Episode Report Card Demian: F | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Enter The Stench
By Demian | Season 4 | Episode 4 | Aired on 10.17.2001
Down in the basement, Cole and Phoebe make with the sweaty swordplay. Stop it. You know what I mean. Phoebe twists her ankle and asks for a time out. Cole tells her she must learn to fight through the pain. Only he's infinitely more annoying about it than I was just there. "Demons worship strength. Power. Nothing else. To beat The Source you have to channel all of your power into your strength -- including your pain!" See what I mean? Shut it, Cole-san. More with the broadswords. As the camera pans with them across the floor, it hits a support pillar in the cellar. The screen wipes from left to right with said pillar to land us back with the Mystical Orientals in their gladed little "monastery" in the middle of San Francisco. Whatever. Phag is moaning something to Gold-Tooth Charlie about protecting him from Not Cho. Phag's Pa tells her that, to defeat Not Cho, they need the "Dragon Blade." This plot line can bite me. Gold-Tooth Charlie hands her a note, instructing her to take it to a "Master Kwan." She doesn't want to leave his side, as Not Cho might attack in her absence, and then where would she be? Why, she'd be "the master" herself, and would of course know what to do, for they are Mystical Orientals. There's some "empowering," Mulan-esque nattering about how Phag is the best student and the strongest fighter and her father's true daughter and the right person for the job. Phag's not having it, for she's a girl and by her that's not so great. She's unsure, for her silhouette is curvy. She walks with a sweet and girlish gait, with her hips kind of swivelly and swirly. Gold-Tooth Charlie tells her to cram it and fetch the damn Dragon Blade already. Or maybe that was me. She scampers off, and as she goes, the camera follows to pan down into the birdbath. Not Cho peers malevolently from beneath the water's surface.
Manor kitchen. Rose adds to my migraine by shouting her way through the ingredients of the potion she's half-heartedly mixing. She's up to "POWDERED TOADSTOOL -- BAM," if you must know. Enter the Dolt, and the evening just got that much worse. They "banter" about what she's doing. She bitches some more about being stuck in the kitchen, cooking, while Phoebe gets to kick demonic ass of the tantalizing sort. The Dolt becomes the third person tonight to lecture Rose on patience and the need to hone all of her skills and blah. She snots back that she wants an active power like levitation, right. Now! Levitation is an active power? Since when? Not to mention that she's already got the telekinesis and the orbing and the healing. She should want to blow shit up like Piper. Then again, if she wanted to trade places with Piper, we wouldn't have the joy that is Alyssa Milano for most of the next forty minutes. Except, you know, replace "joy" with "unending torment of the infinite pits of Hell." The Dolt, retrieving some bottled water from the fridge, reminds her that as one who is half-Whitelighter, she's also "half-pacifist" and as a result may never develop such mad fighting skillz as Piper and Phoebe possess. He dolts out on that cheery note, leaving Rose to simmer in resentment. She mutters on and on about wanting to know "just once what it's like to be Phoebe and kick some serious ass" as she tosses a final ingredient into the bubbling pot on the stove. The white powder causes the mixture to explode, and Rose is enveloped in a cloud of steam and smoke. Did I just use "white powder" and "enveloped" in the same sentence? I'm so naughty. Not. Rose drops to the floor in slow motion, and once there, she glows up in a golden tint. The glowy tint detaches and seeps through the floor to the basement below. Downstairs, Phoebe sends her sword clattering to the cement as she, too, drops in slow-motion. The Glowy Tint Of Rose trades places with The Glowy Tint Of Phoebe as Cole turns his back on them all momentarily. The transfer of Glowy Tints complete, Phoebe reawakens, if indeed she was ever unconscious. It's so hard to tell with her.