Episode Report Card Demian: B+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Touch my monkey.
By Demian | Season 5 | Episode 20 | Aired on 04.26.2003
Moment Of Need, Part The Second. Over in a nightclub that bears a suspicious resemblance to that "ballroom" from the beginning of the season, Raige and Slampiece Ratbag hold hands and schmoop at each other across a tiny table as a pianist plinks out innocuous background music on a small, low stage. Slampiece Ratbag asks Raige if she's the type of gal who likes surprises. "You're not gonna propose, are you?" she asks with a wary side-eye. "Uh, no," Ratbag replies evenly enough, though something tells me this exchange will become terribly important in a week or so. Something called "spoilers." Raige relents, so Ratbag gestures towards the club's emcee, who bounds up to the 1940s big-band microphone and announces, "Ladies and gentlemen, we have a special treat for you tonight to make your happy hour just a little happier -- local girl [Raige] Matthews in her debut!" Raige. Wigs. "Are you kidding?" she hisses. "Eighth grade was a long time ago," Ratbag smooths, taking her hand to lead her towards the stage. Raige, resisting Ratbag all the way, insists that that long-ago graduation humiliation made for "the worst day of [her] life." Raige, honey. Simmer. I can think of at least one day that was worse, and I don't even know you that well. "All my friends laughed at me! Bobby Maynard broke up with me!" Is that a fact? Well, then, you've convinced me, doll -- staring down a bunch of jeering, faithless, snot-nosed preadolescents is certainly far worse than watching your parents burn to death in the Family Four-Door Of Fiery Doom. Not. Raige continues to protest while hacking up bits of lung, claiming that the very idea of singing for strangers has paralyzed her throat. Ratbag just smiles and says, "You just strike me as the type of girl who likes to face her fears, not run from them." Slick, Ratbag. Real slick. Raige frowns, but he's got her number, so she slowly steps onto the stage, whispers a few words at the pianist, and hesitantly approaches the microphone. The pianist riffs through the opening bars of "Isn't It Romantic." Raige gets through the first two words of the title before her throat seizes up. The camera pulls in on her horrified face as a bit of feedback whines through the club's sound system. She darts her eyes around the room, mortified, before bolting for the door. Ratbag, chagrined, chases after her.
Moment Of Need, Part The Third. Piper tools down a rather busy avenue in the Grand Cherokee, squinting a bit at the glare as her cell phone rings. It's Raige, who's frantically trying to send some sort of signal using a touch-tone phone. Piper, of course, can't figure out what the hell is going on, and presently has a bigger problem on her hands when her vision doubles, then triples, then blurs before blinking out entirely. She blindly twists the wheel towards the curb while slamming on the brakes. We get a passenger's-side view of an onrushing cement pole before smashing into the commercial break.