The Wedding From Hell

I'd call SunMoonStar this evening's maid of honor, but given this episode's "quality," she might be insulted. God knows I would be. So, I think we should all just belly up to the open bar under that stripey tent out on the lawn and raise a cocktail to her instead.

Speaking of insults, I remarked earlier that Phoebe's ludicrous nuptials to Cole ranked as this series' true wedding from Hell. I lied. Read on

Fade up on the Golden Gate Bridge, and then we're off to a mansion with a grand entrance drive surmounted by an elaborate, three-story-high portico. I feel as if I should recognize the place, and yet I don't. I also feel as if I should care about what will happen this evening, but that feeling quickly staggers face-first into the toilet when we slide into the palace grounds, and I plunge into vaguely-nauseated apathy as the camera tracks a mousy dishwater blonde with a shag cut on a stroll through the gardens with her equally mousy dishwater-blond fianc. The mouse with the shag sort of resembles a younger Laura Innes if you removed the crutch and most of the acting ability, replaced the aura of competence and self-confidence with a whiny, grasping neediness, and strapped what was left into a lavender hoodie that has an unfortunate propensity to bunch up around random protruding body parts. The mousy fianc looks like he auditioned for the title role in The Matthew Shepard Story and was rejected because he was too effeminate for the part. Sandy Duncan? Butcher. Bernadette Peters? A grotesque parody of stereotypical all-American masculinity compared to this guy. And it's all downhill from here, people.

The two lovebirds launch into tiresome declarations of eternal love and respect peppered with twitchy confessions of pre-wedding jitters as they coyly reveal their names to be "Allison Michaels" and "Elliot Spencer" respectively, and you know what? These "Hello, Young Lovers" plotlines always suck ass. And I'm warning you once again: This one is by far the worst of the bunch. Elliot asks Allison if she'd rather elope than go through with the elaborate ceremony his mother has planned for them. So, that sylph-like physical presence of his that's whistling the refrain of "I Once Knew A Dickless Mama's Boy" isn't enough, huh? We needed that bit of dialogue as well to ensure we know he's got a A Domineering Mommy, right? Allison guhs all, "Ohmigod! Like she'd totally let us get away with that, like, not!" And then they, like, totally kiss! Mother Elliot chooses this moment to tear across the garden path in what appears to be a bullet-proof peach satin power suit with matching pumps from the Betsy Bloomingdale Republican Hell-Bitch Collection at Neiman Marcus, along with excessive amounts of eyeliner, overly-hennaed hair, cruelly drawn lips, and a pair of nostrils so sharp that off-sea oil rigs frequently lease them to drill new exploratory wells. Mother Elliot demands to know if her son has procured the marriage license as of yet. Elliot tells her to chill; he and Allison can pick it up tomorrow after the rehearsal dinner. Mother Elliot shrieks like a banshee about leaving nothing to chance, Elliot's girlish hackles rise, and I want the three of them to SHUT UP AND DIE. NOW.

And yet they don't. Rather, someone cues the entrance of a demonically vapid sorority girl from Hell. This episode just keeps getting better and better, doesn't it? The sorority girl's eyes are spaced so far apart that she looks like a walleye trout with creme lipstick and a blonde wig. She's wearing one of Heather Locklear's castoff faux-leopard-print micro-mini business suits, and she poses beneath an arbor at the far end of the garden to glower into the camera. No, wait. Scratch that. This bimbo doesn't have enough screen presence to glower. She attempts to focus her demonically vacant fish-eyes in the general direction of the camera lens, but fails. How's that? Allison and Elliot each wonder aloud about the woman's identity. Mother Elliot, with a twinge of uncharacteristic anxiety, replies that the newcomer is someone she hasn't seen "for a long time." Mother Elliot sets her jaw and strides over to the intruder, leaving the betrothed by the hydrangea bushes to continue with their flaccid, nauseating canoodling.

