Episode Report Card Demian: C+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Head Games
By Demian | Season 4 | Episode 7 | Aired on 11.07.2001
Over in a dark, forbidding alleyway, Piper and Raige mill about the SUV impatiently while Phoebe once again scries for Spalding's location. The crystal plops down on the city map at their current coordinates. As "the crystal never lies," they must be in the right place, despite having found no trace of Spalding during their previous two sweeps through the area. Piper suggests they split up, the better to lure Spalding from his hiding place. Phoebe and Raige clearly have misgivings, but agree. They wander off, leaving Piper to her own devices. As she strides slowly down the pavement, The Spource appears in relief on the wall. He camouflages himself as a series of bricks and pipes and gas meters as he skulks along behind her. Once Piper has entered a more open area, he materializes. Piper senses his presence and turns to freeze him. The Spource shrugs off the freeze easily and sneers at her dismissively. Piper's eyes widen as she calls out for her sisters. The Spource forms A Flaming Ball Of Get The Hell Away From Me above his outstretched palm and hurls it at her. Piper flies through the air to crash against perhaps the greatest threat to the Charmed Ones' existence. I speak of course of The Convenient Shipping Pallet Of Grave Bodily Injury. They really need to petition the mayor to have those things removed from city alleyways. Phoebe and Raige dart around the corner in time to spot The Spource lifting Piper's unconscious form from the ground before blazing out with her. Phoebe and Raige gape as the camera shoots into Phoebe's mouth.
The blackness of Phoebe's innermost recesses flares white as the camera continues to shoot through, emerging presently to race along a hardwood floor. It slows and eventually stops on Piper's face. From beyond the frame, we hear the Dolt calling her name. Piper groggily twists her head from side to side, raising her hands to her temples. The Piper POV of the Dolt's face blurs as she grumbles, "My head hurts." "I bet it does," soothes the Dolt. "You hit it pretty hard." Piper asks what happened. "The same thing that always happens when you have one of your episodes," he replies. "You threw yourself against a wall." Heh. I resort to throwing myself against a wall only during the very worst of Piper's episodes, like "The Magic Hour." Piper repeats the Dolt's words to herself before being distracted by sounds around her. She whips her head to one side to find a confused gentleman in hospital scrubs babbling about government conspiracy theories involving Jason Behr and spaceships and whatnot. In another corner of the room, three insane ladies play a particularly vicious hand of Snap at a card table. There are other drooling, gibbering idiots around, but Piper ignores them to whip her head Doltwards. "It's okay," he explains. "Those are just the other patients." Piper scrambles to her feet with an increasingly frantic look on her face. From the brief glimpses we get of her surroundings, it becomes clear that she's in a Manor devoid of antiques and collectibles. The walls have been painted institutional aqua and beige. Well, except for the woodstained doorframes and moldings, because it would take too much time for the set crew to restore those details after this episode is over. "Where am I?" she asks. "You're in the sanitarium," the Dolt answers kindly. "You're [or is it 'Your'? The 'writers' are so 'playful' and 'clever'] home." The camera pulls in close to Piper's face, then cuts away to the break.