Episode Report Card Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Still Charmed And Sucking
By Demian | Season 8 | Episode 1 | Aired on 09.24.2005
All The News That's Fit To Fuck Me. Phoebe, who ditched all of those shopping bags somewhere that is not the Manor, because this show sucks, and I want to die, pokes her head through the swinging glass doors to find a small shrine devoted to her memory on one of the metal drafting tables in the main office. "I still can't believe she's gone," Phoebe's Non-Mary Cherry assistant grieves. "She was always so sweet to me -- you know, like the time she and Nick Lachey had sex on my desk? She totally offered to reimburse me for the cleaning supplies I needed to buy to scour all that nasty gunk off of my computer. And when the scouring and the scraping and the boiling didn't work and I had to buy my own new computer because Elise said we didn't have any money in the budget for a replacement because all of the extra cash was going to Phoebe so she could waste $250 on a cut and color every two weeks? Phoebe totally offered to pay for that, too. She didn't, of course, but still. She was always so sweet." "She always had a smile for everyone," one of Non-Mary's coworkers agrees. "Especially after she got the owner of the paper to go down on her in his office in the middle of a business day. With all of us watching. God, I'll never get that image out of my mind." "She was always there whenever you needed her," another colleague adds, "except for all of those times she blew off work to have a nooner with the boss at some sleazy motel out by the airport." "She helped me through my divorce," the first coworker sighs, "which, when you think about it, was only fair. The only reason my wife left me is because the mere sight of that cooter tattoo of hers put me off sex for life." When Elise finally breaks down in the middle of all of this fond sentimentality, Phoebe steps in to offer a hankie. Introducing herself as "Julie Bennett," Phoebe claims she's a cousin from Victor's side of the family, only there to retrieve Phoebe's personal effects. There follows a verbal tongue-bath of the presumed deceased that I simply cannot bear to endure, so we'll skip through all that and get to the point where Phoebe realizes -- quietly and to herself, of course -- that maybe this whole identity-switching nonsense isn't everything it's cracked up to be. And...scene.
Out in the hall, Phoebe blunders into the elevator, only to discover she's sharing it with Jason Lewis, whom we learn has the improbable name of "Dex Lawson." After some awkward introductory banter, Phoebe shakes his hand and is immediately flung into a sun-dappled premonition. It's of herself, looking positively radiant on what we're meant to assume is her wedding day, with Dex here as her groom. Phoebe snaps out of it and winces up at Dex, who shoots her a quizzical and wary eyebrow, and if she pulled her usual bout of orgasmic gasping and shuddering while receiving that vision of the future, we can certainly understand why he looks that way. Phoebe stutters and stammers and makes a complete jackass out of herself until the elevator finally reaches the ground floor. Phoebe powers on out of there with no so much as a glance back as Dex offers a "Nice meeting you!" at her disappearing back before vanishing himself into the next commercial break.