Episode Report Card Demian: A | 7 USERS: A+ YOU GRADE IT All Hell Breaks Loose
By Demian | Season 3 | Episode 22 | Aired on 2001.05.17
Oh, and: Whatever. Morons.
Back in the manor, Prue and Piper form a sort of Halliwell Pieta on the floor. Prue dissolves into tears of horror, frustration, and anguish as she cradles Piper’s shuddering body in her arms. Piper looks like she’s quickly sliding into shock. Damn. Holly Marie Combs even pulls off dying better than anyone else on this show. Prue’s repeated, frantic cries of “Leo!” go unanswered. She whispers through her sobs, “Piper, it’s going to be okay. We’ll get you to the hospital.”
Good luck. The mob outside has pretty much blocked the driveway. Prue struggles to haul Piper down to her car, calling out for Leo the entire time. The mob, meanwhile, responds to their appearance with a heightened frenzy. Piranha Dominguez finds this an excellent time to shout a couple of questions at Prue. Prue eases Piper into the back seat of the car as gently as possible, given the circumstances. She leaps behind the wheel and heads down the drive, but her path is blocked by protesters and reporters and police. Prue bangs repeatedly on the horn, screaming, “Move!” They don’t listen to her, probably because with all of the damn noise, they can’t hear her in the first place. The next sequence is really well done. Congratulations to Ms. Doherty on the direction. And I mean that. Prue gets out of the car, baying for the assistance she so badly needs. It doesn’t come. There is a series of jump cuts of the crowd, presumably from Prue’s point of view, and it looks like Hell on Earth. Dominguez continues to shout, “Miss Halliwell, can you tell us what’s going on?” as we get a shot of Piper’s lifeless form slumped face down in the back seat. The camera cuts abruptly to an angle from the far side of the manor, sweeping into Prue as she screams, “What’s wrong with you people?” As the shot pulls in closer to her at a slightly skewed angle, it slows down while the cacophony on the street melts together into a single, low-pitched roar under Prue’s screams. The roar of the mob fades away as the beat of the rotors of the news choppers overhead slows to fade into the beating of Prue’s heart as Prue’s entire world collapses in on her. Two more brief slow-motion Prue POVs of the crowd and the reporters. Prue snaps. She flings her left arm out, and the shot goes back to real time as the TK hits Piranha and Jimmy. They fly backwards onto the lawn. The effect on the crowd is immediate. Various extras hit the deck while others attempt to scamper away. The ones who run are not moving fast enough for Prue. She sends about a half dozen of them through the air, with one landing so hard on a nearby car he shatters the windshield. Once she’s cleared a path, she gets back into the car and tears off down the street. You could argue this entire sequence represents a meta-statement on Shannen Doherty’s part regarding her real-life relationship with the tabloid press and what she’d really like to do to them, and you very well may be right about that. I don’t care. It worked. Brava.