Episode Report Card Demian: A- | 121 USERS: C+ YOU GRADE IT Is That All There Is To Utopia? Is That All There Is?
By Demian | Season 7 | Episode 13 | Aired on 2005.01.30
As Dolta vanishes, the sounds of a heated argument reach I'm Not Candy and No Name from across the street. Some mouthy Angry White Male is loudly disputing a traffic ticket he's about to receive from a cop as his much put-upon wife whines for him to calm down and get back in the car. Angry White Male's complaint? "The light was yellow." So, you know, if they're still using traffic lights, I have no idea what was up with that bit of automotive choreography at the top of the hour. The automotive choreography was sort of cool, though, so the stupid crack monkeys should have had this tool, I don't know, driving the wrong way down a one-way street, or something. God, I hate this show. Angry White Male gets audibly mouthier as works himself into a lather, demanding the cop's name and badge number and whatnot. The cop, incidentally, remains preternaturally calm throughout, rather than beating the lippy bastard to a bloody pulp with his nightstick, as I would be wont to do were I in a similar situation. I'm Not Candy shoots a troubled glance at No Name before the two refocus their attention on the Angry White Male, who promptly disappears. As in, he dematerializes completely from the street. You know, like a vanquish, only without the smoke and the sparks and the flame and the ungodly caterwauling and all. A sharp musical cue involving a brief blare of discordant horns hits the soundtrack as I'm Not Candy and No Name descend a set of stairs into the opening credits.
Opening travelogue, with testicle. And time-lapse photography of places that are not San Francisco, strangely enough. "This is your life, and today is all you got now," the testicle croons as the sun sets over the ocean to rise again over the Golden Gate Bridge, "and today is all you'll ever have. Are you who you want to be?" What business is it of yours, asshole? Go to hell. After they recycle that clip of pigeons flapping in slow motion past the Palace of Fine Arts, there's a brief montage of San Francisco in the early hours of the morning before we cut all the way over to Grand Central Station in New York City to begin a Koyaanisqatsi-esque sequence of shots covering the morning rush across North America, which includes sped-up bits of a light-rail station in Los Angeles and a Metro station in Washington before the camera shoots back over to San Francisco to super-speed through the streets, eventually cross-fading over to Prescott Street. Up in the Manor kitchen, Phoebe and Piper perform a human version of the earlier automotive choreography around the center island, with Phoebe mixing what seems to be quiche filling while Piper stirs a batter of some sort. As Phoebe crosses to dump the filling into a pie crust, she finds her way blocked by Dolta's suddenly appearing orb cloud. "Hey!" she snots. "You're breaking the flow!" Conflict! Dust her ass, Dolta. Please dust her worthless hag ass. Now! He doesn't listen to me. He never does. Sigh. Piper casually wonders where Dolta's been all this time. He admits he's been hanging with the other Avatars, "making sure everything went all right." "Why wouldn't it be?" Piper asks, mildly enough. "You tell me," Dolta non-answers. "How you guys doing?" Phoebe babbles something about how abso-frigging-lutely fan-tastic! she feels, but that's not important. What is important is that, even though we just watched her pour the entire bowl of quiche guts into the pie crust, Alyssa Milano now lifts an entirely empty crust from the counter and shoves the damn, stupid thing into the oven. Gah. HATE.