“ Not to get too picky about such things, but shouldn't demonic strippers be, well, stripping? With bestial heads flailing around above their scaly bodies while they perform unspeakable acts with live poultry, or something? These mall-haired implant victims in granny panties just aren't cutting it. ”
Two Phoebes, huh? And here I thought my life couldn't get any worse than it already is.
Fade up on Raige's trusty little Volkswagen meandering down a tree-lined road. Behind the wheel, Raige natters into her cell phone about her latest witchy shopping excursion for potion ingredients. After Cole's crazy! involvement in last week's hijinks, Raige is more determined than ever to concoct something strong enough to rid the Glamorous Ladies of Phoebe's erstwhile demonic boy toy once and for all. Over on the Manor end of the line, Phoebe wonders if the eye of newt Raige purchased can help "vanquish" the woman who's suing both the Feebs and The Bay Mirror over a piece of rotten advice Phoebe dispensed in a recent column. Phoebe dispensing rotten advice? Go know. A lawsuit because of said rotten advice proceeding through the civil courts? Not buying it. And because of what we later learn about the origin of Phoebe's current dilemma, I can't even properly call it all a shout-out, so I'm left listlessly lighting another cigarette while muttering "Feh" as I exhale. Raige, puttering along at roughly three miles an hour, snarks something about the sanctity of the First Amendment just as the DemonCam On Crack zips past her to land on a bald gentleman loitering at the side of the road. The gentleman forks a couple of fingers in the air, and a bright flare of demonic mojo slams into the back of the Beetle, propelling it into a spin. Raige shrieks and drops her cell into her lap as her car crumples into another with all the speed of the Pacific Plate grinding into California. Phoebe shouts, "[Raige]! Are you okay?" as the bald gentleman smirks. The camera pans across the accident, taking in the dazed driver of the other vehicle and an unconscious Raige before shuddering into DemonCam mode to jitter us off to the other end of the city.
The DemonCam dumps us in an establishment I'll be calling Bada Not!, for lack of a better nickname. A blonde reject from the Adam & Eve catalogue writhes up and down a pole beneath black lights, clad in a Day-Glo orange velour brassiere with frilly accents, a knee-length white gauzy skirt, and white patterned tights. We don't see her shoes, but I'm sure they match the bra. And I'll just bet she's sporting a pair of lime-green ankle socks, too. It's like a Wham! video with breasts. Well, a Wham! video with breasts that the gentlemen in said video find arousing. The reject slides a hand along her torso before pumping her hips a couple of times in Cole's direction. Cole's splayed out on a nearby sofa with a half-empty martini glass clutched loosely in one hand and his tongue dangling into his lap. Now that's talent. He's shaved since last we saw him, and he's back in his stylish, lawyerly togs. Throughout the establishment, cocktail waitresses in demure Eisenhower-era two-piece swimsuits pass beneath go-go girls of near-Amish modesty as the bald gentleman from the scene flares into the middle of the room. One of the waitresses nearly rams into him; she would, had they money enough to pay her for a speaking role, tell him to watch where the hell he's flaring. As it is, she simply flips her hair around in a -- dare I say it? -- demonic snit and flounces off. So this is the Charmed version of a demonic stripper bar. Not to get too picky about such things, but shouldn't demonic strippers be, well, stripping? With bestial heads flailing around above their scaly bodies while they perform unspeakable acts with live poultry, or something? These mall-haired implant victims in granny panties just aren't cutting it. It's the Sunday-night family hour on the WB, guys. Why did you even bother?
The Importance Of Being Phoebe
“ You selfish. Self-centered. HAG. Your damn sister is lying in a hospital bed after her steering wheel tried to mate with her face, and you bring up the piddling advice column you hack out for some tabloid rag? SHUT UP! ”
Whatever. The bald gentleman approaches Cole with details of Raige's slow-motion accident, confirming that both she and the other driver were injured. "All you gotta do is a little mind control on the witnesses and maybe a cop," the gentleman adds, "and we're golden." Cole pounds the last of his martini and rises to leave, but the stripper reject boobs into his face and shoves him back onto the couch. "No time for one little dance?" she heaves. "Kaia," Cole leers after darting a "get lost" glance at the bald gentleman. Kaia? Ha! Where's the crap poetry, hon? Actually, this Kaia lacks the other's lockjaw and really looks more like Amaya after a nose job, what with the blonde hair and the vulgar simper and the massive bumper bullets protruding from her chest and everything. Cole settles back as K'Amaya swivels, and he mutters, "You know what I like." K'Amaya wiggles vacantly and morphs into Feeb form. K'Feebs grins, straddles Cole's waist, and grinds her nether bits into his groin.
I can't...I just...it's too...oh, JESUS.
