Episode Report Card 127 USERS: C+ YOU GRADE IT "Shiver Me Bitches!"
By Demian | Season 7 | Episode 4 | Aired on 2004.10.03
All The News That's Fit To Fuck Me and Sparklies and NOT CARING, DAMMIT! Though I did just realize something. The boyband fucktard is so lousy an actor, and Harrr!ve is so commanding and entertaining a presence by contrast, that the previous scene suddenly seems a whole hell of a lot better than it did when first I watched it, despite the godawful dialogue. We'll all be giving Harrr!ve his props for the rest of the evening, won't we? Meanwhile, back in this pointless subplot, Sparklies has conspired with Elise Rothman, Girl Editor to rig a "Win A Date With Phoebe" contest so that he has an excuse to invite Phoebe to dinner, and good Lord, this is dumb. Phoebe, unaware of the deception, agrees to meet Sparklies that evening at "Maxine's" and I'm still not caring and scene!
The Heights. Raige raps at the door to Brenda's apartment. The wary roommate eventually answers, and she sports lousy highlights and cooter pants. Two strikes against her already, and she hasn't even opened her mouth. Upon learning that Raige is not from the police, the roommate makes to shut the door in her face, but Raige at the last minute blurts, "Is Brenda a witch? Because if she is, I think I can help find her." The roommate, whose name we'll eventually learn is "Carly," invites Raige in to the tiny flat, and if the fact that two twentysomething women are forced to share this shoebox of an apartment in San Francisco isn't enough shocking realism for one night, just wait for what comes next. "[Brenda] wouldn't just not come home," Carly explains, frustrated by the runaround the police have been giving her. "You guys seem pretty close," Raige notes. "Are you sisters? Roommates?" "Partners," comes the reply, and oh, my God. The Gays have finally arrived on Charmed. Of course, they're mall dykes barely out of their teens and thus clearly fantasy fodder for heterosexual males, and Carly here's a little too uncomfortable announcing the truth of her relationship when I'd expect someone in that city to be far more matter-of-fact about it in this day and age, and it gets even worse when Carly insists that the cops aren't taking her seriously because she's all Sapphic and everything and so the police are brushing the incident off as a mere "lover's quarrel" -- like that would ever happen in San Francisco IN 2004 -- but still. Six long seasons and three full episodes into this series' run, and we finally get some actual, honest-to-God dykes. Who would have guessed? Anywho, Raige asks for "something, anything to go off of" to assist in her search for Brenda. Carly quickly retrieves the pre-credits doubloon from her kitchen table and passes it to Raige with an explanation of where and when she found it. "What do you think it means?" Carly asks. Raige wrinkles her brow and concentrates on the thing for a very long time as the camera pulls in for a glamour shot of the trinket in question before the scene cuts back over to...