Episode Report Card Demian: B- | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Look Who's Barking
By Demian | Season 3 | Episode 21 | Aired on 05.09.2001
Manor kitchen. Piper slams the Yellow Pages down on the counter as Phoebe enters, pleading with Detective Darryl on the cordless to have the boys at the precinct “keep an eye out for [L.B. Prue].” I can almost hear Darryl’s exaggerated sigh of irritation as he apparently capitulates. Phoebe instructs him to ring Piper’s cell should he hear anything, and hangs up. Piper busies herself looking for an animal shelter that’s still open at that time of the night. Phoebe crosses to the fridge, insisting that everything will work out for the best. Piper halts her search to give Phoebe the Eye. “Banshees zero in on people in great pain,” she notes in an accusatory tone. Would Phoebe care to explain why Banshee got up in Phoebe’s face, when Piper was the one blowing up Dumpsters? Phoebe with the Cole Guilt Goggle. Piper takes a page from Stuart Smalley’s self-help manual, basically nattering out the chestnut, “Denial ain’t just a river in Egypt, sister.” Piper knows what it’s like to love a demon, only to have him turn on her. Would Phoebe just drop the pretense and admit she’s still in pain? Phoebe purses her lips and rolls her eyes in a terrifyingly tight close-up. “Well, Dr. Laura,” she inexplicably begins, “right now I have a different demon to worry about.” She crosses to exit the kitchen. What does she think she’s doing? She intends to have Piper cast the banshee tracking spell again, on her. Piper “Whuhs?” at this. Phoebe tells her to can it and leaves. Piper shakes her head in stunned disbelief.
Attic. Phoebe pages through the BoS, lingering unnecessarily on her new entry for Cole. A sad flute tootles in the background as she lifts the Book from its stand and moves to sit with it in her lap. After a brief pause, she dissolves into a series of gasping sobs. Intercut with her weeping is a series of shots of the new page in the Book. In his main photo, Cole disturbingly looks like a toothy J. Crew model. We also discover that he’s “ticklish.” I’ll spare you all the filthy thoughts that just popped into my head. Phoebe gasps out a few more sobs, and we cut to the main hall below. Piper’s bitching into the phone about missing-dog-related issues. The Dolt orbs in behind her. She snots, “Never mind,” and cuts off the call. “We lost Prue!” she too-brightly remarks to her husband. She then proceeds to bring him up to speed on the alley encounter. The information disturbs the Dolt. TPTB told him that “banshees are former witches.” Piper: “Yes, and?” The Dolt: “The banshee’s scream doesn’t kill witches; it turns them into banshees.” Ruh. Roh. Piper puts it together and glances nervously upstairs. Back in the attic, Phoebe lets out a mournful “Why, Cole?” as she gazes at his J. Crew shot. Glassware begins to rattle. Phoebe calls out to her sister as the rattling glassware starts to shatter. The windows blow in, sending Phoebe into a defensive crouch on the carpet. Banshee throws herself into the room, howling determinedly at Feebs. After a bit of this, she stops and stands up, as if wondering why Phoebe hasn’t bled from the ears yet. Piper enters and raises her hands to freeze/destroy position. Banshee is tossed back into the air a bit, then explodes in a shower of black shards and green sparks. Piper: “Huh. Shut her up.” Snerk. Phoebe falls back into a daze on the carpet. Sure enough, she morphs into a banshee herself -- white hair, vacant-yet-intense blue contacts in her eyes, the diaphanous rags, the works. She languidly rises to her feet, then peers in a near-reptilian manner at Piper and the Dolt. Not sensing the necessary “great pain,” apparently, the FeebShee hurls the two backwards across the attic floor. The FeebShee springs to the ruined window frame and lets loose with her very first earsplitting shriek. As the FeebShee, I mean. Phoebe’s yodeling has often made my ears bleed in the past. Unless that was those sharp objects I kept plunging into my skull. I note that the diaphanous rags are most flattering to the Fun Bags of the FeebShee, by the way. The FeebShee screams again, then leaps into the commercial break.
Attic. Aftermath. Piper wails her way through a near-monologue on the plagues of the evening. The Dolt again urges her to “relax,” which serves only to anger her more. She gestures in frustration, blowing up Grams’s sewing machine as she does so. The Dolt very nearly straps his bitch on when he snits, “Now is not the time for you to lose it.” Piper yells that she already has lost it, thank you very much, and would the Dolt stop nagging her, please? He barrels forward with the exposition nonetheless. If Phoebe were to murder a single person before they can reach her, she’ll be doomed to FeebSheedom forever. It follows, of course, that Prue will therefore be doomed to Literal Bitchdom forever as well. Piper’s Lesson Of The Week continues apace. She frets she can’t solve this problem on her own. That Phoebe and Prue “are the superwitches” of the trio. That she merely “tags along and freezes things.” The Dolt insists that Piper is as powerful as her sisters. He instructs her to “listen to [her] instincts.” Piper closes her eyes and breathes deeply. She then snaps her eyes open, announces, “I think I know what I have to do,” and darts out of the attic.