"Charmed: Special Delivery." "Special" as in "education," I'm sure. I must admit, I was beset with an overwhelming sense of dread the second I realized this evening's teaser narration featured not The Velvety Voice Of The WB, but rather the "wacky" and "fun-loving" simp who normally introduces tedious and insulting Thursday-night crap like Off Centre and The Jamie Kennedy Experiment. Were I not contractually obliged to watch what followed, I'd have switched off the television right then and there and fled my apartment for a beer. Or five. Just so you know.
Manor. Night. Raige drifts through the sun porch with a long knit scarf wound 'round her neck, opens the doors to that spacious garden set we haven't seen in over a year, and already I have a problem with this episode. What's with the panoramic view of the city in the background? A mere two weeks ago, we saw that the Manor lot backed up against an imposing wall of towering pine trees. Rrrgh. I don't know why I bother, and God knows there are plenty of other things in this episode just waiting to piss me off, so maybe I should just keep this moving, right? Right. Raige strolls down the flagstones to the end of the patio, where Piper and Phoebe have curled themselves up on a pair of deck chairs to marvel at the shimmering green aurora borealis overhead. Piper's clad in that shearling-lined denim jacket of hers over a sky-blue turtleneck, with her legs and pregnancy pad encased in a matching plaid wool blanket. Phoebe's sporting a stripey, fringed, red-white-and-rust poncho with a dumpy floral-appliquéd bucket hat. Sigh. "It's like magic and science and fairy tales all rolled up into one!" burbles the Feebs. Your outfit? Not hardly, you nitwit. Oh, my bad -- she's talking about the aurora. We get a glimpse of the phenomenon in question, and I've a sneaking suspicion they recycled this footage from that dreadful Dawson's Creek episode last season. "Actually," buzzkills Raige, glancing at the sky, "it's ions speeding into the Earth's magnetic field, and then they collide with air molecules." Piper smirks as Raige plants herself in the chair to Piper's right and idly wonders, "Do you guys think it's weird that the aurora borealis is happening the night before the Wiccan Festival of Lights?" No, Raige, but run this up your flagpole and see who barks like a dog: Wiccan Hanukkah falls on February 2nd in the northern hemisphere, and yet not only are you gals dressed more for an autumn garden party than a bitter mid-winter night, but every freaking flower in your improbable backyard is in bloom. Why? Go ahead -- riddle me that, Batgirl.
Whatever. The gals natter about the percolating infant and its detrimental effects on Piper's physical well-being for a bit before an enormous white goose squats on the garden path to pinch off a gold-toned egg. Piper snits that the "magical community" should get together and brainstorm a few new gift ideas, as this is the third damn goose the Glamorous Ladies have received for the percolating infant in the last week. The goose flaps and squawks back into the sun porch as Raige rises to retrieve the egg, joking that she could fashion quite the set of dazzling accessories from all the golden goose droppings currently littering the Manor. Piper sneers that Raige will do no such thing, then frets about wrangling the geese out of the house, for Daddy Dearest intends to drop by the Manor the following afternoon. "He does get very Darrin Stephens about our whole magic thing," Phoebe agrees. Meanwhile, the Dolt stalks onto the sun porch from the dining room to take a flying leap at the bird. The gals giggle when the sly waterfowl honks out of the way, leaving the Dolt to crash to the floor. I'd snicker as well, if I weren't so busy wondering why the moron doesn't just orb around to catch the fucking thing. Kidding. I don't think it would be possible for me to care less about the Dolt and his goose-gathering techniques. The Dolt mopily collects himself from the floor and lopes out into the garden just as the ever-useless Elders ring his bell. Piper pushes herself to her feet and instructs the husband to keep it down when he gets back from Whitelighterland, because she's heading off to bed. She groans suddenly as the shot shifts to her blurry POV of Raige and the Dolt. Piper wobbles unsteadily for a moment, then crashes back, swooning, into her chair. The Dolt scampers over to apply the tingly touch, but nothing happens. Phoebe, panicked, insists that they take Piper to the hospital immediately, so the three conscious Manor residents lug Piper out of the frame into the opening credits. So much for the percolating infant's supernatural ability to heal its host at will. Two and a half minutes in, and this episode already blows.
