Episode Report Card Demian: B | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT You Lost Me
By Demian | Season 4 | Episode 12 | Aired on 01.30.2002
Manor sun porch. Raige gives Piper and the Dolt an update on Tywer's emotional state. He remains unresponsive, despite her best efforts to get him to communicate. "He just seems really afraid," she shrugs. Raige gets the feeling that Tywer's always "felt like an outsider and a bit of a freak, and now he's found out that in some ways he is." Hey! Is that a crack, missy? Is Tywer The Firestarter really supposed to be Tyler The Future Flamer Of America? Are you telling me he's going to grow up to one day blow $1,500 on front-row tickets to a Madonna concert? Because in that case, someone's got to do something about that hair of his. Anyway, Raige's little lecture offers Piper and the Dolt a further opportunity to debate the merits of binding a child's powers until he or she reaches adulthood. Piper likens it to severing a limb. The Dolt rightly points out that Tywer's powers could be "a danger to himself and others." Piper's having none of this binding talk. They should first give him a chance to learn to control it. Perhaps, she argues, the reason he found his way to the Manor was so that the Glamorous Ladies could "teach him and guide him." Yeah, teach him the lyrics to "I Will Survive" and guide him to Abercrombie & Fitch. Phoebe, acting like she's zoning on Mother's Little Helper, interrupts the confab with a plate of cookies. I'm going to give Phoebe and her perky Eisenhower-era hausfrau routine exactly the amount of attention it deserves, which is none at all. Piper takes the plate and asks Raige if she (Piper) could speak with Tywer on her own. Raige readily agrees, as she has to get back to work. Besides, the sooner one of them breaks through to him the better, for "the last time [Raige] checked, kidnapping was still illegal." Raige exits. Piper moves towards the parlor door, offering Phoebe "a little tip" as she goes: "Lay off the hairspray. There's a Firestarter in the house." Well, in that case, I've got a case of AquaNet -- nah. Too easy.
Piper enters the parlor and, long story short, manages to engage Tywer in conversation. She reveals that she understands what he's going through, and even blows up an cheap vase to prove it. Tywer is suitably impressed at this display of her power. Piper patiently explains that Tywer, too, can learn to focus his emotions and control his power as she herself has done. Then she asks him why he ran away from his latest set of foster parents. He allows that he set fire to the couch in a fit of anger. Vicky started yelling at him, and then the voices in his head told him to knock over the liquor store on the corner, and all the while Madonna was screaming, "Give me faith! Give me joy! My boy! I WILL ALWAYS CHERISH YOU!" And then the little dweeb playing Tywer does that stupid fingers-to-temples-while-grunting thing again and sets one of the throw pillows ablaze. Piper reassures him that they're used to such "accidents" in the Manor, and freezes the pillow before the curtains catch. Tywer shoots Piper a look that says he wants to be just like her when he grows up -- and if she throws in those snappy little tight black leather pants along with the deal, all the better!