Episode Report Card Demian: C | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Centennial Charmed
By Demian | Season 5 | Episode 12 | Aired on 01.18.2003
Gasping from the strain of what she's accomplished, Raige materializes and glances around before panting, "I did it!" Not so fast, sweetpea. A buzzing noise emerges from the silence as the Cole bits swirl back together into a spinning swarm that rapidly condenses before Raige's goggling eyes. Raige: "Ooops." Heh. The Cole Swarm slams into Raige's chest, hurtling her backwards through the recently-restored French doors. She dissolves into a cloud of orbs as the glass and wood splinter around her. Cole coagulates, and the camera sweeps in on his face as he expels a guttural howl. This is the worst birthday ever!
A weeny little clot of crappy CGI orbs "vaults" the city skyline before "splashing" into the bay. Raige surfaces with much spluttering disappointment, and treads water for a moment before shooting a wad of snot towards Oakland through a mighty, inelegant, and decidedly unladylike sneeze. Get it? The chilly bay waters gave Raige an instant cold! Wah. Wah. Waaaaah!
Kit was their cat. Kit had short hair. Kit is long dead, and his clips should be pulled! Just. Like. Whatsername's from Heathers. Were!
Manor. Raige's trusty Volkswagen has recovered fully from last week's debilitating slow-motion pre-credits fender bender and now rests peacefully in the Manor driveway. How very nice for it. Up on the sun porch, Alyssa loudly employs some of the mad counting skills she acquired for her Teen Steam video while the bulging Piper wobbles around on some earthy-crunchy "birthing ball" thing. The shrill shrieking emanating from the Feebs soon blows out both Piper's eardrums and her sense of balance, so the mother-to-be snipers sideways to the floor with a grunt. As the Dolt helps Piper to her swollen feet, a woman who is not Doctor Ava encourages her to try again, as earthy-crunchy birthing balls are good practice for home deliveries, or something. I realize that Doctor Ava's been tending to Lex Luthor's numerous and varied heterosexual needs for the last couple of months, but you'd think she'd be able to hop out to the coast for one lousy scene. Once they'd sprung this bit of disjointed casting on me, I lost all hope for a proper Old Home Night on Charmed. Sigh. In any event, Piper shrieks -- again -- that she's delivering the percolating infant in a goddamned hospital with proper sanitary precautions and copious amounts of drugs, and anyone who tries to stop her will have to face the Hands Of Discontent. Because she's back in full-on Pippihontas mode with those inane braids dangling from her scalp, no one on the sun porch takes her seriously. Not Ava natters about breast pumps and gypsy whatevers and homeopathic blah blah blah as Raige enters, stretching and yawning and apologizing for her tardiness. "Late night?" the Dolt suspiciously side-eyes. "As a matter of fact, yes," Raige squints back insolently. Not Ava pokes her head into her big bag of medieval midwifing doodads just as Raige honks another inelegant and unladylike wad of snot into her hands. She dissolves into a cloud of glowy orbs for a moment as she does so, eliciting a round of unusually low-key eye-popping from her sisters and the Dolt. Raige apologizes, noting she's "been sneezing [her] head off all morning." "Not to mention the rest of you," snides the suddenly quippy Dolt. Shut it, moron. Pippihontas pushes Not Ava off into the kitchen for some herbal cold remedies, then forcefully steers the clueless Raige into the parlor for a chat.