Episode Report Card Couch Baron: B | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Once, Twice, Three Times A Ball-Buster
By Couch Baron | Season 1 | Episode 16 | Aired on 03.02.1999
Manor. Piper tells Prue that it's inventory time at [72virg=ins], and that it's going to take days. And I'm sure it will seem like weeks. To me. Prue switches topics to "Grams's statue," which is not a statue of the fabulous woman in question, but instead a hideous behemoth of a thing that I choose to believe Grams would have paid good money not to own. Piper exposits that storage is $90 a month (just for that thing? Five years ago? I don't think so) so she called Phoebe, who agreed they could keep it in the Manor. Prue rightly protests that it's ugly, but Piper takes this opportunity to tell her "majority rules," a theme that's going to be repeatedly shot into our brains with a nail gun this episode. Restraining herself from asking why their dimwitted mooch of a sister gets a vote, Prue rightly protests that it's ugly, prompting Piper to dare her to move it. Prue focuses her eyes, but the thing only teeters back and forth a bit. Piper exposits that it's solid marble, and given that the quarries in Italy are going to run out sometime, I find that the biggest tragedy of this episode. If you've seen Gabriel's hair, you know that's saying a lot. Piper goes on that it took "eight of Phoebe's bouncer friends to move it." Do I need to pause for a moment and ask you to consider how Phoebe could be in a position to ask eight strapping males to make time to herniate their disks for her? Oh, you already knew she's a slut? Then let's move on. Anyway, Prue fervently wishes for a power progression so she can send the marble atrocity flying out the Manor front door. If she times it right, maybe she could put Darryl out of his misery, thus killing two pointless birds with one stone. As it were.
Anyway, Prue and Piper have their attention diverted by karate-style hooting from the solarium. They rush in to find Phoebe -- in pigtails, boxing gloves, and very sensible workout attire -- landing punches and kicks on a plastic model of a man. Said model has lights built into its front side that ostensibly are telling Phoebe when and where to land her techniques. I'm sure there's a joke in there about Phoebe buying a man to satisfy certain needs, but with eight bouncer friends at her beck and call, that hardly seems likely. That is, until Phoebe tells us that the model's name is "Slam Man." Well, I'm always happy to be proven wrong by a shout-out to Demian. Anyway, Phoebe tells us that she got tired of the whole passive-power thing, so she's been taking self-defense classes and charging them on her new credit card. Prue and Piper humor her, even when she claims that her expenditures will pay for themselves the first time she kicks some bad guy's ass. I thought "paying for itself" meant that some actual money would appear in the future as a result of the expenditure, but it's probably fair to guess that Prue and Piper have heard this tune before. Phoebe starts showing off her moves, prompting Prue to jiggle the Slam Man with a little TK, startling Phoebe. Phoebe responds by mock-grappling with Prue, and Piper even gets in on the act with a Karate Kid reference. Girls, it's all fun and games until someone gets flung into a premonition! Phoebe sees Gabriel approach Prue with his sword, and then Prue falls, although we don't actually see the sword, er, penetrate her. Phoebe shakily tells her sisters that she saw Prue die, and the three of them gape and goggle their way into the opening credits.