Episode Report Card Couch Baron: B | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Once, Twice, Three Times A Ball-Buster
By Couch Baron | Season 1 | Episode 16 | Aired on 03.02.1999
Massive Attack plays over daytime shots of the city. In the Manor kitchen, Phoebe sketches several drawings of the sword she saw in her premonition. By the way, if I were to make a swords-as-phallic-imagery joke every time I had the opportunity here, this recap would be approximately eight hundred pages long, so let's just say that the sheer number of swords Phoebe has drawn speaks volumes, and then drop the subject entirely. Piper enters the kitchen, and the two of them tell each other they couldn't sleep thinking about Prue. Phoebe shows her a drawing of the sword she saw, but says she couldn't find it in the BoS. Prue bustles in, dressed for work, which causes her sisters no end of consternation, as she promised she wouldn't leave the house until they figured out what they're up against. Don't worry, kids, you're not dead until Alyssa says you're dead. (Oh, come on, I waited three recaps to make that joke!) Prue breezily tells them that Claire called to tell her that a new client wants to put a "major collection" on the market, and that it would be a "serious coup" for Buckland's. Sounds a little suspicious to me, but apathy is a wonderful thing. The younger Ps are unconvinced, but Prue's not having it, although she does promise to come straight home from Buckland's...
...which is where we end up, via a shot of a cable car. Dude, apathy may be a wonderful thing, but my brain's not yet mushy enough to forget that this show is supposed to take place in San Francisco, so why not just make the commercial break a little longer instead of inserting these lame visual reminders? You could even sell the time to Rice-A-Roni, if you're into corporate synergy. In the auction house, Prue and Claire pedexposition that this account could put Buckland's "in the black for years," which, just on feel, sounds like utter horseshit, but whatever. Also, I'm wondering if this episode aired in the right order, because if so, would Claire be so chummy with Prue, considering the fiasco that happened with their last "big client"? At the door to what I think is Prue's office, Claire asks if Prue's ready, which lets Shannen pose for a money shot and a "'Course I am." Boy, I sure hope that's not what she said before she went in to the producers to discuss Season Four. Inside, Claire introduces Prue to a "Helena Statler," who looks sort of like a Poor Man's Carolyn from The Apprentice with slightly darker hair. Prue cracks an unfunny about how she should get a raise, and then we get down to business, as Ms. Statler says that she and her brother have a three-warehouse collection from time periods throughout history, and if they go with Buckland's, Prue would be cataloguing the finest antiquities she's ever seen. Look, I know tons of art and antiquities have gone missing throughout time, but shouldn't someone be raising an eyebrow as to where this heretofore unknown brother and sister got three warehouses of stuff that museum curators would step over their own mothers to get their hands on? If so, it's certainly not Claire, who's looking on as if Prue's her daughter and she just won the Junior Miss Pageant. Ms. Statler advances the idea of a sample appraisal, which causes Prue to balk, as it would take place at the unknown territory of the warehouse. At Claire's "don't make me disown you" glare, though, Prue acquiesces, and everyone's all smiles again. You know there are no wire hangers in Buckland's, right?