Episode Report Card Demian: C+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT This is the way the season ends
By Demian | Season 4 | Episode 22 | Aired on 05.15.2002
Phoebe gasps herself awake on the floor of the attic. While she was away, Piper and Raige busied themselves with second thoughts about Bruce and Selena. Basically, Bruce's story doesn't add up, and they'd like to check on him once more before relinquishing their powers forever. Meanwhile, Man-Teats paces in a corner all, "Hurry it along, ladies. There's a banana daiquiri with my name on it and a hot new waiter I've been trying to corner in the service area." Phoebe agrees to accompany Piper and Raige, and swivels to ask Man-Teats if it's okay for them to delay the decision one more time. He assures them that whatever they want to do is fine with him. "Frankly," he admits, "I thought you were being a little premature, anyway." "Well, why didn't you say something?" Piper shrieks. "Oh, can't," he replies. "Free will and all. Let me know when you're ready." He flares up into the golden blob and zips out the window, idly humming "Peel Me A Grape" as he goes.
Piper huffs and calls for the Dolt. He orbs into the attic with Darryl, who has some more information on Bruce. Yep, you guessed it -- Selena's actually the witch, and Bruce is the serial killer. The ladies allow their jaws to rest on the floor.
Cut to a close-up of a flaming torch. In the background, Selena cries out for help. The camera pans up to Bruce's fire-lit face as he tells her she might as well shut up, as there's no one near enough to hear her screams. Selena's lashed to a stake surrounded by bundles of wood and kindling in the middle of a clearing. Bruce casually strolls around in a circle, touching the torch here and there to the brush. He natters a tiresome and blandly psychotic monologue about not stopping in his mission until the last witch lies dead, as the camera pulls up into a swirling overhead shot of the growing bonfire beneath Selena's feet. Selena, looking for help in all the wrong places, wails into the darkness of the commercial break.
Back from the break, there's some more of the psychotic blathering, accompanied by a bit of the pathetic whimpering, before Raige orbs in with Piper and Phoebe. Piper flings her hands out to freeze the bonfire, but nothing happens. Crafty Bruce has littered the area with protective amulets, so the gals have no powers in the clearing. Bruce lunges at Phoebe and aims his automatic at her head. While it's tempting to urge him to shoot, for one thing, it's not his established M.O., and for another, I fully expect Phoebe to engage him in some kind of hair-pulling fight while Piper and Raige rescue Selena. And look at that -- Phoebe nails him with an elbow to the head, then whips her leg around to knock him onto the ground. Piper and Raige strip off their jackets to beat the bonfire into submission, but they seem only to be fanning the flames. Phoebe and Bruce make with the chop-socky action off to the side as Selena chokes and gags on the smoke. Phoebe boots Bruce over a log, then leaps into the air to land both feet into his chest. Piper, meanwhile, regards Selena with an icy resolve, and her stunt double vaults up onto the bonfire's central platform to knock the woman, stake and all, out of harm's way into the dirt at the far side of the clearing. Tongues of flame eat away at their pantlegs, but Raige smothers the small fires with her coat.