Episode Report Card Demian: C+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Suddenly Katya!
By Demian | Season 7 | Episode 18 | Aired on 04.23.2005
Phoebe, thus left alone, pushes herself off the couch just as another supernatural racket invades the room, this one caused by Nina's apparent method of transport, which involves a swarm of bits -- tinted to coordinate with the location they'll eventually occupy on the surface of her body, by the way -- suddenly materializing in the center of the room before coagulating into Nina form. "Who are you?" Phoebe snaps instantly. "Please!" Nina pants. "You have to help me find it before it's too late!" Nina evidently retrieved her amulet from the alleyway floor before swarming over to the Manor, incidentally. Phoebe, not paying nearly as much attention to the tacky jewelry as I am, quite reasonably asks, "Find what?" The camera sweeps towards Nina's panicked face as she gasps, "Pandora's Box!" Phoebe's mildly annoyed reaction shot fills the screen for a moment before disappearing into the opening credits.
The super-speed opening travelogue whip-saws us through the Bay Area as some aggravating Kate Bush wannabe of an ovary gets nearly ultrasonic with the wailing and such. Shut UP, shrike. We finally land on Prescott Street, where, up in the Manor's nonexistent attic, the presumably now-bathed Psycho does something godless and obscene with a plastic bucket atop a blanket on the floor while his mother abuses the Book of Shadows nearby. "I guess since Excalibur is real, I don't know I'd be surprised Pandora's Box is, as well," Piper sighs wearily as she flips through the Book's pages. Phoebe bounces in from the upper stairs with a mug of something comforting that Nina graciously accepts as Piper wonders, "How did you know to come to us?" "You're the Charmed Ones," Nina duhs, dabbing at the gash on her jaw with a handkerchief. "Everyone in the magical community knows about you." "Yeah," Piper snorts, "that's becoming a problem." "Becoming"? After seven years filled with various dark demonic forces and Stoopid Magikal Kreatures invading your home on a regular basis? Gah. Shut up, Piper. She does zip it, but not because of anything I've said. No, Piper gets real quiet because the Book suddenly vanishes from the stand in a cloud of orbs. It reappears quickly enough in the Psycho's lap, however, so Piper crouches down next to her wicked elder child for some entirely ineffectual lecturing. Seriously. Given the child's persistent, glassy, thousand-yard stare, I'd imagine it'd be of as much use as lecturing a certain late resident of Pinellas County, Florida. But what do I know about parenting?