A Witch's Tale, Part Two

And yea, I say unto you that verily did I gaze upon this blank computer file entitled "A Witch's Tail, Part Two," and great was my weeping, like unto a vast, weepy, crying thing that wept and cried. And then I got over myself and started recapping this mess.

Previously on Charmed: Read all about it.

The second hour opens with a blissfully wordless montage of Phoebe swimming through the deep blue sea. In other words, they squeezed Alyssa Milano into a rubberized mermaid tail, tossed her into tank on the lot, and filmed her through portholes cut into the side. Phoebe's ensemble has been augmented with pukka-shell bracelets and a seed-pearl circlet with matching snood on her head. Phoebe swims and drifts and drifts and swims until bright, shiny objects capture her attention, at which point she stops everything to gaze at and pet them. That's gotta be a shout-out.

Here Be Hags, Manor Division. The Dolt, bloated as ever and once more sopping wet, orbs directly onto Grams's priceless Persian rug. Piper hisses at him, and he quickly sidesteps to the bare floorboards. The Dolt found the Feebs frolicking in the ocean, but he couldn't return her to the Manor because "she's too fast and slippery." Shudder. Full-body shudder. Piper can't figure out why Phoebe would choose a life of cold-hearted freedom in the ocean when she has a perfectly functional life of cold-hearted freedom on land with her sisters. Raige guhs, "Of course. You don't know." Piper and the Dolt advance on her, so Raige quickly spills everything she knows about Cole coming back from The Waste Land as some sort of super-powerful demonic force with highly acidic blood. The Dolt gets shirty, insisting that Raige should have informed him of Cole's return the moment she learned of it. Piper, meanwhile, busies herself by collapsing to the floor in a fit of hyperventilating panic. Raige and the Dolt help her onto the couch, where she bleats, "Does he want my baby?" Piper is most relieved when she learns that the former Source Of All Evil couldn't care less about her percolating infant, and would much rather have her sister instead. They blather about the nature of mermaids and whatnot, and Raige posits that her spell might have transformed Phoebe because Phoebe's heart had been so badly broken by Cole's antics over the latter half of last season. Neither Piper nor the Dolt have the slightest clue how to proceed. Raige suggests research, and lots of it. The three collect themselves from the sofa and head off to do just that.

Here Be Hags, Deep-Sea Division. Necron bursts into the cavern in a blaze of blue electrical bolts and scans the room. "[Hagnes]?" he calls. "I want my eternal life!" Necron tosses aside various items of nautical detritus as he searches for the now-dusty Hagnes. Eventually, he comes across her remains, and if any of you find filthy humor in that statement, you're as hopelessly, wickedly perverse as the people who write for this show. Necron passes a hand over the sad little pile of bone dust and cloth, sweeping most of it off to the side. He spies The Shell Of Suck in the remains and bends to retrieve it just as the Feebs arrives with some of her bright, shiny trinkets. Word to the wise: Alyssa Milano has chosen to baby-talk her way through her mermaid scenes, so if you're going to watch this episode, you might want to turn on the captioning and turn off the sound whenever she appears on screen. "Who are you?" she perks when Necron approaches her. "You have something I want," he threatens. The Feebs flings her entire collection of bright, shiny objects at his feet and dives deep into the glimmering pool. Necron instantly converts The Shell Of Suck into some sort of Ray Gun Of Doom and tags Phoebe square on her ass with a sparking bolt of electricity. The effects team adds a bloom of blood to the underwater shot of Phoebe swimming away to indicate grievous injury as Necron glares.

Hag Manor, the following morning. Up in the kitchen, Raige is in the process of blowing off work, a small library of reference books open before her on the breakfast table. Mr. Boss Man is not pleased, and hangs up on her as the Dolt orbs into the dining room. The Dolt pouts, "I lost her. Somewhere in the Gulf of Mexico." If it's at all possible for Hurricane Isidor to kill a fictional television character, then it's possible for me to buy Hurricane Isidor a beer after he's finished the job. The Dolt finds it increasingly difficult to track the Feebs the more thoroughly she loses herself in her mermaid identity. The two sit at the table and commiserate over the seeming hopelessness of the task at hand. Raige has the added angst of work-related stress, as her first big adoption case since her promotion threatens to implode due to her negligence. The Dolt orders her to head off to the office -- after all, she's "only an orb away" if they need her. In the meantime, he'll tackle the Feebs issue with Piper. Raige raises a sardonic brow at the mention of Piper's name. Seems Piper's anxiety attacks have gone from bad to worse overnight, and now she's pretty much useless. Raige suggests that the Dolt head to the attic to see for himself.

