Episode Report Card Demian: B- | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT "What's a zoo?"
By Demian | Season 1 | Episode 9 | Aired on 12.15.1998
"Halliwell Hardware And Appliance." Fabio crosses in front of the owner of the store, who's splayed crucifixion-style on the wall. Unfortunately, the guy's no Piper Laurie in Carrie. Fabio appears to have propped the dead guy up on some display brackets after having snapped his neck. Hannah and the Wimp pop into the shop and make with the introductions. Fabio insists he works alone. The Wimp notes that Fabio's leaving a trail of dead Halliwells, and if Fabio doesn't accept their offer of assistance, the police will catch him before he can off the Glamorous Ladies. Fabio glumly agrees to follow Hannah and the Wimp wherever they may lead.
By the way: Yes, I did check to see if there are any Halliwells now living in San Francisco. To the best of my knowledge, there aren't, but I'd like to give a shout-out to the Patricia Halliwells of Alamo, Long Beach, and Redwood City, California. Stay away from the water, ladies.
Manor dining room. As Prue fastens the locket around Melinda's neck, Melinda regales her great-blah-whatever-daughters with some family history. She never comes out and says it, but I have a sneaking suspicion that Fabio is the great-whatever-grandfather of the Glamorous Ladies. It would explain their penchant for questionable hair strategies, wouldn't it? Long story short, Melinda would have used her powers to escape Salem with her life, but doing so would have proven Fabio's allegations, leaving open the possibility that those wacky Puritans would have torched Melinda's daughter, Prudence, in her stead. I know -- Melinda could have saved herself and her daughter, so why didn't she? She didn't, m'kay? Just go with it. When Prue describes Fabio's unique method of transport, Melinda um-duhs that the blinking is called "blinking," and exposits that he must have stolen it from another witch. That's Fabio's M.O., you see -- he "copies" powers, then kills their owners. "Should he gain all three [of the Ps'] powers," Melinda warns, "he will be impossible to vanquish." She notes that the only way to get rid of him is to force him back into the locket. Okay. Whatever you say, honey. Like they couldn't just ad-lib a crappy rhyme so the guy blows up in the attic or something. Rrrgh.
Buckland's. Fabio and Hannah take the anachronism humor out for a flirtatious spin as the shirtless (ew!) Fabio squeezes into a pair of jeans. The anachronisms are no funnier here than they were back at the Manor, so you'll have to learn to live with the frustration of not reading Fabio's musings on the castrating effect tight modern clothing has on the seventeenth-century man about town. Should I bother reminding everyone that people were a lot shorter and thinner back then because of their diet? And that it would follow that Fabio here should be about five-foot-six at the most, and Melinda around four-foot-nine or so? Which means that their modern clothing should be coming from Gap Kids? And that their teeth would be rotting right out of their skulls because of the scurvy and whatnot? And that we shouldn't be able to understand a word they're saying because English pronunciation has shifted so drastically since then? I shouldn't bother? Too late. Suck it up. The Wimp enters, and he and Fabio get into a little pissing contest over the rights to Hannah's goody basket, and then the scene ends. Silly evil people. If you weren't so busy fighting each other, you'd have been able to off the Glamorous Ladies months ago. Can't you all just get along?