Episode Report Card Demian: B+ | 4 USERS: B+ YOU GRADE IT Is That All There Is To Utopia? Is That All There Is?
By Demian | Season 7 | Episode 13 | Aired on 01.29.2005
I'm Not Candy tosses the demon a stink-eye before turning to join the other Avatars in their circle. He lifts his palms, and that golden glowy mojo stream from last week shoots into the air from the center of the altar. The camera cranes up above Piper, Phoebe, Raige, and Zankou as they tilt their heads back to gaze up at the stream as it floods into the night sky. The stream bursts outwards, and the shot cuts to take in central San Francisco as the horizon-spanning curtain sweeps westward, reversing its previous course through Tokyo, Moscow, London, and New York before rushing through San Francisco once more. By the way, as it blew through London, the hands on the face of Big Ben began spinning backwards. Once the curtain passes San Francisco, the shot cuts again to last week's vignettes of people groggily coming awake. This time, however, none of them are terribly perky at all. In fact, they're all downright rude. And as the rude is as annoying as the perky was before it, I'll ignore all of the screaming arguments that erupt to note that Piper and Phoebe have silently appeared on one of the city's streets to smile fondly at the mayhem. As they amble off down the sidewalk, Piper remarks, "Wow. I never thought I'd be so excited to hear the sounds of people arguing." "Tell me about it," Phoebe agrees. "It's good to be back." They glance across the street and spot hot Zankou hotly hotting his hot hot on the walk opposite. He acknowledges them with a supremely sardonic flourish of his hand just before a city bus speeds by, blocking the ladies' view. By the time the bus passes out of the frame, Zankou's vanished. Phoebe smiles a bit to herself as Piper warily eyes the section of sidewalk where Zankou'd been standing. The camera cranes up from them to take in various strident passersby from above before cross-fading into tonight's brief closing travelogue.
Back at the Manor, Piper's delighted to find the Dolt tending to the children on the sun porch, and rushes into his arms for a hug. There's a brief explanation of why they both remember recent events despite the reversal of time -- he because he was never affected by the Avatars' spell, she because she broke it -- and the upshot of the subsequent conversation is this: The ever-useless Elders are going to be pissed. Piper doesn't care -- she's happy he's alive again, and only wants never to lose him again. Which, you know, either means he's going to go missing again in the next damn episode, or he'll divorce her ass for the fifth time by the end of February sweeps. They gaze fondly at the sullen, dead-eyed, bemulleted Psycho and the mutant wad of mangled whale blubber masquerading as their younger, prettier son for a long moment before the shot cross-fades over to...