Tonight's gorgeous opening travelogue of the gleaming, glittering city sprawling beneath the night sky was so pleasantly distracting, I completely missed a notorious name from my past as it scrolled past at the bottom of the screen -- and no, I'm not talking about Cheryl Ladd. More on the infamous Mr. Manoux later, though, for we're off to San Francisco Memorial, which must have the most lavishly appointed ER in the continental United States. Either that, or the producers are too cheap to build more than one hospital set. Piper's arranged on the same queen-sized bed in the same private room Raige occupied four episodes ago after her debilitating slow-motion pre-credits fender-bender. Raige, Phoebe, Phoebe's horrendous knit poncho, and the Dolt comfort the ailing mother-to-be as she sips water and fidgets. During the brief round of expository dialogue that follows, no one offers an explanation for the percolating infant's sudden inability to heal Piper, so why don't we skip all the babble and say hello to the nice doctor lady who wanders in with Piper's charts? Hello, Doctor Lady!
Dr. Lady becomes my new best friend when she berates Piper for relying upon "alternative therapies," rather than hauling her bloated third-trimester ass to an obstetrician like a normal person. "A medical doctor could have caught your condition earlier," Dr. Lady chides. "My condition?" Piper asks, arching a brow. "Toxemia," Dr. Lady states none too gently. She then delivers a little PSA about elevated stress leading to premature labor that conveniently opens the door to subsequent events, but as I'm rewatching this scene, I find myself snorting in disbelief when Dr. Lady gets to the bit about "low birth weight" in toxemic infants. Spoilage be damned, people: The end-of-episode Done One is huge. In any event, Dr. Lady blithely exits after recommending "a no-salt diet, no stress, and lots of bed rest" for Piper from now until her due date six weeks hence. That's it? No hospital stay? No medication? No referral, no nothing? Swell HMO you've got there, Piper. The Dolt irritates me to no end when he claims that "high blood pressure" is "a state of mind," which is why his tingly touch is useless. Blow it out your ass, Dolt. Granted, like I would know from pre-natal complications, but even if mental anxiety were a contributing factor, you'd still be able to heal -- or at the very least lessen -- the physical manifestations of that anxiety. Useless twit. And still no reason why the self-healing percolating infant isn't all over ensuring that its placenta receives proper amounts of nutrient-rich blood from its host organism. God, I hate this show.
Meanwhile, in a nearby forest clearing -- no, seriously -- a white-haired Franciscan monk gazes up at the sky, enchanted by the aurora, while his elfin, bald-headed postulant schleps a couple of logs over to the campfire at his feet. The elderly Franciscan's actually a dark demonic sorcerer -- sent from the flaming maw of Canarsie, judging by his accent -- and he blathers endlessly about a centuries-old prophecy regarding signs converging and the future of all magic hanging in the balance and kill the Charmed Ones and blah blah wah bl-- wait a minute. What the hell is J.P. Manoux doing on my TV screen?
Yes, gentle reader, it finally happened -- one of my acquaintances from Northwestern University landed a supporting role on the show I cover for this site. I must admit, I've worried about the likelihood of such an event for quite some time. I worried I'd be compelled to mock some out-of-luck, desperate-for-work theater department compatriot whom I genuinely liked back in the day. Someone like Anna Gunn -- a fiercely intelligent and gifted actress, who upon graduation was quickly reduced to accepting sporadic guest roles on everything from Quantum Leap to Chicago Hope to Dragnet after her awful Fox sitcom was canceled. Or Jeri Ryan, a lovely and engaging woman whose career is predicated solely upon her ability to heave her tits up and down on Boston Public every week. Or David Schwimmer, who -- scratch that. David Schwimmer's a talent-free tool who's pulling down a million dollars a week for a show that should have been taken out and shot four seasons ago. Fuck David Schwimmer. Of course, for Charmed I was expecting to see one of the departmental himbos -- one of those vapid, pretty-boy meatheads pervy Professor Coakley featured regularly in his all-male Restoration "Comedy" extravaganzas -- but I suppose they're all doing porn.
