Episode Report Card Demian: C+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Head Games
By Demian | Season 4 | Episode 7 | Aired on 11.07.2001
Manor sun porch. The Dolt squints his eyes and tries to pinch out Piper's current location. He fails. Raige worries that Piper might be dead. Phoebe says that The Spource wouldn't have abducted her simply to kill her. Cole, splattered with green goop, squiggles in with the news that Piper's in "the Underworld." Seems Cole had a run-in with another of Spalding's kind, and "squeezed" the information out of him. That's just so wrong in so many ways, and I'm not going to be the person who enumerates those ways for you. Raige tilts her head to the side a bit and blinks as if she agrees with me. Intending to search for a summoning spell, Phoebe hoists the Book of Shadows to her bosom. She's thrown into a premonition instead. The Source hovers above the attic floor as he approaches the terrified forms of Phoebe and Raige. His hand grasps, and the BoS orbs out of Phoebe's arms to reappear in his clutches. The Source then murders Phoebe and Raige by blowing them up. By the way, Phoebe explodes fun bags first. I think the effects team just pulled one over on Alyssa Milano. Phoebe fills the others in on what she's just seen, noting that The Source used their own powers against them. Raige's heavily-glossed lips wonder how The Source could acquire the powers of the Ps. The Dolt reminds Phoebe of the "relinquishing spell" from the Book. Phoebe reminds him in turn that they "burned that spell three years ago. It doesn't exist." Perhaps, but Piper still remembers it. Phoebe flatly denies that Piper would ever consider giving up her abilities as a witch. "Even though she was kind of willing to this morning?" Raige inquires. Phoebe glares at her. "I'm just saying," Raige counters with a shrug. The Dolt suggests he and Cole head down to Hell to search for the lost P. Cole readily agrees, and he and the Dolt squiggle and orb out. Phoebe and Raige head to the attic to work a few summoning spells.
The screen flares white again to send us back to the nuthouse. What's with the white-flaring transitions tonight, anyway? I think the director is a little too enamored of Six Feet Under. Down in the nuthouse basement, Piper and McMurphy are strapped to beds in an alcove, cut off from the rest of the fruit farm by chicken wire. McMurphy's rambling on and on that she thought she "wasn't good enough for [Piper's] little coven" and that she tried to "play [the] stupid witchy games," but all Piper did was bitch about how McMurphy couldn't compare to The Late Lamented. Piper claims to have engaged in no such bitching. McMurphy snots that Piper didn't have to say the hurtful things out loud -- her attitude made her true feelings clear. The Spource enters the scene to halt the conversation and mess some more with Piper's head. He tells her she's an only child, and that she indulges in witchcraft fantasies as a coping mechanism to deal with the miseries she can't process in a rational manner. "Just like your friend did," he notes, "before she got well -- [The Late Lamented]?" Piper orders him never to mention that name in her presence. McMurphy makes The Jazz Hands Of Disdain in her restraints and snits, "Here we go again. Saint [Late Lamented]!" Piper looks like she has a migraine. The Spource continues, telling Piper she hasn't forgiven The Late Lamented for abandoning their shared fantasy and reentering society a cured woman. Piper's even gone so far as to convince herself that The Late Lamented is dead, when in fact she was released from the nuthouse three months ago. Piper can be cured as well, if she'll only cease her struggle against reason. Piper tells The Spource to get out of her face. He does, locking the gate behind him.