Episode Report Card 0 USERS: N/A YOU GRADE IT Morality Bites
By Owen | Season 2 | Episode 2 | Aired on June 9, 1995
Not! Hill. Halliwell Manor. Day. Piper "Freeze-N-Tease" Halliwell enters the kitchen schlepping groceries all by herself. Phoebe "Samanthuh" Halliwell and Prue "Rhymes With Bitch" Halliwell stand there gaping, not lifting a finger to help. Phoebe immediately makes a stink face and holds her hand in front of her nose while waving it around, exclaiming, "Whoa! What did you buy?" Piper: "Doody!" No, I’m not making this up. This is what she actually said. Then she takes off her shoe and holds it up to show her sisters what she stepped in. I’m not making this part up, either. Ew! Less show, Piper, more tell! Prue says, "We weren’t out of that." Heh. Phoebe cracks up, and I think that comment was an ad-lib on Shannen Dougherty’s part because Alyssa Milano’s reaction to the joke is so natural and spontaneous that I’m taken aback. Piper explains that she stepped in dog crap again, because "that man has turned our front sidewalk into a puppy minefield." Phoebe gets her bitch on because she can’t believe this is happening, especially since Prue adds that they’ve "left notes." Where? On the sidewalk? On the dog crap? Because it doesn’t seem like they’d know where the guy lives, since they don’t know his name. Phoebe declares that the next time it happens she’ll "catch him in the act." Just then we hear a "Ruff Ruff" sound effect. A dog outside must have been hit by an anvil! The Halliwells make synchronized stink-eyes and head to the front of the house. They peer past the curtain in the living room, and Piper helps the slower viewers put words to the image by saying, "That’s him [sic]! That’s the guy and his dog!" The man has his back to us, and unfortunately so does the dog. A Rottweiler’s squatting posterior monopolizes the frame. Ew cubed! This episode’s gonna have to take the freight elevator seventy floors up to the sewer to try to even begin to redeem itself. Prue: "I can’t believe it. That is so rude." Word. But she means the fact that the guy is "just going to walk away." Phoebe’s few lonely synapses fire and she gets an idea: "Then don’t let him. Use your power." She reasons that they can teach the owner "new tricks" and save money on carpet cleaning. Prue reminds her that they can’t use their powers to teach anyone lessons. Phoebe wah wah for the greater good wah wah wah community service wah wah, wah wah, wah wah. She convinces her sisters. Piper, hoping she can freeze him in range, does so, then ducks under the windowsill. Then Prue uses her telekinesis to throw the "doody" on the guy. No, I’m not making this up, either. The Charmed Ones are flinging dog shit on unsuspecting strangers who wander past the manor. This is happening much earlier in the series run than I predicted. Cut to the man wiping off his shoe. The sisters all duck. Prue worries that he might have seen them. Phoebe, rather prophetically: "What’s he gonna do? Cry ‘witch’?"
Piper and Prue go into the kitchen to make coffee. Phoebe wiggles away from the window in heels and tight capri pants and plops her Peg Bundy-ish self on the couch, proclaiming that her "good deed for the day" makes her deserving of "fifteen minutes of channel surfing." What the hell is this unemployed slacker doing the other 1,425 minutes of the day? Phoebe turns on the TV and comes to a news report about a baseball player named Cal Greene. Phoebe shudders and the TV shows her B&W psychic vision: a program from the date 2-26-2009. Footage is shown of Phoebe burning, presumably to death. Phoebe shrieks. The hard Ps enter the room. They ask if Pheebs is OK. She says, "No, I saw my future. I was being executed -- burned alive. Flames, flames, burning flames, licking the sides of my face…" Oops, my bad. The last part was from Madeline Kahn’s scene-stealing moment in the otherwise dreadful flick Clue. That bit always gets to me.
Titles. Once I’ve hit mute to drown out the sounds of the musical memories of my youth being pillaged and raped, I discover some omissions from the credits we saw last week. Woo hoo. Daryl "Jennifer Keaton" Morris, Dan "Fresh Meat" Gordon and Jenny "Tampax Was There" Gordon are absent. I wait patiently for Patrick Duffy to finish showering and inform me that last week’s episode was just a very bad dream.
Jennifer Lopez’s lips are so soft she can’t stop touching them. Has she asked her psychiatrist to prescribe some medication for this condition? And I don’t know about y’all, but I’m already sold on cotton underwear. I don’t think seeing Ivana Trump in her skimpies is going convince anyone who’s on the fence.
Some adenoid pushing his Warner Brothers CD, as San Francisco is established for us. Halliwell Manor. Where we left off. Piper, wearing a very hideous bright red maternity blouse, brings water to Phoebe. Is Holly Marie Combs pregnant? I brace myself for the next few months of overcoat wearing and folder carrying, if need be. Piper asks why that news report brought forth that premonition. Phoebe doesn’t know, but tells them that s