So, J.P. will have to do. Which is fine by me, because I know he was not taking this gig seriously. As I mentioned in the recaplet, J.P. directed me in a staged adaptation of King Kong when I was a senior, and while I was not the eponymous ape, I did have a pet monkey. And a speech impediment. Don't ask. Officially, it was a multimedia examination of the antifeminist themes pervading Depression-era American popular culture as viewed through the prism of the decade's most prominent horror film. In reality, it was a Spring Quarter excuse to have fun and drink beer until the wee hours of the morning. I was going to pepper the recap with "Manoux Moments," but as he dies in his very scene, I'll simply note that he's a great fan of the first Highlander movie, he won scads of cash during Teen Week on Jeopardy, and he and his live-in girlfriend let me fill out their 1990 census form while we were overindulging in certain potent potables one evening after rehearsal. Note to the Census Bureau: J.P. Manoux is not an African-Aleutian American. He's French.
Now, let's see. Where was I? Oh, yeah: Frère Flatbush orders J.P. to off the Glamorous Ladies. J.P. eagerly accepts the assignment. Goofball. Scene.
Manor, the following morning. Up in the Bridal Boudoir, Phoebe and Raige agree to pamper Piper for the remainder of her confinement, then head downstairs to greet Piper and the Dolt upon their return from the hospital. Pointless medical chatter follows before the gang's interrupted by a gaggle of golden gift geese invading the dining room from the kitchen. The Dolt escorts Piper upstairs while Phoebe and Raige deal with the birds. The two shoo the "little flockers" -- Raige's term, not mine -- back into the kitchen, where birds and birdbrains alike discover a unicorn grazing away on a box of Special K at the center island.
A frigging unicorn.
A year and a half ago, Shannen Doherty set off a minor war of words when, post-firing, she claimed she left Charmed because her "best work" was being "wasted on twelve-year-old girls." Of course, the network pitched a fit, and has since taken every opportunity to mock Doherty's dismissive, condescending assessment of the network's audience in general, and of the particular demographic the WB refuses to admit is its prime target. Apologies for another foray into my dim, nearly-forgotten past as a theater major, but when I played the sociopathic little girl in Cloud 9, I insisted my sweatshirt feature a prominent, puffy unicorn prancing across a rainbow, because prominent, puffy unicorns prancing across rainbows are the very symbol of everything that is wrong with the preadolescent female psyche. And now, grazing in the Manor kitchen? A fucking unicorn. Since the network suits have thus pandered so blatantly to the very audience segment Doherty found tiresome, I do hope they'll dispense with both the hypocrisy and the seemingly obligatory Shannen bashing at this spring's up-fronts.
Artistically bankrupt assholes. A fucking unicorn. Jesus.
ANY-way. Raige is stoked, Phoebe is shocked, and I'm vomiting. Phoebe insists Raige orb the fucking unicorn out of there before Piper finds out and spontaneously expels the percolating infant from her womb. Raige protests, citing the fucking unicorn's supposed super-fabulous magical abilities, but eventually complies. Just as she's about to dissolve into a glowy little cloud, however, her power blinks out. Raige suggests that she hasn't the supernatural strength to orb the fucking unicorn away from the Manor after all, so Phoebe ad-libs the following spell:
Take this beast before I end her --
Ship her back "Return To Sender!"
Nothing happens. Raige calls for a nearby apple with her orbing telekinesis. Nada. The Feebs attempts to levitate. So sorry. The Dolt bursts into the room -- he can't orb up to Whitelighterland to consult with the ever-useless Elders! Big loss, there. The three quickly realize that the anonymous power-sucking demonic mojo they just endured also likely affected Piper and the percolating infant. So what do they decide to do? Lie to Piper, of course! Phoebe darts up to the attic to retrieve the Book of Shadows while Raige corrals the fucking unicorn in the basement. The Dolt, meanwhile, is sent to placate the pregnant woman as best he can. Yeah. This'll work.
Bridal Boudoir. Piper and the Dolt bicker about her condition before agreeing to deliver the percolating infant in a hospital. The Dolt pecks Piper on the cheek, then backs away off the bed, his massive ass toppling a plant stand in the process. I, for one, am not amused, because I find this show's recent Krause ass fetish to be both disturbing and vile. Piper makes to freeze the stand, but the Dolt hastily insists that she refrain from using her powers -- the better to reduce her stress levels, he argues. Piper would unleash a sneering retort, I'm sure, were it not for the bedside cordless, which chooses this moment to ring. It's one of the Dolt's other charges, wondering why he's not answering her summons. The Dolt splutters an excuse to the wife, and exits the Boudoir to take the call.
