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
Phoebe slams the BoS onto a chair and begins clearing the dining room table. Prue asks her what gives. As Phoebe tips the table on its side, she tells Prue that they’re going to summon the Colethazor using the “magic calling magic” spell in order to vanquish him. Prue reminds Phoebe that the details of Misty’s Master’s murder don’t quite match the Colethazor “M.O.” She believes Phoebe is “barking up the wrong demon.” Get it? Barking? You will. Phoebe disagrees, and vows to vanquish the Colethazor with or without her sister’s assistance. Prue reluctantly heads back into the kitchen to retrieve a vial of the violet Belthazor potion as Phoebe flips through the BoS for the correct spell. In the process, she passes a double entry on Banshees that happens to be on the page immediately following Belthazor’s. So determined is she to exact revenge on her ex-boyfriend that she misses the significance of this. Following the entry on the Banshees is a page entitled “To Summon Belthazor.” Hold up. Correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t Piper and Prue rework an earlier “magic calling magic” spell in order to come up with this one in “Sleuthing with the Enemy”? If so, why does this page display the sort of artistry that went into the rest of the BoS, rather than the gals’ girlish scribbling? Do they contract out pages to experienced calligraphers? These and other questions, never to be answered on Charmed. Anyway, the scene cuts to the Cavern of the Bi Kraps. Cole, in black robes of the sort the late, unlamented Ian Buchanan sported in last week’s episode, lights a couple of votives while chanting in Latin. I have no clue if it’s real, as my last class in the language took place some time before Reagan won his second term. Funny I should connect that particular president with dark demonic forces sent from the flaming maw of Hell. Cole’s ritual is interrupted by a little chanting from Phoebe and Prue, which goes like this:
Magic forces black and white,
Reaching out through space and light,
Be he far or be he near --
Bring us the demon Belthazor here.
The Colethazor shudders a bit as a whirlwind swirls around his body. The effect is better in this episode than it was the last time they used it. Cut to the dining room, where Phoebe and Prue repeat the verse from behind the overturned table. Back down in the Cavern, Cole glows yellow in the storm as he resists the pull of the spell. A vortex of twisting white clouds appears in the manor hallway. Phoebe and Prue prepare themselves for the Colethazor’s arrival. Down in the dungeon, Cole morphs up into Belthazor, who shakes off the spell’s effects. Belthazor roars in rage, sweeping an assortment of demonic tchotchkes from the Cavern altar. Up in the manor, the vortex disappears. Prue and Phoebe gape, then rise warily from behind the table. “Dammit!” pouts Phoebe. “Why didn’t it work?” Prue hasn’t a clue. She asks Phoebe for further details from her premonition, but those are at best sketchy. Prue proposes that they head to the murdered Master’s apartment to gather what information they can. Phoebe wonders if they should rope Piper into this little adventure. Prue nixes the idea, as Piper’s under enough stress as it is. The two exit.