Episode Report Card Demian: B- | 0 USERS: N/A YOU GRADE IT Little Box Of Horrors
By Demian | Season 7 | Episode 18 | Aired on April 23, 2005
Previously on There's An Hour Of My Life I'll Never Get Back, last week, with special emphasis on Piper and Raige's early discussion at Not!warts, the Dolt's supposedly newfound uselessness, Raige's hatred of her job, and the final scene.
Currently on And Here Goes Another, the sun rises rapidly above the Golden Gate Bridge through the miracle of time-lapse photography. Meanwhile, in what amounts to nothing more than an odd directorial choice, the various shadows in a vacant waterfront alleyway quickly retreat across the asphalt as that same sun climbs higher into the sky. Unnecessarily arty of them. Though to be honest with you, I did spend all of a minute trying to figure out the significance of the retreating shadows in this establishing shot with regards to this evening's main plot, and then I remembered which show I was watching. Eventually, a young, slim, and somewhat severe brunette totes a hexagonal box and some hideous cap sleeves on her blouse while darting onto the scene, panting as if she's been running for quite some distance. She protectively clutches the box to her chest and caresses it for a moment before a swiftly appearing and off-screen entity lands a mighty kick on the brunette's jaw. Youch. The boot to the head, incidentally, is powerful enough to send the small amulet the brunette had been wearing skittering across the ground; the brunette herself lands heavily on her left side before flipping two or three times from the force of the blow. The box she'd been so carefully clutching also goes flying. The brunette groans, pushing herself up with her hands, as Michelle Hurd leaps into the foreground of the shot. Michelle's found herself a cropped, scoop-necked maroon silk peasant blouse accessorized with black leather bondage gear for this evening's festivities, the better to display her rock-hard abs of death and destruction. "It's 'Nina,'" Michelle purrs at her prey, drawing a stray ringlet away from her face with a well manicured nail, "right?" "You'll never get it -- I won't let you!" Nina vows, still on the ground, as Michelle silently and bemusedly cocks her brow all, "Oh, yeah? Try proving that, you pathetic bitch." "I didn't ask for your permission," Michelle verbalizes smoothly, stalking closer as Nina finally leaps to her feet, a nasty bruise marring her jaw line. "It's only a matter of time," Michelle continues, sliding right up in Nina's battered face, "before I get the box." "Over my dead body!" Nina scowls. Michelle gets an angelic smile on her face and beams, "That's the thing with you guardians!" The smile slips effortlessly into a sneer as she continues, "You're always dying for that damn box!" Good God. Was Michelle Hurd always this good an actress? I barely remember her from L&O: SVU, and I sure as hell didn't watch Skin or Leap Years, but damn. She's quite simply rocking some tedious and otherwise rehashed material, here. I mean, her last line barely makes sense as written -- in that extra-special way lines on this show often fail to make sense as written -- but the character's intent came through clearly despite it all. Unlike the intent of certain others I could mention, Raige