Episode Report Card Demian: D+ | 1 USERS: C YOU GRADE IT The Short And Unhappy Marriage Of Raige Matthews-Mitchell
By Demian | Season 8 | Episode 18 | Aired on 04.22.2006
Nonexistent Attic. Piper loads a clutch of vanquishing vials into a cunning little carrying case as Raige orbs in with news that she's found Pator, but they have to hurry "in case he moves," like, I guess she didn't notice that ENORMOUS SNAKE WRAPPED AROUND HIS LEG HOLDING HIM IN PLACE. Dimwit. Piper does not immediately take Raige's hand so they might orb off to the Underworld at once, choosing instead to berate her lippy bastard of a half-sister regarding the latter's treatment of Darling Henry, because for some stupid reason we're all supposed to care about Raige's stupid identity crisis this evening. It's not working. Nevertheless, the two ladies spend about a minute of screen time bickering about Raige avoiding Darling Henry's phone calls before Piper finally gives in and passes Raige a slip of paper that presumably contains last week's banishing spell. Just then, Ssssecretly Evil Chrissssty enters the nonexistent room from the upper landing, all, "Where are you going?" Piper and Raige are like, "And so nice to see you, too, Rudeness! By the way, how was your parents' funeral, huh?" Chrissssty's most displeased when she learns that The Ultimate Retard has fled her dorm room in favor of The Hagquarters, but she manages to shake it off to snipe, "So, where are you on finding the demon you let kill my parents?" "Whoa!" Piper snorts. "We didn't let anybody kill..." she begins, but Raige quickly interrupts for whatever reason with news that Pator's been located, but that she and Piper must leave now before he vanishes again. Chrissssty insists on accompanying them, vowing to be the one "who sends his sorry ass to the Astral Plane." Raige attempts to convince her of the fact that it's far more important they interrogate him first, but Chrissssty, masking her desire to cover her tracks and eliminate any possible connection between herself and the Triad with a sort of off-kilter and all-consuming lust for vengeance, dismisses the entire argument with, "Who cares? I want him dead!" Piper, clearly annoyed but managing to keep her wits about her, states simply that if there's any vanquishing to be done, it'll happen after they've grilled the demon in question for any and all information that might help her regain her husband. Chrissssty leaps on this last point and all but accuses Piper of being a selfish, self-serving bitch before Piper, disgusted, turns to clasp Raige's hand and order, "Let's go." Raige and Piper turn blue with the orbing, but at the last instant, Chrissssty places her hand on top of theirs, thereby jumping the orb.
Once they rematerialize in Jondar's cavern, the howling and bitchery is immediate and rampant, with Raige shrieking something about Ssssecretly Evil Chrissssty not knowing what she's doing and Piper shrilling something about following through with her plan no matter what and Chrissssty shrewing something about avenging her parents and OH MY GOD WILL YOU ALL SHUT UP? Even poor Pator, slouched in downtrodden submission on the floor of the chamber, is thinking death would be preferable to listening to these three shrikes tearing at each others' throats for what seems like eighteen goddamned years. By the way, give it up for John Rosenfeld here, who over the last two weeks has taken what is, as written, the sort of unidimensional character we've come to expect on this show and endowed it with surprisingly nuanced layers of demonically existential angst. Pity he put all of that effort into it, though, because CANCELLED! In any event, Piper finally spins around from Chrissssty, slides a vial from her cunning little carrying case, and, addressing the downcast demon in the dirt, gets down to business: "You have one chance -- and one chance only -- to tell me who sent you, and why." Ssssecretly Evil Chrissssty, positioned just behind Piper and Raige, allows a wild, panicked expression of dread to wash across her face before Pator, remaining loyal to her despite the obvious consequences, dejectedly replies, "I don't know what you're talking about." "The hell you don't!" Piper ices, hurling the vial into his chest. Pator bursts into flame and howls as Jondar's serpent flinches and retreats, scorched by the power of the vanquish. "Say the spell!" Chrissssty cries as Pator wails in the background. "No!" Piper insists as Raige pivots in Chrissssty's direction to spit, "Stop it!" Chrissssty snatches the slip of paper from Raige's hand and violently shoves her towards the far wall. As Raige stumbles headlong to the floor and Piper goes chasing after her, Chrissssty reads the spell aloud from the page, making it as far as the last two words before Piper flicks out a Hand Of Discontent in Chrissssty's direction. A tiny burst of explosive mojo sears Chrissssty's arm and slams her face-first into an outcropping of rock right before Chrissssty's able to condemn Pator to an eternity of pain in the Astral Plane. As Piper helps Raige to her feet, the vial's effects fizzle out on the unvanquishable Pator's body. Jondar picks this moment to squiggle in at Pator's side, and he twinkles, "I guess you were telling the truth," before latching onto Pator's shoulders and squiggling right back out of there. "Dammit!" Piper growls. "Are you okay?" she asks Raige. "It's not me I'm worried about," Raige admits, tossing a wary side-eye in Chrissssty's direction. Chrissssty herself has scrambled to her feet to clutch at her injured arm while glowering and pouting her way into the first commercial break.