Episode Report Card Owen: D | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT The Devil's Music
By Owen | Season 2 | Episode 4 | Aired on 10.20.1999
Halliwell Manor. Kitchen. Prue puts down the phone. She tells Pheebs that Mr. G will bring them the check. Phoebe wonders aloud if they're doing the right thing. Prue justifies their actions as "helping out their sister." Piper bursts in, exclaiming, "Guess what I did! All by myself! Dish. Walla. My club. Playing there. Tonight." She then LIES to the other Ps about how she networked and sent out PR to land the band. (Note to writers: I've cut y'all some slack on this whole nightclub-running thing you've thrown Piper into, but if you mess with her as the moral center of this show you're in for a world of hurt. Just sayin'.) Piper continues, bragging that P3 is now "the official place to be on the map." Yeah, on the map of "Not Sunnydale," where it's marked "Not The Bronze." Piper hugs and kisses the other Ps and thanks them for their patience. Doorbell. Piper goes to get it.
Foyer. It's Leo. She informs him about Dishwalla playing the club that night, and wants him to be her date. She adds that "she made it happen." Leo begs to differ. Prue and Phoebe stick their noses in. Prue's in her standard-issue black camisole, and Pheebs is in this orange midriff-baring harem shirt that ties and cinches between her boobs. Prue crosses her arms while Alyssa Milano shows off her abs. Leo explains that "there's a demon involved" and he cast a spell on JC to get the band to play P3. Piper gets her bitch on and asks him what he's doing. He replies, "[His] job." Piper: "What are we? 'Leo's witches' now?" Heh. She wails on him for setting them up to fight a demon during a sold-out concert at her club. Leo gapes. He explains that the band's manager has made a bargain with Masselin, the demon, to become rich and powerful by attracting "successful bands" to JC in exchange for human sacrifice. Reading my mind, Phoebe asks what this all has to do with Dishwalla. Are they hooked up with the demon? Leo explains that they have nothing to do with the evil the manager is doing. (Phew. I don't know about y'all, but I'll sleep better at night knowing that Dishwalla didn't join Alanis Morissette, Keanu Reeves, Oprah Winfrey, and John Grisham in signing pacts with Satan.) Prue asks Leo what happened to the sacrifices. He says they're trapped alive inside the demon so he can feed off their suffering. The Halliwells' mission, should they choose to accept it: Free the trapped souls and destroy Masselin. Piper is still fuming about the whole sitch: "Freeing and destroying! Will this be between sets or during the encore?" An encore seems pretty presumptuous, but -- heh. Leo gapes some more, and the other Ps try to blend into the woodwork. Leo tells Piper they "need to talk." Piper: "You bet your White Lighter ass we do." Luckily, Leo is summoned and "has to go." He takes off in his blue light "special." Piper sighs. Phoebe: "That's exactly why you shouldn't date a co-worker." Piper leaps at Phoebe and kicks the living shit out of her, as Prue looks on in horror. Oops. Actually, Piper snarls, "What exactly would you know about co-workers, slacker?" Oops. Actually, she just looks really defeated and sad. Phoebe tries to explain that she was trying to make "a joke," then laughs to herself like she said something exceptionally witty. Piper's still mopey. Phoebe: "Honey, I'm sorry." Piper: "How could he do this?" As the Guitar Strum Of Tenderly Released Anguish plays, Phoebe explains that Leo had "no choice" in his actions, and "[they] don't, either" because the sisters have to defeat the demon. Prue tells Phoebe that she's going to go to work and call Mr. Gotrocks. She bolts, leaving the emotional detritus in her wake.
Butterfly's Cocoon. Roadies pack up equipment outside the club. My only explanation for the over-the-top Karl-Malden-on-ephedrine-washed-down-with-a-triple-espresso histrionics that follow is that Dorian Gregory's been sitting and stewing in his trailer for a month and decided to fit four episodes worth of over-acting into two minutes of screen time if they were ever given to him. Pan to Daryl "Bad Cop, Only Cop" Morris interrogating JC about Brainless Groupie, because "she's been missing since last night, when she came to that club." Excuse me? I've watched enough police shows and woman-in-jep flicks to know that twenty-four hours do not a missing person make. JC shouts to one of the roadies that the gear is going to P3. Morris notes that it's the Halliwells' club. JC says he doesn't "have a lot of time." Morris, starting at a caterwaul and working up from there, screams at JC that "YOU HAVE TIME FOR THIS!" and waves a picture of BG in his face. I'm sorry about going all Owen Meany here, but caps don't begin to do justice to Dorian's scenery chewing. JC calmly says that he answered Morris' question. Morris: "I DIDN'T ASK ONE!" JC: "Um, yes you did." Morris: "I DON'T BELIEVE I DID. DID YOU?" JC: "What?" Morris: "SEE HER!" JC: "I didn't see anybody." Morris shoves the picture at JC again. JC doesn't really help his case by explaining to the cop that the band attracts flocks of groupies, all in "short skirts and tight tops" looking like "sexy little peas in pod." Morris: "SO WHAT DIFFERENCE DOES IT MAKE IF ONE DISAPPEARS?" JC calmly replies that he didn't say that. Morris: "YOU DIDN'T HAVE TO!" JC asks why Morris isn't out "hassling her boyfriend." Morris: "I DID THAT ALREADY! NOW I'M HASSLING YOU!" Instead of telling Morris, as I would have, that he watches Law & Order religiously and this "shake-down" is over until he gets "lawyered up," JC just reiterates that he "didn't see her." JC adds: "What's up with the Gestapo routine?" Morris: "IT TENDS TO FOLLOW THE 'ACTING LIKE A SUSPECT' ROUTINE!" JC asks, finally, if he's under arrest. Morris: "NOT YET!" He shoves some more missing-groupie photos in JC's face. They all disappeared at Dishwalla shows. JC "never saw any of them." Morris: "YOU'RE NOT CONCERNED?" JC: "Not in the slightest. See you around." Morris adds: "COUNT ON IT!" Owen adds: "BWA HA HA!"