Episode Report Card Demian: B+ | 8 USERS: A YOU GRADE IT Something Bitchy This Way Comes
By Demian | Season 1 | Episode 1 | Aired on 10.06.1998
Props to The Polish Princess, who so kindly lent me his tape of the Charmed series premiere two years ago and has yet to ask for it back.
The Polish Princess does, however, get a couple of demerits for missing the very beginning of the episode, which as far as I can tell features some bleach blonde lighting candles in her apartment with her fingertips. That's right -- little tongues of flame spurt from her index finger as she touches it to the various wicks. Neat trick. I can't tell you how much money I'd save if I didn't have to keep replacing my Bic lighters every time my roommate "borrows" them.
Outside, it's a dark and stormy night. An ominous, black-clad figure silently descends a fire escape in the middle of an electrical storm. Since this person is dressed in the sort of raingear popularized by the killer in I Know What Your Dinners Did Last Summer, I've a feeling this fellow is evil. Possibly Eeevil, even. The hood of his slicker obscures his face as he lurks on the landing outside the blonde's apartment, peering through her rain-streaked window. Inside, the blonde finishes futzing with the candles. I'd take more time to describe her, but as she's going to be dead in about thirty seconds, it seems a little pointless. Meanwhile, her stalker sidles out of the frame as another flash of lightning flickers across the apartment's facade. The blonde, kneeling before a makeshift altar in her living room, chants the following while waving her hands around in a delightful interpretive pantomime for our viewing pleasure:
Augur De Gomay. Augur De Gomay.
Ancient one of the earth so deep --
Master of the moon and sun --
I shield you in my Wiccan way
Here in my circle round,
Asking you to protect this space
And offer your sun-force down.
What the fuck is a Gomay? And "sun-force"? Ew! And no, I don't know what the chant means, and no, I don't care, either. You have to remember that she's going to be bleeding out all over her pastel wall-to-wall carpeting in five seconds, and as far as I'm concerned, that's going to be about twenty damn seconds too late. While the blonde is otherwise engaged, the stalker slithers through the apartment's outer rooms. As he passes the kitchen, he startles Kit The Not-So-Dead Cat. Hey, Kit! We miss you. Well, some of us do, at any rate. Kit yowls and scampers off into the bathroom rather than running towards his mistress with a warning, because he's tired of apartment life and would very much like to move into Halliwell Manor at the earliest possible opportunity. We get a stalker POV of the blonde, who whips her head around in alarm. She recognizes the slicker-clad gent, though, and calms down, sighing, "What are you doing here?" as she rises to her feet. The stalker responds by jamming a knife into her stomach. The blonde shrieks and crumples to the floor as another clap of thunder hits the soundtrack.