Down in the basement, the stupid fucking unicorn is trying to eat a wall. Raige, meanwhile, scatters some feed for the geese, then steps on one of the golden eggs. Just in case you didn't get it already, the egg shatters, spattering Raige's shoes with yolk. Phoebe jiggles down the rickety staircase with the Book, which has been "erased." Raige flips through a couple of blank pages before guessing that the fucking unicorn is to blame. Yes, Raige. The fucking unicorn has stolen your powers and erased the Book. It is evil and must be destroyed immediately. Unfortunately, Phoebe disagrees with me, and suggests the evening's aurora, arriving as it did on the eve of a Wiccan "sabbat," has more to do with their current predicament. But omens come in threes, Raige argues. If the aurora and Wiccan Hanukkah count as the first two, what's the third? "Haven't you read your horoscope?" Phoebe duhs. "Jupiter, Mars, and Saturn are all in Gemini," she goes on to explain. "That only happens once every three hundred years." Okay. We'll go with that. Raige flusters that "the entire universe" has been trying to send them a message, and they've been ignoring it. She immediately rises to research the situation in her non-Book books up in the attic. Phoebe hangs back to wrangle the geese.
Up in the foyer, Raige catches J.P. sneaking up the stairs. J.P. conjures a Flaming Ball Of Death that promptly fizzles out on his palm. "I was afraid of that," he pouts. Ever the resourceful one, J.P. instead barrels down towards Raige, arms extended. He latches onto her throat, and the two tussle as the scene cuts upstairs to the Bridal Boudoir, where Piper's watching Passions on the much-abused mini TV from the kitchen. "Tonight," Juliet Mills overacts deliciously, "Tabitha is going to get her revenge! On all of Harmony!" According to the closed captioning, Ms. Mills then "[cackles wickedly]." Hee! Were it not for J.P. Manoux, that clip would have been the highlight of the episode. Piper snots an unfunny about Tabitha's spell not working as written as the sounds of Raige's struggle rise up from the floor below. The Dolt makes with the excuses and scampers off to find out what's going on. Piper clenches.
Downstairs, J.P. flips Raige onto her back, then hoists the marble top from the entrance table above his head, ready to brain her with the thing. Phoebe appears in the dining room with a butcher knife, which she promptly hurls end over end into J.P.'s chest. J.P. staggers backwards a bit, still holding the tabletop in the air, and bleats, "My name will haunt you to your grave!" He then falls straight back out of the frame to drop dead on the floor. Heh. Dork. As she assists Raige from the carpet, Phoebe asks, "What was his name again?" Raige, with the expected answer, shrugs, "I don't remember." Wah. Wah. Waaaaaah. J.P.? Fire your agent.
The Dolt flies down the stairs for a quick processing summit as J.P. leaks split-pea soup onto the floorboards from the gaping wound in his chest. The Dolt wonders why J.P. failed to erupt in a gout of flame, as is a demon's wont once he's been kebabbed by a Glamorous Lady. Raige gives her dimwit in-law the skinny on the whole fizzling FBOD thing from earlier. The Dolt then mentions that the charge who phoned had lost her powers as well, and the three realize that all of the magic -- good and evil -- has somehow been drained from the world. Before they get any further with this absolutely gripping conversation, however, the doorbell rings, heralding the arrival of Daddy Dearest. The Dolt darts off to deal with the stupid fucking unicorn, which is now in the dining room, munching on the centerpiece. Phoebe and Raige stow poor dead J.P.'s body in the closet and cross to the front door. Awaiting them on the porch are Daddy Dearest and his new bride, the stunt-cast-for-sweeps Cheryl Ladd. "I'd like you to meet Doris!" Daddy Dearest booms. "She's your new stepmother!" "Hi!" perks Cheryl, and sweet Christ on a stick, but that's a crappy shagged wig they've taped to her scalp. And that would be "shagged" as in "shagged backwards through a wall," by the way. Is she bald now? She must be. Either that, or she's sporting some hideous bright-red scars from her latest facelift, because there's no other excuse for the horror atop her head at this moment. While I natter on swinishly about this perfectly respectable fifty-two-year-old woman's appearance -- ain't it a bitch when the Angels age? -- Phoebe busies herself with some jaw-dropping while Raige wrinkles her nose all, "What's with this 'stepmother' shit, asshole?" before we're all rather unceremoniously slung into the commercial break.
