Episode Report Card 1 USERS: A+ YOU GRADE IT They're Everywhere
By Owen | Season 2 | Episode 7 | Aired on 11.17.1999
Foyer. It’s Dan "Uncle Screw" Gordon, sporting his de rigueur polo muscle shirt and greasy Shaun Cassidy shag. He wants to leave for the hotel early so he and Piper "will have time to --" "‘Relax’?" queries Piper as I grimace. Dan just shrugs and asks if there’s any chance Piper will be ready in an hour. Piper: "Every chance." Ew. Cut to this cheesy insert shot of a corner of the foyer, with a CGI Mrs. Bigglesworth in full hiss at Dan. Dan wonders what Mrs. B’s problem is. Piper, to her credit, immediately says she has "to go now" and shuts the door in Dan’s face. Ha ha! Dan looks perplexed.
Inside the foyer. Piper, wigging, screams to Prue, "Did you find that warlock test yet?"
Credits. Tonight it’s just Greg Vaughan and his three very special ladies. Schwing!
Ads. If y’all get me any Gap clothes for the holidays, be sure to enclose the receipt.
Establishing shots of San Fran. Complaint Rocker Two-Times is all: "Run away! Run away! Wail. Wail. It falls apart. La la la." Word. Halliwell Manor. Parlor. Same day. Cut to a weird ceiling-cam shot of the hard Ps poring over the BoS. Why this angle? They’re leaning too far forward for us to look down their shirts, although at this point in the show I’m more familiar with the outline of Shannen Doherty’s breasts than with my own. Piper wonders aloud about Dan and Jack conspiring together to kill the sisters. Prue thinks Piper’s being paranoid. Hello, pot? It’s the kettle. You’re black (tm Phoebe from Friends)! Piper blathers about not being able to trust anybody, with so many demons showing up every week. Prue stops on the "Hear Secret Thoughts" page. She wants to use that spell. Piper asks if that would be considered "personal gain." Prue: "Purely for protection." She lights a candle. The Ps deliver this week’s special discount 99-cent Hallmark Moment: As the flame ends shadow and the truth ends fear/ Open lost thoughts to my mind’s willing ear/ May the smoke from this candle into everywhere creep/ Bringing innermost voices to my mind and speech. Piper’s voice-over thought: Hey, she’s wearing my lipstick. Prue hears this and provides a rebuttal thought: What, I can’t wear her lipstick? Piper: "I didn’t say that! I thought it." Prue’s thought: Whatever. Just learn to share. Owen’s thought: Whatever. Just don’t thoroughly rip off Buffy’s "Earshot" episode. Oops, too late! You are. Piper: "I heard that! This could be dangerous." Just then Phoebe walks in, thinking: Stay calm. Get the BoS. Tommy Tech Vest is in trouble. Piper asks Pheebs what’s the sitch. Pheebs gapes at her. She’s taken off her hospital smock to reveal a long-sleeved midriff-baring lilac Lycra top. She’s also wearing enough bronzer to fill a kiddie pool and more make-up than all of the Foliés Bergeres showgirls combined. Piper back-tracks, asking Phoebe if she saw TTV today. Phoebe wonders why the hard Ps have the BoS downstairs. They explain their suspicions about their respective love interests. Phoebe’s thought: Hello! Paranoid! Piper: "We are not!" Prue: "-- Able to find a spell in the BoS." Phoebe tells the hard Ps to just "prick" their beaus to test them, because warlocks don’t bleed. Excuse me? Wasn’t Jeremy brought up in this very episode? Didn’t he get particularly bloody by the end of the series premiere? Whatever! I’m still trying to find out what happened to Rules Guy Alan and Non-Discriminating-TV-Owen from the PruePaul episode. Anyway, the Ps feel foolish now for casting the "stolen thoughts" spell. Piper, remembering Phoebe’s worries, asks her if she’s okay. Phoebe fills the hard Ps in on the Tommy Tech Vest brain-needle premonition. She tells the Ps to go -- ahem -- "prick" the guys while she goes to do some research on the Internet. The Internet? I hope she starts at this site first, and takes a long, hard look at her inane self. The hard Ps thought-banter. Piper thought-whines some more about the lipstick. Prue gets her thought-bitch on and think-tells Piper to "bite" her. Piper think-replies to Prue that she "loves" her. The director forgets to think-yell, "Cut!" because the hard Ps spend about five minutes after this exchange aimlessly turning pages in the BoS.
Buckland Auction House. Jack "I’m Chip" Sheridan bounds into Prue’s office. Jack is wearing every silly men’s style trend from the last few years at one time: spiky gelled hair, wraparound fly-eye sunglasses, surfer pearls, a garish paneled Hawaiian shirt over a wife-beater and baggy cargo jams with side stripes. Prue: "You don’t actually wear that to work, do you?" I’d say "WORD" to that, but Prue herself has shown up to work in that hideous chartreuse grape-smuggler, and has even put a shiny pleather breen-colored pimp jacket over it, which brings out all of the sewage green tones in her hair. Ugh. Jack Two-Times thinks: Fiesty, fiesty! Somehow, he’s able to part his protruding rows of Stonehenge-sized teeth and say, "Well, when work puts me in front of an online server handling five million online auction hits a day, yeah, I do!" He whips off his glasses to take in the full extent of my lack of awe. Prue gets her bitch on and starts quizzing Jack about his appraiser credentials. She asks him where he got one of his major collections validated, because she needs some "bronzes checked." Jack’s thought: Well, mostly I put people in graves or cremate them. But he says aloud some lie about using Terry Tertiary from the Berkley School of Design. Prue glares at him. Jack’s thought: If she finds out I’m lying, she’s going to die. But he says aloud that he’s late and he has to go, and adds the double imaginary finger gun pointing gesture with "click click" sound for emphasis. Forget the warlock test -- that display of smarminess should be enough to sign his death warrant. Prue gives him the stink-eye and declares, "You’re dying first," to his taillights.