Cole's eyes glaze over with something we're meant to assume is lust and isn't it funny how "lust" and "disgust" rhyme and Cole plants his hands on K'Feebs's ass and she pushes his maw into her cleavage and Cole emerges from the cleavage chasm all sweaty and drooling and K'Feebs opens her mouth and drops out of sight through the bottom of the frame and she is not giving him a blowjob no she's not giving him a blowjob no she's not giving him a blowjob because it's the Sunday-night family hour on the WB and the network censors just wouldn't do that to us no they can't no they can't be doing that to me and Cole grunts and the credits and the cleavage and the sweating and the blowjob and the fingernails clawing at my face and the blood squirting from my eyes and the vomit and hello heretofore unwanted sequel to Final Destination! You can drop a construction crane on my head RIGHT NOW!
A brief opening travelogue accompanied by several ominous strings and a pair of tense bongo drums whisks us over to "San Francisco Memorial Hospital," wherein a not-terribly-ailing Raige rests her perfect coif on a queen-sized bed in a private room. Rather than on a gurney in the ER. Whatever. Piper's at her side, and asks if she should summon the Dolt for a bit of his tingly healing touch. Raige waves this off, noting that she's suffering from nothing more than a mild concussion. Besides, the concussion is entirely her fault, as she was, after all, nattering away on her phone while attempting to maneuver an automobile. Thanks for the public service announcement, sweetheart. Piper asks if Raige remembers anything about the accident. Raige claims that she was just talking to the Feebs, and the thing she knew, she was "spinning out of control." "Kinda like my career," grunts the Feebs from her perch at the foot of Raige's bed. You selfish. Self-centered. HAG. Your damn sister is lying in a hospital bed after her steering wheel tried to mate with her face, and you bring up the piddling advice column you hack out for some tabloid rag? SHUT UP! Piper, rather than employing the Hands Of Discontent to vaporize Phoebe's skull, picks up the "life sucks" strand of the conversation and knits herself a twin set of self-pity while expositing about P3's plumbing problems, which are quite the irritation given the health inspector's scheduled visit that afternoon. Raige rolls her eyes and mutters something akin to "when it rains, it pours" that unfortunately involves Mercury being in retrograde, like, don't involve the planets in this week's set of massive contrivances, okay?
“ There's some blather about K'Amaya tasting power and wanting it for herself, during which I try very hard not to suppose it's something else K'Amaya tastes because she neglected to rinse out her mouth after the pre-credits lap dance. As you can guess, I failed. ”
And yet am I to receive any relief from this storyline? No, for the object of Cole's affection perks into the office at this moment, toting a basket of wine with the Fun Bags flimsily attired in a tan bikini bra. She tramps past The Mole and shoves her tongue down Cole's throat. Cole pushes her away and snits, "Kaia!" K'Feebs morphs into K'Amaya and mopes, "Damn! How did you know it was me?" He saw the previews like everybody else, you nitwit. Actually, Cole claims that the real Phoebe hates him, doesn't drink, and doesn't use so much tongue when they kiss. Whatever, Cole. I mean, yes, Phoebe supposedly hates you, but we've seen her cocktailing, and I've been subjected to scores of Feeb-centric mack sessions wherein I fully expected her tongue to shoot through the back of her paramour's skull. In any event, K'Amaya simpers and fiddles with her hair as The Mole berates her for following a trick out of the stripper bar. Cole eases himself into a chair and patronizes that K'Amaya's got a little crush on him. The Mole begs to differ, asserting that "Kieran demons are manipulative vixens, and this one has an agenda that goes way beyond 'a little crush.'" "Vixens"? Oh, Mole. You manipulative minx, you. There's some blather about K'Amaya tasting power and wanting it for herself, during which I try very hard not to suppose it's something else K'Amaya tastes because she neglected to rinse out her mouth after the pre-credits lap dance. As you can guess, I failed. The Mole orders K'Amaya gone, so she spins around to boob out in a frustrated pout. "Not like that!" Cole shouts, rising from his chair. "Go out the way you came in!" "On. Your. KNEES!" I immediately add, and if you recognize that reference, be sure to say hello the time you catch me at Showtunes. K'Amaya pauses at the door, morphs back into K'Feebs, and coos, "You want me. I can feel it." The appalled Mole clutches his pearls and breathes, "Insolent!" Oh, fine: Hee!
