Episode Report Card Couch Baron: B | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Get Down! Woogy Oogy Oogy!
By Couch Baron | Season 1 | Episode 15 | Aired on 02.23.1999
Piper, in a wine shop, answers her cell phone to hear, "How's my favorite sister?" Piper's suspicions are raised, which is how you can tell we're in Season One. Piper stops and sputters long enough for a man's hand to reach behind her and grab a bottle of wine. Hanging up on Prue, she reaches for the same bottle, only to find it's not there anymore. This puts the "gin" in "hijinx." There's no "gin" in "hijinx," you say? There is now. Piper accosts the guy, who's not really offensive on any level (read: much, much better than the Dolt) but doesn't really do anything for me, and hoots and sputters some more. Basically? Blah blah blah you-snooze-you-lose-cakes, and it's especially appropriate, given that she would have snagged the bottle if she hadn't been moaning and groaning. Piper freezes the guy, who's got kind of an amusing "you have three heads" look on his face, and then wrestles with the issue of using her powers for personal gain. Only she does so out loud, so it's excruciating. She leaves, and then the guy unfreezes. Ha ha...ha?
Phoebe comes down the stairs, and notices that Grams's picture is crooked again. She fixes it, and then hears the gas man call for help. It takes forever for her to figure out that he's in the basement, like, HELLO. She asks what's wrong, and he very unconvincingly calls that he might have "sprained something." His dignity? He goes on that he could "use a hand down [there]," and if you didn't just mentally cue up the porn music, you're more mature than I am. Phoebe steels herself, and starts to head down, but first very awkwardly (the picture's too high for that to be a natural movement) places her hand on a picture of the three Ps as kids that's hanging in the kitchen next to the basement door. Contrivance, annoyed that he's had so much work to do in only the first ten minutes here, clocks Phoebe into a black-and-white past-monition. From behind the camera's view, five-year-old Phoebe's voice calls, "Grams?" The magnificent woman in question is standing partway down the stairs with her hand outstretched. Downstairs, you can see the Woogy, appearing white, as though in a film negative. Upon hearing Phoebe's voice, Grams urgently tells her to go back to bed, and then we're back in the present. That sequence was very well done, and, viewed from the present, bears a loose resemblance to the way Finola died, with the whole getting interrupted from behind while battling a demon. Of course, it was also only four seconds long, but you have to take what you can get with this show. Phoebe breathes, "The Woogyman," and calls down that she's going to get help. The gas man says he needs her help, and if you can leave the porn music aside for a moment, that's suspicious enough that it should send Phoebe jiggling for the hills. Instead, she walks forward, and I wonder if her rolled-up jeans are some more meta-commentary on how the episode's been so far, but I think that's way too subtle for our crack writing team. Anyway, she walks far enough forward to allow the gas man to come out of nowhere and position himself between her and the stairs. The Woogy and Phoebe strike up a casual conversation, and if they have time to do this, you'd think Phoebe might try the spell that we later learn she knows by heart, but then the episode would be over, and the owners of my local liquor store would be sad. They're very nice people, you know. Anyway, the Woogy goes right up Phoebe's nose, which is rather amusing, and then she straightens herself up rather sluttily. The gas man's still there. Just saying.