Back from the break, we're "treated" to an overlong, supposedly hee-larious Meet The Rapidly Aging Angel sequence during which exactly one bit of business makes me laugh, and it comes from the Feebs. Of all people. Pleasantries and pertinent information having been exchanged, Phoebe, flustered and staring straight at Cheryl Ladd, splutters, "Okay! Now that we've all met, maybe it's time for the two lucky newlyweds to check into the ho-[involuntarily sharp, stuttering gasp of air]-tel, because it's really crazy around here!" Heh. It was the delivery, more than the played-out "ho" joke, that got to me. I told you this was a desperately bad episode, people. Anyway, long story short, Daddy Dearest and Cheryl Ladd met on a cruise for horny middle-aged swingers, and were married shortly afterwards. Cheryl's also "volunteered down at the hospital," so she offers to tend to Piper's many needs during her confinement. The newlyweds insist on remaining in the Manor so that Cheryl can log some "quality mother-daughter time" with the Ps. The two relevant Ps find repugnant the very thought of mother-daughter bonding with the tramp their deadbeat dad picked up on a cruise ship, but are forced to indulge their absentee parental when the doorbell rings. The Dolt and Piper escort Daddy Dearest and Cheryl Ladd upstairs while Phoebe and Raige answer the door.
Why, it's Frère Flatbush, there to discuss the mysteriously disappearing magic! How. Dull. Phoebe and Raige lead him out to the backyard, and while Richard Lynch does his level best to engage me in all of the purportedly necessary exposition that follows, I quite simply don't care. Frère Flatbush confirms that the various demonic forces have been stripped of their powers as well, and most of them are now stuck in the Underworld. The brunt of his subsequent argument is that the disappearance of magic will destroy the world, for magic infuses everything, and without it there are no dreams or flowers or deep, meaningful teenaged poetry or pretty, pretty unicorns prancing across rainbows. Whatever. He invites Phoebe and Raige to represent the forces of good at a summit to be held that evening to discuss the situation. Phoebe and Raige boot him out of the Manor with a matching pair of sneers, but they do accept his business card. The Dolt arrives on the scene for the subsequent deliberations regarding the Glamorous Ladies' participation in the summit. It's agreed that Phoebe and Raige will go, but they'll go prepared -- Raige intends to fashion a homemade "arsenal" from the various cleaning supplies and hair-care products lying about the house. She sends Phoebe and the Dolt off to gather aerosol cans and such, instructing them to meet her in the attic.
Up in the Bridal Boudoir, Cheryl Ladd's extra-special sweeps-event guest appearance continues to suck. She and Daddy Dearest blither on about homeopathic remedies and low-fat diets and weekly colonics and middle-aged sex, and Piper's just as annoyed with it all as I am. Cheryl's also unwrapping the gift basket she brought to the Manor, and asks Daddy Dearest to fetch her a knife from the kitchen for the cheese. Meanwhile, I'm so bored I can't even muster the strength to insert an appropriate "cheese" joke at this juncture. Phoebe enters to raid Piper's bathroom for hairspray -- eco-conscious Feebs avoids the aerosol cans, don't you know, but Piper's an ozone-destroying whore -- and after even more inappropriate sex talk from Miss Ladd, we head to the attic. There, Raige and the Dolt have whipped up some good old-fashioned God-fearing Michigan-Militia-brand explosives using a bottle of hand lotion and some cayenne pepper. There was more to it than that, I'm sure, but we must protect the children. Because blowjobs from shape-shifting lap dancers are age-appropriate for the thirteen-and-under set, but learning how to make pipe bombs is a great big primetime no-no. Phoebe arrives on the scene to arm herself with various goodies, and it's back to the Bridal Boudoir, where Cheryl's finishing up a Cosmo sex quiz while seated on Daddy Dearest's lap, like, WE GET IT, WE GOT IT THREE SCENES AGO, and COULD SHE NOW BECOME EVIL, PLEASE? Well, more evil than she already is in that wig.
