop, officiated by the delightful Angel Of Teasley in the restored Not-So-Great Hall of Not!warts. Phoebe looks lovely, if a little too thin, but I still think Rose McGowan made this show's best-looking bride. Present are the primary family members, with Piper off to Phoebe's side as Matron Of Honor and Raige apparently acting as Stoop's Best Mug. Piper, incidentally, is clutching Phoebe's bouquet against her torso, the better to disguise the fact that Holly Marie Combs is, by now, seven thousand nine hundred and sixty-eight months pregnant.
As Phoebe and Stoop exchange vows, Future Phoebe picks up the narrative thread with "And it was, for though I had loved before, I'd never really known love until I met [Stoop]." As the bride and groom kiss, the shot cross-fades to The Hagquarters, where the heavily pregnancy-padded and obviously in-labor Feebs staggers from the boudoir towards the front door, Stoop comically fumbling with the wife's overnight bag in the background. Future Phoebe continues to voice-over, "[Stoop was the] man [with whom] I shared the special little girl I had long ago foreseen but feared I might never have" -- two Hagulitas here assault the Feebs before she's made it halfway across the floor, shouting, "We love you, Mommy!" -- "along with two other special little girls I had not foreseen." "I was suddenly so blessed to have a new family of my own," Future Phoebe blathers on, seemingly endlessly, as Stoop and the Feebs finally make it to the front door and exit into the hallway. The camera swings back around through The Hagquarters to find The Retarded Bimbo waving goodbye at the departing couple with Phoebe's kids as Future Phoebe adds, "And old friends to share it with." Kaley Cuoco finally looks almost decent, what with her grown-up-lady coif and flatteringly hued blouse, but who cares? CANCELLED! The camera cross-fades from Bimbo Girl and The Hagulitas to take in a demurely attired Phoebe at All The News That's Fit To Fuck Me. Looks like she finally took Phrances's advice and stopped dressing like a tramp. "Though I kept working and giving advice to those who asked, I was more interested in helping them find love," Future Phoebe concludes, "since finally having been loved." And I'm not going to touch that ass line with a bargepole, nor will I address the ludicrous poster above her head, in which she sports a suit Maria apparently returned from the grave to fashion from what remains, after all this time, of the Captain's draperies, because I am three minutes and one second away from FREEDOM!
Future Raige picks up the narration, even though we rather confusingly see Present-Day Raige for a moment penning her thoughts in the Book of Shadows as her voice-over begins. "As for me?" she asks rhetorically. "Life without demons opened up similar avenues." We fade over to Darling Henry frog-marching a perp through Trudeau Memorial, formerly Andy's House Of Beef, formerly The Loneliest Precinct House In The World, as Future Raige notes, "Henry, of course, continued to look after his parolees, even if they didn't want to be looked after, while still making time to help me with Little Henry and the twins." By this point, the camera's cut over to Raige, sporting a pair of dork-chic tortoise-shell eyeglasses, grinning in front of the precinct's filing cabinets with a trio of incredibly dork-tastic children. The overwhelming dorkaliciousness of the entire Matthews-Mitchell family makes oddly compelling sense. Darling Henry scoops all three of his dorkitudinal children up into his arms at the same time -- which seriously makes me want to propose marriage in Massachusetts to Ivan Sergei -- as Raige finishes, "[This] allowed me time to finally embrace my inner Whitelighter, and to help the next generation of witches to come into their own." We've found ourselves in a dank and forbidding alleyway, where a Darklighter's just squeezed the trigger on his crossbow. As the arrow zips towards Raige, she deploys her orbing telekinesis to redirect the thing back into the Darklighter's chest, and Darklighter go boom. Raige helps a nearby paisley-patterned granny-blouse victim to her feet.