Episode Report Card Demian: B- | 7 USERS: B+ YOU GRADE IT Forever CANCELLED!
By Demian | Season 8 | Episode 22 | Aired on 2006.05.21
"[Raige] could pass on all that she learned," Future Piper begins, as we get yet another unnecessarily confusing shot of her Present-Day self, "not just to her own children, or to mine, or to Phoebe's, but to other future witches and Whitelighters as well." During all that, we've watched as Piper and the Dolt send their three children off to school. Yes, three, for they apparently add a daughter to their brood at some point to complete the whole "Power of Three times three" thing we've got going in this montage. As the shot fades up to the nonexistent attic to take in Big Gay Chris and Boring Jesus looking incredibly girly while flinging potion ingredients into the copper pot, Future Piper continues, "[This] filled the time between when we were doing the fighting, and when our kids were old enough to take over." The pot emits a small cloud of smoke, through which a somewhat older Piper emerges to test a sauce she's preparing down in the kitchen as her voice-over carries on with "allowing me time to get back to my roots and cook something other than potions for once -- and open the restaurant I'd always dreamed of owning." In a lovely little call-back to the very first episode, she decides the sauce needs a bit more wine. Of course, this time around, she doesn't need to freeze some fugly toad of a faux-French fucker in order to do so. It's a nice moment. "As for [the Dolt]," Future Piper continues as we cut back over to Not!warts, "after we reclaimed [Not!warts], he went back to teaching, which he continued to do until it was time to retire." The Dolt's instructing a class of third-graders on the finer points of orbing telekinesis, and the shooting script indicated that the kid he fondly addresses as Matthew is actually their eldest grandson. Just so you know.
"Although we've certainly had our struggles," Future Piper begins, but before she's made it halfway through that phrase, her voice has been overlaid with Old Piper's, who continues, "and heartaches over the years, we're a family of survivors, and we will always be, which is why we've truly been CANCELLED!" Whoops. "'Charmed.'" They've truly been charmed, is what she said. In any event, we've landed upon Old Piper in an overstuffed armchair in the Manor parlor, reading that last bit aloud to her youngest granddaughter. The youngest granddaughter is a wee yet miserable excuse for an actress, but I'm going to gloss over that fact because I am quite seriously thirty-six seconds away from FREEDOM! The Wee Yet Miserable Excuse For An Actress begs, "Again, Grandma, again!" Old Piper chuckles, "I can't -- I need to rest." As she pushes herself out of the armchair, she passes the Book to The Wee Yet Miserable Excuse For An Actress. "You can look at it for a little while if you'd like," Old Piper smiles, kissing The Wee Yet Miserable Excuse For An Actress on the latter's forehead. "After all, it'll be yours one day." Old Piper joins Old Dolt in the foyer, and the elderly marrieds head up the stairs for a little geriatric nookie. As they pass the lower landing, we note the older portraits of the gals' Victorian ancestors that had lined the stairwell have been replaced with more recent photographs, including ones of The Dead-Eyed Psycho looking foul-hearted and evil and Tiny Gay Chris looking brain-damaged and doomed. Also up on the wall are Piper and the Dolt's wedding photo, the portrait of Grams first seen seven years ago, the shot of Patty reading to a four-year-old Piper from the fifth-season premiere, and, finally, a cluster of new shots including the Dolt with the kids, Big Gay Chris and Mangy Jesus hanging all over each other, and Patty and Victor. As Old Dolt and Old Piper climb the final steps to the second floor, they pass a large version of that photograph of The Reconstituted Charmed Ones we last saw in the Manor rubble. Prue? Who her? The camera cuts back down to the foyer, where four obnoxious preadolescents tumble through the front door, leaving it open as they pass. The Wee Yet Miserable Excuse For An Actress flaps her hand around, becoming the last Halliwell to shut the front door at season's end, because CANCELLED!