Out in the hallway, Phoebe, Raige, and the Dolt slink down from the attic as Piper arranges herself on her bed in a furious snit. She orders her husband into the Boudoir for a private conference. The Dolt meekly obeys as Phoebe and Raige silently slink away to meet Frère Flatbush & Friends at "Manny's Pizzeria." The Dolt politely asks Daddy Dearest and Cheryl Ladd for some alone time with the wife, and they agreeably exit the room. Once they've left, the Dolt eases the door shut and explains the evening's events to Piper thusly: "It's really nothing to worry about -- magic has disappeared from the world, and Phoebe and [Raige] went to a summit meeting with evil so they can fix it." Piper gapes, hoots, grits her teeth, and deploys her Hands Of Discontent, intent on vanquishing her husband's sorry -- albeit massive -- ass. When the Dolt fails to explode in a great spray of orbing Dolt bits, he makes "See? I told you so" noises as the camera pulls in tightly on Piper's horrified face. "My water just broke!" she gasps. DUN! All over the bed? So much for that mattress. And I bet they just bought it, too. Things like this never happen on the old, sprung mattresses, do they? Though better it should break in the Manor than elsewhere. My sister's broke while she was on the "Five Items Or Less" line to buy milk at the A&P, and my grandmother's broke on a Brooklyn trolley car. That had to have sucked. I mean, honestly. Can you imagine? Damn!
Manny's Pizzeria. Phoebe and Raige enter the crowded eatery and spot Flatbush & Friends at a secluded table in the corner. The ladies cross the restaurant to meet and greet with the friends, who include "Kane," the "top advisor to the warlocks," and "Merrill," evil's "highest-ranking wizard." Merrill bears a strong and depressingly predictable resemblance to Dumbledore from the Harry Potter movies. Would it be appropriate at this point to remind the production staff that all of the wizards are supposed to be just like Richard Harris? You know -- dead? Kane insists upon checking the gals' handbags for weapons. Raige and the Feebs shrug and hand over their purses. Flatbush & Friends, of course, find nothing but hand lotion and hairspray, so they toss the bags back across the table. Kane then rises to his feet, draws a rather large dagger from his belt, and brandishes the knife in Raige's face. Raige begins to protest as Phoebe notices that the restaurant's suddenly become very quiet. The pipe-bomb Ps warily pivot their heads to eye the other patrons, who as a group stand to brandish various knives and cudgels of their own. "You don't think we'd pass up the opportunity to take out the Charmed Ones, do you?" smirks Frère Flatbush with a cocked brow. Phoebe and Raige goggle their collective way into the commercial break.
And we're back. A murderous tussle ensues in the pizzeria, during which Raige and Phoebe turn their aerosol cans into blowtorches with the help of a couple of cigarette lighters. The gals unleash the hand-lotion bomb while rolling a smoke-spewing saltpeter-and-wax candle across the floor. During the subsequent melee, Frère Flatbush orders Kane to detain Phoebe and Raige in the restaurant, no matter the cost to the forces of evil. Frère Flatbush then stealthily tiptoes unnoticed into the street.
Back at the Manor, Piper howls and moans on her soaked bed, wondering why her useless father and idiot husband refuse to take her to the hospital. Wicked Cheryl Ladd -- who represents a vast improvement over Horny Cheryl Ladd -- wanders into the room with the false news that Dr. Lady is on her way over. In the meantime, Wicked Cheryl suggests, the Dolt should fetch Phoebe and Raige while she and Daddy Dearest change the revolting, disgusting, vile, and smelly bedclothes. I'm editorializing a bit there, of course. The Dolt scampers off down the stairs as Daddy Dearest trails Wicked Cheryl into the upper hall. Once there, Wicked Cheryl kisses him sweetly on the lips while gouging out his innards with the cheese knife he fetched from the kitchen a few scenes ago. Daddy Dearest gasps and groans and collapses and bleeds all over one of Grams's priceless antique Persian carpets. Dude. First the Krause ass fetish, now the prominent bodily fluids. When did I start recapping Oz?
