Episode Report Card Couch Baron: C+ | 2 USERS: A- YOU GRADE IT And On This Week's Bastardization Theater...
By Couch Baron | Season 1 | Episode 12 | Aired on 02.02.1999
"I am the sun, I am the air..." Oh, stop it, I'm kidding! Kidding! Save your emails. Heh.
The opening travelogue is accompanied by the horrific screechings of an ovary. It may say something about her career in the past five years that it took me almost the whole song to realize that the singer is Jewel. Heh. And, ew. Someone I know once remarked that Jewel has the roundest face of anyone he's ever seen, and it's true. You could draw a perfect circle right around her face. Anyway, Prue and Phoebe stalk into a hospital in search of their injured sister. They meet Andy on the way in, and as they enter, Piper whines about all the blood. I'd be whining more about the horribly-dubbed line she just uttered, but whatever. There's some clunky exposition about Piper and Andy both having AB negative blood, and since said exposition comes complete with Andy's lipless smile, I think you'll understand when I say that this scene is not off to a rollicking start. Anyway, Piper doesn't need stitches, so Prue goes to settle the bill while Phoebe asks why Piper didn't freeze her assailant. Good question, Feebs. Piper whines that she was "trapped" in a phone booth, and her power doesn't work outside the room she's in. Leaving aside the point that it's debatable whether her powers wouldn't extend outside a phone booth, particularly after the window had been shattered, must I really point out that she voluntarily trapped herself in the phone booth? I mean, I get that she was terrified, but it wouldn't have taken much in the way of brains to freeze the thing first and figure out what to do afterward. Oy.
Not!hony Michael Hall joins the party, and now that I see him in good light, I can tell you that the actor's most famous role was Mikey Randall on Parker Lewis Can't Lose, and if this is what he looked like five years ago, I can only imagine that it would be pretty depressing to see Corin Nemec these days. I loved that show, though, so even though this dude's name is Billy, he's Mikey for the recap. Andy gets all blustery cop with Mikey, who tries to light a cigarette in a hospital in California, like, this exposition couldn't be more awkward if it were going on its first date. Anyway, Prue, instead of just saying something, for some reason freaks and literally runs up to him and blows out his Zippo. Mikey's all, oh, sorry, duh, and then blathers that it was no coincidence that he was there, as the creature..."Creature?" Andy asks in a My, Aren't You Droll voice. Andy? Less jest, more chest. Okay, that was awful, but really, he needs to shut up and get naked. A lot. Anyway, Piper backs Mikey up about the whole "creature" thing, and then a woman walks in from nowhere with a "Describe it." Everyone looks at Prue to see whether she's going to strap her bitch on. Well, not really, but they should have, because this is not the way to introduce yourself to the Prueminator. The woman, who's quite attractive but also seems sort of weirdly...oily, recognizes Mikey, and asks what he's doing there. We don't learn her first name, but in the interest of giving absolutely nothing away about the A-plot here, I'll just randomly call her "Wendy." Mikey tough-guys that he's "hunting that thing," and Mikey, as I indicated earlier, the day is long past where your looks can overcome your line readings, so two more words for you: Acting. Coach. Andy introduces Wendy as "Special Agent Fallon of the FBI," and I just have to take a break and say, again for what will probably be the first of many times: What. The. Fuck? First off, we've discovered that it's morning here, so it took Piper from the dinner hour until the morning to get taken to the hospital and have a few lousy bandages put on her arm? I mean, I know it can take ages to be seen in the ER, but that still seems excessive. More unbelievably, it took Prue and Phoebe that long to find out where Piper was and get to the hospital? God.