Episode Report Card Demian: B+ | 1 USERS: B- YOU GRADE IT Piper Halliwell graduates! Piper Halliwell graduates!
By Demian | Season 1 | Episode 2 | Aired on 10.13.1998
Canadian commercials, courtesy of CTV. It's all aboot that Maple Leaf Ready Crisp Bacon. I bet it'd go great with some Kraft Dinner, eh?
Wow. The opening travelogue just zips right by, because for once it's set to a song I actually like -- "Torn," by Natalie Imbruglia. What? Shut up. No, seriously. No. Seriously. All of you can shut the hell up. Now. After shots of the skyline and the bay and a cable car practically upending itself down a hill, we land on Prescott Street and Halliwell Manor. In the kitchen, Kit yowls and prances across the counter past the little white television set. Piper whips eggs for omelets while keeping a wary eye on a suitably cheesy and sensationalistic documentary about the witch trials in Salem, Massachusetts. It's all In Search Of with lousy faux-woodcut graphics, cheap sound effects, and the forbidding recitation of overwrought narration. It details one Mary Estee, who supposedly attempted to enter the town church to protest her innocence but was struck by lightning as she touched the door. This bit of information is accompanied on the TV by a tinny scream from the unfortunate Goody Estee. "In the court's mind," the narrator intones significantly, "God Himself had spoken, forbidding the eeee-vil witch from even entering His house." Holly Marie Combs's deadpan of glazed dismay at this piece of information is hysterically funny. "The witches were subsequently convicted of heresy," continues the narration, "and burned alive at the stake." Prue brightly enters the kitchen in time to hear this last bit, and snarks at Piper for watching so trashy a television show. Um. Word, Prue. I think. Piper flutters her hands around dismissively before revealing that Andy called. Prue: "Whin?" Why is Shannen Doherty incapable of pronouncing words correctly? Innyone? I kin wait, but while I do, I'll kintinue with the scene. Piper senses Prue's mood and guesses that the previous evening's date went badly. On the contrary, Prue notes with remorse, it wint rather well -- "Dinner...movie...sex." "You sleaze!" Piper teases, shocked -- shocked -- that Prue would do it on the first date. Prue counters that it wasn't exactly a first date, and Piper exposits that Prue and Andy's history as a couple in high school doesn't count, as that was all "last decade."
Prue grabs a cup of coffee and spins around to stride through the dining room, reluctantly admitting that the sex was "amazing," but adding that they were "going to take it slow" and "it shouldn't have happened." Phoebe bounces down the stairs at this point, and Piper fills her in on the previous evening's events. Prue, needless to say, is much annoyed. The three ricochet through the parlor onto the sun porch as we learn that Phoebe was quite the woman of non-existent virtue the previous evening as well -- she even had the nerve to drag Lantern-Head back to the Bimbo Boudoir to engage in her tawdry fornication. Can we stone her now? The banter grinds to a halt when Phoebe accidentally lets slip that she received a premonition of her boy toy before he actually walked over to her. Prue gracelessly flops into a wrought-iron chair with her cup and proceeds to read Phoebe's beads for using the power of premonition to land a one-night stand. They bicker in this vein for a bit before Phoebe blurts, "Nobody died, and, FYI, nothing happened last night. At least, nothing I'm ashamed of." Whore. Prue drops a PSA-bomb Andy gave her regarding "someone who's abducting women in [their] area," noting that "warlocks aren't the only evil [they] have to watch out for." Phoebe looks suitably chastened. "Ind, FYI," Prue continues, "I'm not ashamed of innything, either." Phoebe smirks proudly. Whore. Prue heaves a sigh and gazes at her coffee.