Once she's out of the kids' earshot, Mother Elliot spits, "What are you doing here?" "What's the matter?" comes the reply. "Forget about our little pact?" Mother Elliot sneers she hasn't forgotten, but she certainly hoped this "Jade" woman would have by now. I'll be polite and assume that throughout this and subsequent scenes, the blonde hired to portray Jade is aiming for a sense of menace in her general characterization and performance. After all, that is what one would expect of her, is it not? However. Her vocal quality is thin and high-pitched, her intonations are those of a dull-witted spokesmodel salesclerk assigned to distribute perfume samples to swarms of uninterested passing shoppers, and her demeanor is that of a bored and listless daughter of privilege who thought it would be "fun" to "try the acting thing for a while" on Daddy's dime. As a result, whenever she appears on the screen, I find my senses involuntarily shutting down as a desperate defense mechanism meant to preserve my sanity. She's vapid, she's blonde, she's shallow, she's evil, and she's a bitch. So far, so good. These combined qualities should place her in Glory territory, right? Wrong. Due to the performer's painfully obvious lack of talent and skill and sense of pacing and presence and brainpower and, oh, everything else an actress requires to be in the slightest bit effective, these combined qualities come across as her own, and not those of the character she was hired to play. The result manages to be stultifying and offensive at the same time. If I wanted to watch a mouthy, wall-eyed, overprivileged sorority bitch piss and moan for an hour, I'd head to the Bennigan's in Evanston just down from the Northwestern campus. Or I'd tune to Sorority Life on MTV. We have yet to hit the opening credits, and the actress playing the Villain Of The Week is so mind-bendingly awful that I have no desire to watch the rest of the episode. Hell, I'm already having problems just following her storyline because of the rampant suckage, and find myself relying solely on the closed captioning to tell me what's going on, because I can't bear looking at or listening to this woman. I gather tonight's A-plot involves some sort of deal This Horrible Insult To The Profession Of Acting made with Mother Elliot. If I'm reading this correctly, Mother Elliot offered her son in marriage to This Slap In The Face in exchange for wealth and power, and now Mother Elliot wishes to renege. This Cancer On The Art will have what she has been promised, however, and Mother Elliot has no choice in the matter. The Insult raises her arm to shoot a little mojo over at the girly-man. He collapses to writhe in the dirt beside his betrothed. Allison screams for help. Allison then decides to scream and shriek, just in case no one heard her the first time. Then, just for the hell of it, she screams and shrieks and bays and shrills and howls until streams of blood run from my ears to stain my shirt and shut UP, bitch! The Cancer wanders out of frame while Mother Elliot gapes. I hate every single one of these people.

Manor. Oh, thank you, God! Unfortunately, the suckage continues when a wee subtitle appears at the bottom of the screen. "One week later," it reads, as if we're supposed to believe this show ever cared enough about matters related to chronological continuity to be so specific with the timeframe. Up on the second floor, Prue bangs on the bathroom door, pleading with Piper to hurry up lest Prue herself be late for work. Inside, Piper intently examines the wand of an early pregnancy test. Um, what? Last time I checked, Piper hadn't gotten any in months. Who's the mystery man making deposits into Piper's private sperm bank? And doesn't Piper strike you as the kind of anxiety-ridden lass who would utilize overly-redundant methods of birth control anyway? You know she's on the pill and has an IUD and uses a cervical cap with vast amounts of spermicidal jelly and makes sure her swain double-bags it, just to be safe. Oh, come on. You know I'm right. Whatever -- contrary to my all of my expectations, Piper appears to be late. As the stick has yet to give her an answer, Piper orders Prue to use the downstairs shower. We get a close-up of the instructions on the EPT's side panel, and they contain far too much information about "urine streams" for my comfort. Prue grumbles something about her "first auction start[ing] tomorrow," then sighs, rolls her eyes, and heads downstairs.

It's now Phoebe's turn to wander into the hallway, braying a question regarding the current availability of hot water in the shower. Piper heaves a mighty sigh, tosses the box into the trash, shoves the test stick into the pocket of her robe, and exits the bathroom. Phoebe's still whining about the lack of hot water. Piper snarks that "at certain times in life, a cold shower is probably a good thing," and blows past the Feebs to her bedroom. Phoebe grunts and shuffles over to the sink to brush her teeth, for cold showers have never been a part of the Feeble One's lexicon. Her eyes wander, eventually landing on the box in the trash. She flings down her toothbrush to retrieve the thing from the garbage. As she raises it to her face, she's flung into a premonition. In a hospital delivery room, Phoebe watches the staff from the expectant mother's point of view. The obstetrician gasps, his eyes bulging with terror, as he yanks a reddish, slimy, rubberized demonic "infant" from between the woman's stirrup-bound legs. The snarling brat has bitty Vulcan ears and a scowl on its face. Phoebe snaps out of it to glance about the bathroom tensely as the camera pulls back from her face into the opening credits.