Hag Manor, Attic Subdivision. Piper sits cross-legged in a corner, spinning a plate on the floorboards while rocking rhythmically back and forth and flapping her hands. I jest. Am I the only person who remembers that movie about autism from high school psych class? Anyway, Piper's actually furiously scribbling possible spells on the attic walls with a piece of chalk, grunting in frustration whenever she trips up on a rhyme. As the camera pans across her work thus far, I swear I see "All work and no play make Piper a dull girl," which would rule if it were really there. The Dolt kneels down beside her to give her some sort of nattering pep talk about not allowing her icky pregnant-lady hormones to rule her life, but that's not important. What is important is that Brian Krause has gone from looking like a simple constipated chimpanzee to looking like a full-on gargoyle over the summer hiatus. Could be the unflattering lighting in this scene. Could be his new haircut, which is short and spiky and does him no favors around the face. And it could be that Brian Krause is, indeed, a full-on gargoyle. Anywho, the Dolt finishes up the pep chat by insisting that Piper needs "to remove [her] fear," and he's there to help her do that. Piper's face lights up at this, and she rises to her feet, asking if she could be left alone for just a little bit longer. Her spineless Dolt wimp of a husband agrees and exits. Piper crosses to a blank wall and scrawls "Fearless" on one of the planks. Wasn't that a Marky Mark movie? Oh, no. It was that horrible Rosie Perez movie with the plane crash, right? Yeesh. And she snapped up an Academy Award nomination for that piece of crap. Oy.

By the sea! By the sea! By the beautiful sea! You and me, you and me -- oh, how happy we'll be! Well, at least until the zooming camera lands on the Feebs, who perches above the water on a dock, gingerly examining her gaping, bloody ass wound. Fisherfolk approach, so the Feebs dives back into the water, trailing a cloud of ass blood behind her.

THE BLACK HOLE OF SOCIAL SERVICES, where Raige will resign from her job in fifty minutes and five seconds. Four seconds. Three seconds. Oh, sorry. Spoiler! Raige and Mr. Boss Man pedeconference through the cubicles, chatting about Phoebe's supposed "fishing accident." Mr. Boss Man urges Raige to make him proud or something, and peels away to his office. And look who's here! It's Cole, looking fine as always and come to annoy Raige! Or not. He's here to prove his inherent goodness to her so she'll urge Phoebe to take him back. Mr. Boss Man drops by with some more paperwork on Raige's rapidly-imploding adoption case. Cole introduces himself as "a partner at Jackman, Carter, and Kline" who's familiar with family law. If there's anything Cole can do to help Raige, Mr. Boss Man should let him know. Mr. Boss Man leaves again after expressing his admiration for Cole, volunteering as he is for pro bono social work. Raige snipes some more at her brother-in-law, there's a bad joke about fish for lunch, and then Raige drags Cole into the copier room to shriek at him in private.

Oh, copier room. I think I'll miss you most of all. Not. Raige lays a little exposition on the Cole, blaming him for Phoebe's transformation in the process. She none too kindly suggests he vanish himself to Tibet, and swears that Phoebe thinks he's "an evil freak with superpowers from Hell and battery acid for blood." It slowly dawns on him that this isn't Raige's longstanding animosity shrieking in his face -- it's Phoebe shrieking at him as well. Raige lobs a few more choice words at him and stomps out of the copier room for the very last time ever. Cole purses his lips and looks pensive.

Hag Manor, Attic Subdivision. Piper's finished her Rosie Perez spell and rises to her feet to recite it. Fortunately for my eardrums, she does not employ Rosie Perez's accent and inflections to do so. It goes a little like this:

Locked in,
Boxed in.
Full of fear,
My panic
Grows manic
'Til I can't hear.
In need
Of reprieve
So I can breathe.
Remove my fear,
Please make it leave.

Dude. Piper has got to stop listening to those alt-rock crapmeisters she books at P3. ["Or reading Kaia's crap poetry." -- Sars] Though I have to admit, whoever wrote this for her did a good job at tossing together a bit of rhyme that actually sounds like something Piper herself would create on her own. Whoa. Did I just compliment a Charmed writer? I need more coffee. Anyway, Piper glows a bit after she completes her recitation, and skitters to the full-length mirror to see if she can notice anything different in her demeanor.

