The Day The Magic Died

"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-appliqud 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: Frre 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.

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 Frre 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," Frre 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 Frre 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 Frre 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 Frre 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.