We cut over to P3 just as the health inspector stamps a big, red "CONDEMNED" categorization onto his report. So, the city's going to tear down the building because the toilets are backing up? Okay, then. Piper wails in frustration as the Dolt attempts to bargain with the guy, reminding him that through its four years of operation, P3's never once failed an inspection. Piper vows to have the plumbing fixed within twenty-four hours, and pleads with the inspector to return the following afternoon before submitting his final recommendations to the licensing board. The inspector's about to acquiesce when an enormous grey rat scuttles across the toe of his shoe. Game over. The inspector suggests that they shutter the club for a month and schedule another inspection after professional exterminators eliminate the rodents. Piper whines that she'll be out of business in a month, but her protestations fall on deaf ears. The Dolt ushers the inspector out the door while Piper bats at the offending vermin with a broom. Eventually, she flicks out a Hand Of Discontent, but the resulting explosion vanquishes only the lower half of a barstool. "What are you doing?" bleats the Dolt. "Reducing the rodent population," sneers Piper. Soothing noises emanate from the Dolt as he leads Piper to a seat on the stairs for a chat. "It's just bad luck," he insists. "It is more than bad luck," Piper counters. "It's sabotage! It's demonic!" Ding! Piper fortuitously puzzles out a connection between Raige's accident, Phoebe's lawsuit, and her own dilemma, guessing that some as-yet-unknown force is behind it all. The Dolt's confused. Shocking, I realize. "Why?" he asks. "Because I said so," Piper snaps, hauling her bloated self to her swollen feet and dragging the Dolt upstairs towards the door. The camera pans past the Dolt's vanishing workboots to a pair of frisky rodents, who presently glow red and flare up into a couple of leather-clad twentysomething white boys. It's the demonic rats! Hooray! Demonic rats! Demonic rats! Demonic -- oops. Sorry. Didn't mean for the crushing boredom to become that obvious. "She missed me by that much," Ratboy One announces, pinching his thumb and index finger together. Ratboy Two raises a brow all, "Dude. Sucks to be you." The Ratboys blink out one by one, never to be seen again. Come back, demonic rats! Come back! Dammit.
Manor. Piper and the Dolt urge K'Feebs to try levitating, just to ensure that the power-stripping spell worked. K'Feebs moves to rise from the sofa, and oh, sweet Jesus. The blouse is cut so low and K'Feebs leans over so far that I watch with mounting horror as the Fun Bags flop forward and spread apart, nearly vaulting completely out of the top before settling back down for the remainder of the scene. Utterly at a loss regarding the physical trigger for levitation, K'Feebs waves her hands in the air like she don't care, and now I have that freaking song in my head. Thanks for nothing, wretch. Also: "Utterly." Heh. Anyway, Piper remarks on K'Feebs's strange behavior, so K'Feebs nervously bluffs that the side effects of Cole's macking spell have made her ill. She fiddles with her hair and asks if she can go lie down for a bit.
Bimbo Boudoir, which, come to think of it, looks almost exactly like Raige's bedroom. In fact, it is Raige's bedroom, with different set dressings. After four and a half years on the air, and with the audience numbers rising markedly since the move to Sunday nights, you'd think they'd be able to afford separate bedroom sets. And how mortified am I that I never noticed this before? Wow. Where have I been? So, Piper leads K'Feebs to the bed and offers to fetch her some tea. K'Feebs smiles that tea sounds lovely, then drops the gracious act the second Piper's out of the room. "Who drinks tea?" she mugs as she locks the boudoir door. She struts over to the bureau and slides open the topmost drawer. Rummaging through a cluster of never-worn brassieres, she finds a dagger and sneers.
Casa Del Cole. K'Feebs flares into the living room and stands above the unconscious Phoebe, murmuring dark threats. Cole unexpectedly smears in behind her and demands to know why she returned without his permission. K'Feebs thinks fast and reveals that Piper's aware of the demonic reorganization. Cole darkly reminds K'Feebs that he never asked her to report to him, and orders her back to the Manor. When the time comes, he tells her, she's to insist that Piper visit the bail bondsman. "Fine, Bossy Boots," K'Feebs pouts. "Whatever gets you off." Too. Much. Information. After K'Feebs flares out, Cole hoists Phoebe from the floor to place her gently on the four-poster in the adjoining room. Hey, Alyssa! Don't know if anyone's ever told you this, but unconscious people don't move. So this bit here? Where you kick up your legs and twist your torso and fling your arms around Julian's neck as he picks you up off the carpet? Yeah. You fucked up. Cole plants a tentative kiss on Phoebe's lips and smears out as soon as he realizes that she's waking up. Phoebe groans and stretches and wonders how the hell she got into the bed.
Bimbo Boudoir. Piper pounds on the locked door until K'Feebs finally opens it with an apology. Why didn't K'Feebs answer sooner? She was listening to her Walkman. Why did she lock the door in the first place? D'oh! Fortunately for K'Feebs, the Dolt arrives with the news that Raige's situation "just got a whole lot worse."