Episode Report Card Demian: D | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Magic Hour
By Demian | Season 3 | Episode 2 | Aired on 10.11.2000
Halliwell Manor. Attic. Phoebe and Piper walk in on Prue paging through the BoS. Prue's had no luck, and can't figure out why Christopher's curse is to live as an owl for only half a day, rather than the more-common curse of a full-time life as an animal. I direct her to her local Blockbuster, where I've placed a Matthew Broderick movie on hold for her. It isn't Torch Song Trilogy, either. Piper stumbles upon a page that might help her with her little root vegetable problem. Entitled "Handfasting," it reads: "Handfasting is the eternal joining of two people in Love. It is a sacred ceremony of commitment presided over by a High Priestess. Best performed at a time of sunrise or sunset where both the Sun and the Moon are present in the joining of the two Lovers." I wonder how much damage downing half a bottle of Jägermeister in one sitting will inflict on my liver. The sacrifices I make for you people. I hope you appreciate it.
Piper writes out the title of the ritual on a slate and shows it to Phoebe, who starts in with, "Oh, yeah, the Handfa --" before she's interrupted by Prue. Piper schoolmarmishly explains to her mentally-challenged younger sister, "The reason we write the bad words is so we don't say the bad words, you frigging brain-dead simp." Okay, the last bit was merely implied by her tone, but we all know she that's what she really meant. Piper then quizzes Phoebe on not mentioning the ritual earlier. Phoebe replies that because the ceremony requires an unavailable high priestess, she thought it best not to say a word about it. Besides, she notes, there's nothing in the BoS that would allow them to mask the ritual from TPTB, which is by far the most important issue facing the three, as said masking will prevent the sisters from "feeling the, um." She pauses to spell it out in chalk, then displays the slate to the others: "[U]nspeakable WRATH!!!" Oh, my, does the fun ever start?
More dull relationship chatter. Phoebe accuses Piper of being selfish at the expense of those they are meant to help, and Piper wonders if that's a such bad thing. She insists she's been through an unusual amount of pain these last two years, and if they were half as painful as this episode has been thus far, Piper will receive a small bit of my sympathy. Wait. The interminable moaning about the state of her relationship with Leo mirrored by the so-lame-it's-wheelchair-bound subplot are what's dragging this episode down, so she won't get any of my sympathy. At all. In case we had forgotten, she reminds us she's torn: she wants to "do the right thing," but she also wants to be with Leo. She shuts the BoS, and Eye Candy's discarded feather drifts to the floor. Phoebe bends to retrieve it, and as she touches it, she's thrown into a vision. Christopher, alone, in a moonlit glade, menaced by a wolf.