Manny's. In case you were wondering where Manny himself has been during the ruckus, the demons shoved him into the pizza oven before Phoebe and Raige arrived. Of course, we didn't get to see that -- that would have been interesting, and we must protect the children from all things interesting so the pretty, pretty unicorns can prance across the rainbows while the shape-shifting bimbos give blowjobs to the kinky ex-husbands. Or something like that. Phoebe and Raige handcuff the grievously injured Merrill to an overturned table and grill him on the disappearance of magic. He reveals that "centuries ago, [he] unearthed a quatrain from the tomb of a wise apothecary," and if I wanted to see those goddamned Potter flicks, I'd have gone to the goddamned theater like everybody else, but I didn't want to see them so I avoided those particular theaters, and I'd appreciate it if you would KNOCK IT OFF WITH THE HALF-ASSED WIZARD SHIT ALREADY.
Ahem.
The quatrain in question goes something like this:
When three planets burn as one
Over a sky of dancing light,
Then magic will rest on a holy day
To welcome a twice-blessed child.
Were I Raige, I'd be pretty pissed that my birth wasn't special enough suck all of the magic out of the world. Of course, Finola wasn't a Charmed One, but whatever. Poor Raige has so many issues. Maybe that's why she dyed her hair. In any event, Raige and the Feebs slowly realize that the prophecy refers to the percolating infant, and hoof it back to the Manor.
Speaking of the percolating infant, it's about to pop. Wicked Cheryl props the pained Piper on a couple of pillows as an unseen gentleman slides into the upstairs hallway. "[Dolt]," Piper breathes. "Finally." Not so fast, sweetpea. It's Frère Flatbush, of course, come with an old-timey medical bag to hack the percolating infant from Piper's pregnancy pad, or something. Piper gapes in terror at Wicked Cheryl, who smiles sweetly in return. "Just relax," Frère Flatbush mellowly instructs. "Breathe," he continues, crossing back to the bedroom door. "Push," he sneers, slamming the door in the audience's face as the screen cuts to black.
After the final set of commercials, we fade back up on the Bridal Boudoir, where Wicked Cheryl reports that Piper's "fully effaced and dilated." Before I can figure out what, if anything, is wrong with that phrase, we head down to the kitchen, where Phoebe and Raige barrel through the back door in time to hear Piper shriek in agony. Phoebe starts for the stairs, but Raige holds her back, claiming that Frère Flatbush won't hurt Piper until after she's popped the percolating infant. Phoebe frets about the welfare of her deadbeat dad -- what if he's still up there, perhaps bleeding out all over one of Grams's priceless antique Persian carpets? "There's only one way to save him," Raige avers, leading the Feebs by the hand to the basement.
Once there, Raige finally puts that fucking unicorn to good use by scraping bits of super-fabulous unicorn magic off the fucking thing's horn. The gals also determine that the Elders sent the fucking thing to the house in the first place to assist the Glamorous Ladies while their powers were out. You see, the wise apothecary who penned the quatrain was an agent of good mag-- you know what? Screw it. We're five minutes away from the end of the episode, and they've decided to throw a whole new batch of mystikal, magikal krap in our collective face? Fuck. Them. It's not like we're ever going to hear about any of this shit again. Let's cut to the chase, shall we?
The Chase, already in progress. That fucking loudmouth unicorn whinnies, alerting Frère Flatbush to the presence of good elsewhere in the Manor. He leaves Piper in the capable hands of Wicked Cheryl, and heads downstairs with a knife to gut anyone he finds. Piper threatens Wicked Cheryl with slow, painful death should any harm come to the percolating infant. Wicked Cheryl sweetly coos that no one wants to hurt the child -- why, she and Frère Flatbush intend to raise it as their own, so it will grow to become a powerful force of evil! Isn't that exciting? When Wicked Cheryl stupidly turns her back on Piper to dampen a washcloth, Piper snatches up a vase from her bedside table and smashes it across Cheryl's hideously bewigged head. Wicked Cheryl crumples to the floor, and Piper hauls her bloated, contracting ass off the bed to waddle downstairs.
