Episode Report Card Demian: B- | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Somewhere, Sigmund Freud spins in his grave
By Demian | Season 3 | Episode 15 | Aired on 02.21.2001
Cut to the hallway. Prue bounds down the stairs from the attic. Phoebe asks if the BoS had anything to say about Prue's "dreams." Prue sighs that the BoS did not. Phoebe wonders what they should do, given that "the wedding is in a half an hour." "Get ready, get set, get through it," Prue replies, "for Piper." "For Piper," Phoebe states in agreement, and they head off to their respective bedrooms.
Piper's boudoir. Piper's finally changed into her dress, and stands by the bed, fiddling with an earring. The dress itself is pretty simple: a full tulle skirt with medium-length train under a high-necked, sleeveless lace bodice. It's white, and while I may be tempted to make a remark about the appropriateness of that, given Piper's habit of freezing you-know-who you-know-where while engaged in ungodly acts of you-know-what, who am I to deny her a white wedding? Piper moves to the mirror, still adjusting the earring. While Piper's attention is diverted, glowing golf balls swirl, then fade to reveal Finola Hughes, whom I know better as Anna Scorpio from General Hospital. Yes, I used to watch that show. Shut up. ["Me too. Remember when she peeled off the fake scar and Robert -- er. Shut up." -- Sars] Finola gently tells Piper that she looks "so beautiful." Piper starts at the sound of Finola's voice, and whispers a plaintive "Mom?" So this would be Patty. Patty tells Piper she should not be frightened. Piper hesitantly turns to face her mother. "It can't be," Piper says. "Ghosts glow, and you're not glowing." Patty reveals she's not a ghost -- for today, at any rate -- and that TPTB decided to allow her to return to Earth for the ceremony as compensation for everything TPTB put Piper and the Dolt through over the last couple of years. Patty notes that Piper has styled her hair the same way Patty wore hers on her own wedding day. Piper confirms this, telling her mother she kept the wedding album after her mother's death, and would page through it at night as if it were "a bedtime story." Aw. Patty smoothes a stray lock of her daughter's hair into place as Piper struggles to keep from bursting into tears. Patty tells Piper she knew Piper would be the first to walk down the aisle, as Piper "is the heart of [their] family." Patty's large teeth are beginning to creep me out. Piper wonders if she's imagining the entire exchange. Patty and her large teeth assure Piper that she's not, and Patty pulls Piper into an embrace. Piper's composure begins to fail her as she lets go with a couple of shuddering sobs.
Phoebe and Prue enter Piper's room, and stop short in surprise. Piper tells them Patty is real, and fills her sisters in on TPTB's "gift" for the ceremony. Prue slowly approaches her mother. "It's been so hard on you," Patty states. "Unfair." Prue stammers out a "yeah," then corrects herself, telling her mother she simply wanted to honor Patty's memory. See what they did there? Huh? Did you? Okay, I'll shut up. Patty says that Prue did a better job keeping the family together than Patty herself ever would have managed to do, and the two embrace. Patty then moves to Phoebe. Patty expresses regret that she died when Phoebe was too young to remember her, and allows that Phoebe's had the roughest journey to adulthood of any of the three sisters. Patty tells the three she never really worried about them, though. "I had a premonition the day you were born," she says to Phoebe. The premonition was of that very moment, of the four of them reunited on Piper's wedding day. "What did you see next?" Phoebe asks. "I held you," Patty replies, and pulls the three Ps into a group hug. Nary a dry eye in Piper's boudoir, and while I can't say this scene was particularly well-written, I have to admit it was well played by all four women, especially Holly Marie Combs.