Episode Report Card Owen: D | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Ex Libris
By Owen | Season 2 | Episode 19 | Aired on 04.26.2000
So Leo shuts Piper up with a very loud lipsmack. Then Piper reminds him that Prue's just one floor below. So he orbs them both upstairs to the bedroom. All the Redbook-suggested ambiance Piper prepared weeps from neglect.
University. Library. Phoebe "Joel Osment" Halliwell sits at a study table alone, using an incredibly squeaky highlighter, then chomping loudly on some potato chips from her handbag. She tries to do this all secretively although she's sitting in the middle of an open room and in full view of everyone. Her feeble attempts at comedy in this scene are mitigated by her decision to wear the foxy black "Margaret Yang from Rushmore" eyeglass frames that we've seen in prior episodes. A blonde girl at the next study table looks over at Pheebs crunching away. (When I first saw this episode, I'd just watched Popular's "Blondes vs. Browns" wigstravaganza, so I didn't notice how fake-looking this girl's hair is. On second viewing, it definitely looks like a wig. A wig, in fact, that Tammy Wynette slept in and mushed against the tour bus window before rousing herself and performing a 1974 concert.) Phoebe apologizes for the noise. Blonde holds up her own bag of chips and Phoebe realizes that they're both blonde in spirit, if not hair color. So Phoebe says loudly, "Hi! I'm PHOEBE!" Blonde recognizes her, because they met when they "carpooled" and took "Metaphysics 301" together. Phoebe remembers that Blonde's dad was the professor of the class. Blonde admits, angrily, that she got a "C" in his course.
Sidebar. Okay. Phoebe's only been back in college in San Francisco for the past few months. I'm assuming that she's on the semester system, since everyone's making a big deal about her finals this episode. So wouldn't she instantly recognize the professor's daughter from a course they just took together, especially if they carpooled together to the university? THE HELL? Also, Phoebe in a 300-level class? I don't think so. Wasn't she in a 101 class in the Valentine's Day episode? (Yeah, I know, some underclassmen take higher-level courses early in their stint at college. But they're usually really bright. And we're talking about Phoebe here.) And if the course really was this past spring semester, then Pheebs and Blonde just took their final for the course, so it's surprising that Blonde already knows her final grade, especially since she's on strained terms with her professor dad. Whew. Whatever!
Anyway, Blonde badmouths her dad for while, then vows that he'll come to admire her once the thesis she's preparing is published. Just when I'm about to admonish Blonde for airing her dirty family laundry, she warns Phoebe, "Run, quick! Before I start to tell you about my mother." Phoebe admits that she likes talking instead of studying and asks Blonde what her thesis is about. Blonde: "The existence of demons in our world." She's been researching it for five years, and finally has proof. Phoebe gets visibly uncomfortable and starts gathering her study materials to make a getaway, while blathering oh-so-suspiciously, "Really LATE! GOTTA GO! Nice talking to YOU! TAKE CARE! See you AROUND!" She books out of there. Blonde gets up from the table, in her faded 501s, yellow stretched-to-maximum-industrial-fabric-standards wife-beater and cropped hooded unzipped jacket, and goes to the bookshelves. As a chorus of monks moaning in Latin starts up on the soundtrack, Blonde wanders around the stacks. She chooses a book called "Encyclopedia of Demons" and takes it off the shelf. A guy with a curly, Flock-of-Seagulls-ish hairstyle appears in the opening on the shelf. Blonde jumps. She notes that he "scared" her. The guy says, "Wait." He morphs his head and torso through the bookshelf towards Blonde, and pulls her into the shelf and his dimension. The bookshelf vortex closes up behind her.