Sittin' on the dock of the bay, watching some overweight bozos unload their trawler. Two of the guys position the net over a bin of some sort, and the third yanks on the rip-cord thingy once the net's in place. Like I know from commercial fishing. Of course -- of course -- the Feebs, unconscious, comes tumbling out of the net with the rest of the tuna and the halibut and whatnot. Moron. Mylar romped through the oceans for centuries before she gave it all up for a tawdry knockoff of Tom Cruise. I bet she never swam into a fucking net. Jesus. And I suppose this means I won't be buying shots for Hurricane Isidor any time soon. In any event, the fisheryokels poke and prod and leer at her, wondering whether she'd be worth more alive or dead. Dead, guys. Definitely worth more dead. Necron unfortunately zips onto the pier at this moment, cutting short our foray into the world from which Sebastian Junger minted piles of money. One of the fisheryokels hoists a speargun and nails Necron right in his Adam's apple. The force of the impact slams him up against the wheelhouse of a tugboat, and the spear, still embedded in his neck, embeds itself further into the side of the boat. Oh. Yes! Even better -- get this -- Necron calmly eases himself forward to pop his neck off the end of the spear. More effects like that one, please. Please? The fisheryokels don't have much time to gawp, for Necron blasts each of them with bolts that reduce them instantly to teeny piles of ash and cloth on the dock. Necron then menaces his way to Phoebe's side, and a small amount of Feeb-fu ensues. After clocking the demon with a winch, Phoebe calls out to the Dolt, who orbs in immediately to orb right on out of there with her. Necron conjures a couple of scruffy black crows on a bit of rigging and orders them to follow Phoebe and the Dolt. The scruffy crows comply by winging off into the commercial break.

Oh, and you know what really bites? I now look like a total freak for knowing enough about this fucking show to write the above rantlet. I believe this is what is known as "fan-wanking," is it not? Is it? IS IT? I hope you're all pleased with yourselves. I begged you people to kill me at the very beginning of this double recap, but did you listen to me? Noooooo.

So, Teeth! vanishes, and it's revealed that Phoebe's the one who yanks Piper from the briny deep, not Piper's Finola hallucination. They stretch Piper out on the rock, and the Dolt makes with the tingly touch, but what's this? Piper's stomach heals all by itself! How could this happen? Calm the fuck down. Seems the percolating infant already has its powers. After a bit of the joy at this stoopid development, Piper fills the others in on her hallucination. Phoebe quietly slips away.

The Beach. Cole, with his arms upraised in a Resurrection/Ascension pose, sends his bizarre new mojo far and wide to teleport Phoebe from wherever the hell she was over to the sand at his feet. The subsequent conversation is the same old, same old: They mack and make up. What's that, you say? Phoebe claims, "It's over between us"? Yeah, right. Phoebe's pasties and tail vanish. Cole wraps her in his jacket, and they stare at each other as the camera pans out to the ocean. All of the dialogue was overdubbed in the studio subsequent to filming the scene outdoors, by the way, and they neglected to match the levels between the actors' voices. Gimme a T! Gimme an A! Gimme a...screw it.

THE BLACK HOLE OF SOCIAL SERVICES. Raige resigns. Raige cleans out her desk. Raige promises Mr. Boss Man that despite her resignation from THE BLACK HOLE, she'll continue to help people.

Closing ovary montage -- now with twice the wailing! Raige broods at THE BLACK HOLE, then continues to pack up her belongings. Phoebe broods in the Manor kitchen, then signs away her marriage in a "default divorce" uncontested by Cole. Piper broods in her tastefully-appointed boudoir. She takes the photo of Teeth! and the moppet they hired to portray Piper at age five for background photos such as this one, and pastes it onto the front page of the baby book she's creating for the percolating infant. And then, just as she did at the end of that episode where Prue nearly drowned, The Invisible Spectral Presence Of Teeth! sends a little fairy light down to the book in Piper's lap to inscribe something in the ISP of Teeth!'s very own hand: "Grandma and Mommy." Piper gets misty. I might have as well, if I hadn't already seen the exact same fucking scene the other day on TNT.

Hey. When did Phoebe and Cole ever sign a damn marriage license, anyway?

week: Midgets and werewolves and Grams! Oh, my!