Basement. Raige completes a vanquishing spell as Phoebe futzes with the dust from that fucking unicorn's horn. Up in the kitchen, Frère Flatbush stalks over to the cellar door, but heads back into the foyer when he hears Piper collapse onto the stairwell landing. Wicked Cheryl joins Flatbush and Piper on the landing, and Flatbush wrestles Piper into a sitting position while pressing his knife into her throat. Wicked Cheryl gets down between Piper's legs to watch for the percolating infant's head as Daddy Dearest -- not as dead as we believed him to be -- staggers to his feet on the floor above them. Phoebe and Raige race in from the basement, Piper orders them to vanquish Flatbush, Flatbush threatens to vanquish Piper if Phoebe and Raige vanquish him, Piper tells Phoebe and Raige to vanquish him anyway to save the percolating infant, and Daddy Dearest flies down the stairwell to slam Flatbush into the wall. Piper boots Wicked Cheryl in the face while Daddy Dearest hurls Flatbush from the landing into the foyer. Despite that gaping, gory wound spilling coils of small intestine into his Izod. Whatever. Raige sprinkles some of that fucking unicorn's super-fabulous magical horn dust into the air as Phoebe recites the following:
Beast of legend, myth, and lore:
Give my words the power to soar
And kill this evil evermore.
Frère Flatbush, Wicked Cheryl, and poor underutilized and dead J.P. Manoux each explode in various configurations of black and red demonic bits.
Birthing Montage. Phoebe and Raige walk Piper over to the dining room table, with Daddy Dearest staggering along behind them. Piper appears to be holding back the percolating infant with her hand. Daddy Dearest does much the same for his liver. Phoebe gets ready to catch while Raige rubs Piper's back. The Dolt arrives just in time, and sprinkles some of that fucking unicorn's super-fabulous magical horn dust onto Daddy Dearest's sucking belly wound, which obediently knits itself up. "Dad?" Piper wails in between contractions. "I'm sorry about your demon wife." And with that, she's placed the first smile on my face since Phoebe's distasteful ho joke more than a half an hour ago. Dreadful episode. Just awful.
As Piper heaves one last mighty push to expel the life-sucking parasite from her uterus, the chandelier above shudders on its moorings, and the magical Manor residents are bathed in an unearthly, bluish-white glow. Daddy Dearest remains in the dark, presumably. Phoebe cuts the cord and totes The Not-Quite-Done One off to the side. We can't see The Percolated Infant yet, as Phoebe's wrapped most of It in a blanket while she, uh, squeegees the eyelids, or something. What we can see, however, is enveloped in a protective shield of glowy orbs. Once Phoebe siphons the snot out the nostrils, she turns to display The Doltine Cracker to his mom, dad, grandfather, and aunt. Yes, it's a boy -- as if any of you could possibly be surprised by that at this point. What surprised me is how freaking huge this kid is. My ass he's six weeks premature. The kid's eight months old if he's a day, and he keeps aging from shot to shot. Raige is shocked and appalled when she glimpses the external manifestations of her nephew's Y-chromosome, like, honey, we know you've seen those things before, so knock it off with the dewy-eyed delicate-sensibilities schtick. The shock of seeing Wee Willie's wee one wears off a bit more quickly for Piper, who welcomes the child into her arms as the proud Dolt beams beatifically. Shut up, Dolt. "It's a miracle!" Raige breathes. I'll say -- the damn brat's already five years old. "It's a little miracle," Piper adds. Not so little. Once you hose that crap off his head, the first thing he's going to do is borrow the car. "You are safe," Piper croons down at her son, "you are loved, and you are wise." He's thirty years old, is what he is. And Asian.
Oh, fine -- there came the briefest of moments when the swaddled Done One glanced up at the scary, gigantic, gargoyle Dolt face hovering above, turned his weeny little head to the side, sort of sneezed while blinking and gurgling, and then turned back to Piper and smiled. For that one brief moment, he was absolutely adorable. Too bad we had to prance through an hour of hideous wigs, half-assed Harry Potter rip-offs, and hateful unicorn shit to get there.
Piper gets all verklempt as the camera cuts to a wide shot of the new parents, the new aunts, the new grandfather, and the new person arranged on and around the dining room table as we finally fade to black.