Episode Report Card Demian: F | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Enter The Stench
By Demian | Season 4 | Episode 4 | Aired on 10.17.2001
Phoebe turns back to Cole with "Where were we?" "Training," he intones before sticking his tongue in the exposition's ear. Blah he was away for seven days on a fact-finding mission blee factions are aligning against The Source bling yeah he's The Source of All Evil so what's with this "factions against him" crap blang whatever just go with it bleaugh The Source intends to finish what he started and this time it's personal blag terror-cakes. Cole hoists two scabbards from their place on the basement wall and hurls one at Feebs. "You think The Source is going to challenge me to a swordfight?" Phoebe snorts derisively. "Hand-to-hand combat is too safe," Cole preaches. "Swordfighting teaches confidence. Intensity." Oh, please. Knock it off with this Mr. Miyagi shit and just stand there and look pretty, okay, hon? Phoebe makes it clear that, after his seven-day absence, she wants to focus on a different kind of sword, if you know what I mean, and who can blame her? Look at him. Samurai Cole tells her she needs "to learn to fight like a demon. Training must come before everything," he adds, continuing to annoy me. "Including us. Are you ready?" he asks, waving his sword around, and boy is that going to sound filthy for the rest of the evening. "Do I have a choice?" she responds. Her answer is Cole taking a swipe at her with the blade. She dodges by snipering to the floor with a gasp. She sets a look of determination in her eyes, slides her own sword from its scabbard, and...
...we cut to some white-clad ninja freak doing the same amid faux bamboo shoots. I know the left coast is home to many boneheaded ideas, and I'm hoping this is either a new California-style corporate management training program or some bleeding-edge way for the jaded gay folk in the Bay Area to meet and greet. Because if this Crouching Loser, Visible Stupidity subplot is for real, I'm going to have to impale my head on a spike. Through the faux bamboo, we spy an elderly gentleman kneeling before a statue of Buddha. The white-clad ninja freak darts over some rocks to, yes, crouch behind the elderly gent, who snaps to attention when his Spidey sense starts tingling. You all keep watching as I spread out some newspapers to blot the gouts of blood that will spray from my head when that spike I mentioned pierces my skull. The elderly gentleman is a total Hey! It's That Guy by the name of James Hong, in case you were interested. A quick glance at his filmography in the Internet Movie Database reveals the expected array of characters named "Chang," "Ho," "Wang," and "Waiter," but my favorite name is either "Phags-Pa" from the 1982 Marco Polo mini-series he did or the egregious "Gold-Tooth Charlie" from an episode of the 1950s show The Californians. So, Gold-Tooth Charlie remains where he is as a black-clad ninja freak descends from somewhere overhead to confront her white-clad antagonist. You can tell she's a woman by her hair. Not Michelle Yeoh and Not Chow Yun-Fat make with the not-skilled, not-graceful, not-well-choreographed swordplay. This goes on for quite some time. At one point, Not Michelle leaps into a tree. They smash some decorative pottery, too. Not Michelle finally corners Not Chow and flicks the ninja mask from his face with the point of her sword. "Yen Lo!" she shouts. Or something supposedly Chinese. The actor's Korean (Daniel Dae Kim, and you can make your own Unbearable Lightness of Pyongyang joke), so I think I'll call him Not Cho. As in Margaret. Sorry if I'm rambling. It's a bit difficult to think concisely when a railroad spike's been rammed through your forehead.